Pillory Policies

Katie and her mom and sister finally agreed that standing in a pillory for 45 minutes per week wouldn’t kill them, but they weren’t happy. In the next few weeks they heard lots of complaints from the other women in the town, but in the end they saw the five pillories erected on the main town square, one on each side and one in the middle of the square. Newsletters had been distributed to all the households in the town, and every woman and girl had gotten an e-mail on their municipal e-mail accounts warning them of when their time slot was.

The pillories would be manned (some jokester had written WOmanned...) twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. With a few women bound not to show up or plead off sick there was thus place for all 1000 eligible women in town to take their places once a week. Anyone who didn’t show up for their time slot got off with a warning, but after a verbal and then written warning the third time one didn’t show would result in a vague but menacing ‘alternative punishment’. Being late on the other hand just meant you had to do a double shift the week after.

While stuck in the pillory the female population of the town had a placard hung around their neck with their age, weight, height and how long it had been since they had had a baby. The ‘victims’ of the pillory would have their head stuck in the hole in the middle of the board, with their wrists fastened on either side of their head. They would be kneeling forward with their knees on a soft cushion. Women who had a baby had three years precisely from the day the child was born before they had to take place in the pillory once more. The town council issued strict warnings that the five pillories had surveillance cameras aimed at them at all times, and that crimes against the women stuck in them would be severely punished.

Everyone in town had come to the festive opening of the pillories, and the atmosphere around the first women being kept for their weekly 45 minute turn was one of celebration. The women in the town had resigned themselves to their fate, and many confided in their friends that, really, it wasn’t so bad. They’d heard stories of far worse rules being drawn up to increase the birth rate, stories they weren't sure they completely believed. So they had to spend 45 minutes of their week kneeling on the town square, so what? There would be cameras, and it was a public place, so what could really happen?