Consider Her Ways story
A physician tries to prevent her vision of an all-female society from coming true. Directed by: Robert Stevens. Story by: Oscar Millard.
18 total · 2 choice · 9 major · 7 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| female-only society | choice | Dr. Jane Waterleigh woke up in a possibly imagined future in which a virus had wiped all men from the face of the Earth and women perpetuated humankind by parthenogenesis. |
| what if I caught a glimpse of the future | choice | A central component, and the conclusion, of the story is that Dr. Jane Waterleigh experienced what she thought was a dystopian likely future, and became hellbent on preventing it from manifesting. It is implied that she ultimately failed in this endeavor, through an ironic twist of fate. |
| delusion of being someone one is not | major | The all-female society medical professionals tried to convince Jane that her memories of a two gender world were all some sort of elaborate delusion. |
| feminism | major | A subtext of the story was women's liberation. For example, Jane spoke of how there is more to life than having babies, and the historian Laura remarked about how "it must have been very strange to be ruled by a husband". Laura explained something to the effect that women lacked opportunity in the past age because of their having to bare and raise and children. |
| human-made pandemic | major | Jane was convinced that every last man on Earth would perish from a mutation of the virus strain that Dr. Perrigan was developing to make brown rats go extinct. |
| ironic twist of fate | major | Jane murdered Dr. Perrigan thinking she had thus prevented the dystopian future she foresaw. Through an ironic twist of fate it was a case of mistaken identity: Dr. Perrigan had son with the same name and title. |
| medical occupation | major | Jane was a medical doctor who had taken a powerful psychedelic that caused her move into the future somehow. She discussed this with the people she encountered there. Jane was tended to in sickbay by a physician and nurse. |
| speculative society | major | The female-only future society had a hive-inspired social structure (likened to ant-hives at one point): In particular, child-bearing had been delegated to a small number of women who were not given education but were fed enormous amounts of food, and who were consequently exceedingly fat and stupid. |
| the battle of the sexes | major | In featuring a thriving, yet arguably dystopian, stereotypically female female-only future, the story discusses whether or not traditionally male roles in society are necessary or, indeed, desirable. |
| the dangers of unfettered scientific advancement | major | Jane was convinced that every last man on Earth would perish from a mutation of the virus strain that Dr. Perrigan was developing to make brown rats go extinct. |