“But do you use tampons?” and other forms of machismo and racism that we suffer gypsies

I have suffered antigitanism in all the places where I have been. On the street, in stores, in the hospital, at school. No matter the city, the neighborhood, the language that is spoken or the history of struggle of its people. We always Racismeanand enough.

Since I am aware, I have felt racism about my skin. Not as an abstract idea, not as something that others discuss in gatherings, but as a constant weight, as a slab that crushes opportunities, dignity and even existence itself.

Everything happened to me. They have followed me in stores as if it were a thief. They have put me in rooms left at the hospital “In case the whole clan comes.” They have looked at me with contempt in work meetings, implying that this is not my site. But of all Racismeadas That I have suffered, there is one that pursues me especially, perhaps because of the coldness with which it happened, for how normalized it is.

I went with my friend Maribel to buy makeup, creams, those things that I like. We were in a perfumery when the clerk, very smiling, offers my friend Paya a free sample of new tampons with applicator. Maribel takes them without thinking, and I, by inertia, extending my hand to receive my sample too. But the clerk stops me dry: “Oh, no, you don’t, that the gypsies do not use tampons.” He stared at me as if I had said something obvious, something that everyone knows.

I was frozen. I didn’t know what to answer. Because what is said to that? How do you respond to such an absurd and violent stereotype? Do you think our body is different? What do we menstru in another way?

This is not just antigitanism. It is also machismo. It is the confluence of two oppressions that go through gypsy women. The image of the gypsy woman is still prey to two opposite and dehumanizing stereotypes: either we are the “wild and sexualized gypsy” or the “submissive and traditional mother.” In both cases, we are not allowed to exist outside of what payocentrism has decided that we should be. And of course, in that imaginary, there is no place for us to use tampons or make decisions about our bodies.

When I count on me monologue I’m not your gypsypeople laugh. Because I have it gracefully and ask if we have the pussy diagonally or something. And sometimes humor is the only way to endure pain. But he doesn’t have a bit of grace. He didn’t have it at that time, he doesn’t have it now. It does not have it because it is not an isolated anecdote, it is a reminder that, for many, we remain “the others”, those that do not fit, those that do not belong.

This is not a simple unfortunate comment. It is the reflection of something much deeper. Because while they deny us a sample of tampons, in each city of this country there is a ghetto where gypsy families are enclosed. Because while the clerk laughed, 98% of the gypsy people are at risk of poverty. Because while people laugh at the theater, 67% of the gypsy students do not exceed ESO.

The pain that all these situations cause to gypsies is incalculable, and the consequences of all that institutional racism – that is, perpetuated, perpetrated and consented by the State and its institutions, such as governments, ministries, councils and councils of all parties – It is that my people, my family and I continue to live marginalized, oppressed, segregated and with 15 years less life expectancy. That nobody tells me that this does not hurt.

We menstruate. We cry. We feel. And we exist. The story weighs us, the injustice weighs us, but here we continue, resisting. And, although weighing them, we will continue. Using tampons, the menstrual cup or practicing the Free Bleedingwhich is more ecological and natural.

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