1990
De Paul University
Writing from the Inside
Teacher: Zoe Keithley
Once upon a time, there was this feminist. She lived in downtown Chicago, on North Michigan Ave – the ritzy area. In the 1990’s she was doing pretty well for a woman. She owned a major TV station, was CEO of a major advertising agency, and was president of her local NOW chapter. I know it is hard to imagine that women needed the National Organization for Women back then, but they certainly did. It is good for us to occasionally look back in history to see from where we have come.
“You are my best friend, I hope you will understand that I am not losing my mind. I am just so sick of the way men treat women I can hardly go on.” Says the feminist to her best friend.
“I do think that you are working very hard, and a rest might help you to cope with the jerks.” Says her friend.
“It is not resting that I need! I walk from my apartment to the studio, and I have to put up with catcalls, whistles, obscenities, and the degrading feelings that this treatment causes. Then I get to the station and despite being the owner I still am discriminated against by my peers in the business who do not include me in their “good old boy” network in which they share the industry’s goings on. I still have mountains of advertising proposals that I must reject because they are degrading to women. I face this shit every day, every other minute!” Says the feminist.
“You take this all so personal. All of us women do face this every day, but somehow we get by.” says her friend.
“How can you be the vice president of NOW and say that? How can you betray your own kind?” Says the feminist about to lose her cool.
“Because it takes so much energy to fight it all the time, I guess I just want to live and enjoy life. If I deal with my anger and rage all the time, I wouldn’t get anything done in the rest of my life.” Says the friend, now feeling a little guilty.
“I have hesitated to tell anyone this, even you, but I am desperate. I know how to access a female sorcerer, from the planet Orbious. This sorcerer was responsible for that planet finally obtaining equality for their women.” Says the feminist, wondering if her friend will think she has lost her mind. (Little do these ladies know, but history has already shown that it did take a sorcerer to solve the problem of women’s obtaining equality).
“Run that by me again, I think I’ve lost it.” Says the friend.
“Look haven’t you noticed that since women’s liberation started in the late 70s that the patriarchal system has dramatically increased its violence against women? The statistics show that I am right. Look at all the women killed by serial killers. Look at all the women beaten, shot, stabbed, and killed by their husbands. The courts don’t even send husbands to jail until they kill the woman. I feel that we are now desperate to get help for our fellow women – even if it is from another planet.” Says the feminist.
“OK, I’m with you. I cannot deny it anymore. What can I do to help?” Says the friend.
“The sorcerer is hidden in IBM computers; I have the password and the serial code number. Meet me at 4:00AM at my office and help me try to access her.” Says the feminist.
“OK, I’m with you. I cannot deny it anymore. What can I do to help?” Says the friend.
“The sorcerer is hidden in IBM computers; I have the password and the serial code number. Meet me at 4am at my office and help me try to access her.” Says the feminist.
“OK, I’ll see you in the am.” Says the friend.
Neither slept that night nor knew the impact their plan was to have on history.
“Good morning, you sure about this?” Said the feminist.
“Yeah, the more I thought about it the more I realize that its time to do something out of the ordinary.” Said the friend.
“You know men call the sorcerer a computer virus; they can’t explain her doings at times and of course would never guess that a sorcerer was in their computer – so the term computer virus.” Said the feminist.
(Little do these men and women know that this so-called virus, the sorcerer will be the only way that women ever find to obtain their equality and thusly save the entire species.)
“Is that what that is, I’ll be damned.” Said the friend.
“Here we go I hear the system checking itself now that I have turned it on. Here it is the C>.” Said the feminist.
“Oh God, this is scary.” Said the friend.
“Let me put in the password – Gizmo – . Look now the prompt says Gizmo. Oh boy, now for the serial code number – fe666wo666eq666.” Said the feminist as she entered the data into her system.
“There’s smoke coming out of the monitor, through the disc insertion slot and between the keys on the keyboard. I don’t believe this. What is going on.” Says the friend.
“Hey, I don’t know either.” Said the feminist.
As the smoke died down the ladies saw the screen turn into a large face. The face of a woman from another planet. She looks like our women except that she has a purplish hue.
“Hello. I am a feminist. I heard that you were responsible for obtaining equality on the planet Orbious. I was hoping that you could help our planet too.” Says the feminist.
The face doesn’t move, doesn’t change, or show facial expression. It just stares at them.
“Are you in their sorcerer?” Says the friend.
“I am here. I know all about your planet and its oppression of women. I can’t believe that you have waited this long to protect yourselves and your children. You have been allowing yourselves and your children to be tortured every day of their lives. This sickens me, but I am unable to help unless you seek me out.” says the sorcerer.
“I am ashamed of what has gone on earth. We have been so long in deciding enough is enough. Can you help us now?” Says the feminist.
“Yes, I can help. What exactly do you want?” Said the sorcerer.
“Well, we want to be equal with men.” said the feminist.
“You know that you are equal to men, so this is not what you need.” said the sorcerer.
“What do you mean we are equal?” said the friend.
“Just what I said, you are equal, the problem is that you are not perceived as being equal by society, men and women included.” said the sorcerer.
“Ok so what can we do to change the perception?” said the friend.
“You, feminists must use the TV station. For a 24-hour period, you must show one movie, the Exorcist, continuously. I will work my magic through the movie. I cannot explain the magic to you otherwise it won’t work.
There will follow a period of one week with all men staying in their favorite living room chairs looking as if they are dead – they are not dead but are undergoing megamorphenesis.” Said the sorcerer.
“What is that?” Said the feminist.
“Well it is not of your planet; this is a drastic spell that must be used when a group of people is bent on destroying itself. Your planet is not equipped with the mental ability to think at our level – obviously if women are seen as unequal on your planet you are not very evolved.” Said the sorcerer.
“How can we increase our evolution.” Asked the feminist.
“You can’t at this point. You can only begin by doing what I have told you. I must go now.” Said the sorcerer.
“Turn off your system and go on with your normal lives once the movie has started.” Said the sorcerer.
Neither of the women understood what was going to happen, but they knew they had to do something – women couldn’t take being oppressed any more. They showed the movie on her TV station as instructed. The sorcerer was right all the men stayed in their favorite chairs for one week. They knew this must be magic because no one thought that this was out of the ordinary.
The world went on without the men for one week. The women had a week without being victims, without being beaten, without being taken for granted, and felt free, competent, and functioned at amazing capacity. The women were growing at 100 miles an hour, according to Orbious measurements.
“Do you believe how things have been this week? I have not been degraded, insulted, or the victim of catcalls all week. How has it been for you?” Said the feminist.
“It has been beautiful. I have sailed through the days and have had a sense of accomplishment because no one has been putting down my work. No one has insinuated that it isn’t as good enough because I’m a woman.” Said the friend.
The men return to the scene after undergoing metamorphenesis. No one seems to think anything is wrong except the feminist and the friend. The men now see women as witches and fear them. The world is now full of cowering, sniveling men beneath the women’s feet.
“What is going on here, this process of megamorphenesis must have been missing an ingredient or something. Maybe it works differently here on earth.” Said the feminist.
“Yeah, its not what we wanted, we don’t want men afraid of us; we don’t want them to be oppressed by us – we were not looking to turn the tables.” Said the friend.
“Let’s get back into your system and talk to the sorcerer.” Says the friend.
“Ok, your right we have to fix the world’s men.” Said the feminist.
“Come on IBM, bring us the sorcerer. Here goes the password – gizmo – here’s the serial code number – fe666wo666eq666. God here comes the smoke again.” Says the feminist.
“What do you ladies want now, didn’t I fix your men?” Said the sorcerer.
“We didn’t want our men turned into children who feared us.” Said the feminist.
“We wanted to be seen as equal not feared.” Said the friend.
“Ok, let me try again, perhaps if I use phyenopotosis that will work.” Said the sorcerer.
“Go ahead use whatever you think will balance our world.” Said the feminist.
“At midnight tonight, all the men in the world will enter a deep sleep, stay in their beds for one month, and will require lots of blankets on them to ward off bad colds.” Said the sorcerer.
“Is there anything we need to do?” Said the friend.
“No just turn off this damn computer so I can get back to Orbious. Said the sorcerer.
The ladies turned off the computer. They saw the effects of the sorcerer’s work the next month. This time when the month was over and the men went on with their lives they did not know the difference between men and women. Can you believe that? Well, that’s what happened. The world was definitely topsy-turvy. No women got pregnant, there was no romance and everyone was lonely. We all had a feeling that something was missing. The men felt the same as the women at this time.
“Oh, we have another problem that we must go to the sorcerer with. We surely can’t let the world go on like this.” Said the feminist.
“I can’t believe that the sorcerer doesn’t understand what we want; she says her planet solved this problem.” Said the friend.
“Let’s go to my office and bring up the system again.” Said the feminist.
“I’m ready, let’s go.” Said the friend.
They brought up the system on the feminist’s IBM. They waited for the C> and put in the password then the serial code number. The sorcerer appeared as before after the smoke cleared.
“Ladies I have spent a great deal of time and energy on your requests. I have used my planet’s technological superiority to help you and look you’re here again bothering me. Why aren’t you busy enjoying your new world?” Said the sorcerer.
“The scientific process you used didn’t work the way we had hoped. The men don’t know the difference between themselves and us. There hasn’t been any romance, nobody got pregnant, and everyone felt lonely and like something was missing.” Said the feminist.
“So you do like the difference between men and women, you don’t like the men to fear you ladies, I am left with doing the most drastic thing ever. Are you ladies sure you want your planet tampered with?” Said the sorcerer.
“Yes, we can’t stand the world the way it is.” Said the friend.
“Ok, I will use frapomusion this time.” Said the sorcerer.
“Go back to your normal lives, do not contact me again ever. Do not ask any questions – just go.” Said the sorcerer.
The sorcerer made up frapomulsion, there was no such thing. She knew that the women actually had control over the men simply by virtue of the fact that they raise the children. All the sorcerer did was change the way women see themselves – that’s all that was necessary; when they saw themselves as great, worthy, powerful people equal to men they raised the sons from this vantage point and the sons grew up to see women as equal. That’s why we have the wonderful equal world that we do today in this year 2050.