The first casualty of the revolution had been the revolution itself
I
You remember it as a warm day in summer. You were gathered with friends, all of you sitting across a round table. You imagined yourself as the center, stealing all the attention, you were the loudest after all.
“I think its our duty to keep dreaming, nothing’s ever going to change if we just let things keep on going as they are.” You said.
You were in the middle of an argument with your brother, Nick, or Old Nick as you’d taken to calling him. why Old Nick, well –
“The naiveté of youth, be very careful now dear Icarus, the sun’s far closer than it appears.”
You rolled your eyes.
“You know Nick, you’re just as youthful as all of us.” Quipped Jeff, one of your best friends since childhood.
“You know Van’s got a point, how else are things going to ever get better if we just sit down and do nothing. Its all in the action man, that’s how you get a reaction.” Continued Jeff.
“All I’m saying is it’s easy to take a swing, ain’t so easy when you got to deal with the recoil. Consequences children, that’s the word of the day.” replied Nick.
This was a usual battle for you and your friends. You’d be the optimist speaking of change and a better world, it was this activism that drove you, the reason why you’d chosen journalism as your major despite your parents’ reservations.
It wasn’t about money, you’d never have to worry a day in your life about that, your parents’ ambition had more than taken care of that facet. Rather, it was the fact that your ambition, though cute, as your father would say, simply wasn’t big enough.
“I’ve given you the whole world, now its your job to seize it!” Father would say.
Your brother Nick had taken it upon himself to fill the void of ambition you had abandoned, and his ambition more than made up for it, doubling if not even tripling in scale. Instead of attending university like you, Nick had chosen to drop out, taking a sizeable loan from your father and beginning to build the foundations of his own business empire. He’d already made more than enough money in investments to retire long before even reaching the middle of his twenties, yet it wasn’t enough.
Nick was insatiable, and with wealth and power, he made for a very tough opponent. Hence whenever you’d let yourself wander in the imaginings of a better tomorrow, he would slime into the argument, exquisitely dressed in the finest suits as he played devil’s advocate, forever your greatest contrary.
At least you’d always have support in the form of Jeff, your oldest ally, and Nick’s arch nemesis. Jeff emboldened your optimism, but in usual Jeff fashion, he always had to up it by more than enough. With the example of Daedalus and son, Jeff would be the real Icarus. He was a romantic at heart, blue blooded like you and Nick, yet another heir within the new royalty, Kings of gold and coin. With his comfortable safety net, Jeff pursued the arts, falling in love with literature as he fancied himself a writer in the making, pursuing an English degree.
He lived and breathed a better world, yet his optimism was blinded, for his blue blood had never actually allowed him to truly understand why this world wasn’t working for so many below him, those he supposedly championed. He knew not how totalizing their foe was, seeing himself as a David, wielding stones against goliath, watched over by God. Yet in the real world, those below him knew, God was long dead.
All that remained were golden idols.
II

You and your friends enjoyed many dinners, engaging in bouts of intellect and wit, but on that warm day in summer, talking about change was no longer going to suffice. You wanted a more hands on view, thus you brought about a proposal.
“As lead correspondent for the university newspaper’s news section, I have finally found my next publication’s subject… I want to write a story on the women’s revolution in Herlantis.”
Your announcement was met with both rapturous applause and ridiculing laughter, I’m certain it’s quite obvious who was clapping and who was laughing.
“That’s wonderful news Van, I’m glad you’re getting your voice in that conversation, it still shocks me how so many of us know nothing about what I’d imagine to be truly history worthy events.” Said Jeff.
“More like a historic circus, instead of a women’s revolution, I’d rather say, human devolution, I mean Christ, where’s the world gone to.”
Nick’s chauvinism didn’t surprise you one bit, he was his father’s son after all, and you’d all grown up in the same house. You always imagined that you’d likely have just been as misogynistic under such tutelage if it wasn’t for the fact that you were his daughter.
After all, one is not born, but rather becomes a woman.
Being the target of sexism, you had no choice but to see its flaws, its oppression, and thus hope for its demise.
The women in the north Atlantic island continent of Herlantis had taken this hope literally, launching a revolution, and you wanted to write about it.
You were writing this story for yourself, writing it for your peers here on the other side of the pond who suspiciously didn’t receive much coverage on the historic happenings. But last but not least, you were also writing for the future, hoping that years and decades from when you wrote this, future generations would be able to look back on your work, and discover this revolution in vivid detail, from the frontlines, through your very own words.
The generations of tomorrow, like me.
III
In the future I will look at your story now written, the story of a herstoric revolution which will be well known to us all over the world. It’s a story that will inspire, its heroes now immortalized and worshipped worldwide. A story of unprecedented trailblazers, of new legacies.
But it will be so well known that it will now be deconstructed and reanalyzed. New truths will be discovered, old myths debunked and villains of yesterday now seen for the true heroes whom they’d always been. A new treasure discovered, and new eyes wise enough to see this treasure, and realize what we lost.
That’s what makes your story so interesting, for you saw it long before many others hadn’t seen it, you were the first to shed a tear at the first casualty of revolution, the revolution itself.
IV
On that warm day in summer, you’d brought forth your proposal, and taking advantage of the summer break, you planned to travel to Herlantis in order to write your story.
You’d be a real journalist.
You were also a good friend and invited your two compadres to tag alongside you for the journey. It was being a good sport, but it was also a way to try and combat Nick’s sexism with the undisputable truth. The truth that women were in no way lesser than man, and where more than capable of wielding the reins of power.
“The queen of England exists for goodness’ sake, and you’re technically her subject.” said Jeff.
“Well, it’s called the United Kingdom for a reason now isn’t it.” replied Nick.
“Then let me introduce you all to the Queendom!” said you.
V
You travelled to Herlantis in the summer of the 1980s, headed North of the island continent. Herlantis had once been home to numerous nations, all colonies of multiple European majesties. That was until the revolution happened in the 60s, now what was left were two major powers, the Upper Queendom in the North, and the Women’s Republic of Herland in the south.
While the northern Queenlanders eyed the British Isles above, their former masters. The southern Herlanders flirted with west African coasts, having been inspired by their African neighbors as they led the revolution forming the 1st women’s republic that the world had ever seen.
The Herlanders ran as pioneers, so that the Queenlanders could walk as innovators.
In the future, all of Herlantis will become the United Queendom, yet this union did not come easy. It was earned in blood, and the seeds of civil war were blooming right as you landed in Lion’s Den, the capital of her majesty Queen Bridgette I’s Upper Queendom.
VI
Walking within the streets of Lion’s Den, you were met with a modern industrialized superpower modelled after the western states of the free world. This was democracy, free markets, industry, secularism and individual liberties. Unlike the free world of that time however, women had achieved near parity with men if not even surpassing them in certain fields as the patriarchy was declared to be dead.
Though it was following in the tradition of the new women’s republics, the Upper Queendom was not exclusionary, men were present and were a very crucial part to its society, just like in the south. The difference was the Queendom’s promise to liberate and empower women from patriarchal oppression.
Many women and some men from all over the world had migrated to this new promised land, all clamoring to be subjects of a female Sovereign, Queen Bridgette. Their parliamentary governments were run by female ministers and representatives alongside some men, though it was certainly a woman’s world as a female prime minister led the Queendom in the form of Emelie De Gouges, the Queendom’s first prime minister.
De Gouges styled herself in the model of innovative western leaders like Roosevelt, especially in her first term as she enacted popular policies such as a patriarchal reparations program aimed at financially empowering women all across the Queendom, funded in part by the coffers of the former imperial oligarchs who had pillaged North Herlantis before the Queendom’s independence.
Women joined the workforce, dominated the universities, leading in private and public spheres with subsidized government policies and programs meant to uplift them and make them competitive. Women’s issues took primary precedent with abortion, menstrual products and gender-based violence no longer being after thoughts. The culture was feminized, economically, politically and even socially.
Yet the 1980s brought about a new shift in Queendom politics as they were affected by the neoliberal cloud sweeping throughout the free world. De Gouges’ radicalism had to be tamed as a new class of recently empowered female elites wanted to consolidate their wealth. Their lobbies and talking points began molding the new prime minister that succeeded De Gouges – Harriet More – into the image of a Reagan, or her Iron sister on 10 downing street, Thatcher.
A battle for the soul of the Queendom was ensuing as conservatism and liberalism fought on the theatre of what was supposed to be the country of tomorrow.
VII
“You know I’ll give these gals one thing, they sure learn fast. I’m impressed, I’ll admit it, this here is a new goldrush, and I want in.” said Nick, sipping a coffee as the three of you had breakfast at a café overlooking a giant statue of Queen Bridgette I, armored, galloping upon a horse and raising a sword to heaven.
“That’s all it takes for Old Nick, the almighty dollar.” Quipped Jeff.
“Throw in a little dinner after the deal and I’ll gladly call myself a Queenlander. These gals are a sight for sore eyes I tell yah, I’d love to do business with that.” Said Nick, raising a glass to a woman seated opposite to him on another table. She was dressed in white business chic and had on some fashionable large black tinted glasses, the type you’d see models on the cover of magazines wear.
While she sipped her coffee, her wristwatch glistening silver, she read a newspaper, the headline being about a recent scandal as churches were decrying the moral decline of the Queendom as more and more same-sex couples were becoming more public with their engagements. The headline read, “The Queendom is NOT for Queers!”
With the advent of AIDS, homophobia was at an all-time high worldwide, you had believed the Queendom was going to be a safe space for these marginalized communities, after all, so many queer people had been at the vanguard of feminist movements.
You guessed you were wrong.
A black server then cleared the businesswoman’s empty coffee cup and all of a sudden you realized the businesswoman was white. It’s funny, but suddenly you begun to see that most of the staff where people of color serving white people.
The Queendom had a history of colonialism, after all it was a descendent of a British colony. The entire island continent of Herlantis had been settled on by European imperialists, and this was reflected in the demographics, even more so in the north, while the south was more reflective of their African neighbors. Yet when De Gouges empowered women, why hadn’t she empowered all women, including the diverse demographics of Herlantis. Women settlers, slaves, servants and natives where all spread out across Herlantis, yet seemingly only white settler women were to be empowered. What of women of color, or people of color for that matter. What about all the other oppressed and marginalized people that had stood alongside feminists, feminists themselves.
What of black women, weren’t they women too?
While middle and upper-class white woman who had mostly been housewives under the old order were empowered into the workforce, the black and brown and lower-class women who had already been working menial jobs were completely forgotten. Many of them still worked those same jobs, and other lower paying positions, few ever getting to climb to the top and join their white peers in positions of power.
It wasn’t about to get any easier either as More was cannibalizing De Gouges’ social safety nets, echoing her British sister in power’s statements about there being, “No society, only individuals!” There would be no more handouts as women were now supposedly more than capable of lifting themselves up by their bootstraps. After all, patriarchy was now dead, and the Queendom had killed it!
“I could get used to this indeed, you surprised me dear Icarus, this Queendom isn’t so bad, reminds me of home, just with a lot more prettier faces.” said Nick, talking to you.
VIII
Things would only get worse in the future, I look at Bridgette’s Queendom now and wonder if any revolution ever happened at all. Homophobia, racism and if you can believe it even sexism is still present and sometimes it even feels like it’s getting worse. The promised land free from oppression, run by women for women is seemingly cracking as the definition of what a woman even is has cut open a new wound of oppression, transphobia.
Even in your day it was present, but now it has become the hotbed issue in the Queendom. No longer is it resigned to merely being printed on just cafe newspaper headlines, but it’s now found everywhere on social media feeds and television screens. Groups of so-called radical feminists now rally in unison holding torchlights and pitchforks for the trans exclusion cause all in the name of protecting women.
Queendom culture is split, more so than in the 80s as the age-old conservatism or liberalism battle plays out on the ballot box and Hariet More’s ghost returns in the form of Donna Truman, a right-wing populist figure who wants to start her own revolution, not of progress, but rather, reversing the clock back to a “greater past”.
Truman has united these trans-exclusionary radical feminists, alongside fringe white nationalists, funded by billion-dollar lobbies from new ultra wealthy elite businesswomen who brand themselves as girlbosses, having made their fortunes during the boom of emancipation during the early revolutionary era of your day, yet they are now more than willing to exploit and oppress anyone and everyone including their own sisters just like any other man before them. With Truman, their golden claws sharpen as they ready themselves to make a killing.
Inequality rises as Queendom society becomes more and more stratified, with no sight of salvation as even the liberal parties are just as tainted, the same money from golden idols flowing in their veins as the exploitation machine runs on at full steam.
This trend is seemingly a common symptom of all western nations, no one spared, not even the revolutionaries, if they ever even were.
Even the most basic tenet of feminist revolution, that of abortion and bodily autonomy is now at risk within what should’ve been the promised land. Truman’s platform is home to a rogue’s gallery of new oppressors, some seemingly even older as the same religious institutions that have been interpreted by patriarchy to justify women’s submission to man, are now being used by some women to refuse other women the right to choose if they want an abortion or not, regardless of circumstance, all in the name of women!
To be pro-choice is to now suddenly be anti-woman, for according to Truman, “There is nothing more sacred to woman than her gift to bring forth life. To birth, nature and care for life is what makes woman, woman. To go against this in any capacity is to go against woman herself!’’
All this, while Truman herself had historically used the abortion privilege when she was younger, in order to protect her budding political career in which she can now deny others the same privilege of choice.
“It is my greatest regret, and I’ll make sure no one ever has to make that mistake again.” she says.
More like rules for thee, but not for me. I’m sure Old Nick would love her.
Sadly, in this post truth world I live in, many love her too, her hypocrisy and lies do not matter, and she feeds off of the fear of a society built to keep everyone else in constant conflict for scraps while the rich drown in profit demanding more. We’re all crabs in a barrel ready to kill each other in order to not be killed.
We are a shrinking forest, yet we trees continue voting for the axe, for the axe is clever and she has convinced us trees that because her handle is made of wood, she is one of us.
IX
If a chauvinist like Nick could feel right at home in the Queendom, then you too had begun asking yourself if patriarchy was really dead? You had come here to valorize the women’s revolution, yet you felt dissatisfied, was this empowerment, just being equal to men when men weren’t even equal amongst themselves?
There had to be more, surely.
In the future, I know there was more, for while the Queenlanders declared themselves innovators, writing the herstory of the revolution as its victors, I know that there was another side to the story, the side that began it all, down south in the 1st women’s republic the world had ever seen.
You were curious about the Republic of Herland, you’d have travelled there if you could, but the Queenlanders were currently at war with the Herlanders, and the free world was right behind them. Thus, travel into the Republic was illegal, most western nations had placed embargoes on the republic as economic sanctions, travel restrictions and political exclusion kept the nation at bay.
As of then, not much was known of the Herlanders, and this was by design. Their story, their herstory, their revolution couldn’t and wouldn’t be televised. Though the 80s saw the republic’s decline due to western isolation, its origins were still remembered as its initial revolution was credited. Even Bridgette herself had once claimed to be a comrade of Fortune during the early days of their respective revolutions, and they’d even come to each other’s aid once or twice back then.
Fortune “Qleopatra” Powers was the revolutionary feminist leader who joined the anticolonial struggle in her native country south of Herlantis and thus won the war of independence with her allies and Vangel Army. The Vangels were a militant force that had been formed to fight for and defend women everywhere by any and all means, including force.
According to Fortune’s 2nd in command and founder of the Vangels, Vittoria Vinciguerra, “if might makes right, then I’m more than ready to fight!”
Fight she did as Vinciguerra had first started small with a ragtag gang of women who called themselves the Vangel Amazons. Vinciguerra’s crew alongside their brothers in the struggle would then defend local women from neighborhood domestic abusers. Soon Vinciguerra’s crew begun picking up cases of abuse, harassment, stalking, killings and violence against women that police would ignore, dismiss or neglect. The Vangel operation expanded and Vinciguerra begun launching rescue missions against organized crime syndicates, freeing women and girls that were being trafficked in the sex trade and other illicit industries.
These missions went international and with the backing of Fortune’s political ambitions and the greater women’s liberation movement that was blossoming alongside civil rights and independence struggles, Vinciguerra begun living up to her cause of fighting for and defending women everywhere by any and all means. Once mechanized and filled with more volunteers and effective financial leverage, the Vangels begun launching rescue missions globally in conflict zones and many other dangerous environments where women and children were at grave risk, offering them protection, aid and eventually, once the Republic was formed, refuge.
The Vangels recruited internationally as many women from Herlantis to the rest of the world volunteered and joined its ranks tired of being victims of patriarchy. Its army was made up of Vangel Amazons, then its air forces were the Vangel Valkyries, and its navy were the Vangel Syrens. Men who loved their daughters, mothers, wives and even just fellow human beings were also welcomed into the fight desperate to aid in ending the oppression of women and even themselves to some degree, for under patriarchy all suffered.
The death of patriarchy would be the liberation of all.
These men fought alongside their sisters as Vangel Herculeans, and the best of them advanced to become Heraklytes, elite warriors and the Vangels’ special forces. With an army of Vangels and an ideology of revolutionary feminism in hand, Fortune overthrew the patriarchal imperialist colonists of her homeland thus becoming the leader of a newly independent state, a Woman’s Republic.
Fortune would rule as the Femme Supreme, heart of the Republic and Revolution.
Fortune’s republic didn’t just want to empower women and make them equals among men who weren’t equals amongst themselves. Fortune wanted to tear the whole system down, not just patriarchy, but also white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, heteronormativity and… her fatal flaw in the eyes of the free world, capitalism.
Her war against all these systems isolated her and turned her from a freedom fighter into a “communist terrorist”. This was what her name became synonymous with then, uttered in whispers, riddled in controversy.
X
Fortune’s flaws became Bridgette’s strengths as the western world supported Bridgette’s Queendom, heralding her revolution in the north as the one and only true herstory of female empowerment. It would be the Queendom and not the Women’s republic that would become the face of feminism and Bridgette wanted a United Queendom with Herlanders in it, whether they liked it or not.
Thus, war began, under the pretext of fighting communism, and it was the 80s after all, the cold war was still very much hot, I mean did you hear what Fortune was saying, she was decrying capitalism, and we all know what happens when you go against capitalism.
Communism, socialism or whatever else you want to call it always fails.
Never mind that the Queendom was being supported immensely by capitalist nations, basically receiving subsidized economic and infrastructural development that turned it into a superpower all paid for by the American dollar under prerogatives akin to the Marshal Plan. Never mind that the growing global economy was capitalist thus excluding any other alternative economic systems. Systems that were being undermined through economic and political warfare in the form of sanctions, tariffs, exclusion, espionage, sabotage and straight up military intervention.
Herlanders became very much aware of how deadly a foe the CIA was, and though they had their own intelligence agency in form of the Byrds, they couldn’t possibly match up against America’s finest who had worked with and operated like a mafia against their targets. It didn’t help that MI6 and friends also tagged themselves into Bridgette’s fight.
While you explored the Queendom back then, Bridgette’s special forces group – The PRIDE – infiltrated the Republic launching state sponsored terror operations inspired by the same black ops missions Americans would launch in Cuba through Cuban American guerilla proxies. The Lionesses and Lions of the PRIDE were the vanguard force to the bay of pigs esque invasion that the Queendom launched into the Republic, headed for its capital, Themyscyra.
As the bloodshed dripped, a ceasefire would soon be negotiated as the Republic eventually chose to cede. Fortune Powers died with her Republic, assassinated, and forever immortalized as a symbol of resistance. As a black woman, she had faced misogyny and homophobia in the civil rights and anti-colonial movements, and she faced racism in the supposed feminist movements.
Liberation to her was intersectional, only when all oppressive systems died, could all be truly free. This was her dream, and she died with it, the Republic’s flag lowering and the Union Jill of the United Queendom soaring supreme.
A Revolutionary is dead, Long live the Queen!
XI
Though Fortune and her revolution’s story hadn’t been fully told in your day, I’m lucky enough to now have another angle on the picture of the communist terrorist the world despised. For so long now she has been looked at with the same disdainful eyes as other communist leaders of her day, such as Stalin of the Soviet Union, Mao of China or Kim Il Sung of North Korea.
Yet is this fair…
For Fortune, capitalism had to end, because it was too deeply intertwined with other systems of operation such as patriarchy. The history of patriarchy is the history of imperialism, the history of white supremacy and Eurocentric gender roles and standards that infected the entire world through colonialism thus reinforcing a white supremacist patriarchal structure fueled and emboldened by the capitalist system.
Thus was the need for heteronormativity, the need for homophobia, the need for transphobia, the need to dehumanize neurodivergent people. The need to compete, exploit and dominate, kill, steal and denigrate, all these oppressive regimes grew together, fed together, and complimented one another, they were all one in the same and to rid yourself of one and not the other was to rid yourself of none at all.
They were like the three musketeers, all for one, and one for all.
To truly be liberated, to truly be free, Fortune had to destroy them all, including capitalism regardless of the so-called free world’s reservations.
“One cannot tear down the master’s house with the master’s tools!”
One, Fortune, had to rebuild society from the ground up, a true revolution of not only the world, but the soul itself. All those closets of bias, prejudice, and ignorance conscious or unconscious had to be revealed, addressed and then destroyed.
Individually and systematically, a culture of oppression can only produce oppressors. If crabs are in a barrel, they will fight to the death for scraps, thus fortune wanted to burn the barrel all together. She had to break down the box, in order to think outside of it, outside of patriarchy, capitalism and supremacy, and in this new horizon of endless possibilities, she found freedom, true freedom!
Though much is still not known about the republic even till now, what is known was that it was a society, the likes of which we had never seen before. Imagine a society, not built on profit or money, but instead, built on people. Before capitalism, money still existed, even in the feudal age of kings, merchants still roamed as commerce boomed, yet they were not the center of society, they were not the point of existence. The metric that decided whether a country was successful, whether a country was happy was not GDP and economic growth, these did not define existence.
Ofcourse in such an age, it was God and supremacy of kings.
But for Fortune, it would be people, women, men and so much more, they would be the point of existence, the reason why society, civilizational or whatever we want to call it functioned, they would be the culture, a culture of community, a culture of camaraderie a culture of love and true happiness, human happiness.
Totalizing democracy in not only ballots, but economics, politics and society, free and fair and equal all for the good of the community!
Such a society would need a new social contract, a new economic system, new political system, social system, an alternative, thus Fortune’s revolution really began as she and her comrades tried to rebuild a new house from scratch, each and every Herlander carrying a brick.
They were guided by feminist thought, and were open to all theories, borrowing what worked and discarding what didn’t all in the name of a society for the people by the people.
They weren’t capitalists, they weren’t communists, they weren’t even socialists though they borrowed quite a lot of ideas from them all, they were humanists, dedicated to creating a new alternative society that centered humanity and the earth, for without the earth there was no humanity.
And for this they were crucified, for this they had to die.
While Bridgette’s Queendom was practically built by the very imperialists she had supposedly revolted against. Fortune’s revolution was aided by the only allies who could help her. She was supported by the Cubans and Soviets, not because she adored communist autocracy, but because the USSR and the Cubans alongside the socialist world had supported almost all the struggles for independence worldwide as formerly oppressed nations fought for their liberation.
Then, it was the communist dictators that were actually spreading freedom and democracy across the world, while the free world where ailing empires whose heights were in decline, being supported by the new American superpower that poured money, guns and spies in preserving western profits within these former colonies.
After all, America was defending the French empire’s former colony in Vietnam, while Soviet Marxism inspired Ho Chinh Minh to galvanize a war for independence against those same French colonizers besting them, and eventually besting even the goliath that was American military might.
The same played out in Herlantis as America inflated the Queendom into a formidable force, a bulwark against the compromised south which was yet another domino falling to communism. The Queendom was also accepted into NATO, American military bases being planted all over it then and now while Bridgette shook hands for photo ops with the very same leaders who had oppressed her through imperialism and patriarchy.
She accepted all their gifts, creating her paradise in the image of the same patriarchal oppressors. She then used the patriarchy’s force on her fellow sister, all in the name of liberating her.
In the name of the United Queendom.
I suppose I can’t be surprised by the state of the Queendom now, we were doomed from the very start.
XII
You didn’t know this then, of course, herstory still being written, yet you sensed it when you were returning back home, your story no longer the same. You wanted to be joyous, venerating and valorizing the revolution, but even then, you’d suddenly realized that the first casualty of the revolution had been the revolution itself.