Re: Star Trek: DTI: Watching The Clock Review Thread
Christopher, I just wanted to chime in and say something:
My best friend is a young woman from Chicago. She's in grad school and came to D.C. for the summer for an internship her program requires. Since I was already here, she has spent the summer renting a room in the same house in which I rent.
I thought that this neighborhood was really nice and safe; nothing had ever happened to me. But since my friend moved here, she's opened my eyes to some male privilege I had: Almost every day she walks home from the metro station to the house, she's hounded by men who sexually harass her. They yell at her, call her names, solicit her for sex, insult her if she refuses, and even sometimes try to talk her to getting into their cars. Complete strangers, harassing her for having the audacity to walk down a street while being female. Because of this, we've taken to having me walk with her from the metro station every night when she gets home from her internship if I'm available (which I usually am, since I get off work before she does).
So I was looking at
Watching the Clock again (I've started it but haven't finished it), and a small detail stuck out at me:
Clare Raymond, thinking to herself about how much life has changed on 24th Century Earth since the 190s, musing to herself that she or any other woman can now walk down the streets of
any city on Earth late at night, alone, knowing that they're safe.
After having seen the kinds of humiliation and harassment my best friend has suffered in this area just because she happens to be a woman, I've got to say: Thank you.
It's a small detail in your book, but the idea is incredibly meaningful to me.
