The Trouble with Women

Prologue

"Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power."

Gloria Steinem

WHAT LITTLE POWER we had left — and it wasn't much: a well-trampled battlefield, a territory of porous borders that we'd held onto only because they hadn't figured out how to move us from it — we gave it away.

We shuffled demurely inside paper gowns, hopping up onto the crinkling paper of our doctors' exam tables. We quietly put our feet into cold metal stirrups and, blushing, let our knees fall apart. It was a humiliation we were accustomed to, the annual exam being something you just endure. You stare off into the middle-distance and imagine it's happening to someone else—some other woman. And in a few moments, it's done. You can return to yourself, reclaim your territory, a throbbing little reminder deep up inside that someone's been there, scraping and poking.

Only this time, they left something behind.

It had all been explained in advance. The government's refrain of population control as a key lever in the war against climate change had started drumming softly in the new year, escalating toward a hammering crescendo by summer—an expert orchestral manoeuvre conducted by PR people; the Prime Minister, their first chair.

The first movement: lento
A slow, steady bass line that warms us to the key messages. Climate Crisis. Population Control. We're only exploring options.

The second movement: andante
The message picks up its pace. We're consulting with global experts—medical scientists from China and India, where they've had much success restraining birth rates.

The third: allegrissimo
The message has a life of its own now. Commitments have been made, options have been closed, all under the close cover of policy. We are decided and sure. Population control is the only effective way forward.

A co-ordinated rollout is announced. Informative pamphlets are mailed to every home. Subway posters appear featuring happy-looking couples enjoying child-free existences. Chirpy pull quotes hammer home how we ought to feel about the opportunity and responsibility we bear as women. They imply that we are foot soldiers—swathed in pink cashmere and pinchy lace undergarments rather than anything so gender-confused as camouflage, but soldiers nonetheless. And since our role is so important in the battle to save our livable planet, we are bound by duty to answer the call when it comes:

To get the implant. To give the government control over our fertility.

It's in our best interest, they underscore. Untangling desire from procreation will allow us to fully embrace our rights as women to a fulfilling sex life. The ultimate birth control, without any of the adverse side effects. No weight gain, no breakouts, no breakage. A sure thing.

We are being freed to let loose our hidden slut. To copulate as much as we like. As much as our men like might be hidden in the subtext, but only a sexually-stunted cynic who isn't in touch with her own womanhood would say it.

Presto.

When our appointment cards arrived in the post, neatly printed on soft linen stock, you might almost have mistaken them for party invitations. We marked our calendars. We told our managers that we'd need an hour off. We scheduled babysitters or bikini waxes, preparing ourselves in whatever way we needed to. Because, of course, it wasn't an invitation. There was no option to RSVP.

And when our prescribed appointment date and time came, we dutifully appeared, brandishing our official documents and flashing our health cards.

You might be surprised to know how much effort and money went into the rollout. Of course, there's the issue of scheduling over 20 million appointments—that's one for every Canadian woman and girl over the age of 12–but that's nothing compared to the burden on the medical system, the gloves, the gowns, the speculums, the devices. All of that would cost, literally, billions.

Then there was the ongoing administration of the implanted devices. The tiny (pink, naturally) W-shaped devices work by preventing ovulation. Once they are implanted into the myometrium layer of a woman's uterus during a standard (slightly more painful than the usual) gynecological exam, the device issues an irregular digital current that disrupts her natural ovulation cycle. It was marketed to the public as simple, effective and, according to the government, easy enough to take out when a woman was ready to have a child—a far less simple process that would involve proof of financial solvency, genetic analysis and, of course, the consent of her male partner.

There were pockets of vocal skeptics who questioned whether billions spent locking down women's fertility was the most effective use of that kind of money. Wouldn't, say, carbon offsetting be a better way to go? Shouldn't we put it toward clean energy or even lab-grown meats?

But overall, at the end of the day, it was simpler to manage the climate by managing us.

Anyway, the Prime Minister assured the querulous public, a large chunk of the administrative costs would be donated by the pharmaceutical giant that had created the implant.

Revolut
The Next Sexual Revolution