If only we'd listened between the lines

[August 5, 2046] Tomorrow is my first day at the new school. Ma is crying as they drop me off at my dormitory with my trunk. I know I'll never see them again after this, but it's what happens to every girl my age. Maybe the papers in the parcel will explain why she's so upset?

Two weeks ago at my tenth birthday party, Pa gave me a set of uniforms for the new school year including the stockings and shiny black heels I'll have to wear every day now. Ma gave me the tools that are required for the school - wooden spoon and spatula, rolling pin, sewing kit, hormone pills, etiquette guide, and my individual crystal and china place setting. When she was tucking me into bed, Ma gave me a wrapped parcel that she told me not to open until I was sure that I was alone and no one would see. It looks like a stack of letters and old newspapers? I tried to ask her about it, but she got nervous looking over her shoulder and told me not to mention them to anyone, especially not Pa. That was confusing, Ma and Pa are always together and she doesn't do anything he doesn't know about.

[October 1, 2046] It's been eight weeks of school already, so today starts the week of our first examinations. Every day this week we are cooking lunch for one of the auditors, the recipe and ingredients for their chosen meal are sent to us ahead of time. For this first round we only have 6-8 hour preparations, but the older girls said that by Spring examinations some auditors will send recipes with multi-day preparations! We cook in the classroom kitchens, with the windows, so that the auditors and our headmistresses can observe us during the task and make note of our cleanliness and skill. We then serve them the meal at a table we've set for them, another rated task, and stay nearby for beverage service and to take away their plates. The older girls said no one has ever been kicked out for the lunch examinations, at least. Once we've cleared the table and cleaned up from the lunch service, we take our own lunch in the dining hall with the rest of our class.

Each evening we have a different examination. Tonight is sewing and mending - for this first round of examinations I'll likely be darning socks for the auditors or maybe hemming pants. By the second year the older girls have to measure their auditor, then pattern and sew a brand new shirt or pair of pants for him. They said last year the final examination was to sew a full tailored wedding suit for the auditor who selects you, and a wedding dress for yourself - with veil and gloves! At least they said there was a week allowed for that examination.

I still haven't been able to open the parcel from Ma, as my roommate is quite often around. Each of us is supposed to be taken on a day trip before second examinations to see the skills we learn in practice at the home of an academy graduate, so I'm hoping I can open it when she's away for her visit.

[October 13, 2046] My roommate is away today, so I was finally able to open the parcel when we returned to our rooms for pre-inspection housekeeping after lunch. I haven't had a chance to read through everything yet, only skimmed a few papers so that I still had time to clean, but I don't understand.

It would seem that Ma gave me a stack of letters and news clippings from Chicago in the years 2023-2029, but the world they describe living in is nothing like this Chicago. They talk about women going to not only high school but college, about abortion being available in not only the illegal horrible clinics we've heard about but legally?! Done by doctors and in hospitals? There were protests everywhere, and there seems to even have been a woman who ... ran for President of the United States in some sort of election?!? It sounds like this is when President Don Jr's father, Donald Trump Sr, must have become President of the Union.

The rights they were trying to keep ... I didn't even know the Union ever had them. Abortion aside, birth control was legal? Pills and implants and injections existed that stopped women from having babies? Not only were there elections at all levels of leadership, but the women could vote as well as the men?? The letters speak of "ex-husbands" as if women were able to divorce these men and just... keep on living as they were? Not be deported, or imprisoned, or killed? I need to read more of these, but the inspectors will be here soon.

[December 23, 2046] I leave in the morning for my first holiday alumna visit, but my roommate left tonightfor hers so I had to read more of the papers Ma gave me.

Deep in one of the articles from 2025, it mentioned something called a 'pedophile'? It speaks of men who spent time with boys and girls, so I wonder if they had a specific word for men like the auditors before the academies were created? I've never heard anyone use the word, but the article speaks of them as if it is something illegal and immoral. It does seem as if there is a particular distaste for the upper class and those with money at the time, so perhaps it's just because of that - the auditors are able to select their wife through the academies' rigorous processes because they have the means. I don't know how lower class men obtain a wife. If they get a girl pregnant she of course by law would marry them or face the penalties, but that can't be the way all men without money obtain wives.

I must go finish packing for my trip! From Christmas Eve through New Years Day we spend time staying with alumnae from last year's graduating class of the academy and their families, and it's supposed to be a wonderful time. The older girls say that the homes are always gorgeous and elaborate, and the babies that were growing in some of their bellies during our day visits are often newly born. I can't wait!

[April 28, 2047] This week is our fourth and final first year examinations, where the auditors will make their selections for whom they'd like as their summer interns. I hope I get picked - one of the older girls wasn't picked last summer and she had to stay at the school repeating her weakest coursework until her fingers bled. They didn't even give her Saturdays or Sundays off like we have during the school year, just two days to recover whenever her fingers started bleeding and then they'd start up again.

I was finally able to read the rest of the papers in the parcel from Ma today, but I still don't understand what happened. It's hard to imagine the world described in the earlier articles and letters is the same Union of today - I wish I could talk to her about it. We're allowed to write letters to family in order to practice our calligraphy and language skills, but Pa reads all the mail first so there's no way I could ever get a message to her without him knowing. I'm attaching one of the later articles in this journal here, in case I lose the rest of the parcel, because this one is from when they first created the academies. It seems to be printed out from some sort of website before they shut down the World-Wide Web and instituted UnionWeb for national security? Everything about this is so confusing.

reddit: r/feminism - 3 days ago

Thoughts on today's news about "academies for girls" and child marriage reinstatement

Every time they said "women shouldn't" we should have read between the lines,

heard between the syllables what they weren't saying

When they focused on birthing, we should have known

Motherhood makes you vulnerable

makes you dependent

takes you out of the workforce

makes you poor

Increasing maternal mortality rates

takes you out of the equation entirely

They started with abortion but we should have seen

their sightline to birth control

the direct route they'd paved themselves to take it all away

how they wanted to control birth

to turn us into incubators

regardless of our wishes

regardless of our risk

regardless of viability

regardless of our life or brain death

When we found out how many had been to the island

assaulted mere children

raped, killed, and worse

We should have known they didn't want us grown

Every man who said he wanted his wife "traditional"

cooking in the kitchen

caring for their numerous children

hosting his friends and events

not participating

not drinking

not driving

not voting

not working

not thinking

we should have taken him at his word

We should have realized

the only ones who fit the mold

the only ones so easily controlled

were those too young to drink

too young to vote

too young to drive

too young to work

too scared to fight back

They showed us with the island what they wanted

and we should have believed them

But we didn't listen between the lines

or read between the notes

So now the law says

we're to send our daughters away

to schools to prepare them

to be perfect wives

to be perfect mothers

to be perfect victims

I'm going to try to hide the rest of the papers amongst my clothes and things when I pack, I think I can fit some behind the liner of my trunk because it's begun to peel and I need to sew it back up before travel inspection anyway. I hope they aren't found, or I'm sure I'll get in dreadful trouble. I can't imagine what the punishment would be for this sort of contraband as I've never heard of anyone having any, but I'm afraid that might just mean anyone discovered with it disappears.

I don't want to disappear.

I just want to finish school and marry an auditor - maybe one like the optometrist from my last lunch examination, whose last wife and son both died during childbirth and now he's all alone with six year old twins from his first wife who died giving birth to them - and I want to have adorable babies of my own.

That doesn't feel like being a victim, right? Every ten to eleven year old girl I know wants the same thing, that's why we love our time at the academy. The graduation ceremony with all the girls getting married to their auditors is a huge celebration, an extravagant and joyous occasion. I can't wait for mine next year!

I'm not a victim - this is all normal. It's just how things are now.