Women and Men of 2038

After watching the South Carolina debates last night, my friend Jon and I spent a while talking about what we hope the US will look like in 2038. One thing that struck me was that it was much easier for me to come up with social goals than economic goals or international goals. I think in part that's because I have a clearer sense of what my social "end vision" is whereas I don't know exactly where on the spectrum between a complete free market economy and a socialist command economy is ideal. Our role in the global sphere is even harder to project because there are so many other variables.

Here are some of the things we settled on, or that I thought of afterwards. We tried really hard to be realistic:

-universal healthcare coverage
-access to college: both that everyone can attend college and that cost is not a variable that constraints people's college decisions
-less of a wealth gap, both domestically and globally
-lifting the specter of severe enviromentally catastrophe
-societal prioritization of the need to restore clean water, air and ecosystems
-general era of peace, where the US military has only limited engagements
-an international criminal court and greater support for global legislation enforcement, whether it be about human rights, labor, or the enviroment
-a parallel commitment to open borders, and a rollback of ag and textile tariffs in the developed world
-I'd like to see a greater access to free information that still incentivizes the creation of information and art. It seems almost inevitable that we're moving in this direction, but I'd hate to see intellectual property laws that attempt to get around advances in technology and roll back the other way.
-the abandonment of the word 'gay' to describe negative things (Jon started off the conversation with this one. I guess his buddies at the Basic School find many objects attracted to other objects of the same sex. Or long runs. Male long runs are only attracted to other male long runs, I bet, especially if they are wearing gear. Gear is sort of like accessories, and therefore, particularly gay.)
-a constitutional framework for abortion and gay rights that is based on equality, not privacy. Maybe this means the ERA or maybe it means revisiting the intent of the 14th amendment.

Essentially, this is a progressive's agenda with a bit of a free trade, globalist emphasis.

A last wish I have for 2038 is that we expand the way we look at masculinity as a society. I'm not entirely sure how to get there-- Jon pointed out that probably many Americans think our current idea of masculinity is already too expansive-- but I think it's a change that's got to take place on the household level before it can take place on the national stage (although policies such as paternity leave would help).

When I was fourteen, I got my first job working as a bookshelver at the library. It was, other than RAing and dinners in Greece, the most fun I've ever been paid for. However, one thing that continually struck me was how critical parents were of their sons' choices. Babysitters' Club was a "girl's book." So, incidentally, was anything by Beverly Cleary, Rumor Goden, or Tamara Pierce. I see why J.K. Rowling dropped the Joanna before Harry Potter's debout and I see why she made Potter a boy. You can't really blame eight year old boys for rejecting books about girls if that's the message they have gotten from their parents and peers all their life.

I very rarely heard a parent to tell a girl to put down a book because it was a "boy's book." I think now (at least among my generation) a certain amount of tomboyishness is acceptable, or even encouraged in young girls. I doubt most of my male peers had their reading choices censored this way, but I think that right now there are more ways to "be female" than to "be male." Disney can make movies with female warriors decades before they make movies with princes who are not warriors. I think in general, uniqueness is more tolerated among female children than male ones. (I don't think this is true globally, of course, or cross cultures, and I'm willing to concede if someone wants to argue it's only true in certain socio-economic classes.)

I'm certainly not arguing it's easier to be female than to be male (although I wouldn't swap). I once talked this over with my friend Allie, and she commented that although we are no longer telling girls they must be this, or must be that, instead we are sending the message that they must be everything, and I think this is spot on. I obnoxiously, earnestly, and unnecessarily spend hours stressing about how I'm going to balance a family and a career (I want to help change the world and make awesome Halloween costumes, help!), even though now I don't have a boyfriend or a job I'm going to stick with in the long run. I expect I'll spend a far part of the next twenty years worrying about the same thing, hopefully less obnoxiously. I think some traditionally female problems-- such as worry about the approval of others or body image-- have become more equal-opportunity problems (gotta love those races to the bottom), but still affect women more.

(One thing that makes me a little sad for guys is that I know very few men who had childhood, and particularly adolescent, friendships as close as my own friendships. I don't really buy maturity gap arguments (my mother is convinced I have that teenage guy risk-loving hormone), but if there is one, I think it exists for that reason. It has to be a bit emotionally stilting to not have anyone to call when upset. Sometimes I think some guys want girlfriends so they can have a really close friend as much as anything else.)

There is more general consciousness of way our society needs to change in its treatment of women. I think these large scale changes can't come about without
redefining masculinity in a way that hinges less of aggression and leaves more room for having feelings and being nurturing. It would be a safer world to be female in. There would be fewer limits on what it was socially acceptable for a guy to do or say. I also think it would be easier and less stigmatized for men to take paternity leave or stay at home with children which would both open up more options for most couples and would put women who choose to take time off at less of a disadvantage.