Reproduction in Herland????

After reading Herland, one of the concepts that stood out the most to me in this Utopia was how there are literally no men. When we had our class discussion on Herland, we talked about how this is the first Utopia we have read about that has only women. We shared, as a class, that a place like this could be appealing and not appealing for a few different reasons. One person shared how this Utopia would be enticing because it would eliminate the fear of being abducted. In our society as we know it, there is a stereotypical fear that most women are raised being encouraged to "not go out at night alone," or other similar instructions to prevent men from harming them. However, despite this positive repercussion of a Utopia with only women, the actual issue I have with this Utopia is their explanation for how reproduction occurs.

I might be being overly critical, and not allowing my imagination to entertain the idea that women producing people the way they do in Herland is possible, but as soon as I read that I could not take this place seriously. It does not seem even theoretically possible for the biology of a female species to not only produce babies without a male, but males are not even being reproduced as offspring either. There are some existing species that can reproduce on their own, but they still make other male/female offspring. I do not know if I believe that a Utopia should have one gender. In my opinion, is defies the way our society functions so much so that it also almost simultaneously discourages the idea of community that Utopia requires. Granted that this Utopia is technically a community of females, it seems extraordinarily limited.  

I think that when we have our underlying class discussions about how we want to eventually define Utopia, that we should seriously consider wording that will promote the definition encompassing a diverse community. I think it will be hard when analyzing any Utopia where to define the line between community, the like-mindedness of the Utopians, and the existence of the individual. It does not appear as though Herland has a perfect balance, since the three men offset it so much. Terry especially did not seem content in this Utopia, which makes me wonder how a Utopia could be classified as a Utopia if it doesn't make everyone who goes there essentially want to stay forever? Again, it reminds me of the possibility of multiple Utopias existing at the same time.