This International Women’s Day, we at the Institute of Customer Experience (ICE) explore and discuss alternative gender futures through 5 hypothetical Women of the Future. Meet Wang Xiu Lan, Mayhem Miriam, Alex, Dr. Sky Ngeze and Kuku721, who make it to the cover of ICE Mag between 2029 and 2088…

2029. A time of gender parity. Women being almost equally represented as men in governance, finance and industry, solutions to world problems like peace and hunger have taken on a far more humanistic and inclusive approach. Wang Xiu Lan has faced many challenges as the youngest and first woman Premier of China, but has emerged triumphant with her policies on re-distributing resources to develop human potential. Her core belief is that everyone deserves to experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfilment.

2044. Fed up with centuries of violence against them, women have risen against men in the bloodiest revolution mankind has ever seen. All men have been either executed or imprisoned. Miriam is one of many young local rebels of the movement who rose to the forefront for their ferocity and remorselessness. Of Israeli-Palestinian descent, Miriam has bourn witness to almost every kind of social injustice perpetrated by patriarchy. This makes her sceptical of the female leaders of the movement repeating the same mistakes that men made.

2060. Gender isn’t a big deal anymore, and many choose to live non-binary. Thanks to advances in science and technology, people switch their birth sex at will, go through several such switches in a lifetime, and add-on male/female physiological traits as they need or wish. Alex chose to become a woman at puberty because she wanted to be able to breastfeed her children in the future. However, her extreme ice sports ambitions have convinced her to remodel her body structure for enhanced performance. Alex typically likes to go without any labels, but if pressed she describes her self as bi-gendered, multi-curious, bot-sexual.

2073. Decades of environmental activism have paid off and the earth has begun to heal itself. There is renewed reverence for the Divine Feminine, and a new wave of rewilding driven by scientific discovery. Large populations of people live in return-to-nature communities. Dr. Sky Ngeze is the epitome of the ‘new life’, effortlessly blending nano-biology with spiritual awakening to bring about outer and inner change. She resides in a karmic-trio, sharing her virtual cob house with her birthing assistant co-husband, e-waste controller co-wife, and four of their five co-nurtured children.

2088. Women no longer need men in order to conceive as they can impregnate themselves synthetically. More women are choosing to have daughters because without ‘womb power’ men have low social status. After the failed attempts of the 2020’s, a new women-only re-colonization of Mars in underway (women have the advantage of being able to ‘carry’ an extra human without taking up extra seat space). Kuku721, a user experience designer from Nagaland, has been recruited to Mars to devise strategies to make life there more liveable and likeable. She will soon deliver one of the first baby girls born on the red planet, along with most of her sister explorinas. She knows it’s a little late to be apprehensive about the Monica Bellucci-Einstein combo the gene boutique sold her.

Happy International Women’s Day!