III.
Hillary overslept as usual, and when she woke up, she found it was just before noon on a weekday. Blue-collar men had already been at work for some five or six hours at that point, yet she didn’t care to get her head up from the pillow before then. Suddenly, she hears loud church bells announcing it’s noon. Didn’t Bill say that those spirits would show themselves now? I don’t see any spirits around here. Maybe he was wrong again. How typical of men – wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
As she’s deep in her thoughts, she’s surprised by a slap on her cheek, and turns to see who slapped her. She finds herself face to face with a strange being whose appearance is much too complex to describe in these few pages. Normal people would be horrified at its sight, yet to Hillary, it appears like a perfectly normal human being.
“I’m the spirit of feminism’s past,” the being introduces herself.
“Yeah, Bill said you were coming.”
“I’m about to show you a happier time when you hadn’t plunged into this insanity called feminism.”
“This insanity called feminism?!”
“Yep. Believe it or not, but there was actually a time before you were this notorious feminist you are today. Come, grab my robe and let me take you there.”
Though hesitant, Hillary grabs the robe and sets upon a tour of her past.
IV.
Young little Hillary is sitting at her bench in her preschool, not even seven years of age yet. Being a traditional school, it’s stocked with plenty of Barbie dolls that would usually have all the girls playing with them. But this year, due to neglect on the part of the ordering clerk, they found themselves one doll short. Almost all of the girls are happily engrossed in playing with them and the accompanying Ken dolls, except for one: little Hillary. She’s trying her best to rein in the tears, but they still run down her cheeks. Not that the other girls notice her crying, no; the dolls have got them much too preoccupied for them to do that. But the passing headmaster, a middle-aged, balding man, notices her distress and walks up to her.
“What’s on your mind, my good little girl?” he asks.
“Oh…I…I just miss home, that’s it. Yeah, I miss being at home.”
“But your parents wanted you to be here and make some friends.”
“Yeah, that’s unfortunate. I just want to be back home.”
Confounded at first, the man looks out into the room at what the other girls are doing, and realises they’ve all got their own dolls. Yet there’s no doll on Hillary’s desk. “Where’s your Barbie doll?” he asks.
“I don’t care about that stupid thing,” she replies.
At this point, the headmaster has great sympathy for little Hillary’s plight and decides he has to get her something to play with at least. Stepping outside of the classroom briefly, he notices a book with the title The Big Dummy’s Guide to Government on a shelf. He grabs it and returns to Hillary.
“Maybe you’ll find this book fun,” he says while handing her it.
She immediately opens it up and starts reading, and doesn’t stop reading until the day is over and her father comes to pick her up. The headmaster is delighted at being able to get his pupil happy again.
V.
Hillary is just out of high school and has an internship at the Democratic Party headquarters as a young volunteer. There’s a decent amount of buzz going around in the office, with some of the volunteers wanting to connect with the party’s and the country’s traditions, whereas others want to be a force of change. Hillary hasn’t quite made up her mind yet. But what she has seen is that there’s a confident-looking man with her in this office, who has her ignoring all the others. His name is Bill, and unlike her, he’s an actual employee. Hillary makes this place her second home, and spends an ever greater portion of her time here.
VI.
A few years later, Hillary and Bill are a couple, and they’re attending a party hosted by one Mr. Fezziwig, head of the headquarters where she works. The atmosphere is incredibly jolly, with Fezziwig and wife celebrating their 20 years of marriage. Inspired by the sight of these two, it doesn’t take long for Bill to propose.
“You know, Hillary…what do you say, how about we tie the knot?”
“Marriage, you say? Are you sure it’ll be such a good idea?”
“I’m sure it will.”
“But what about our political careers?”
“I’m sure we can manage those on the side.”
“Those on the side? But those should come first! How about this: we get to have our politics, but have a family on the side?”
Somewhat annoyed, Bill still lets out, “Sure.”
***
For all installments of “A Feminism’s Carol,” click here.
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Daniel Hammarberg is an aspiring literary heavyweight, an IT everything-under-the-sun, a persecuted thought criminal, a former strongman competitor, and an all around swell guy. His main English-language site is DanielHammarberg.com and he lives on a formerly white island in Sweden that sadly gets ethnically darker with each passing day.
