This is actually a scheduled post, written before I find out about The Brain Tumor (which is not really a brain tumor) and before I go to New Orleans and before anything that will happen this week between the time that I am writing and the time that this goes up. There seems to be a bit of poetry in that.

The dystopian bedtime stories method of getting to sleep apparently still works. At least it did last night, when too many Cadbury mini eggs made me a bit jittery. Two outlines — actually, I’m not sure what you would call them, because anything more than seeds of ideas would probably be overstating the case. Anyway, two of these seeds came to mind.

In both Handmaid’s Tale and Children of Men, the social problem stemmed from the lack of children. Human reproduction had failed through virus in the first novel and — well, I haven’t gotten to the explanation in the second, if an explanation is forthcoming. In my vision, the problem goes in the other direction. Cutting off access to all reproductive services and outlawing all forms of mechanical contraception and sex education would lead to over population. Over population would lead to increased poverty, which would disproportionately affect women and their children.  Of course, education levels and professional employment of women would decline. What social services that remained would be overtaxed and collapse. Homelessness would increase. Extended families would be crowded into homes meant for nuclear families or apartments. Outlaw cooperative villages would crop up in marginal spaces.  Women would take any job available just to have the cash to buy food.

I fell asleep then.

The other seed involved the collapse of education, higher education in particular, which is a real fear in my life. It did not spin itself out quite as quickly, but that will be a Dystopian Bedtime Tale for another time, and I think would tie into the above tale in some way, if I’m building a world. After all, education is a female-dominated profession and devalued — literally de-valued — even at the college and university levels outside of the professional schools. The two would fit together quite well at a particular point in time in this world.

Indeed, for some women, they already do.