Op-ed Review

In the article, Men, Who Needs Them?, the author, Greg Hampikian, informs his audience about the scientific breakthroughs of the possibility of a female becoming pregnant without a male. To do this, a “fresh or frozen” sperm from a “living or dead” donor is required.  But Hampikian uses this purpose to also make an underlying argument that the human population could technically continue without males with these breakthroughs and with the huge frozen sperm supply that could support the human population for generations. Hampikian’s intended audience is the everyday people that have an interest in science, but not the people rooted in the scientific community, as one may assume. This is because people very active in the scientific community would have probably heard about this advancement already or contributed to the research and development of this advancement themselves. This article is also not intended for the scientific community because the article was published in the New York Times, not a medical or science journal.  In the introduction, Hampikian has a serious tone because of the background information he dictates on the traits of the human and mammalian species. Later in the article, Hampikian’s tone can be seen as serious but underneath it is exaggerated. This is because Hampikian describes the process in detail of how a child is nourished only by a female from the child’s grandmother giving birth to the child’s mother to the mother giving birth to the child. In the description of the process, he mentions how little males contribute to child development compared to how much females scientifically contribute, both before and after the child’s birth. The article has an informative personality, yet a playful one since he tries to exaggerate how much females contribute to child development compared to males. There is also an unintended feminist personality because he states, “men [have] become less relevant to reproduction and parenting.”  The argument that the human population could technically survive without men due to the breakthroughs in science is effective and convincing because he uses scientific evidence and processes to support his claim. I believe that the article would convince the target audience, because the sociologists and the child development specialists in the scientific community that the article is not directed towards would disagree with Hampikian’s claim.

Hampikian, Greg. "Men, Who Needs Them?" New York Times 25 Aug. 2012: A19. New York Times. 24 Aug. 2012. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/opinion/men-who-needs-them.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>.