Billionaires Accidentally Fund Research Into Women’s Wellbeing

How their selfishness saved the world

It all starts with a joke among friends. Wouldn’t it be nice to only see beautiful women everywhere? The old men chuckle around the dinner table.

And then they realize — they’ve got obscene amounts of money to fund this. Why not?

And so they hire a professional consultant to bring their dream to life. He — because why give this project to a woman? — immediately entrusts the project to his number one assistant.

The new project lead preps for the initial presentation. She — the consultant didn’t share this detail with his new clients — attacks the project with her usual determination. She also takes multiple meditation breaks to focus on the positive bigger picture for all women and not on the questionable men funding the work.

And then it’s showtime. Presentation day arrives.

The project lead enters the conference room with a slight smile, just enough to look non-threatening. The circle of men look past her to the door, waiting for someone else to enter the room. And someone does — her 2 assistants, both women.

This wasn’t who they were waiting for.

(The project lead had advised the consultant to include a man on the presentation team. Perhaps the consultant himself could handle the presentation? It might foster rapport, she added. As expected, he rejected the idea in favor of shocking them right away.)

The circle of men stop looking at the door but don’t look at her, eyes unsure where to land. She smiles bigger for a microsecond then begins her presentation.

This project is such an ambitious goal. She has totally different reasons to promote it so enthusiasm seeps into her words. This calms the men’s pulse rates. She’s on our side they indicate to each other with eyebrow movements.

She rolls through her introduction, no mistakes. As she takes a transitional pause, one of the men interjects. “So how are we creating all the beautiful women??”

After giving herself metaphorical gold stars for not rolling her eyes, the project lead mentally reviews her talking points, slide deck, and the people in front of her. Her assistants do a subtle side eye to confirm her suspicion. These guys don’t care about it. The only way they’ll agree to this plan is by being there to witness the results.

She hums softly as she makes her decision. “Excuse me gentlemen. Let me make a quick call. This is a bit unorthodox but I think you’ll prefer this to my slides.” And she walks out of the room.

The circle’s eyebrows dance in glee. What’s up with the clandestine phone call? What’s she going to show them?

She re-enters the room, no smile this time. The eyebrows quiet down.

“You want a world full of beautiful. women?” she asks. The circle pauses, unsure whether she’s asking or scolding them without a smile to soften the words. “Well, it’s going to take time. A long time.” Their eyebrows frown at her, displeased their obscene sum of money couldn’t buy a shortcut.

She continues. “I’ll present a summary of our plan but first I want to promise you all will personally witness the success of this project. We offer you the use of our cryogenic chambers for coldsleep until the end of this experiment.” Now the eyebrows raise in surprise. “So here’s the plan…”

Many many years in the future

Cold sleep has ended. The men step outside the cryogenic building’s glass doors, bouncing in anticipation of a new world. They imagine new discoveries of cutting-edge surgeries, fountain of youth pills, a world of supermodels.

They get outside and discover the world looks the same.

Well, the world doesn’t have to look different to be different one of them offers and the others nod. Yes that’s true! they comfort each other. This was not at all a waste of money and time.

“Excuse me.” A young man squeezes past their lopsided circle blocking pedestrian traffic. He checks his phone and they chuckle, imagining themselves his age in this new world.

“Hey! Can we ask you a question?”

He turns around, a good-natured young person ready to help these old men.

“Where are the most beautiful women?” They ask, to the point, no explanation.

The young man’s eyebrows lower. “The most — well, they all are beautiful when I think about it. So everywhere I guess.”

The old men chuckle again and rub their hands together. Looks like their plan worked! “Well can you show us one?”

The young man’s eyebrows lower more. He takes a step back, enough to separate himself but still close enough to be respectful. “Look, I don’t think you’re from here but we don’t think like that. Or, I mean, we don’t focus on that. But like I said, all women are beautiful so just see the next one you come across.” Then he turns and walks away, leaving behind the old men so similar to the stories he’d learned about from his parents and teachers.

Wait, were they — ? He shakes his head. Nah, no way these were the actual Circle of Men. Those were just stories.

The old men’s stomachs start to rumble. They didn’t eat during cold sleep and they ran out the door before the technician returned with their meals. But they can’t wait any longer to see their plan’s fulfillment so they hurry down the street, eyes searching searching and there! A couple, a man and a woman.

They all stare at the woman.

She’s wearing everyday clothes, walking shoes, no jewelry. She’s almost their age. But her eyes glow. She radiates. There’s something different.

What is it?

The old men stare harder and the woman shivers. She feels something unusual — groping eyes. She turns to glare at the offensive men. The man with her turns too and sees the old men. He frowns and leads his girlfriend away.

The circle of men point after the couple, excited but confused. Where were the supermodels? Above their chatter, a familiar voice calls to them.

“Surprised?”

The Circle of Men turn to see the project lead from their meeting. They wonder What are you doing here?

She reads their minds. “You’re not the only ones who entered cold sleep. I’m here to prepare you.”

The old men are confused. She didn’t seem to like them much so why worry about their well being?

“Oh, this isn’t concern for you.” She reads their minds again. “It’s for everyone else. Come on.” And she walks away, not looking back to see if they follow her. And they do follow because they have no idea what’s going on or who to call for help and she probably does.

They follow her back to the cryogenic building into a conference room. She gestures past a wall covered in screens displaying images of women working and waves to a table and chairs prepared for them.

They sit.

And she resumes her presentation.

“Our research discovered the biggest factor preventing all women from achieving beauty was a complex mix of internal and external factors. But we piggybacked off research into aging beliefs and hypothesized changing self-talk and self-perspective would give us the most results in a short time.

“Thanks to your generous donations, we were able to accomplish this. We hired micro and macro influencers to promote body neutrality. We paid the fitness and skincare industry to prioritize movement and health, not dieting. We paid the beauty industry to prioritize skin and hair science and minimize advertisements that made women feel not enough, like they need to do stuff to be sexier, hotter, younger…”

She coughs, getting upset again thinking about the reports she had read about this step’s difficult implementation.

“And we paid marketers to include women’s natural body hair in ads and gradually eliminate photoshopping. We owe a lot to photographers doing #nofilter #nophotoshop. They led the way for everyone else. Our campaign gained momentum in social media and then traditional media picked it up and spread it to the mainstream. The younger generations loved it. They were already heading in that direction anyways.”

There was more, a lot more, but she didn’t want to drown her audience so she skipped ahead to the end.

“Suddenly, women had more free time than any gadget had ever given them. After some existential crises, they moved more. They appreciated themselves more. They meditated and created and rested. And men asked why didn’t you do this all along? Women stopped apologizing for showing up with no makeup. They stopped comparing themselves to each other. They just existed. And their children learned how to appreciate themselves. And society’s appreciation for women grew and it gave mothers more help and this became help for all women. And that’s how we got a world full of beautiful women.”

And the old men glared at her. “So you did nothing to actually make women beautiful?!?” they yelled.

She shrugs. “Beauty is a side effect of our plan.” They stare at her.

She sighs. She’s planned this next part but wishes it wasn’t necessary. She taps the wall of screens and they all go dark, except for the largest center screen showing a close up of a woman’s face.

“Okay this is a woman from our time.” Then she taps the wall again and the screen splits in two to show another woman’s face. The men gape at the new image.

“She’s gorgeous! Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

She takes deep, calming breaths. “And this is a woman from now. As you can see, the woman from our time religiously followed all the beauty advice. And the woman from now has not done anything specific for beauty. She just lived her life and rested. Oh and she’s 10 years older than the other woman.” Not like it should matter. But she knew it mattered in their time.

The old men shake their heads. “So how did you really do it?”

She swallows an irritated sigh. “As mentioned, we made beauty a side effect and not the goal.”

The old men can’t believe it. “That’s it? We could’ve done that ourselves.”

She raises an eyebrow. Sure you could have. “Congratulations, gentlemen. Your plan was a success.

The men open their mouths but nothing comes out.

She smiles bigger. “As a woman, I personally want to thank you for improving our lives. We’re truly grateful.”

They accept this with a silent nod. They got what they wanted, didn’t they?

Just not the way they imagined.