Chapter Text
To be honest, Ino Yamanaka was not the type of girl to put up with other people's bullshit for any reason, whatsoever. She had scored the top marks of her graduating class; with good looks, popularity, personality, confidence, a strong set of morals, and analytical ability like no other.
After all, there was a damn good reason why her father thought that she had the potential to be the strongest and most capable Yamanaka clan leader in history.
So really, it should have been no surprise to the newest batch of freshly-minted ninja that she had a problem with the new four-man squads that Iruka-sensei had assigned them to; and that she would say something about it.
"Iruka-sensei, if I may, I have some concerns I'd like attended to," Ino called, rising from her seat with a determined look on her face.
Shikamaru threw his head onto the desk in front of him and sighed. Now, he wished he had scored better marks during school so he would not have been placed with this girl who was always so extra... She was literally the type of student to remind teachers to collect homework assignments.
On Fridays.
Choji munched on his food a bit more quietly than before, wondering what could have angered Ino already. It had been less than three minutes since the groups had been announced, and it was a foregone conclusion that the three of them would be together anyways.
Most of the other new graduates had on looks of indifference, like Sasuke, or concealed interest, like Hinata - with the main out liar being Sakura.
The pink haired girl had gritted her teeth, and was growling lowly in her throat. Was Ino-pig trying to put herself on the team with Sasuke instead? No way, Sakura just could not let that happen! If it did, then she would have to speak up - for the sake of her and Sasuke's eternal love!
Iruka just sighed.
He had been going over these group lists for the entirety of last week, and all through last night with the Hokage and the teaching jounin. He was sick of staring at the same names in various different orders.
Nonetheless, he smiled brightly, (if not a bit tiredly) and nodded for her to continue.
"Thank you. Sensei, don't you notice a pattern in each group?" she asked accusingly, green-blue eyes scanning each table to indicate she had, in fact, checked each table.
"Yes, Ino, the mark average of your group should be about the same; so, most groups contain one exceptional student, one average, and one lacking..." replied Iruka slowly, not bothering to look at the groups he had memorized to confirm that this was true.
However it was slightly strange that he had to say this at all; he had expected the ever-observant girl to figure that out independently. Also, he himself had just mentioned it for everyone else at Naruto's outburst...
"Yes sir, you're right. However, there is something else!" Ino insisted, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
Iruka sighed again, "Alright then, what is it, Ino?"
She cleared her throat, and rolled her shoulders back. "Each and every team contains precisely two boys and one girl!" she exclaimed.
Iruka frowned a bit; not seeing anything out of the ordinary. "Yes, they do... What is your point?"
"Well, isn't that sexist?"
The classroom became very quiet as all the children tried to understand such a mature word and concept.
Then, the adult in the room decided it was time to speak up and clarify their young minds with his eloquent and thoughtful response.
"...Huh?"
Ino glanced around the room, looking for anyone who might help her explain herself. However, after a minute of finding no one - although Hinata Hyuuga was totally staring right at her - she sighed, and tried to formulate a simple explanation.
"Essentially, sexism is the prejudices or injustices society inflicts upon those of a certain gender; particularly females," she clarified.
Unfortunately, that elicited not much more of a response; and everyone became oddly aware of the low sounds Shino's bugs made in the deathly silent room, buzzing as they flew around him...
Cursing the fact that she was in a room full of twelve year olds who probably spent all their time eating and playing instead of reading feminist books, Ino sighed and flicked her hair over her shoulder. She might as well try to explain her complete thought process regarding the matter in question.
"I know for a fact, sensei," she started, "That this year, the girls' average on all of the midterm examinations was very high; consistently around 88%, while the boys' average only hovered around 79%... However, since there are twice as many boys in this room as there are girls, it means that some of the girls who scored higher than some of the boys here; - meaning that girls who knew more ninjutsu, were stronger at genjutsu, had more chakra control, and were more adept at taijutsu - were not even considered to take this term's transformation and clone tests!"
(Here she paused for some well-timed dramatic effect.)
"Those girls were made to wait another semester so that there would be a higher concentration of eligible boys in the graduating class! But why is that? Do the senseis believe that if there were to be two girls on each team, or daresay a full girl's team, that they would not be able to manage? That they would be too weak and delicate to properly complete missions?"
When she finished her speech, everyone in the class had their eyes trained on Ino and their brains working in overdrive. Could what the blonde be saying actually be true? And if that was the case, then the organized teams were in fact, 'sexist' and nobody had ever realized.
The kids looked at one another and found that Ino was right; several competent female candidates were absent, not because they had failed the test, but because they were not invited to take it in the first place...
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Ino, or whatever her name was, was right. He had only every heard of genin groups containing one girl and two boys; never any other combination. He closed his eyes and tried to think of any exceptions, but came up blank; both his parents, his traitor of a brother, all of his cousins, aunts and uncles had only ever mentioned teams of 2:1.
Naruto clutched his head and groaned softly, completely confused. Before today, he had never even heard of words like 'discrimination,' 'oppression,' or whatever the heck else Ino was talking about!
Iruka awkwardly coughed. "Well, Ino, I'm not sure what to say to that... But I can promise you that... degrading women was not something we tried to do with these groupings," he mumbled, searching through his clipboard for something more he could say to her.
"Intention does not mean the reality any less true," she pointed out proudly.
Ino smiled to herself. (If she were not such a talented ninja, she would have been a fantastic civilian lawyer. Maybe in another alternate reality.)
Iruka sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was not really upset with the female class topper, just frustrated that her point was legitimate enough to be brought up in front of the Hokage and the jounin. Then, they would all argue over it for another three days...
"Iruka-sensei, these children should be with their teachers by now!" called the Third Hokage, abruptly rounding the door into their classroom. With a pull from his ever-present pipe, he continued, "I just walked past the very disturbing image of Kakashi giggling because he was less late then everyone else for once! What is the meaning of this?"
Iruka felt his shoulders droop in resignation, "Hokage-sama, there seems to be a problem..."