Including marry the douchenozzle.

Rosalina stood at the podium in the wood-paneled room. As a little girl, she’d watched her father speak. He’d seemed so different in this context, tall, commanding…and yet he’d had an affability and sense of humor that put everyone at ease. They trusted him.

In this moment, she didn’t quite have her footing, not when she felt a strange mix between Rosalina and Rosie. Especially when all twenty men and five women watched her with grave expressions, and she knew without a doubt they didn’t appreciate her hijacking their session.

Before speaking she glanced down at her phone, at the referendum she’d posted on her personal website, surprised to see she already had twenty-five hundred virtual signatures.

Proof, indeed, that it was time to throw out the old playbook. Time to join the modern age.

“Mr. Speaker, members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time this afternoon. When our principality was formed six hundred years ago, it was unquestionably a man’s world, where women were treated like chattel, and where property ownership and legal power resided exclusively with men.”

She wanted to drag her sweaty palms on her pants, but they’d take the gesture as a sign of weakness. And, right now, I’m not weak. My message is strong, powerful, and vital.

“Today.” She made sure to pan the room, looking each individual in the eye. “Women have substantially achieved equality throughout Europe, where many have become heads of state and of royal households. The one exception is our beloved country, where the royal house is still defined by the masculine bloodline.”

She glanced at her uncle to see whether he approved of her message. Brow furrowed, his attention seemed divided between her speech and the audience’s reaction. Glancing down at her phone, she noted she now had twenty-nine hundred signatures in the thirty minutes since posting the words that had become her speech.

“This archaic remnant of our past should be eliminated. Our women should bear the responsibilities and rights of men in all matters, including those of state.”