It’s good that sexists are afraid to behave like such. It is also very positive that sexists are leaving politics. Where people are watching a drama, and without downplaying the electoral and emotional impact of disappointment and defeat, I see a process of improvement
They say the bells are ringing for the funeral of the left. I can’t quite believe it, honestly. It is true that the landscape is desolate, the horizon is very cloudy, and the troops are in retreat. A friend told me the other day that after recent events she felt disappointed, devastated and defeated. Other friends have stressed the same idea to me. Without a doubt, no one can blame them: it is understandable after what we are seeing in the ecosystem of the left. But I, however, see it differently.
I don’t want to be misunderstood. I also think that, if there were elections now, the reactionary right could win a considerable victory. I also believe that the mess of statements, press conferences, cross accusations, identification of culprits and other processes in which the left is mired do not help it at all. But I mean something else.
I defend that the left is maturing and growing, and that the events of recent days indicate, in fact, that the left is integrating new aspects that make it better and stronger. Far from pessimistic readings, which have their point, I consider that we are witnessing the strengthening of the left thanks to the feminist movement.
Let’s start from a realization: the left has coexisted without problems – and has always – with that cultural structure that we call patriarchy, which normalizes the exploitation, oppression and abuse exercised on women by men. Perhaps there are those who believe that the Errejón case – or the cases, it seems – are the first that have occurred. In fact, I have come to read that the fault of all this is the new policywhatever that is. But both things are very far from being true.
In the sexist gradient that goes from contempt for the value of a woman’s word to sexual harassment and rape, there are many intermediate points. At some point on this gradient is, prior interpretation by a judge, the border with the crime. In between, certain behaviors of men towards women remain in the shadows and, at most, are morally reprehensible but not necessarily criminally. And, unfortunately, the daily practices of organizations are plagued by these behaviors.
Patriarchy is very old. I don’t need to go back to its origins, but just a decade ago. It was then when, in an internal process of Izquierda Unida in which an accusation of sexual harassment was being settled, an old leader – one of those hypocrites who still fill their articles with continuous ethical references to exemplary behavior – justified his friend, the accused , by virtue of the fact that “other generations flirt differently.” The case ended with the accused withdrawing from the training to avoid being investigated within the training.
The point is that a decade ago – and two, and three, and many more – sexist behavior already existed within leftist organizations. The difference is that these practices were much more normalized before and, if that were not enough, their authors were much less exposed and much more protected. The problem with idealizing previous generations is that it entails ignoring their private behaviors, which are much more preserved than in current times.
What has changed, and this is the core of my presentation, is that these behaviors are no longer easily tolerated. Women are losing their fear of denouncing sexist practices, wherever they come from. Victims are becoming agents of change because they want a society in which these behaviors are eradicated. The person responsible for this enormous evolution is the feminist movement, which has fought hard in the trenches of daily practices and, with this, has provided tools to women, educated men and denounced sexists. The change, seen in perspective, is brutal.
Machismo is everywhere; in companies, in families, in administration… and also in politics. From a meeting in which the leader looks at the ceiling while a woman speaks, to the leader who uses his power to harass women who work for him – or who could work for him -, all political life continues to be crossed by the patriarchy. But what was once normal has fortunately now become a political problem. That is revolutionizing politics.
It is true that women are still afraid to file a legal complaint, because sometimes not even the category of abuse suffered is enough for a judge to rule in their favor, but they can talk among themselves and point out the sexist. That is why our ecosystems are full of “rumors” about men who use their erotic capital to take advantage of women – usually much younger than them, by the way. These conversations have no legal status, but they are the defenses that women equip themselves with to protect themselves by warning other women of where danger lurks – especially when that danger is disguised as a feminist ally. They are safe spaces for women. And the consequence is that the harasser is afraid to continue harassing.
I have read that there are those who consider that we are entering a new phase of puritanism. What nonsense. Sex, if consensual, can be as wild as its protagonists wish. But if there is no consent, then the political leader – like every man – has to keep that hand that rests on the woman’s waist to himself; that invasive position with which he keeps the woman uncomfortable during a conversation; that hand that slides over the knee as if to say “I control you”; and countless more deeply rooted attitudes and behaviors that, although legally they have no place to take root, are, for me, pure sexist harassment.
In short, it is good that sexists are afraid to behave as such. It is also very positive that sexists are leaving politics. Where people are watching a drama, and without downplaying the electoral and emotional impact of disappointment and defeat, I see a process of improvement. There will be time to improve in the surveys. Now the important thing is to get out of the way, for the first time in history, those sexists who, until very recently, lived in impunity.
#Sexists #place #politics
