Arise Ye Daughters
The Beehive
By Margaret O'Donnell
4 Sep, 2022
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Margaret O’Donnell’s 1980 The Beehive is a stand-alone dystopian novel.
A nation is astounded and alarmed by the appearance of political pamphlets in the nation’s mailboxes. Not merely because the pamphlets put forward forbidden views. No, the astounding fact was that the authors of the pamphlets are clearly women. To the astonished men of the nation, it is as though cows and pigs had begun to protest their treatment.
Thirty years ago, an unnamed nation faced with dire economic setbacks turned to Gorston to solve their problems. The visionary delivered, liberating the people from the burdens of democracy and civil liberties. This won universal accolades, at least once Steiner’s secret police got done making sure that insufficiently cautious critics were disappeared.
Gorston’s reforms included the relegation of women to purely domestic roles. However, there was just one small snag: without inexpensive women labourers, the economy would collapse. Faced with this inescapable reality, Gorston introduced further reforms.