Future Crock
I’m from the future. So are you. We all live in the future. The time that we
all looked forward to with great anticipation since we were kids, and we read,
with shining eyes, Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. When we
turned on Flash Gordon or The Jetsons or Back to the Future.
And it’s come on so gradually that most
of us haven’t even noticed that, according to Arthur C. Clarke, we were
supposed to have commercial shuttles to the moon and deep space travel thirteen
years ago. But even life on earth isn’t what we expected. Do you realize that
next year is the year that Marty McFly visits the future of Hill Valley, to
marvel at the hover cars (and hover boards) and the interactive talking houses
of 2015?
Smart phones and Google Glasses
notwithstanding, the future isn’t what a lot of us expected. But even more than
the flashy gadgets that the movies and futuristic reading material promised us,
many of us are disappointed by the issues that still plague us on a more
fundamental level.
The ongoing wars and conflicts and
suicide bombings and despotic dictators have become so commonplace that we
often shake our heads and sigh when we hear the reports, then go on with
whatever we were doing. We think ‘that’s too bad and I’m sorry,’ but we feel
helpless to change anything about it. Because there’s little that most of us
can do.
But what about right here in our own
area? I’m amazed at how backwards and archaic ‘the future’ is in a number of
ways here in America.
A week ago, Emma Watson, Hermione
from the Harry Potter movies, and now UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, delivered a
speech before the United Nations. And the contents of that speech have been
called all kinds of glorious adjectives, stopping just short of ‘revolutionary.’
(Maybe it has been called that and I just
missed it.)
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not casting
aspersions on her speech by any means. It was an excellent speech (and can be
seen and heard here). Her
words were moving and eloquent, her nervous, shaky delivery sweet and endearing.
My problem is that we live in the
twenty-first century and we still have to discuss gender inequality, not to
mention issues involving racial prejudice, religious intolerance, violent
nationalistic fervor, political bickering, bullying, etc. Why haven’t we gotten
beyond these things yet? Treating somebody differently just because of
something as elemental as the arrangement of chromosomes in their cells, or
genetic variations that determine the color of a person’s skin and the texture
of their hair? These things should have been settled and put aside ages ago!
It’s been a century and a half since
the end of the American Civil War. And yet a century after that, race was still
enough of an issue that Martin Luther King’s efforts to battle racial
inequality through nonviolence were noteworthy enough to win him the Nobel
Peace Prize. And a half century after that, we’re still struggling with it.
And women, roughly half our
population, are still being treated as if they were below-average citizens. Those
who scrape and struggle to positions traditionally occupied by men still earn
considerably less than the men in those corresponding positions. Women are
viewed as rape bait by an astonishing number of men. And women are targets of
various other kinds of violence by men.
Again, this should have been taken
care of long ago!
In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote a book
called Future Shock. The title came
from the psychological state that he defined as a personal perception of too
much change in too short a period of time.
Well, technology has brought about a lot of change in the
past decades. (Although I am still
waiting for my personal robot assistant and my shuttle ride.) But some things
haven’t changed nearly enough. The fact that Emma Watson even needed to deliver
her speech to the United Nations, or launch the HeforShe movement, is evidence of that.
Ever since I first actually thought
about it years ago, I’ve considered myself a feminist. That’s not to say that I
have brought about any kind of change. I’ve actually done very little, I’m
sorry to say, to improve the plight of women, aside from providing encouragement
to individuals or offering my opinions in support of women and equality issues.
But now, I’ve taken a little more
action. I’ve joined the movement of HeforShe, to speak up and support women’s
issues. HeforShe is, according to the web site, a “solidarity movement for
gender equality that brings together one half of humanity in support of the
other of humanity, for the entirety of humanity.” I was the 115,811th
man to take the commitment. (The web site said, “Help us reach number 100,000.”
The fact that I was nearly 16,000 above that is encouraging!)
And I’m taking a little more action
by writing this blog entry that has nothing at all to do with my book, Profile, available for Kindle,
Nook
or on paper,
published by Idyllic Ink Publishing.
The whole idea of HeforShe is for
men and boys to step up and support gender equality. According to the web site,
“Gender equality is not only a women’s issue, it is a human rights issue that
requires my participation. I commit to take action against all forms of
violence and discrimination faced by women and girls.”
Who knows? If we can eliminate some
of these silly and outdated arguments that take up so much of our time and
attention, maybe we can get back on track with where we should be now, in the
future.
After all, I’m still waiting for my jet pack!
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