Letters from the Devil: General Instruction: On the status of women in the 21st century BCE Melinda Selmys In the spirit of C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.  Originally published in Issue XVI of Vulgata, May, 2007.

I am happy to note that my ideas regarding the corruption of feminism for the goals of our establishment are going, on the whole, very well. Naturally, many of you have made a mess of implementing them, and there are many despicable miscarriages of my designs, but on the whole I think you will agree that in so far as you have done as I instructed, things are going well.

In particular, I would like to draw your attention to one of my greatest strokes of genius: the role of women in the work-place. You will recall what a fufarah was raised in the last century when the spectre of women's equality, which had so long haunted the fringes of the western world, suddenly reared itself up and took on substance. How great, then, was the gnashing of teeth, the wailing and lamentation.

Obviously a grave mistake was made – and I was first in line to denounce the incompetent bungling of my predecessors in allowing us to arrive at such a grave state of affairs – but I think on the whole, I have managed to salvage the situation, and indeed turn it to my own interests.

Now I realize that many of you had built your careers on the oppression of the female sex. I cannot count the number of mewling, snivelling incompetents that arrived at my door, crying that the men who, a mere fifty years ago, might easily have been led into a merry habit of drinking themselves to death, beating their families and thinking, all the while, they were entitled to behave like tyrants in their own petty kingdom, were now eschewing the bottle and attending “anger management” seminars to control their tempers. Nor can I cease to marvel at the tenacity of those misogynistic tempters who depended, for their livelihood, on the presumption of male superiority, and who now blame me for the shame to which they have rightly been exposed.

Really, these are all very obvious and crude ploys. You will agree that I have done much better.

In the first place, we have done very well to staunch the wound made by the notion of “women's rights.” Think how you worried that the rich mine of feminine intuition would brighten the obscurities of analytic philosophy. Recall your fear that millions of self-made martyrs would instead become deadly shield-maidens, stalking the streets in the name of Him whom we dare not name. Do you not now chuckle at the old terror that women would bring peace and temperance to politics? How has it been done? Needless to say, the credit is owed to myself.

I will dwell here on the triumph of women's victimization. There is a superstition, common amongst those less experienced tempters, that you cannot make a victim of an Amazon. I tell you, nothing is further from the truth! It is but a half-step from Boudica to Lucrece – and you need not resort to rape (which is true suffering and therefore runs the risk of proving redemptive) when a host of trifles will do as well.

If they are mothers, let them be torn between their family and their work. Before, we relied on selfishness to take mothers out of the home: now we may make them believe that this self-assertion is a trial. Needless to say, we have managed to divert most of the stream of feminine potential into a pleasant little cul-de-sac: office jobs more tedious than tidying, factory work more menial than meal-times, service careers more childish than child-care. It is a good system. Yet you think that sooner or later, the women are going to decide that raising a child is more 'meaningful' than sorting papers? Not at all. We must merely convince them that it is their obligation to escape the bonds of uxorious toil; that it is a betrayal to stay at home with their children. Let them bow to Mammon, and toil for us, and all the while think that they are sacrificing themselves to the needs of their children, and the cause of women's rights.

You have convinced them to dispense with children? Let them think themselves martyrs to the feminine cause. Let them imagine that their empty wombs are a cross, and their slaughtered children saviours to women around the world. Nothing could be simpler. So how is it done?

All you need do is ensure that these 'liberated' creatures are sensitive to any 'violation' of their 'rights,' and you will find yourself with heaps of ammunition. Multiply her rights then. Let it be her right to sit in the legislature if you must: but ensure that it is also simultaneously her right to be treated the same as men treat men, and also to receive the treatment due to a lady. If it must be her right to speak and be treated as an adult, then let it also be her right never to be criticized like one. If she must have a right to equal partnership in marriage, let it also be her right to be the one who controls that equal partnership – and her right to a divorce if she is too much disobeyed.

Consider a modern wife and mother beset with woes. She is forced to do twice the work of women in the past, for though she has a carreer, she must still do most of the work at home (let it never cross her mind that modern housework does not include boiling pots of laundry water, knitting your own socks, or mucking out the pigs' stall.) Her husband is 'emotionally abusive' and careless about her needs (don't dare let her compare her husband to other men – only to the neutered metrosexuals on prime-time TV.) He criticizes her constantly, and never listens to her needs (needless to say, these needs should be voiced as constant criticisms of him.) All her work is underappreciated (don't dare let her think to thank her husband for his contributions – unless it is in the context of fishing for praise.) She doesn't get enough time for herself (but when she does get it, ensure that she sacrifices it in some needless 'selfless' cause.)

But, you are saying, there is nothing new in this. We have been doing this with women since the beginning of time. Of course! But that is the genius of it, after all; for in the past, the women were often really suffering. They were hungry. They were overworked. They were beaten. They were powerless. Many of them were actually that dispicable sort of creature that we call a “victim soul,” and their self-denials kept them from our grasp. But the modern woman! What a work, if we can claim her. Nailed to a cubicle. Bowed low under the laundry machine. Tortured by her male partner's lack of masculinity. Scourged by all the rights her mothers faught to gain. A “victim soul” martyred to self-determination. A masterpiece of devilishness, I think you'll all agree.