A/n : I know! I'm back after, what? Nine months? Sheesh! I am very sorry – but I have been busy with other work (check out the original fiction in my profile, please!)

Anyway; two updates! This “chapter” and the next. They are quite different from each other in tone and what they say, so – if you are going to review – please give a review for each, ya know?

I must say, this chapter was fun to write. It was very enjoyable to “think like the enemy” and work gradually from reasonable to demonic in less than three pages. I'll be interested to see at what point readers say “Hang on – she's suggesting what?!?”

Please – review! I want to see what people think.

Interlude : Women's Work

(an editorial written by The Right Honorable Susan Pevensie MP, Her Majesty's Prime Minister, and published in The Times of London, December 8th 1960)

I have written and spoken to you, the people of Great Britain, on more than one occasion and I have done so as many things. I have spoken as a humble footsoldier in the New British Order, as a Member of Parliament and as Prime Minister. I have spoken as a fellow citizen and as one who understands your hopes and fears and needs.

Today I write to you as a woman – and simply and only as a woman. But I do not write only to those of my gender, and what I have to say is of great importance and relevancy to both sexes. Right-thinking women will rejoice and agree with what I have to say (indeed, some of you may ask, nay will ask, “What took you so long to say it, Prime Minister?”) Our brothers and fathers and sons will have responses which are more complex, and may be informed not only by reason, logic and compassion, but also by resentment, reaction and the long-inculcated patriarchal norms of the society we have striven to remake in the image of the Future we can see so clearly.

Why do I say such things about the men in our lives? Why do I carry the assumption they may be incapable of correct-thinking? How can I hold such a view when many of the architects of the New British Order have been men? The answer is very simple, but because of the established norms of the old order may not be obvious.

As is well-known my inner circle of advisors is formed of twelve individuals, six men and six women, and this pattern is repeated as far as possible through the entirety of the New British Order. We all instinctively and subconsciously realize what motivates such a choice. However, for the entirety of human history men in power have attempted to suppress this simple and obvious truth.

We have been told that men and women are different, they they have different strengths and weaknesses. Men are stronger, more physical, more dynamic, but less emotional and excitable. For centuries, this has been the accepted truth, believed and acted upon by everyone in every civilized society. Of course, there was never an opportunity to empirically examine this theory before the twentieth century, and so this remained an untested assertion – akin in many ways to the belief denser objects fall faster than lighter ones.

But, like Galileo dropping weights from the Tower of Pisa – Galileo, who, lest we forget, was imprisoned and persecuted by a patriarchal Church afraid of losing its power – we have now discovered the lie behind this accepted “wisdom”.

In the process of a war between civilized nations it was made plain – owing to the necessity of women taking the occupational roles traditionally the preserve of men – the differences between the sexes are, at best, a minor divergence grossly exaggerated by social conditioning and, at worst, a blatant lie grotesquely perpetuated by the males holding the levers of power generation after generation.

Thanks to the tireless work of thousands of our sisters, daughters and mothers in factories and munition shops, the War was won – for it was by technology, the New Hand of Humanity, and not flesh and blood, that the dreadful specter of Nazism was defeated. Now is not the time or place to labor the obvious fact that the intellectual-fueled technology of the Allies defeated the blood-and-flesh powered ideology of the Axis – such a plain conclusion is at the heart of the ethos of the New British Order, but is tangential to what I have to say today.

Again, I say it was our sisters and daughters and mothers who won the War – and who revealed to us that we can win another war; the War Against Reaction. For they showed the world that our gender was just as capable as men in the traditional male role of breadwinner.

Why has this not been plain and obvious before? The answer is obvious, but is so shocking and unpalatable to sensibilities deformed by the centuries-long oppression of patriarchal society I almost hesitate to give it voice. The powers that be, the male elites who rule this world – the Church, the governments, the businesses, and, yes, even the husbands and fathers and “heads of the household” - have desperately suppressed this truth, and done all they can to perpetuate cruel injustices which fool people into believing the lie.

It is well-known that, even when women are allowed to perform the same job as a man, they are paid much less – thus devaluing their services. The logic seems inescapable, and is inescapable – because it loops back upon itself! It is purely circular; a woman is paid less than a man, so she must be worth less, and so she should be paid less. The idiocy of such an argument is plain to even the meanest intellect, yet the masters of the old order have crafted propaganda of such skill few if any have noticed the inherent illogic.

But no more. Employees of the New British Order and their families will know women and men are paid upon the same scale, judged by the quality of their work, the length of their service, and their qualifications – and never by a mere accident of gender. This policy has been in place since the earliest days of the New British Order, and was first viewed with quaint amusement, and then concern, and finally open scorn by traditional men with calcified minds.

No longer. What has been the policy of the New British Order will be the policy of the country. Laws will be enacted, fines devised, and participation mandatory. But even this is not enough.

What good is it if a woman is paid the same as a man for the same job if she is never considered for the job in question? Outside of the New British Order there are few women working in the upper levels of management in any industry, and in some spheres of employment (I am speaking primarily of the religious sphere) there are none. Although there have been great strides made by more progressive and forward-thinking members of the Anglican Church, there are still bodies who vehemently oppose any sort of equality between the sexes. Based upon the track record of the Papists, of course, this is hardly surprising.

Lest we forget, this is the organization who burned women at the stake because they refused to worship their Creator through the lens the Church offered to them; a lens which distorted that which can have no gender to the masculine. An organization which claims descent from a man who, in defiance of the masculine norms of the time, never took a wife and whose most loyal followers were women. It is an oversight on their behalf to have not more effectively suppressed the truth of the Magdalene's discovery – but I suppose they never expected their iron-hard grip on access to the Scriptures to falter. You all have much to thank those brave men who risked death and torment to bring the biography of the founder of Christianity to the people in the vernacular.

I digress. The attitude which does not foster equal employment opportunities is not, alas, something which can be simply solved with new laws and dictates from Westminster. This will require a radical change of hearts and minds, something which the New British Academy and other educational establishments will work tirelessly to achieve.

We must begin by re-examining the very notions of femininity and masculinity. Indeed, these words – feminine and masculine – must be carefully considered, and perhaps cast aside in our legislation. Certainly, the terms man and wo-man, and male and fe-male are almost certainly inadequate. Should our gender be defined simply as different from the male, as if male is the default and the norm, and female a weaker aberration or descent? Words are power; who controls the language controls thought, and for too long the patriarchs have controlled the vocabulary of our discussions.

For those of you who follow the press' expansive (and flattering, yet sometimes embarrassing) coverage of me will know I take great delight in beauty, in fine clothes and dressing well. It is the case that, because of the entirely legitimate power and authority I hold, I set fashion trends rather than follow them – but not all of my sisters are so fortunate. This is a sphere in which we must stand up and challenge the expectations of society. Why must we dress in a particular way? Whose are these standards of decency which we keep to? Just who set these expectations of dresses and corsets and veils and hats?

And not merely in attire, but in all aspects. Why do men drive and we do not? Can we not smoke, or swear, or fight if we so desire? Can we not undertake any action which is undertaken by men? If such behavior is acceptable for the males, why is it not for us? The only explanation possible is that men and women are different, but we know that is not true. And so the only conclusion is these are artificial restrictions placed upon us by those who want to keep us pliant, and cowed, and subservient.

I urge my sisters to challenge these norms, to push these boundaries. For certain, we will encounter resistance and there will be those who will push back – some of them may be your own gender! Every time you encounter such resistance ask yourself this question; is this resistance from outside, or is this the pull of the tether of my own, flawed and damaged expectations? Can I not stretch my atrophied sense of Self by pushing against this? Can I not grow into a greater and freer being by rejecting the norms of society? Can I not help others of my gender, weaker than I, by showing them the path to liberty and freedom?

I said earlier that legislation is not the key to the necessary changes of hearts and minds, but it is vital in supporting the shift from the old to the New. It is a simple, inescapable fact that women, while not weaker, are in a weaker position because of society's attitudes and even laws. Consider what happens to a woman who, out of love for a man, enjoys his company before marriage. She is branded a harlot, while nothing is said of the man at worst and, more often, he is feted by his friends as a virile and boisterous example of masculinity.

A man may desert his wife and children (usually for a girl who has not had her figure ravaged by motherhood) without any ill effects in society, yet a woman who runs from an abusive drunk to the arms of a brave protector is vilified. The examples of this are legion, and space and my own discomfort with this injustice forbids me from continuing.

This hypocrisy, this double-standard must stop and will be stopped with new laws – laws which not only address the issue of divorce, but also the rights of a woman over her own body. A man may enjoy the company of women with no ill effects, yet a woman always has the specter of pregnancy hanging over her. A man may (and usually does) flee his responsibilities but a woman has no choice, for the responsibility she faces grows inside and upon her.

The New British Order will not allow such a cruel misfortune, an accident of nature, the whim of the organic, to continue. The rights of women to their own bodies, to control their fecundity, to bring their flesh to heel, must be respected and supported by the laws of this great nation. The injustice which allows men liaison without consequence while punishing women with unwanted babies will no longer be tolerated.

Of course, this injustice cannot be blamed on the patriarchs! But it is certain they have taken advantage of it, just as much as men have, for centuries, taken advantage of the physical frailty of women to force themselves on innocent maidens. Laws will change this. The legislation of this land will allow women access to effective means of contraception and this government will sponsor and fund research into better and more effective means, and bring them within the reach of all women who desire them, taking away forever this weapon from the hands of men.

But even this is not enough. Contraception will give women access to the freedoms men have always enjoyed. Pushing against the expected and unfair norms of society will, eventually, make those freedoms normal and expected. But until women have the same freedoms as men, there will be no true equality.

At any time during a pregnancy a man can walk away from his responsibility and duty. He can do so for many reasons – it may be a threat to the woman's life, the pregnancy may result in a deformed individual, he may simply change his mind. Men have the power to walk away from their responsibilities, yet women do not. This is clearly the greatest form of injustice – for even in a world where effective contraception is available and the rights of women to be as free as they wish are protected and enshrined, this freedom remains out of their reach.

Of course, it is eminently foolish to use the word “responsibilities” when one gender can avoid and ignore them and the other cannot. That would ascribe a power to men which women do not possess, something which must be and is eminently false. The only conclusion is that the duty to see an unwanted pregnancy through is no such thing. Women have the right to be able to choose what they will do with their own bodies, just as men do.

If that right is not respected by nature, then the State must enforce upon nature. We seek a more perfect world and are not slaves to the natural. We seek a supernatural order.

The term “supernatural” may seem out of place, but that is only because of ancient and foolish traditions with no moral currency and quite lacking in the essential ruthlessness required. We do not speak of the supernatural as the old would have it, but as the New means it. The supernatural is beyond nature, but is of it. It is made of nature, yet transcends it. It is technology and science – and the technology needed to grant the rights of women over nature's oversight is not new or inaccessible.

But it is normally unavailable, and at best difficult to obtain. When it is obtained, it is in back-alleys and with dirty instruments and at the hands of barely-competent surgeons who are a danger to the life of their patients – or should I say victims? It is unacceptable that in the twentieth century a nation which has won a great war stoops to such barbarous methods to grant fundamental rights to one half of its population.

No more. The New British Order and my government will not rest until we have brought the means of granting this basic right of gender equality into the light, and made is safe and legal. Safe and legal, and effective contraception will make it rare. Too many women die seeking their inalienable right to liberty and the ability to live their lives. Safe access to post-conception family planning will prevent this tragedy.

This is what I and the New British Order seek. Not for ourselves, but you for you and your children – to give you a nation where everyone, male and female, has the same rights and opportunities. I have taken up this fight on your behalf, and I beg of you to join me.

For the fight will be hard and it will be long, but – in the end – we will be victorious. The forces of reaction, the patriarchal institutions, the masculine elites who cling to the levers of power will be swept aside. They will all yield and learn – as many have – that opposing the power of History itself is a futile gesture. They will join us or be crushed underfoot.

Sisters, join me. Sons, cast aside your attachment to dominance and accept that together we can truly make this nation free. Grant to your mothers the freedoms you have long enjoyed, and help us impose our unified will on the injustices of nature.

The time is long overdue.