Firstly, the man who said he didn't know any women and lived as a recluse probably didn't know very many men, either.

Biologically, we will always need men and women and for a fundamental reason. What is the first step in creating a human? An egg cell being fertilized by a sperm cell. While it's true that scientific advances have, within reason, removed the necessity for a male penis to be placed inside a female vagina to ensure this (think IVF), and yes, two women or two men can raise a child, the simple fact remains that either donor sperm or a donor egg is needed to create a human being.

It is important, however, to differentiate between biological and societal roles and sex and gender roles. The biological role of a man in sexual reproduction is to supply the sperm cell and the biological role of a woman the egg, and, apart from transmen who have not had a hysterectomy, a man cannot carry a baby in gestation.

The GENDER roles, however, are antiquated and need to be overhauled. For example, while I understand that many an aging person looks forward to becoming a grandparent, a woman should not become a mother because she HAS to, a woman should become a mother because she WANTS to. Similarly, I do NOT believe that it should necessarily be the woman who puts her career on hold. There is nothing wrong with a professional woman in a heterosexual relationship waking up at 6am, for example, feeding her baby, expressing milk into some sterile bottles and screwing the teats on, and placing them in the fridge, laying out some nappies and saying to her male partner, "Okay, the milk's ready, I've laid out nappies. Have a good day. See you tonight," and her male partner looks after the baby.

There is a ridiculous doctor who made the equally ridiculous claim, when Hillary Clinton stood for election that the US could have had its first female president but the gender roles needed to be preserved!

This same ridiculous doctor also made the claim that women are becoming more like men and thus unattractive to men, and that women compete with each other too much. To the first, I say garbage, and to the second, I say, people in general, regardless of sex or gender, are competitive. If you look at a cricketer, you might find that, if it's a male, he say, plays International Cricket for Australia, English County Cricket and in the Indian Premier League 20:20. That cricketer might find that his team-mate in the International Series is his opponent in the English County Series. Okay, if you were a 35 year old who toured in the 1955 Ashes Series, and an Australian batter had been your tail gunner and you were the English wicketkeeper and you caught the ball and the Australian batter was ten centimetres out of his crease and you said, "Oh, he fired on a Messerschmitt that was coming after our Avro Lancaster and that saved my life and those of the rest of the crew," they might have thought, maybe, but today, if you were an Australian batter and the English wicketkeeper was your brother-in-law and the former was ten centimetres outside his crease and you let him back in, the selectors and team managers would have said, "What the hell are you doing?" "Oh, but he's my brother-in-law." "I don't care if he donated you a kidney, or is the Pope!" and torn up your contract!

Not everything that women have has been the result of men letting them have it. In some cases, women have said, "Okay, they won't let us have it, so we'll do our own!" Just like a writer sends a manuscript off to a publisher and the publisher sends them a rejection slip. Sometimes, the author self-publishes and the manuscript sells 60 copies in two weeks and that's all; sometimes, the book reaches the Top 30 books and the publisher thinks, "Gee that was a missed opportunity."

So, does every woman need a man? Well, not to complement or complete them, but you have to think of it like this, I remember a book that I read in Year Three where a lofty Sydneysider went to stay at a farm near Seymour, in Victoria, and she said, "I don't see the need for horses. Everyone I know has a car." The car has been known as the horseless carriage, and you might not want to ride your horse from Sydney to Melbourne and take several days when you can take around eight hours by car, but if you love your horse, you might wake up of a morning and take your horse for a ride, and then drive your car wherever else you go.

Women might not want to be in PERSONAL relationships with men, but as part of interconnectedness, both men and women need each other in order to co-exist.