Elsaf, like all the other cities was structured on matriarchy. Inside Elsaf lived Zed, a young boy of 15; as all the male children there, he had been grown by the mother, in fact family and school were managed only by women who had occupied even all the organizational and directive charges of Elsaf.

In previous decades there were two terrible wars that killed a good part of the population, particularly men that were involved in the front line of conflicts; they was decimated and the remaining men were living in serious state of physical discomfort. Entire family trees destroyed, having a grandfather was impossible, and it was rare to have a father still intact.

In that context, the women took the upper hand and decided to rebuild the country under new rules where they would have led by law, words like genetic superiority, gender regulations, positive discrimination, chromosome caste, were on the agenda.

The females were grown and educated to carry out high intellectually roles and become managers, supervisors, teachers; everything was centered around them, the school failures of women during the process of learning were under 0.5%. The men instead were mainly sent direct to the workplace, rarely they studied and in that case they could aspire, at most, to the role of domestic employ, executive secretary or teacher under-collaborator.

The culture of Elsaf wanted, then, that the males were raised to become workers in the mining, manufacturing, construction, etc, often soldiers in the wars between cities triggered off by female managers vengeful and envious of the possessions of others. The majority of deaths at work and in places of conflict was, obviously, male.

Males were a vital resource: the industry was based on their abilities and it was important for teachers to ensure that males are not made aware of their importance... For that reason women created the educamps.

The educamps were places where small boys were shaped to obedience towards women: every woman, even the smallest, could not be contradicted. Once a man dared to say "no" to a girl of 3 she wanted a ring that the man was wearing. The man was immediately removed in the nearest Tirac. Tiracs where said also ghost neighborhoods, because there were put people marginalized by society; 95% were men and there was also some women who had rebelled against the system. In Tiracs was given the bare minimum to survive. It wasn't possible to leave a Tirac if not through the terrible procedure of "re-education", that was hardly never successful. The rate of suicide was in Tirac was 70% per annum. The death penalty had been abolished, except for crimes of sexual violence that were being tried for "direttissima" (without going through the normal procedures) by special courts under the principle of presumption of guilt and mercy by women.

In educamps men were convinced of their moral weakness, mental inferiority, and especially on their hormone-physical danger, since it was taught that even the little man, if not controlled, packed and chemically treated became a violent and monstrous executioner.

For the safety of the citizens it had to take fingerprints for babies boys and there were many rules of social control such as the prohibition to leave an adult male alone in the company of a baby or small child.

Also for security reasons it was forbidden to leave the walls because of the dangerous population of savages that, in contact with the wilderness and unspoiled nature, they had lost control of the male population and the degeneration of violence had led to cannibalism and slavery.

The vote was governed by "chivalry quotas" in systems where the female electorate had free choice among all, instead the male population was obliged to fall on candidates of the other sex.

There were three ministries: the ministry of women's opportunities, the ministry of protection of domestic animals, the ministry of ideology.

The men were therefore excluded from social participation, without rights to health, awareness, and human development. The discrimination was now part of the culture, was in politics, in courts, in habits, automatisms, thoughts and ideologies. Men were not aware of being discriminated against; how could they recognize to be oppressed if they didn't know freedom?

But social oppression was terrible also on women.
Among them suicides were very high, but unlike the men, that couldn't be said, to not create alarm and not make men doubt about the happiness and the certainty of the superiority of women. Therefore when it happens, it was said that this woman had moved to another neighborhood or city.

The same for depression, about 90% of women suffered of it, particularly apathy, so that each day they had to attend courses in behavioral psychology during which some personal trainers taught them to smile always, simulate peace and security, and to mask problems.

Zed was one of the many boys who worked in the quarries near the west wall.. in that point work and landslides had severely damaged the walls.

One day, few years later (it was 25 now) there was a fall and a tiny gap opened between the walls. Zed went through the hole to check the damage and found himself outside.