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  • Blog

One Morning in the Life of Jared Denis

12/5/2020

 
Issue 11, Volume 17 

JOHN SATURA

The year was 2030.

Jared panicked as he reached up to pat his bean, his eyes darting left and right at the sea of wom*n surrounding him, all hairy armpits, FemmeParty-slogans-on-pins and smock dresses. “Oh Christ. Please tell me I didn’t forget my pussy hat!” he thought.
Picture
Image: Wikimedia Commons
You may be thinking, Dear Reader, that it’s rather odd for a man to be forgetting his pussy hat, or, if you are like me, your noodle may be bamboozled by the notion of a man having in his possession, let alone lamenting the absence of, a pussy hat. But cease your cerebrations and withhold your judgements, for you must remember that Jared is a creature of his times, not our times. 

Indeed, as Jared’s fingertips reached his head and he felt the soft, crocheted textures of the grotesque, pink titfer which ensconced his manly bonce each day, he realised his fretting was in vain. He had remembered it. “Thank God. That could have been the gallows for me.”

Aside from the momentary panic, this Monday morning had been like any other for Jared, a student of Melbourne Law School and a man incognito – well, I say ‘man’, for he was endowed with the old meat and two veg, but these days that is neither here nor there. True, Jared identified as a man in private, but publicly he was one of them. You had to be one of them. It was FemmeParty policy. He had risen at 7, rinsed his face and brushed his teeth in the wom*n’s bathroom on his floor (the spelling of that sacred word had been one of the first changes of the FemmeParty when it came to power – wom*n don’t need men to spell the finest of plural nouns, after all) and joined the rest of his fellow collegians for the Feminist Dance Theory class which preceded breakfast each AM. These classes were officially optional, but they were optional in the way that the customary three waves (one wave for each wave of feminism) to the mounted portrait of Josephine Steele, leader for life of the FemmeParty, at the end of dinner each day was optional – he did it because everyone else did at and the last thing Jared wanted to do was stand out from the crowd. He had always known that the less attention he drew to himself, the better. Hence the pussy hat, Dear Reader. You know how it goes, trees hiding in forests and so forth. He was a veritable chameleon, sans 360 degree vision. 

On this morning Jared had gone straight from his Feminist Dance Theory class to breakfast, back to his room to get his belongings for university and out onto the street, where he waited for the bus to Melbourne Law School each morning. 

You can imagine the almost orgasmic sigh of relief which coursed through Jared’s body as he lay his digits on his pussy hat atop his melon. He had remembered it. With that not insignificant crisis averted he could get back to doing what he did best – blending in. His preferred method, and the one which I would recommend, was to stare with a thin smile at the ever-open Everyday Feminism tab in his phone’s browser. As he tilted his bean downwards to do just that he caught sight of a tattoo in the most distinctly cursive text on the forearm of the wom*n opposite, 

Zie Zim Zir Zis Zieself

“That’s odd”, thought Jared, as the scales fell from his eyes and he detected the masses of tattooed forelimbs around him, “FemmeParty must have released a new policy over the weeke-” SCREECH. Thud, bump, crunch. Down goes Jared amidst a throng of Dr Martens, high waisted jeans, blue hair and lip piercings. All lay still for a moment, frozen in time like a Liberal voter’s social views, but slowly bodies stirred and lucidity returned. Scarcely a few seconds later, though it felt like an eternity, a cry came from the bus drivess, “Look, ladies, it’s a SlutWalk!” Suddenly, the pain from tender têtes and battered bosoms, in these times no longer protected from bother by brassieres, were precisely at the bottom of the agenda. The passengers heaved upwards into a frenzied maelstrom, crashing against the walls of the bus like a merciless ocean upon jagged rocks, seething and foaming hither and thither. The outward crush at the at the bus doors was only relieved by a merciful onlooker pulling the external emergency exit lever, the result of which was a truly monstrous cascade not dissimilar from pus leaving a boil. A truly ladylike scene, Dear Reader. The one-time bus-goers joined what was once a trickle, but now a torrent, of wom*n dashing out of shopfronts and cafes to line the footpaths in honour of the glorious, truly glorious spectacle of scantily clad wom*n flowing down the street. 

Truth be told, Jared, who was, without question, a simple man whose intelligence was often pointed out to be a distant second to the nearest lamp post, never quite understood the logic of SlutWalks. To him the concept of getting mostly naked and parading around was a rather odd protest against rape culture. In fact, when Jared thought about it he realised he had never even seen rape culture, or heard any first-hand stories about it. “But” he rationalised, “If it is in the FemmeParty’s Official History of The Nation, it must have existed.” In any case, Jared wasn’t one to complain about wom*n stripping down and taking to the streets. It suited him just fine and was a worthy distraction, something he always welcomed.

After a few minutes of incoherent yelling interspersed with the occasional bleating of, “Yaaaaas queen” – he was adept at fitting in with the frenzied mob by now – Jared slinked away to continue his journey to Melbourne Law School à pied. Unfortunately, Melbourne Law School was no longer the august organ society once knew it to be. Nevertheless, he would need to crack on tout suite if he was going to make it to his Discrimination Law: Continued, Continued, Again seminar. 

And make it he did. Most of the class passed in the usual way, in a padded room, Safe Space 106, with each class member afforded their choice of three comfort animals, and a mounted portrait of Josephine Steele front and centre. Jared was feeling rather adventurous on this particular Monday and so chose from amongst the menagerie the pangolin, Pytor, a beast whose reputation he thought had suffered something of an undeserved thrashing since the coronavirus saga of the past decade. I would be lying to you, Dear Reader, if I told you Jared passed the entire seminar in the company of this beast, for by the 3rd interval – it was FemmeParty policy, who had by now seized control of the means of education, to have 3 intervals for each 2 hour seminar – Jared had had a gutful of this wretched squirmer and understood why he was usually neglected. He opted to spend the remainder of the seminar solus homo.

There was one part of each class which Jared dreaded: the end. Though his timetable said his class finished at five-to-twelve, in practice the matter was decidedly different. Never content at showing their dedication to the FemmeParty by a mere three waves to the portrait of Josephine Steele, the competitive nature of Melbourne Law School’s students had mutated into such derangement that nothing short of rapturous applause would suffice to show one’s devotion. Indeed, such was the potency of political orthodoxy of the student body that she who stopped clapping first was deemed least-dedicated to the FemmeParty. It was survival of the fittest; may the strongest woman survive. Though Jared did not feel any particular affection for the party which had single-handedly brought about the cessation of his, the unfairer, sex, he could not afford to be noticed. The consequence of what you must agree is a frightful predicament in which to find oneself, Dear Reader, was that Jared would often have to spend upwards of seventy minutes, the period of time until the next class was due to start and the room was forcibly emptied, clapping like a loony just to avoid the wrathful gaze of his peers. The callouses do not bear imagination. 

And so, with the forcible removal of Jared and his, by now exhausted, classmates from Safe Space 106 came the conclusion of Jared’s morning. A morning like every other in the life of a student of Melbourne Law School and the last man in society.

John Satura is a third-year JD student.
cringe
12/5/2020 07:43:44 pm

cringe

red pill
12/5/2020 07:47:03 pm

BASED AND REDPILLED (is what I would say if I was a right wing loony)

noooooo
12/5/2020 07:52:44 pm

> saw post
> excited to see something new
> excited to see creative writing
> nooooo
> just noooooooooo

this ain’t it sir link
12/5/2020 08:18:19 pm

NEW: Rampant sexism but now with a thesaurus!

Part Deux
12/5/2020 08:19:59 pm

The wrathful gaze of his peers now envelops the author from the comment section.

Cute
12/5/2020 08:26:07 pm

Oh cool woke
*reads*
Oh no
*stroke*

(Perhaps the incredulity is meant to be the point? Is John actually very woke but trying to stir shit? Would he be willing to knit me my own vagina beanie? Asking for a friend)

Big yikes
12/5/2020 08:43:46 pm

Maybe asking the writer if they are submitting a satire piece, and then working with them to suggest some constructive edits would be a good idea.... Putting the De Min stamp of approval on this is pure cringe and does nothing to advance a substantive discussion nor provide entertainment.

If De Mins entertainment value now only comes from fighting in the comments, an article that advances a clearer point would be best.

If the point being drawn is that there are more women in the law school, it will be a shock to the writer if (heaven forbid) they enter practice and see the tables turn. If the point is that they are scared to offer an opinion, and the comments will somehow be a proof of his thought experiment, time to grow up. You are free to say whatever you want in the law building, and people are equally free to think you are a meme who should spend less time on 4Chan.

Joe Rogan is a false god.

Exactly.
13/5/2020 01:03:06 am

The old DM teams would help authors edit and make their articles clearer. Needs to start happening again. See

Freak Bitch
13/5/2020 10:03:24 am

All gods are false.

sad
12/5/2020 08:45:03 pm

lol that someone actually spent time writing this

Who let's this stuff get published???
12/5/2020 09:01:14 pm

The real dystopian future would be one where anybody thought that this no-effort, edgelord tripe was actually good. What a load of cringey crap. Honestly surprised that somebody so immature made it to the third year of law school.

Will Harris
12/5/2020 09:05:15 pm

Yo this is Karl Pilkington level dumb. Swing and a huge miss.

Riley
12/5/2020 09:13:00 pm

So should I assume that WH did not write this?

SLIM SHADY
12/5/2020 09:17:42 pm

Will the real WH please stand up?

The Other WH
12/5/2020 09:25:33 pm

Please don't do my boy Karl like that

Ugh
12/5/2020 09:15:43 pm

This article made me want to die, moreso than property law at least

Um
12/5/2020 09:37:02 pm

Imagine being 12 years old

The Dark-haired girl
12/5/2020 10:08:51 pm

CW: rape culture, sexual assault

Look, I'm not confident that I completely understand the author's intentions but...

Is this really meant to be drawing on the language and themes in George Orwell's 1984 to suggest that women/feminists and LGBTIQ+ people are akin to a ruling party in a totalitarian state?

It is deeply disturbing that the author seems to be implying 'rape culture' is a fiction created by a powerful class. The author is (seemingly) attempting to ridicule those in power, but is actually just ridiculing victims of violence and discrimination.

If the author's character has never heard a first-hand account of rape culture, it's because no victim of rape culture has trusted him enough to confide in him.

Also, rape and the control of female sexuality can be seen as a theme in the novel that inspired your piece. And if you read one of Orwell's memoirs, Down and Out in Paris and London, there is a chapter in which a male character boasts about committing a sexual assault in a bar. I'm not saying Orwell was a feminist author by any means, but he did try to make his works reflect society. For many women reading his works, it's possible to identify descriptions of a misogynistic culture that are chilling because it's a culture that we recognise, one that still hasn't been totally overcome.

(If I've misunderstood and the author was actually trying to satirise misogyny, then I think they unfortunately missed the mark!)

beg2differ
13/5/2020 11:54:12 am

I disagree. I don't think suggesting that rape culture (the idea that rape is normalised and pervasive - according to the Wikipedia page) is a fiction necessarily ridicules victims of violence and discrimination.

Believing that rape culture is a fiction in this day and age does not equate to believing sexual assault/harassment isn't an issue facing society. Obviously.

It is possible to simultaneously sympathise with said victims and think that rape culture does not exist.

Just to clarify
13/5/2020 09:53:02 am

The word you were looking for is sexism not satire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNuPcf8L00

Exactly
13/5/2020 10:34:38 am

It really is just a whole lot of sexist imagery hashed together, with a heavy dose of disgust at women's and non-binary people's bodies.

The piece mentions underarm hair, women going braless, piercings, hair dye and tattoos, as if those things are horrifying. And it even describes a pink pussy hat as 'grotesque'!

Reactions to feminism and LGBT+ activism depicting activists as ugly, disgusting or scary are as old as the feminist and LGBT+ movements themselves.

If women and LGBT+ people speak out against violence or exclusion, their appearance is often ridiculed in an attempt to silence them.

Big wang on my head (IT'S A HAT)
13/5/2020 11:46:33 am

Wouldn't a giant wang hat be grotesque? Would thinking so make a person is a misandrist?

Why can't one think a hat made to look like genitals is grotesque?

Big pussy on my head
13/5/2020 02:43:20 pm

@big wang on my head

Google ‘pussy hat’ my friend I think you’ll be surprised by what you find. Ain’t nothing grotesque about it. Born out of the fight to reclaim the word ‘pussy’ after Trump’s revolting statements came to light. An important social symbol of solidarity against people that would seek to take your bodily autonomy from you, that is pretty sullied in this article.

You have been played
13/5/2020 11:16:03 am

For all those people getting upset and decrying this piece, which is clearly absurdist and satirical, as sexist (duh!), or even calling for DM to censor pieces like this (for God’s sake!), don’t you see that you have been played?

The author knew the overwhelmingly stifling political culture of MLS was primed to burst forth in response to this piece. You gave him what he wanted.

By being publicly outraged and signalling your virtue you are effectively taking the place of those students in the story who stand clapping endlessly to the portrait of Stalin - - I mean Steele. You have shown yourselves to be the worryingly censorious, fragile and politically homogenous bloc which anyone with any experience in the political culture of MLS (and dare I add universities in general?) knew you would show yourselves to be.

Your reactions are depressingly mundane, frighteningly predictable and, frankly, disturbing.

Was it well written? It’s arguable. What is not up for debate is that you were made to look like the caricatures you are.

'Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children'

Disagreement is not persecution
13/5/2020 11:46:20 am

Sure, sometimes the majority of students will agree that a particular viewpoint is flawed or prejudiced, but that doesn't amount to totalitarianism. In fact, most of the comments are critically engaging with the content of the piece. Anyone who disagrees with the comments has the opportunity to respond.

Someone could play Devil's advocate by writing a De Min article on any number of topics - someone could say that carjacking is harmless and should be legal, that economic inequality never existed, that climate change is a conspiracy, that we should assume people are guilty until proven innocent, or that democracy should be replaced with one-party rule. The response of the majority of law students (strong disagreement) would be just as predictable as the response to this article.

Just because an opinion is unpopular and most people disagree with it (and say so) doesn't mean that the person who holds that opinion is persecuted. The comparison to totalitarian regimes where people were killed or imprisoned for expressing different views is absurd.

Also, given that most of the comments are anonymous, who is signalling their virtue?

Not the author, or OP, but ...
14/5/2020 06:18:16 pm

"most of the comments are critically engaging with the content of the piece"

Most of the comments are being critical, whilst engaging the piece. That isn't necessarily critical engagement. Stating that the views of the narrator are wrong isn't really critical engagement here. I mean, it's clearly satire, and the views of the narrator are contrived for the effect of conveying a message.

I think critical engagement involves discussing whether people should be denigrated for holding contrarian views, which is what I think the author is trying to get across.

RIGHTO
13/5/2020 01:30:38 pm

Clearly this comment was written by the author.

Nobody else but the author would suggest that it is arguable that this piece was well-written.

Lol
14/5/2020 11:47:40 am

Honestly, the constant repetition of “dear reader” took me out. I was transported to my Year 7 creative writing class warning us not to use dreadful cliches.

Simon
20/5/2020 09:02:58 pm

And just like that, their eyes were opened and they stepped out into a new dawn of being woke to the dangers of being too woke.

Cringe
14/5/2020 11:14:15 am

This is what happens when reddit shuts down r/incels


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