Gunter Grass - The Flounder

sheltered. No trouble at all for the women to keep their little Stone Age men in a state of idiocy. The women, for instance, were quick to discover (at the very latest when they began to domesticate animals) that elk cows, wild sows, and consequently human women did not conceive their young unaided, but had to be inseminated by a male elk, a boar, a man, and so on. But the ladies didn't breathe a word; they craftily kept this knowledge to themselves and ignored the possible rights of fatherhood. They simply kept the men in the dark, allegedly for their own good. And so for thousands of years the men remained dependent, in seeming security. In modern terms you might say, 'The women ruled because they were better informed.' "

A few members of the audience — the trial was open to the public — tittered for a moment and then stopped themselves, as though frightened at their audacity. When the laughter had died down, the Flounder continued. "Most prominent among the ruling women was a certain Awa, who had three breasts and was idolized. This Awa put a taboo on those impulses that later, possibly encouraged by my advice, led to all the manifestations we casually refer to as culture. You most of all, my esteemed prosecutor, must realize that it was necessary to counter this state of total dependence with a liberation movement. At the very least I was under obligation to help my magnanimous fisherman."

"By substituting the rule of men for that of women?" "That," said the Flounder, "sounds to me like a leading question."

The prosecutor stuck to her guns. "Are you then of the opinion that male informational superiority, having replaced female informational superiority, should remain the norm?"

He answered irritably. "The women's historically conditioned loss of power has been widely overestimated. Since the early Middle Ages, home and kitchen, the bed and hence the realm of dreams, child rearing, Christian morality, and the all-important household treasury, have been the preserve of the female sex. And what of woman's intuition, the tyrannical little caprices, the sweet secrets, the old habit of saying no and meaning yes, the pious lies, the stylish games, those glances that mean everything and nothing, the desires so quick to sprout regardless of the season, the charming but

expensive follies. Think how often a single, never to be repeated smile has been paid for with life imprisonment! In short: the women retained plenty of power. . "

Here the speaker was cut short. "The Women's Tribunal," said Ms. Schonherr, the presiding judge, "has heard enough of your platitudes. We have only to open a book to see that all history has been made and interpreted by men. A cursory glance at current affairs shows that all positions of power are occupied by men. It's common knowledge." When the Flounder, visibly agitated, broke in with, "What about Cleopatra? And Lucrezia Borgia? And Pope Joan? And Joan of Arc? And Marie Curie? And Rosa Luxemburg? And Golda Meir? Or right now the president of the Bundestag?" — his list was brusquely cut off by Ms. Huntscha, the prosecutor. "All exceptions that prove the male-chauvinist rule. The usual concessions. Tell me this, defendant Flounder: did you advise the men to treat history and hence also politics as a purely male affair?"

"You could call it division of labor. The small change of politics; the so-called dirty work, as well as military affairs with all their dangers, was left to the men, whereas the women. ."

"Stick to the point! Defendant! You have been asked a question."

"I admit that on my advice the oppressed male terminated many thousands of years of historyless female domination by resisting the servitude of nature, by establishing principles of order, replacing incestuous and therefore chaotic matriarchy with the discipline of patriarchy, by introducing Apollonian reason, by beginning to think up Utopias, to take action, and to make history. Often, I have to admit, he has been too intent on power. He has become increasingly petty about safeguarding property rights. Much too reluctant to attempt anything new. I tried to compensate for his abuses with my advice, but time and time again he rejected it. For in principle I stand for equality between the sexes. Always have. Always will. But when I was caught during the late Neolithic, I had no other choice. If a woman had caught me and not a fisher-man, I would not have been set free — I'd have been cooked over the fire in accordance with the precepts of neolithic cookery. What do you think? Probably

with sorrel and manna grits. Well, there you have it. The consequences are almost unthinkable. To tell you the truth, I could easily have been won over to a perpetuation of ever-loving care. And I'd have known how to promote it. Too bad a man had to catch me. But just supposing. Supposing you, esteemed prosecutor, had caught me not just recently in Lubeck Bay, but once upon a time in the unruffled waters of the Vistula estuary, set me free, and given me a long-term contract as your adviser? Ah, the possibilities! Who knows, who knows! History would undoubtedly have taken a different course. Possibly there wouldn't be any dates. Unquestionably our world would be — well, closer to paradise. I wouldn't be lying in a zinc tub, breathing in the nicotine-containing fug of an assembly that calls itself a tribunal. The Ilsebills of the world would all be grateful to me. But sad to say, I was caught by a stupid though not ungifted young fellow, who refused to understand whom he had caught." Thereupon the Women's Tribunal adjourned, but not before Ms. von Carnow, the defense counsel, had demanded the appointment of two commissions, one to determine under what conditions a neolithic woman would have set the flatfish free and signed him up as an adviser, and the other to draw up a brief outline of the course human development would have taken from neolithic times to the present if the matriarchate had been retained. "If the Women's Tribunal wishes to guarantee a fair trial," cried Ms. von Carnow, "it must be willing to project convincing alternatives."

Frankly, Ilsebill, nothing much came of it. The nine Berlin women's groups met among themselves. Sketches of regressive Utopias were drafted. Nine women's paradises were described. But when the drafts were compared in an attempt to work out a unified concept, war broke out among the groups. Pathetic! The League of Socialist Women refused to take seriously what they called the "sexual pecking order" of Lesbian Action, while the liberal-extremist Bread and Roses group condemned the contribution of the "debating societies" as "social romanticism." The Ilsebill Women's Collective was accused of planning a "shitty beehive state with queen, workers, and drones." The August

Seventh Feminist Initiative Group — August 7 was the date on which the Flounder had been caught for the second time — covered itself with ridicule by predicting that thanks to certain genetic manipulations future generations of males would menstruate, bear children, and even suckle them. And when the presumably Maoist Red Pisspot faction, a split-off from the League of Socialist Women, put forward a Utopian vision of radical return to neolithic conditions, its members were suspected of being CIA agents or worse.

All this of course gave the press a field day. Sardonic remarks in all the gossip columns. Ms. Schonherr, as presiding judge, was hard put to it to keep the Tribunal together and get on with the trial. In the end, her compromise formulation was approved by all the warring groups and factions. Ursula Schonbart read the succinct formulation: "In the opinion of the Women's Tribunal, any answer to the Flounder's question — how human society would have developed if matriarchy had not succumbed to the patriarchate — must perforce be hypothetical. It nevertheless seems safe to say that mankind would be more pacific, more sensitive, more creative though free from individual aspirations, more affectionate, more just despite abundance, and thanks to the absence of male ambition less hectic and more serene; moreover, there would be no state."