Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future

The Family Protection Act will spread like lice on a hippie commune. Nine states will draw up similar laws and move them through their legislative branches. They will unofficially secede from the rest of the country, who will think they are bonkers. They will call themselves New America.

There will be a massive rise in welfare applications for single women, single mothers and their children. A massive rise in homeless women and children. A massive rise in random assaults, both violent and sexual, against women and even young girls.

A government official will be quoted as saying, “We’re taking our country back!” (From whom? From women and children? Did they take over when none of us were looking? I can’t see that in these transmissions, but I doubt it.) Another government official will be quoted as saying, “We gave women two hundred years to reinvent themselves. I think that’s long enough.”

Women in the media will compare the entire movement to the days of cavemen. Some of them will be confused about what to do or say because they will have unknowingly supported the movement up to the point when they are shown to the studio’s door.

And then one state will make a bold move and pass the Fathers Count Law by refusing welfare assistance to any single mother or her children.

I haven’t seen what happens after this yet, but it looks like a lot of people starve and a lot of people leave their homes and look for a life somewhere else.

One thing I did see was the collapse of most basic services. Women work in a lot of places. I don’t think any of those lawmakers who passed the laws ever thought about what would really happen when they opened the loophole.

Or maybe they did and they just didn’t care.