Imagine a box big enough to fit 25 women reduced to video-game size.  Imagine this is all happening on a screen before your very eyes, and that the box has 4 sides at least 5 times higher than any of the women but has no top, so that you can observe.

Imagine a narrow band of white drawn on the floor of the box.  It’s about big enough to fit 5 women standing on it, side-to-side.

Half of the women are wearing a bracelet coded as "traditional" (T’s) and the other half (plus or minus one–you decide) is wearing the same bracelet, coded as "non-traditional" (NT’s).

Here’s how it works:  every woman in the box is receiving a mildly unpleasant shock.  The shocks appear to come at no predictable intervals or intensity.  By scurrying around, the women discover that the only place to escape the shocks is on the narrow band of white.  Furthermore, only women wearing the "traditional" bracelet, the T’s, escape the shocks when they stand on the narrow white band.

As the shocks continue, control of the narrow white band fluctuates with pushing, shoving, fighting, negotiating, and the occasional invocation of fairness.  After hours and hours of battling, negotiating, and a semi-orderly rotation, the NT’s realize that if they can get a majority of NT’s on the white band at the same time, they can affect the shock pattern.  3 NT’s on the band w/ 2 T’s will lessen the intensity of the shocks that NT’s receive.  4 NT’s on the band with 1 T will reduce the frequency of the shocks.  When 5 NT’s occupy the band, leaving no room for any T’s,   the system will go into reverse, delivering random, unpredictable shocks only to the T’s.

What should the women in the box do?

1. Work out a program such that there is a fair rotation, giving everyone a respite from the shocks.
2. Keep manipulating the settings of the shock system to see if they can change it or turn it off.
3. Figure out how to get out of the box.

(This is also posted at Feminist Advisory Board for Obama.)