Egalia's Daughters: Seeing Beyond the Cage Wires

In Egalia’s Daughters, fatherhood protection operates as a cage wire within the matrix of domination as it creates a state of financial dependence that deprives the menwim of fiscal autonomy. Within Egalian society, menwim are defined by domesticity and their role as child rearers. As “it is menwim who beget children” (Brantenberg, 9), they are confined to “two primary functions - breeding children and looking after them” (Brantenberg, 128). Their societal value is reduced to their rearing abilities - a responsibility only prescribed to menwim - making those who do not raise children “a disgrace to society” (Brantenberg, 89).

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Because of the emphasis placed on child raising, menwim are discouraged from pursuing other opportunities or potential careers. Both Petronius and his father, Christopher, serve as examples of these limitations fatherhood presents. From a young age, Petronius was told he could not be a seawom because of his future parental responsibilities. Simply taking the child with him to sea was not an option, as “what do you think the child’s mother would say?” (Brantenberg, 9) - a question that in and of itself signifies the wim’s domineering role in regulating the behavior of their menwim, as the mother’s objections alone are enough to limit Petronius’s actions. These parental responsibilities, and in turn, limitations, of course, did not apply to wim, as “a mother can never be like a father to a child” (Brantenberg, 9). Likewise, despite being “mechanically minded” and having “a good head for figures” (Brantenberg, 86), there was never any expectation that Christopher would continue his education beyond the minimum requirement. Pushed into fatherhood-protection at a young age, he “never had a chance to pursue his interest in mechanics” (Brantenberg, 88). While both of these examples demonstrate gender as a barrier to pursuing desired career opportunities, they also illustrate how gender prevented menwim from obtaining financial independence. Pressured into work that has no fiscal compensation, menwim became entirely dependent on their wim and awarded them the ability to govern their actions. Their role as fathers prevent them from having any financial autonomy, crippling their independence and agency, both within and outside of the home.

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Furthermore, fatherhood protection is presented as a manwom’s only opportunity to escape grueling, low-paid work and poverty. Christopher’s father, Rudrik, illustrates this societal truth. After impregnating a wom who did not offer him fatherhood-protection, “his chances of finding a well-off wom were as good as ruined. He would have to work and slave for the rest of his life” (Brantenberg, 84). Without hope of receiving fatherhood-protection from another wom, Rudrik was unquestionably doomed to difficult, low-paid work. Furthermore, it is noted throughout the text that “menwim who don’t have fatherhood-protection are poor and starving” (Brantenberg, 95), exemplifying how menwim’s wages are not sufficient enough for them to provide for themselves. Their only route to economic stability is, therefore, through fatherhood protection. As Petronius explains during the pehoe burning, “the highest social privilege a manwom can achieve is to be told who his child is. He earns this through service and fidelity to a single wom, who, in the event of pregnancy, may offer him fatherhood-protection… This is the sole chance a manwom has of not being a low-paid worker” (Brantenberg, 223). As Rebecca Traister noted in her chapter “Single Women Have Often Made History: Unmarried in America,” “for most women, there were simply no other routes, besides marriage, to economic stability” (Traister, 38). Yet at the same time, “to have a husband (and, in turn, children, sometimes scads of them) was to be subsumed by wifeliness and maternity. More than that, it was a way to lose autonomy, legal rights, and the capacity for public achievement” (Traister, 38). The menwim of Egalia, then, faced the same plight: to be poor but autonomous, or to have financial stability but no freedom.

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Fatherhood-protection operated to constrain and cripple their independence, their  opportunities to own economic capital, and their ability to garner success and achievements outside the home, making it a political tool for the wim to subjugate the menwim. Yet, simultaneously, rejecting fatherhood-protection sealed their fate of poverty and powerlessness. Within Egalian society, therefore, menwim have no legitimate route to autonomy, power and influence.

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The masculist movement sought to rectify both of these matters. For those with fatherhood-protection, they aimed to deconstruct the division of labour, arguing that “after all, it’s wim who bear children” (Brantenberg, 207). They reasoned that “children should be the responsibility of both parents” as they were “the product of a father and a mother” (Brantenberg, 207). The masculinists argued for equal responsibility as they vehemently opposed the notion that child rearing was within menwim’s nature, disregarding all research that suggested as much as “a product of the fact that they lived in a society dominated by wim” (Brantenberg, 209). As a solution, the masculists suggested that, once the child was two years old, the “parents ought to share the tasks of working and looking after the child” (Brantenberg, 207), so that wim and menwim could work equally outside the home to earn wages. For those without fatherhood-protection, the masculists demanded equal opportunity to “any form of higher education which might quality them for better jobs” (Brantenberg, 210) and equal wages so that menwim could support themselves financially outside of fatherhood-protection. They also demanded for the support of unprotected fathers, which “won widespread sympathy” as “several of the parties adopted it into their programme” (Brantenberg, 210). Through these efforts, the masculists hoped to expand the economic capital of the menwim - regardless of their fatherhood status - so that they may achieve greater independence and autonomy within and outside of the home.

 

Works Cited

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Brantenberg, Gerd. Egalia's Daughters: a Satire of the Sexes. Translated by Louis Mackay, Seal Press, 2004.

 

Traister, Rebecca. “Single Women Have Often Made History: Unmarried in America.” All the Single Ladies; Unmarried Women

and the Rise of an Independent Nation, Simon & Schuster, 2017, pp. 37–69.