The fantasy of a men-free utopia

 

Every few months, a tweet goes viral imagining a world where men disappear for a week or two and women can finally “breathe.” The fantasy is simple: no catcalling, no harassment, no fear walking alone at 3 a.m. Just calm nervous systems, sisterhood, safety, soft life. And when a man responds, “But who would protect you?” the sharp reply comes: “Protect us from who?” It’s a clever exchange. It feels empowering. It also ignores something fundamental about how civilization actually functions.

The fantasy assumes that if men disappeared, everything else would remain intact the lights would stay on, the taps would run, food would restock itself, emergency services would operate smoothly just without men present. But that is not how systems work. Civilization is not self-sustaining. It is a constant maintenance project. And a very large percentage of the maintenance especially the dangerous, physically taxing, infrastructure-heavy labor is done by men.

Let’s walk through the thought experiment day by day.

Day 1–3: The Supply Chain Snaps

Modern cities are miracles of coordination. Supermarkets look abundant, but most urban centers only hold about three days’ worth of fresh food. The reason shelves are always full is not magic; it is logistics. In many countries, over 85–90% of long-haul truck drivers are men. The same applies to dock workers, cargo ship crews, warehouse loaders, fuel transport operators, and rail freight engineers.

If men disappeared, the 18-wheelers stop. The ships stall at port. Fuel deliveries freeze. Within 24 hours, panic buying begins. Within 72 hours, shelves are empty. No fresh milk. No vegetables. No restocking trucks coming overnight.

The conversation shifts immediately from “finally walking peacefully at 3 a.m.” to “how long will our food last?” Neighborhood WhatsApp groups explode. People start guarding what they have. Scarcity changes behavior quickly. Civilization runs on predictability; remove the operators and predictability collapses.

Day 4–7: Waste, Water, and the Smell of Reality

It’s easy to romanticize freedom when sanitation works. But sewage systems, waste management plants, garbage collection routes, stormwater drainage maintenance these are not glamorous professions. They are physically intense, hazardous, and overwhelmingly male-dominated.

Who clears blocked sewer lines at 2 a.m.? Who climbs into confined spaces to repair underground pipes? Who operates heavy garbage compactors? Who manages landfill pressure systems and hazardous waste sites?

Without active crews, waste accumulates. Trash piles up on streets. Sewage backups begin in apartment basements. Water pressure systems malfunction without technicians to monitor and repair pumps. Hygiene deteriorates. In warm climates, disease risk spikes quickly.

The “fresh air” of freedom starts to carry the smell of unmanaged infrastructure. Sisterhood does not stop bacterial growth. Solidarity does not unclog sewer mains.

Day 8–10: The Grid Fails

Electricity is not a set-and-forget system. Power grids require constant real-time balancing. Engineers in control rooms monitor load demand. Linemen climb poles to fix faults. Technicians maintain transformers. Workers service hydro dams, gas plants, substations, and transmission towers.

These roles are also overwhelmingly male.

When those operators vanish, small issues cascade. A line trips. A surge goes unmanaged. A substation fault spreads. Blackouts ripple. No power means no refrigeration for the already dwindling food supply. No charging phones. No running water pumps in high-rise buildings. No ATMs. No internet infrastructure maintenance. Data centers require constant supervision.

The world goes dark quietly at first then completely.

Day 11–13: Emergency Response

Imagine a fire in a high-rise apartment. Firefighting is dangerous, strength-intensive, and heavily male. Who mans the heavy rig? Who carries victims down smoke-filled stairwells? Who operates rescue equipment during building collapses?

Police, controversial as they are in many debates, are also majority male. In a scenario where scarcity has already increased tension, emergency response becomes critical. Without coordinated enforcement and rescue services, disorder accelerates.

Protection is not only about protecting women from men. It is about protecting society from entropy, from breakdown, from disaster, from the natural decay that occurs when systems are not actively maintained.

Day 14: Entropy Wins

Here is the uncomfortable truth: civilization is fragile. It survives because millions of people do hard, dirty, dangerous, exhausting work every day much of it invisible. Oil rig workers. Electric line repair crews. Deep-sea fishermen. Construction laborers. Miners extracting materials for electronics. Mechanics maintaining aircraft engines. Engineers stabilizing bridges. Soldiers guarding borders. Sanitation workers handling biohazards.

Globally, the majority of these roles are filled by men.

This is not an argument that women are incapable. Women can and do perform many of these jobs. The point is statistical reality: the infrastructure of modern life, as currently structured, relies heavily on male labor. Remove that labor overnight and the system collapses quickly.

Civilization Is Cooperative, Not Competitive

The fantasy of a men-free utopia misunderstands something deeper. The modern world is not a battle between genders; it is a collaboration between them. The nurse and the electrician. The teacher and the truck driver. The mother and the mechanic. The software engineer and the sewage technician.

The reason someone can walk safely at 3 a.m. in a lit street is because electrical engineers designed the grid, construction crews installed the poles, maintenance workers repaired the lines, and sanitation teams kept the streets clean. Many of those workers are men. Many also sacrifice time, health, and sometimes life expectancy in physically punishing industries to keep society running.

Men also die more frequently in workplace accidents. They dominate the most dangerous professions logging, deep-sea fishing, roofing, oil extraction, heavy construction. That reality rarely trends on social media, but it underpins the comfort many people take for granted.

The Deeper Truth

Of course, the viral fantasy emerges from real pain. Many women experience harassment, violence, and fear. Those concerns deserve serious attention. Acknowledging that does not require denying the indispensable role men play in maintaining infrastructure and stability.

The problem is not men as a category. The problem is bad behavior, criminality, and broken systems of accountability. Erasing an entire gender in imagination does not solve that. It oversimplifies a complex social issue into a utopian daydream detached from structural reality.

A world without men is not peaceful it is unstable. A world without women is not stable either it is incomplete. Both genders are deeply interwoven into the machinery of survival and progress.

We do not need gender fantasies. We need mutual respect and reform where harm exists. We need men who behave better and systems that protect women more effectively. We also need acknowledgment that the lights, water, roads, internet, and emergency services do not operate on vibes. They operate on labor.

Civilization is not sustained by slogans. It is sustained by maintenance.

And maintenance, whether we admit it or not, has long had a masculine backbone.

The real conversation should not be about imagining the disappearance of one gender. It should be about recognizing interdependence and building a society where both men and women feel safe, valued, and respected without pretending the other is unnecessary.