Over the years, I've heard the snipe that "males are useless" a few too many times.
While I have always appreciated the sociological/feminist empowerment values of sayings like: 'a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle', as someone, who holds a master's degree in reproductive physiology and a bachelors in animal biology, there is also a certain aspect of the sneering erasure inherent in such statements, which has always stuck in my craw.

Essentially, the part that has annoyed me the most is that most of the 'males are useless' arguments tend to be promulgated on the idea that once a male has dropped his seed, his usefulness has effectively ended. That is indeed mostly true for what population ecologists have termed r-strategists, which are species whose survival strategy is based upon producing as many offspring as they possibly can as quickly as they possibly can, and investing little or no care and upbringing in their young.

However, such assertions about the 'uselessness' of males tend to fall on their face when applied to K-strategists, who produce fewer offspring, but devote more resources to raising and protecting them.

The fact of the matter is that most humans are K-strategists, which makes the male an essential part of overall, and long-term species survival, and contrary to what many of the most fanatic social engineers would have us believe, both biological genders* are crucial to the long-term survival of most animal species, including our own.






* (please note that I am specifying biological gender—I am not addressing the psychological gender arguments here, which I consider to be a separate issue).