At work recently, we have been speculating on an alternate reality . . . a world where females are not only in power . . . unequivocally in power . . . but also have been in power for a long, long time -- we have been wondering how culture, architecture, religion, laws, warfare, sex, art, and the media would reflect this change . . . it's a difficult and very hypothetical question (and I started the discussion because I was lamenting the fact that there is no great sci-fi movie or book on this subject) and while we haven't come to any definitive conclusions, it is a great conversation starter . . . so I asked my wife what she thought the world would be like if women had been in the political, economic, and cultural driver's seat for a very long time, and she said the question was almost unfathomable, and she would have to think about it, and so I took the dog for a walk while she cleaned up dinner (typical gender roles!) and he defecated on someone's lawn around the block, so I pulled the little poop-baggy from my pocket, but -- try as I might -- I couldn't get the mouth of the bag open, and it was dark and rainy, and no matter how much I rubbed my fingers together with the bag between them, no matter how much I picked at the plastic -- I couldn't pull apart that opening . . . and so I finally made an executive decision and gave up . . . and so I pretended to pick up my dog's turds with the malfunctioning poop-bag -- which wasn't really a bag . . . it was a two dimensional square of plastic -- and once I had pretended to pick up the poop, then I picked up the bag and pretended to hold it as if it contained poop; once I got a block away, I checked to make sure no one was following me, and then put the bag back into my pocket; when I got home, I told my wife what happened (and as I told her the story, of course I got the defective bag to open right up -- and so I looked like a complete idiot) and my anecdote must have triggered an epiphany in my wife's brain, because she suddenly had the answer to my earlier question: she said, "You know, if women were actually in power, they would get rid of all the men and become lesbians, because of behavior like this."
You should read Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gillman.
ReplyDeletedid you read it?
ReplyDeleteYes. It addresses some of the issues raised in today's sentence.
ReplyDeletei googled "herland and gillman" and became entirely suspicious that either dave or zman, (or perhaps dave actually IS zman through some online identity ruse) concocted the entire page.
ReplyDeleteDave and I are remarkably bright and hairy Hungarian men, but we are two different remarkably bright and hairy Hungarian men. I am much more handsome than Dave.
ReplyDeleteDave is hairier/swarthier.
ReplyDeleteby "hairier/ swarthier," clarence means "much sexier." i am going to read "herland," and see what this chick thinks . . . but i think i am much more qualified to write a sci-fi novel about what the world would be like if it were run by women.
ReplyDeletesod needs more lesbians. probably could do with fewer hungarians.
ReplyDelete