Duke bans men

satire

President Price addresses the Duke community via Twitch livestream:

“Duke’s Panhellenic Council made the courageous decision last week to ban mixers with all-male groups. As administrators, we must now do our part and ban all males altogether.”

This ban of mixers with all-male groups comes as part of Panhel's new effort to “refocus on women’s empowerment,” by limiting women’s actions and banning them from doing things. 

“It just feels like the right thing to do ethically and morally,” says Panhel president Kate Chen, having made the actual decision in real life to join a sorority. 

“Frats lack accountability for perpetrators of sexual assault, fuel environments with unsafe gender power dynamics, and perpetuate social hierarchies that judge women based on their appearances,” she says as she crosses off the names of freshman girls listed on a spreadsheet titled “dirty rush prospects pls rate 1-10 no ugly pls” with corresponding links to the girls’ Instagram accounts, family vacation locations, and gross annual household incomes.

“The purpose is to refocus Panhellenic as a community led by women, for women. But, like, our women. Not all women.”

Duke’s rapid conversion into an all-female university is certainly turning heads; particularly heads attached to bodies with penises attached to them:

“I shouldn’t be persecuted just because of my gender! What do these people think I am, a woman?” one man says. 

“We can’t just abolish men. We have to reform them. Abolishing men means abolishing Duke,” says Reiss Becker, who wished to remain anonymous. 

Senior Rohan Singh, president of Duke’s Interfraternity Council, wrote in an email earlier this week before he and every other male was banned from campus, that IFC’s “sexual assault task forces have been collaborating and figuring out what the future of events could look like.”

He later clarified that “sexual assault task forces” are not task forces designed to carry out sexual assault. Nor should they be confused with the recently disbanded, widely panned “sexual assault stealth commando squadrons”. 

The Panhellenic Council’s frat-mixing prohibition, though controversial, has moved the needle in a more progressive direction when it comes to gender equality on campus. Here’s more of President Price’s address banning men:

“I’d like to personally apologize for my gender. Effective immediately, myself, all of my male colleagues, and every male-identifying undergraduate and graduate student must leave campus in a mass-exodus without packing. Except, of course, for Michael Eubanks. Big Mike can stay. The man’s a national treasure.”

The room of people I’m watching the stream with nods and murmurs in agreement.

“Non-binary folks can also stay. It’s really just those cis-men we’re trying to weed out. This is also great because axing men significantly reduces the population density of our campus during this pandemic and eliminates a major risk factor for contracting COVID-19 that males supply en masse: stupidity.” 

“I will be succeeded by Dean Sue Wozniak. It was between her and Provost Sally Kornbluth. We put it to an Instagram poll on @discoverduke. Dean Sue won in a landslide.”

This announcement makes President-elect Wozniak somehow only the university’s second female president. It also makes her its first president who was actually, like, voted on. Price is surprisingly content transferring power:

“Frankly, this is a huge relief. I had no idea what I was doing back there. That email on anti-racism last week was ghostwritten for me by Dean Blackshear. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. My tell-all book is gonna be wild. Anyways, Sue’s going to do a bang-up job! Tally-ho!” He does a heel-click before sprinting out of frame as the livestream cuts out. 

President-elect Sue isn’t afraid to get right down to brass tacks. 

“First order of business: we’re gonna get rid of that god awful yellow-and-blue Wayne Manor bench in Crowell quad. It looks terrible. The letters are all lopsided and it looks like an elementary school art project, but not in a cute and innocent way; in a sloppy, unimaginative way. I hate it. And this has nothing to do with the new gender-norms either. I just hate looking at it. What an eyesore.”

Women, who are of course still permitted on campus, are much more receptive to the new policy. Without the invasive species of human males, Duke is flourishing:

“I feel a lot safer. Plus I can get to my classes so much faster without horizontal lines of un-spatially-aware men monopolizing walking paths on the BC plaza!” 

“I’m not used to actually being able to take up space in conversations or any sort of social environment. It’s nice. Is this what men feel like all the time? Is that why they’re always spreading their legs so wide whenever they sit in chairs?”

“I spoke up during class this week, and I wasn’t even spoken over at all,  nor was my point regurgitated by a male student who received more credit and validation for it than I did even though I’m the one who brought up the same point initially. It was so weird. I think I kind of like it.”

This series of events confirms Greek life’s reputation as a pinnacle of virtuosity. It’s hard to believe that this seismic shift in our community is all thanks to Panhellenic’s choice to ban mixers with all-male groups.

“Wait, they were planning on having mixers at all?” asks one unaffiliated student who then takes off their backpack, unzips it, sticks their head into it, and begins screaming indistinctly.

How is this news affecting me personally, you might ask? I’m doing just fine. Monday Monday isn’t a person. It’s an idea. A mantle untethered from gender, race, sexual orientation, or any other creed. Like Quiznos. 

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