After the fourth fake election process, people were really starting to wise
up that their voices weren’t counting for all that much. Law after law was
being passed, limiting women’s rights more and more. Nobody wanted to try
for another revolution, but things were definitely not going to get better
without one. It seemed that the only option was to secede from the union,
and break the algebra apart once more. One might think this movement would
be struck down swiftly and definitively, but Republican loyalists still only
ever wanted to solve their problems through deception, spin, and other forms
of strategery. The day they instigated war was the day they lost the
approval of all the civilians who were at least happy that their lives were
safe and secure. Many women were starting to get used to the new system, and
didn’t complain anymore, because the more they opposed the rules, the worse
those rules became, and the harder things got for those who didn’t support
them. The female spirit could not be crushed, though, and there were still
plenty of people who did not want to live under the man’s thumb. They didn’t
want to revolt either; they just wanted to live their lives in peace.
Perhaps the only way to do that would be to strike out on their own. They
worked slowly, just as the phallocratic movement started way back during the
Interstitial Chaos. They quietly built support, and gained momentum. They
followed all the rules, and pleaded their cases in the appropriate ways. The
only women working towards this goal had support from their husbands,
leaving the ones without it with their mouths shut, only able to hope this
would somehow also help them. Still, the Republicans made no attempt to shut
them all down, because they did not want public opinion to sway out of their
favor. In fact, they agreed to the secessionists’ pleas, but of course, they
had some conditions.
The first and most important condition was that the settlers were not to
interfere with the affairs of Aljabara, nor make any attempt to war with
them, or steal resources. Fine, they didn’t want to have anything to do with
the city anymore anyway. Secondly, not only did some men have to agree to go
to the settlement with them, but there had to be a certain ratio of
interested people, according to gender. Well, that made things a little more
difficult, but not impossible. Not every man’s life was super great under
this regime, and many of them saw the ratio as beneficial to them. Lots of
daughters who did not yet have husbands wanted to go, which sons without
wives saw as a numbers advantage. The one condition that made it clear that
the administration had less than no respect for women was that the
government would be allowed to name this new settlement for them. They
decided to call it Ladytown, principally because of how stupid it sounded.
That wasn’t their only reason, though. By now, misogyny was ingrained in
society as the way things were. All children alive at this point had grown
up under these rules, and if they were ever told how civilization once
worked, they possessed no context, and couldn’t fathom it. It sucked to be
born a girl, and boys were aware of this fact, unlike on Earth, where many
guys were oblivious to their own privilege. The government’s requirement
that some men sign up to go with, in the government’s eyes, was
contradictory to the name. What man would want to live in a place called
Ladytown? Well, maybe the older ones would if they had fewer prejudices.
They added an age mandate, which required there be a certain number of
younger men, in order to combat the idea further, but as explained,
this wasn’t too much of a problem either, since these younger men hoped to
find wives, and some were secretly okay being with a bunch of independent
women, in a settlement called Ladytown, without the comforts and freedoms
they could find in Aljabara. In 2117, Ladytown was founded on the other side
of Watershed. They complied with all conditions, and didn’t make trouble.
They didn’t last forever, though.
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