I'm working on one such sci-fi future (in novel form) at the moment! But a lot of the tech I'm using is sourced from the writings of the techno-optimists, who seem to be mostly male (yourself and Hannah Ritchie notwithstanding). I'll look to broaden my horizons as I dig into the literature even further and continue to build a world! Thanks for those good thoughts. :)
love this take, Elle – this has me thinking about what a modern day matriarchal society would look like (or at least a society where we sought out female leadership as much as we defaulted to male authority)
how would we manage resources differently? how differently would our economy and culture look? would there be greater social harmony and stability?
You ask a good question and imagine a world free of angst and brimming with equity. But first we need to address the capacity for man made tech to further limit the freedom of women by simply not involving us in ground up decisions. Indeed, it is a UN Women priority. 🙏 Elle for another thought-provoking post.
Interesting read! A speculative fiction novel I truly loved is The Actual Star by Monica Byrne. It’s sci-fi in the future thread but also ties in the present and ancient Mayan past. To me, it was pure magic and a thought provoking take on utopia.
I love the call for imagined futures that privilege beauty and emotional wellbeing. It seems like a shift like this would require quite a different economic model, right? With rare exception (Apple stores, perhaps) capitalism seems to value commodity above beauty — which is why it’s fine with tearing down old buildings and replacing them with strip malls (or at the very least it so seldom builds anything as beautiful as a cathedral).
I wonder if that will continue to be the case though? For example, a lot of developers who build cheap ugly buildings in the 70s and 80s are now realizing that they have to tear them down because they are no longer desirable. Many builders seem to be discovering that if they build more beautiful buildings it will be a much better investment. I wonder if that will cause a shift in architecture?
Thought-provoking, thanks. I wonder if the impression that boys are pushing us to a future we didn't sign up for, is because they are the loudest and get the most attention? Maybe you're describing biomimicry and biophilia, which are in full swing and have been for a while - with more to come, of course. There's also permaculture and biodynamics. All of these are inherently more "feminine" because they're inspired by, aligned and in cooperation with how nature actually *works*. I find techy sci-fi designs and humanoid robots boring, because they center human cleverness, but are ignorant of nature's 3.8 billion years' head start on solving complex design challenges. We've mostly been ignoring nature's brilliance for several centuries now, and look where it's gotten us. Time to pay attention.
Right. I think we are realizing how much we want nature to be part of the mix! I think you'd love this Ted Talk by my friend who is working to make botany a much larger part of our scientific and technological future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZm-jNEiM9w&t=1s
I'm like you, the big space operas aren't usually for me (except for The Expanse, and it has a strong human element). When you listed all the women doing regenerative work with their tech companies, I couldn't help thinking of Elisabet Sobek, the heroic scientist from the video game Horizon Zero Dawn. She not only invents the technology to stop the climate crisis, she then saves the planet when a billionaire techbro's schemes are about to destroy it. (That's a loose and inaccurate description, but anything else would spoil the plot.) Maybe life is imitating art!
Ooooooh that sounds incredible! Thank you so much for the video game rec. I've actually been researching video games for a story so I'll add this one to my list!
Glad to help! I should warn you that much of it is about as bleakly dystopian as one could imagine. It’s all about the light glimmering at the end of the tunnel. And about how much one would sacrifice to save not only the planet, but all of humanity and human cultures.
I finally got around to watching Gilded Age and was shocked and intrigued about the history of the Brooklyn Bridge! It was a great parallel to this post ! Even if some elements are exaggerated for cinematic flair. Anyhooo, the most recent Sci Fi Future is Femaleesque show I’ve watched is Foundation. It is daunting how people default to dystopian futures tho. And Sci Fi has gotten popular through just fear I suppose. I think studios need to prioritize original programming that is more utopian as we all know that programming literally programs our minds and effecting how we observe the world around us. Foundation tries to tackle this friction I feel between dystopia and utopia. Idk why we are so attached to conflict. It’s exhausting.
The Gilded Age has been on my list forever so I'm taking this as my nudge to finally watch it. And yes, love that Foundation completely retooled for the screen, about half the characters were men in the original book, and I love the utopian elements of some of the worlds. I very much feel the same way about dystopian futures, you might like this post about how our sci-fi shifted in that direction int he 70s. You're so right, it's exhausting! https://bigthink.com/the-future/are-fictional-dystopias-blocking-us-from-better-futures/
elle, also, i had a rather rousing discussion with my daughter about this post. she feels that there is a need to pay attention to sub-genre when talking about sci-fi (the eco visions being part of the solarpunk genre, for instance, and not necessarily to do with women per se). also, that the idea that only boys write about spaceships, etc., she feels shows a lack of familiarity with sci-fi (three names she put forward immediately: ursula leguin, madeleine l'engle, c. j. cherryh). interestingly, she also talked about the vital role of women in early computing and telecom and space suit construction. a fascinating conversation which suggests that we needn't boil this all down to male/female (though doing so can be a fun exercise as a starting point)
These are all very good points. There are certainly a lot of incredible women sci-fi writers, and Le Guin is top of the list. To me, it's not the lack of them that is the problem, but that they haven't quite hit the zeitgeist the way the space operas have. But you're right, it's more the genre that needs to shift (to these kind of solarpunk futures) regardless of who writes them. That being said, I would love to see a woman tech founder at the caliber of Elon Musk!
Well not for eating. But that's only because right now the way we genetically modify food is for economic gain, not for health.
If we engineered a vegetables in snowy regions to have more Vitamin D, for example, that would be beneficial to the health of everyone who lived there. But if we engineer wheat to be able to withstand any and all pests in the field (as we do now), then it makes that grain harder to digest. So GMO in the right circumstances and for the right reasons I am for. Unfortunately, no food on the market today that is genetically modified is modified for the benefit of our health (and thus is often detrimental to our health by accident).
love this so much
I'm working on one such sci-fi future (in novel form) at the moment! But a lot of the tech I'm using is sourced from the writings of the techno-optimists, who seem to be mostly male (yourself and Hannah Ritchie notwithstanding). I'll look to broaden my horizons as I dig into the literature even further and continue to build a world! Thanks for those good thoughts. :)
Yay!!!!!!! Please share you're novel with me when you have it! I really want to read more of these...... (love Hannah Ritchie!)
Well, following your advice, I'm planning to serialise it in Substack form. Watch this space: shonistar.substack.com 🚀👩🏻🚀
love this take, Elle – this has me thinking about what a modern day matriarchal society would look like (or at least a society where we sought out female leadership as much as we defaulted to male authority)
how would we manage resources differently? how differently would our economy and culture look? would there be greater social harmony and stability?
Very good questions!
You ask a good question and imagine a world free of angst and brimming with equity. But first we need to address the capacity for man made tech to further limit the freedom of women by simply not involving us in ground up decisions. Indeed, it is a UN Women priority. 🙏 Elle for another thought-provoking post.
Interesting read! A speculative fiction novel I truly loved is The Actual Star by Monica Byrne. It’s sci-fi in the future thread but also ties in the present and ancient Mayan past. To me, it was pure magic and a thought provoking take on utopia.
Oh amazing, thank you so much for the recommendation!
I love the call for imagined futures that privilege beauty and emotional wellbeing. It seems like a shift like this would require quite a different economic model, right? With rare exception (Apple stores, perhaps) capitalism seems to value commodity above beauty — which is why it’s fine with tearing down old buildings and replacing them with strip malls (or at the very least it so seldom builds anything as beautiful as a cathedral).
I wonder if that will continue to be the case though? For example, a lot of developers who build cheap ugly buildings in the 70s and 80s are now realizing that they have to tear them down because they are no longer desirable. Many builders seem to be discovering that if they build more beautiful buildings it will be a much better investment. I wonder if that will cause a shift in architecture?
I really hope so! I’d hate to see it go in the opposite direction
Me too!
Thought-provoking, thanks. I wonder if the impression that boys are pushing us to a future we didn't sign up for, is because they are the loudest and get the most attention? Maybe you're describing biomimicry and biophilia, which are in full swing and have been for a while - with more to come, of course. There's also permaculture and biodynamics. All of these are inherently more "feminine" because they're inspired by, aligned and in cooperation with how nature actually *works*. I find techy sci-fi designs and humanoid robots boring, because they center human cleverness, but are ignorant of nature's 3.8 billion years' head start on solving complex design challenges. We've mostly been ignoring nature's brilliance for several centuries now, and look where it's gotten us. Time to pay attention.
Right. I think we are realizing how much we want nature to be part of the mix! I think you'd love this Ted Talk by my friend who is working to make botany a much larger part of our scientific and technological future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZm-jNEiM9w&t=1s
I'm like you, the big space operas aren't usually for me (except for The Expanse, and it has a strong human element). When you listed all the women doing regenerative work with their tech companies, I couldn't help thinking of Elisabet Sobek, the heroic scientist from the video game Horizon Zero Dawn. She not only invents the technology to stop the climate crisis, she then saves the planet when a billionaire techbro's schemes are about to destroy it. (That's a loose and inaccurate description, but anything else would spoil the plot.) Maybe life is imitating art!
Ooooooh that sounds incredible! Thank you so much for the video game rec. I've actually been researching video games for a story so I'll add this one to my list!
Glad to help! I should warn you that much of it is about as bleakly dystopian as one could imagine. It’s all about the light glimmering at the end of the tunnel. And about how much one would sacrifice to save not only the planet, but all of humanity and human cultures.
That seems to be a common theme ;)
I finally got around to watching Gilded Age and was shocked and intrigued about the history of the Brooklyn Bridge! It was a great parallel to this post ! Even if some elements are exaggerated for cinematic flair. Anyhooo, the most recent Sci Fi Future is Femaleesque show I’ve watched is Foundation. It is daunting how people default to dystopian futures tho. And Sci Fi has gotten popular through just fear I suppose. I think studios need to prioritize original programming that is more utopian as we all know that programming literally programs our minds and effecting how we observe the world around us. Foundation tries to tackle this friction I feel between dystopia and utopia. Idk why we are so attached to conflict. It’s exhausting.
The Gilded Age has been on my list forever so I'm taking this as my nudge to finally watch it. And yes, love that Foundation completely retooled for the screen, about half the characters were men in the original book, and I love the utopian elements of some of the worlds. I very much feel the same way about dystopian futures, you might like this post about how our sci-fi shifted in that direction int he 70s. You're so right, it's exhausting! https://bigthink.com/the-future/are-fictional-dystopias-blocking-us-from-better-futures/
a lot of what i'd want already exists (like, medicine already *does* grow on trees, in trees, under trees :)
so, in a way, the feminine principle is not to replace but to embrace.
Very true!
elle, also, i had a rather rousing discussion with my daughter about this post. she feels that there is a need to pay attention to sub-genre when talking about sci-fi (the eco visions being part of the solarpunk genre, for instance, and not necessarily to do with women per se). also, that the idea that only boys write about spaceships, etc., she feels shows a lack of familiarity with sci-fi (three names she put forward immediately: ursula leguin, madeleine l'engle, c. j. cherryh). interestingly, she also talked about the vital role of women in early computing and telecom and space suit construction. a fascinating conversation which suggests that we needn't boil this all down to male/female (though doing so can be a fun exercise as a starting point)
These are all very good points. There are certainly a lot of incredible women sci-fi writers, and Le Guin is top of the list. To me, it's not the lack of them that is the problem, but that they haven't quite hit the zeitgeist the way the space operas have. But you're right, it's more the genre that needs to shift (to these kind of solarpunk futures) regardless of who writes them. That being said, I would love to see a woman tech founder at the caliber of Elon Musk!
What would you like them to found? :)
Gingko Bioworks is honestly my favorite company right now. We need to get them more press!
so interesting! i wouldn't have thought you a fan of GMOs.
Well not for eating. But that's only because right now the way we genetically modify food is for economic gain, not for health.
If we engineered a vegetables in snowy regions to have more Vitamin D, for example, that would be beneficial to the health of everyone who lived there. But if we engineer wheat to be able to withstand any and all pests in the field (as we do now), then it makes that grain harder to digest. So GMO in the right circumstances and for the right reasons I am for. Unfortunately, no food on the market today that is genetically modified is modified for the benefit of our health (and thus is often detrimental to our health by accident).
elle, you might like this (man's) vision... https://thepossiblecity.substack.com/
Ooooooh, right up my alley. Thank you!