Overheard Starbuck

"The women members of her tribe undergo scarification rituals on their faces and lips and have plastic discs inserted under their breasts. The men must be willing to give up the traditional jobs which they've been trained since boyhood to perform. Most men now work and engage in activities once solely the concerns of women."
---"While the made-over women do 'men's work'?"
"The women's jobs are less restrictive, since networking is now a marketable skill. Women are the pr people, the lobbyists and the representatives for the tribe. Men are cloistered in offices, laboratories and boiler rooms while women meet and greet, lunch and smooze actual people, not data from computer screens. Income is confiscated and redistributed through the tribal councils, controlled by women, and because of the absence of toys, cigars, and strippers some of men view their tailor-made suits as little more than business-men's burkkas."
---"And the women respond to demands by these men for more wages and benefits by withholding sex?"
"The Councils are calling their response to this year's labor demands, 'staying the course of freedom under the threat of annihilation'."