Science Fiction Philosophy

My husband really likes to read science fiction, and he often shares with me some of the more interesting or insightful plot developments as he's reading. (Science fiction is often insightful I've realized--a lot of his novels have a strong philosophical bent. Who knew?) The other day, he told me that the evil female lead character in his book decided that she was going to kill off 99% of the men in the world because she believed that in getting rid of men, she would also be getting rid of violence (her way of going about this is just a tad hypocritical, don't you think?). 

This is obviously an extreme, non-realistic, abstract idea, but still it got me thinking. I have to admit that every war I can think of was started by men. That almost every example of terror and injustice that comes to my mind was perpetuated by a man. That violence is almost exclusively a male behavior.

But a world with all women? Though it might be more peaceful, I don't want to live in that world. As much as I love women, and being a woman, as much as I embrace all things feminine and graceful and pure and lovely, I am no feminist. This world needs men, good men.

Men and women are different--biologically and emotionally and spiritually--and I do believe that's something to be celebrated. We are made to live in this world together, feeding off of each other's strengths and weaknesses, bringing our own sense of beauty and rightness into the lives of the people we touch, helping each other to become our best selves.

And the truth is that we are all imperfect beings. The truth is that there will always be good and evil in our world. There are good men, and there are good women, just as there are bad men and bad women. Yes, we might be able to eradicate (or mostly eradicate) violence from our world if men were out of the picture, but wouldn't we be giving up so much more than we would gain? Men complement us, just as we complement them. 

I realize that this particular example, as I said, is an extreme one, but shadows of this philosophy do exist outside of science fiction novels. I think it's something worth thinking and talking about. What are your thoughts?