Still feeling less than stellar after the phone incident, Jon had chosen to roll right back over again and go straight back to sleep. As a result, he over slept and was almost late for school.
He arrived only a few minutes before the bell and found Karen at her usual desk, looking excited.
"Hey Kar, sup?" said Jon, in an attempt to look cool and not at all like he had just been running to not be late.
Karen looked up at Jon, smiling. Now, it should be noted that Karen often smiled, but seldom at school and almost never early on a Monday morning at school.
"Jon, did you see the class changes yet?
"What class changes?" he responded, bewildered.
"No more history!" Karen declared ecstatic. It might be noted, that Karen did NOT nor had she ever liked history, whilst Jon on the other hand had always enjoyed the subject, even contemplating archaeology as a possible future career path.
"instead", Karen continued, "we are all doing this new Women's Studies. Apparently the school and the whole town got this huge grant from my Aunt Sue's company, so that we could help out in some sort of cultural experiment."
"Cultural experiment? What sort of experiment?"
"No idea", Karen responded, "but I think we might be about to find out."
At this moment, several faculty members, including the principle, vice principle, the usual history teacher and several well dressed business executive types all filed into the front of the room.
Without a word, the class took their seats and waited patiently...
Looking somewhat uncomfortable, the principle, Mr. Worthers began to speak.
"Seniors, as you are no doubt aware, your usual history class has now been altered in order to make way for a new and exciting Women's Studies course, sponsored by Fem Tech."
"The course will start this morning and continue through to the end of the school year. It has been decided that all students will receive credit for completing the history syllabus and granted an "A" grade for the class."
At this point there was a stifled cheer, particularly from the majority of the athletes in the class who were all likely to fail or at least do poorly/
"To introduce the new course, please welcome Fem Tech CEO Dr. Elizabeth Samuel."
The principle stepped back to make room for a striking woman in a very expensive looking skirt suit. Even without the short introduction, it could be plainly seen that she was a woman of power and authority, not to mention intelligence.
"Students," she began, "in the past ten years we have seen a dramatic rise in the numbers of children and young adults, who identify as trans, gay, bi or at the very least curious in some aspect of the sexuality or gender. To that end, we, at Fem Tech, have made a careful and ongoing study into every conceivable aspect of that trend, and as a result, we have discovered that a significant percentage of males, who transition fully to female are not happy with the results."
"That growing number of trans individuals has begun skew the population balance in, what our scientists have determined to be, an untenable shift. In short, we are losing too many fertile, heterosexual males, for what results to be infertile females. It is felt, that should this trend be allowed to continue un checked, populations in some regions, particularly western nations, will begin to decline, and inevitably age out, meaning that senior citizens will form the majority of the population base."
"Believe it or not, we at Fem Tech ate not focussed solely on the almighty dollar, and genuinely wish for our clients and customers to find what measure of happiness they may in these trying times. We also understand the global need to continue to have a viable population in the foreseeable future."
"Hence, this course, is a pilot program to enable students of both genders to become intimately familiar with the feminine, on a temporary basis. For the curious males in this group, we feel that it may satisfy that curiosity, rather than take the far more drastic & permanent step of gender re-assignment, forever losing that fertile male to the infertile female side of the gender equation."
"For the non-curious males and natural born females in the group it will help to inspire appreciation for women around the world, throughout recent recorded history, their struggles, their trials, their day to day lives."
"The course curriculum is skewed sharply toward to more feminine end of the spectrum, in order to have the greatest potential impact, particularly upon genetic males and the less feminine females."
Noting the blank looks on some faces, as well as the growing horror on others, she continued, "before you say anything in response, this is a done deal, all of your parents, the school, school board, town council, authorities, state and federal governments have all signed off on this pilot program. Short of death or some other drastically serious complication, you will all complete the course, and we will be closely monitoring you throughout."
At that, she simply turned and left the room.
