"Of course there have always been apostles of peace and men who have risked a bold and quotable word against war. Permit me to remind the High Womenal of the poet Opitz, who during the Thirty Years' War — how vainly, we know-attempted to foment peace. Or Old Man Bebel's antiwar speech. That was in the spring of 1913, and the Socialist International cheered him. We know that in religious songs and philosophical treatises peace has been sung, longed for, spun into allegory, and meditated upon ad nauseam. But since no one ever tried seriously to resolve the conflicts of
human society while forswearing the categories of masculine thinking, nothing was ever accomplished beyond protestations of peaceful intent and sophistical distinctions between just and unjust wars. Crusaders have always managed to massacre people in the name of brotherly love. Wars of liberation are still very much in vogue, and the principle of the free market has meant undernourishment for millions of people: hunger, too, is war.
"And because history presents itself as an inevitable alternation of war and peace, peace and war, as though this were a law of nature, as though nothing else were possible, as though a supernatural force — take me as a captive example — had imposed all this as fate, as though there were no other way of discharging aggression, as though peace could never be more than a brief interval during which men prepared for the next day of wrath, this vicious circle must forever remain unbroken — unless it is broken by those who have hitherto made no history, who have not been privileged to resolve notorious historical conflicts, whom I have subjected to male history, to whom history has never brought anything but suffering, who have been condemned to feed the war machine and replenish the human material it consumes — I am referring to women in their role as mothers.
"But can this be? How uncomplainingly — as was recently brought to the Womenal's attention — the farm cook Amanda Woyke let herself be got with child after child between the battles of the Seven Years' War, without ever asking: What for? And the mothers, wives, sisters of the men engaged in murdering one another — haven't they always kept silent, turned to statues, stone embodiments of female suffering, or even allowed themselves to be honored as the mothers of heroes?
"It is my hope that the Womenal, upon whose mercy I cast myself, which has manifested my guilt, and to which I offer my desire to make atonement, will not only judge me, but will also bear in mind that power will henceforth fall to women. No longer will women be compelled to stand silent and look on. The world is at a turning point. Today history demands a female imprint. Already the male is hanging his head, neglecting to play his role. Already he is unwilling to will. Already he is beginning to relish his guilt feelings. He's
finished, and he knows it. The world awaits a sign from the Womenal, a sign that will put the future back in business.
"And yet we wonder: Why only now? Why have hundreds of millions of mothers, sisters, and daughters looked on unprotestingly while men made their wars? To this day, women who have suffered irretrievable loss cling to the consolation that their husbands, sons, brothers, fathers — all those heroes who have died in the Volkhov marshes, in the Libyan desert, on the North Atlantic, or in air battles God knows where — have died for something and not in vain; that the deaths of sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands have had meaning and purpose. Given the male view of morality and power — for the one follows from the other — men have always been able to supply logical proof that their cause is just, that the enemy attacked first, that they themselves misjudged the situation but acted in good faith, that they want nothing so much as peace, but that conspicuous weakness, pacifism, and suchlike childishness only provoke aggression, that, suffering and sorrow notwithstanding, it is pleasant and noble to die for the fatherland or for an idea, sprung in all likelihood from a male mind, and finally that we can't expect to live forever. And another thing: since the surviving males have been taught to be chivalrous, they never neglect, after won or lost wars, to bow respectfully to the mothers and widows. After victory parades, heroes dead or alive are honored. Days of national mourning are always a big hit. No danger that the dead will protest. And what do the mothers say?
"On the sideboard stand, over the sofa hang, the photographs of young men in dress uniform, some with an innocent smile, others with a look of earnest concentration, whose earnestness or smile never got beyond the stage of promise. In drawers and portfolios lie school diplomas, letters from the front, their last written words—'I am well and happy here'—and black-bordered newspaper clippings, which after the terse announcement once again list all medals and decorations. A millionfold inheritance without political consequences. Did the women voters say a massive 'no' when — the ruins were still there for all to see — rearmament was decreed? Not at all; they resigned themselves to the perpetuation of this male-ordained madness. And even when women have gained political influence or power, they have always—
from Madame Pompadour to Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi — conducted their politics in the Procrustean bed of the male historical consciousness, and that, as I have shown, means war. Can this be changed? Ever, soon, at all?
"The Womenal will have consequences. Our time-phase bears the imprint of the women's liberation movement. Women have been politicized. They have organized; they are fighting, refusing to be silenced. Already they have registered partial successes. But — I ask myself with misgiving — will women's striving for social equality end by shattering the male ethic? Or will equality between the sexes merely intensify the male striving for power?
"I am almost inclined to fear that womankind lacks counsel, sustained, reliable, or, to put it plainly, supernatural counsel. But as an embodiment of the guilty male and — as has been demonstrated — warlike principle, am I fit to advise the female cause, and henceforth the female cause alone?
"I want to. I could. I already know how. Let the Womenal judge."
Just as my Ilsebill always wants both at once, to freelance and to hold a regular job, to live in the country and to enjoy the scenario of city life, just as on the one hand she strives for the simple life (baking her own bread), but on the other hand requires certain conveniences (most recently an automatic clothes dryer), for which reason her wishes, violently as they conflict, are constrained by force of will to run along in pairs — so, after the Flounder's peroration, when a verdict was at last to be pronounced, was the Women's Tribunal (or Womenal) torn. Strictly speaking, death would have been fitting punishment, if his advice (as expiation) had not been needed.
Taken as a whole, the Tribunal wanted both; its parts wanted this or that. While the Flounder Party raised objections to the liquidation of the accused, opposed the death penalty on principle, and contemplated at the most a symbolic punishment, after which the Flounder would be taken on as a repentant adviser and restored to his element, the radical minority were determined to forgo his advice and expunge the Flounder.
Prosecutor Sieglinde Huntscha demanded death by elec-
trocution. Griselde Dubertin wanted to add daily-increased doses of mercury to his drinking water. Ruth Simoneit was for cooking him alive. And as for the court-appointed defense counsel, while on the one hand she demanded acquittal, on the other she pleaded for humane punishment, that is, confinement and psychiatric treatment.
No clear-cut verdict was arrived at. Since both the Revolutionary Advisory Council and the associate judges were divided, a majority could at most have been found for postponement of sentencing. Silent and deathly pale, as though he had decided to become an astral body, the Flounder waited.