Debbie Irontwat took a deep breath as she prepared to storm the White House with her brave she-warriors. After years of rereading Jane Austen novels and taking elective classes in Fem Lit at her local community college, she now had enough experience and expertise to tell the president how to run the country. All she needed to do was have the White House spokesperson pass on her ideas—which he’d already agreed to do.
It was time to kick some gender-neutral butt.
Debbie marched into the White House, her fellow feminists at her side. A man greeted her at the door. “May I help you ladies?”
Wow, they’re insulting me right off the bat, Debbie thought.
“If by ‘ladies’, you mean vagina-bearing persons of the x-chromosome—or just vbpotxcs—then yes. I was invited to speak with the White House spokesperson after my petition on Feminismistheonlywaytoequality
“Right this way please, ma’am.”
“Ugh, excuse you, sir.”
“Hmm?”
“You just called me ma’am.”
“Okay?”
“That’s sexist.”
“It is?”
“Of course!”
“Sorry, I didn’t know that.”
“Also, why are there 10 paintings on the wall behind you of men and only 1 of a woman?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ugh,” Debbie grunted. “Typical male chauvinism. Okay, lead the way, peasant.”
The peasant led Debbie through the White House, though in all honesty, it shouldn’t have been called the “White House” but instead “the house of sexism and misogyny,” as literally everything about it was filled to the brim with overt hatred of women, such as the bathrooms they passed: the Men’s bathroom was on the left, and the Women’s bathroom was on the right. What exactly where they trying to suggest here by doing that, huh? Debbie didn’t know, but it was definitely sexist. Just like every video game.
After a brief walk, they entered a small office. Debbie’s she-warriors were forced to wait outside, as this would be a one-on-one meeting. The man—of course it was a man, go figure!—she was meeting was named Steve Oberman, and Debbie knew right away she didn’t like him: he was tall, handsome, and had good teeth. That’s totally sexist. But not as sexist as what he did the moment she entered.
Without any regard for the fact that she was a human being deserving of respect and fair treatment, the man, Steve, pulled out her chair for her. What was he going to do next? Slap her in the face and rape her? Seriously. He pulled out her fucking chair!
“Umm, excuse me, sir,” she growled. “Do I look like I don’t have arms?”
“No, Miss Irontwat.”
“Then why did you pull out my chair?”
“Because … when a—” He stopped as if catching himself.
“When a what?” Debbie demanded. “When a woman? Is that what you were about to say?”
“I guess.”
“Typical chauvinist pig. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to pull out my chair for me?”
“But you said…”
Debbie sighed. “Seriously? You’re confused?”
“A little.”
“And this, Mister Oberman, is why Violence Against Women is at an all-time high. Because you just don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get?”
“Of course I want you to pull out my chair for me. But I want you to do it while making remarks about how equal I am and that the reason you’re pulling out my chair is because I’m a person and not a woman.”
“Ah, understood.” Steve pulled out her chair and said, “I recognize your equality, and this gesture of chair-out-pulling holds no significance in relation to your gender.”
Good. Maybe he can learn after all. Now, it’s time to change the world and save women everywhere.
Steve took his own seat. Then, in a disgusting act of hatred against women, his eyes immediately met hers—as if he was going out of his way not to stare at her breasts. That was sexist. What, should she be ashamed of the fact that she had breasts? She was a feminist! They were there because they were meant to be looked at. And here he was pretending they didn’t even exist like she should be ashamed she had them at all. How sexist!
A second later, he quickly stole a peek at her breasts.
How sexist! What, was she some kind of object for his amusement? Was he going to jump over the table next and throw her down and do butt things? There were always butt things when you dealt with people like this.
“Well, I’m glad you could come.”
“You’re glad?” Debbie asked. “Ugh! Ingrained Jane Austen societal micro chauvinistic sexism right there!”
“I see … so anyway, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“A pleasure to … finally meet me?” Debbie resisted the urge to throw something at him. How many things was he going to say that were sexist and discriminatory until he’d finally had enough?
“Let me just get right to the point,” Debbie said. “Women in America are suffering: they aren’t being paid equally, they are harassed at the workplace, and they don’t always have the same opportunities.”
“I agree,” Steve said excitedly. “Very much so. In fact, my wife went through much of that.”
“Your wife?” Debbie asked. “What, is she your property or something? Jane Austen, motherfucker! I READ HER BOOKS!”
“I see … so anyway, yes, I agree. These are serious issues in desperate need of change.”
“And that’s why I’ve come,” Debbie said. “Because you’re not attempting to fix things the proper way: the feminist way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re trying to introduce new laws that force women to be paid the same amount of money and to give them the same opportunities while making workplace harassment illegal.”
“Yes, and?”
“And!” Debbie snapped. “That’s not going to fix the problem.”
“Then what is?”
Debbie grinned. “I’m glad you asked. In order to make women receive equal pay, the answer is not to pass a law requiring them to receive equal pay, but to ban the color pink from being sold in little girls’ toys.”
“Wait, what?”
“Also,” Debbie continued. “Little boys must play with dolls, while little girls must play with toy guns. Even though they might hate it and cry, that will fix everything. Secondly, all video games must be banned unless they portray a female character as the hero.”
“I’m not following.”
“Of course you’re not, but listen anyway. And the reason you’re not following is because of ingrained, societal, Jane Austen, cultural, society, sexism ingrained culture society preexisting gender stereotypes conformity.”
“I see…”
Debbie shook with anger as she continued. “Today I was watching a commercial. They were selling a hair product. And every actor in the commercial was female. And the bottle was pink! It’s almost like they’re trying to get us raped … on purpose!”
“I don’t understand.”
“How do you not understand? You see, it’s simple. By allowing pink things to be targeted to women, and by allowing little girls to play with toys that little girls tend to enjoy, you’re making it so that men will want to commit violent acts against us. The only way to stop the violence is to market products and services to demographics who aren’t interested in them. Duh!”
“How come?”
“Because of DNA and RNA and shit and whatever. Try to keep up, Mister Oberman!”
“So … you want to ban these things?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to ban sexualized women in video games by making them not attractive?”
“No, no, no!” Debbie shouted. “Do I look like an extremist feminist to you?”
“No comment.”
Debbie ignored his rude remark. “What I want, Mister Oberman, is to have females made even more attractive since their bodies are nothing to be ashamed of. But what we need to do is hook up special devices to males that prevent them from getting aroused at the sight of the female form, as to do so is sexist and makes them hate women.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Irontwat, but I’m just not understanding your logic here.”
“Of course you don’t! Do you even know the definition of prejudice, Mister Oberman? Prejudice is when you make a judgment on someone before you even know them. And as a feminist, we believe that, because of ingrained sexism in our society, all men are at least a little prejudiced. All of them. Even you. You might not seem like it at first, but even though I don’t know you, I’m sure if I did get to know you I’d be able to find your hidden ingrained societal given Jane Austen Fem Lit making the world a better place sexism Gender Conformity equal rights!”
“I … I guess I’ll pass on your feedback. Thanks for coming, I suppose.”
“One more thing!”
“Yes, Miss Irontwat?”
“People have this crazy idea that feminism isn’t about equal rights anymore. So I always make it a point to show them the dictionary definition of feminism before I conclude any conversation with a man. As you can see here”—she removed a pocket dictionary and showed it to him—“Feminism is only, and I repeat, only about securing equal rights for women.”
She patted her legs and stood up. “Now that that’s out of the way, I do hope that, by next week, the color pink is banned, every commercial has at least one female character in it, and Jane Austen’s words will replace the United States Constitution.”
Before waiting for him to respond, Debbie spun around and soared out of the room. Hopefully, her message would get through, and she could make the world a better place for women everywhere. Because feminism was about fighting for equality the only way that made sense: the annihilation of certain colors on the visible spectrum of light, and changing the way children played with toys.
The End.
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