Errejón has done enormous political damage, but not because he has killed the parties in which he was active with a single shot, but because he has returned feminism to defensive positions and into the hands of women exclusively.
“It is not enough to say “I am a feminist”, it is not enough to be against sexist violence, it is not enough to be in favor of parity or feminist laws. You have to be willing to go all out. And that is not easy, nor fast. But that’s what it’s about.”. (Beatriz Gimeno)
Since I can remember politically, back in the early eighties, I have considered myself a feminist. I have always been on the left and, therefore, I have always recognized myself as a feminist, because if I was on the left I had to be a socialist, feminist, environmentalist, pacifist and wear on my chest all the -ist labels approved by the standardprogressive.
You are left-wing, and therefore you understand and rationally assume feminism. You think about feminism. But one day, not too long ago, but a few years ago, you realized that you do not live in feminism, because, although you rationally accept the ideas of feminism, you see in your daily life that you are not as feminist as you think you are. you believe And you start to feel a little ashamed of proclaiming yourself a feminist, and you stop doing it, and it strikes you that so many men in your circles, in your progressive parties, proclaim it so lightly, because you see them and you understand them, and you know that Intellectually they are feminists, like you, but they are not in real life. And, as Beatriz Gimeno says, “It is not enough to agree with the changes, you have to embody them”.
And that contradiction is normal. You are of an age, you were educated in the 70s, in a fairly traditional family, and you have a lot of vices and clichés in your head that you have never bothered to eradicate, because they did not attract your attention, because they were part of you. , like your fingers and your eyelids. Until you realize all this, intellectually sharing feminism was enough, but it is starting to not be enough.
It is not, in reality, because, as one of the classic proclamations of feminism says “the personal is political”, and if in your daily life you do not fight to identify and eliminate those clichés, some important, others purely symbolic or less important Well, you are not a feminist, but above all you do not contribute to creating a more just and equal world, because one of the most important contributions of feminism is that the revolution is first internal. There is no change outside if there is no change inside. It doesn’t matter what the Law says, it doesn’t matter that it guarantees equality on paper, if the people who have to comply and apply it do not really believe it, even if we believe that we believe it, that is the problem of men. left-wing feminists, who give, who take for granted things that are not so clear that they are real. And you get to it. It’s a fight with yourself that I’ve been fighting for years. And I think I’ve purged myself quite a bit, but every once in a while I discover some new lint to sweep up, some blob to clean, some pile of trash to send to the landfill…
At a certain point, you begin to realize that you can’t talk about this with your male friends, feminist or not, left-wing or not, unless they follow a path very parallel to yours. Most of them, if you tell them everything you think, they start to look at you as if you were a Martian and either laugh at you or react by saying that they are already feminists, but that they are not going to beat themselves up or care. to apologize to anyone for being men. In fact, the me of 4 or 5 years ago would see the me today as a “scumbag” and probably would have reacted in a similar way.
Little by little, you are reaching a second stage. Feminism liberates women, but you realize that it also liberates men from roles of the past in which many of us no longer recognize ourselves. I don’t want the privileges that my grandfather could have. I don’t want them, because if they were privileges for him, for me they are mortgages. I don’t want that life, I don’t want that way of relating to women. Feminism has taken another step in my mind. It no longer only liberates women, but it liberates all of us; At least, it frees me.
And when I realize that, I begin to be able to dare to say again that I am a feminist. And I don’t like it when my feminist friends tell me that I am an ally, because I am not an ally, I am a full-fledged feminist and I am also an object of liberation by feminism, not like them, obviously, but for me, feminism It is also a liberation.
And I was in this idea until a few days ago when we learned the true face of Íñigo Errejón and I suddenly returned to the past, to when I was ashamed to declare myself a feminist, because everything I have said so far, all these reflections, all this jihad-the jihad It is nothing more than the fight against oneself – all of this becomes hoax, talk that no one has to believe in since yesterday, because Errejón, supposedly, represented everything that I have described. And if Errejón is not trustworthy, why should I be, looking like a slimy bishop that I have.
I trust myself much less today than I did a few days ago: am I credible? Am I sincere with myself and with others? Was Errejón sincere when he talked about feminism? Was he believed in what he said, and was it a sort of Mr. Hyde, the one who pushed women into bed and attacked them, the one who harassed them until he destroyed them as people, while his feminist self wrote speeches in the Congress office, or perhaps his speech was compatible in his conscience with his actions?
I don’t know, but the issue stirs me up politically – Errejón has done enormous political damage, but not because he has killed with a single shot the parties in which he was active, but because he has returned feminism to defensive positions and into the hands of women exclusively–, but above all it upsets me personally, because again it is very easy to say that you are a feminist, or even believe it, when your contribution to an egalitarian world is making the bed in the morning (because your wife has two hours working when you get up), cooking (because if not, you won’t eat) and making speeches like, probably, the one I’m making right now…
#Feminism
