Amanda's Future

I had coffee this morning with Amanda, age one. She turned down the coffee but nibbled on various goodies. She sat very quietly and seriously and appeared to be listening intently to the conversation.

We got to talking about what kind of a world she will be living in when she is 21. She shows signs of being a beautiful woman, so our first thought was to shut her in a box at 12 and not let her out until she has grown out of her teens. That's a good idea, but I don't think it is legal.

What kind of a world will we have in 20 years? John McPhee, writing in the New Yorker, discusses the dangers of the subject. "William Shawn, this magazine's editor...used to tell his nonfiction writers that the world's worst subject was the future. Hard to tie down, the future could too easily come loose and take off on unexpected vectors....He later modified his position slightly, informing me that the future was actually the second worst subject in the world, the first being the Loch Ness Monster."

So I will skip the Loch Ness Monster and wonder about the future which awaits Amanda.

She will be in college somewhere. Will she be an intellectual or a dramatist or a scientist or an athlete?

Or maybe she will be a computer expert. Whatever her major she will have to understand and use computers. Even Bill Gates can't predict what the electronic world will be like in twenty years. Who knows, computers may have replaced thinking entirely.

One thing I feel pretty certain of is that it will still be an unequal playing field for women. It has been over 30 years since the current women's movement got started in the U. S. and still we have not achieved equality. Will Amanda and her generation continue to fight the battle?

The glass ceiling will probably still be there. Just last week the Government Accounting Office released a report showing that women still earn 20% less than men, almost exactly what they earned in 1983. The earnings gap has not shrunk in two decades and it probably won't in the next two.

If -- and I hate to say this -- George W. Bush gets a second term, the chances are good that women's reproductive freedom will be taken from them. With four more years he would try to pack the Supreme Court with the specific goal of reversing Roe v. Wade. And if the Radical Right continues to gain power, Amanda will have lost a number of other personal rights that we have gained today.

But politically Amanda may have a chance for public office if she is interested in politics. As they get experience in local and state offices, women are gaining numbers in Congress. I do profoundly hope we will have a woman president long before she gets to college -- maybe by the time she hits the 1st grade. And by the time she is 21 maybe she can choose between two female candidates. Well, we can dream.

For her 21st birthday maybe she can take a trip to the Space Station. Some big corporation will probably be running shuttles by then. She will be able to see the damage we are doing to our planet, but at night the lights will shine around the world. Of course, her parents will have to be able to pay for the trip.

It is going to be a different world Amanda will find when she gets to be 21. Women may have been pushed back to their position in the 20th century, or they may have achieved their place as true equals.

I think maybe the New Yorker editor is right and the Loch Ness Monster is safer to write about than the future.

But whatever Amanda's future, we wish her well.