Danilo A. Canales, is a Chilean father who from his Facebook profile explains: "Being the father of a girl made me a feminist"... "and there I realized that women are at a disadvantage, they have always been instilled in being afraid" ... "I recently read some stories and boiled in anger and shame, because of my gender, and because of the normalized behavior of the compliment- Harassment generates fear again in the older girls, I almost vomited with rage at the thought that one day my little girl will happen to her "..." While it is violent for you to be yelled back because you sent a compliment harassing you without consent, Elsewhere a girl is raped by hundreds of inmates in a jail, another dies impaled in Argentina, and here a stepfather had the luxury of carving up and burying a 9-year-old girl "...
I have found these statements looking for information to write this post about # Black Wednesday, and about femicide; for today a day of protest against gender violence has been called in Argentina. The women stopped for an hour, a message circulating on Twitter read like this: "If my life doesn't matter, produce without me"; no less than 17 women and girls murdered at the hands of men this month in that country on the other side of the Atlantic. And not long ago the women had already marched on the Argentine streets, but the macabre murder of Lucia on October 8 has finished our patience.
#Niunamenos #nosqueremosvivas # Black Wednesday, are some of the hashtags that we have read the most related to this topic. It is not happening only in Argentina because we are talking about global figures of 65.000 women killed by femicide each year. I subscribe to the words of Lola Chomnalez's mother, a 15-year-old Uruguayan teenager who was murdered at the end of last year, who calls for public policies to prevent gender violence 'and calls for a society that stops being a spectator of this problem.
Lucía Pérez is assassinated and the # Black Wednesday is summoned
Lucia was 16 years old and on October 8 she suffered a sexual assault that is very difficult to describe: she went to a private home where at least 3 men drugged her or forced her to take drugs, raped her and 'impaled' her by introducing the one that ' it could have been a stick 'through the vagina. This inhuman aggression caused an overreaction of the vagal reflex that caused a cardiorespiratory arrest: the pain from the impalement triggered such a reflex. The prosecutor in the case declares that she had never seen 'such an aberration of events'.
Her attackers washed her and wanted to make her believe that she had died from an overdose. Put yourself in his shoes, in that of his mother, his father, his brother. In Argentina, and between 2008 and 2015, sexual assaults have increased by 78%. However, violence against women is above numbers and statistics because it is about pain, broken families, suffering, impunity, inability to achieve a more harmonious society, justice, ... That there is no more 'Lucías'.
Today, all to the obelisk. #Not one less #WednesdayBlack pic.twitter.com/Sh1HBnQ7bK
- THE NATION (@LANACION) 19th October 2016
We are mothers, we are fathers… and we have daughters and sons.
What responsibility, right? And what helplessness to know that all this is happening in the same world in which they and they will roam freely within a few years.
Do we want a free and equal society for our daughters and sons?
In essence, 'feminism' is the idea that women are people, but this is a very poor definition and there is not a single idea of living feminism, but there is only one goal: eradicate inequalities and end the violence generated by patriarchy against women. Now we can vote and study, but they kill us; We do not remain enclosed within the 4 walls of the house, but other more subtle violence is exerted against us.
Rosa de Luxembourg was a Marxist theorist born in the second half of the XNUMXth century, who fought "For a world where we are socially equal, humanly different and totally free": for me it is a perfect definition of feminism, since it gives us the freedom to be different between ourselves and ourselves, and at the same time equal… but above all FREE.
But how free will my daughter be in a few years if you are afraid of going down the street alone? How is she going to feel THE SAME as everyone else if she is judged for wearing shorts that are too short? I think it's okay now, it's time to stop this barbarism that some even strive to justify: “All men are not equal”, “men also suffer violence”, “a girl should not go alone”, “educate your daughters so that they do not provoke”.
To which I reply:
- Of course they are not all the same, there are many men who support us along the way and in the struggle; although we also have to strengthen each other.
- We can all be victims of violence, but gender violence is not the same as a violent episode that has happened to a man. They are not discriminated against, they do not suffer the wage gap, they are not harassed in public, etc.
- A girl can go alone, as a boy can go alone… Going alone or having drunk or having taken any substance are not reasons to justify rape.
- The perception that girls 'provoke' is very humiliating and comes out of a sick mind, don't believe it. Women have the full right to live our sexuality without this being interpreted as provocation.
And what do we tell the boys and girls?
What we tell them and what we do, because we are their mirrors: a little boy who sees his father yelling at mother could reproduce the behavior of an adult; a little girl who sees her older sister submissive while the boyfriend tries to control her through whatsapp, she is also learning dangerous behavior for herself.
Children are children, brothers, friends, grandchildren, cousins ... of women, and mom and dad can make each child wear purple glasses to understand the world. We need to communicate more as a family and expose our values, dismantle prejudices, and ultimately put on the table the need for a more egalitarian society. A boy must know that he cannot touch a girl without consentWe can no longer educate girls to run home, completely covered up and looking back every time they go out to party.
The dictionary of the RAE defines society as "a set of people, peoples or nations that coexist under common rules" or "natural or agreed group of people, organized to cooperate in the achievement of certain purposes." In my opinion, if we are not capable of ending gender violence (from micromachisms to femicide) we should stop calling ourselves 'society'. And by the way, I end the post with a very useful infographic to place us.
Images - Romina Lerda (Cover), twitter (# black Wednesday)
Video - La Nación