“I did enough research to verify that the mystique of femininity was affecting all women, not just a handful of Smith girls with too much education”-Betty Friedan
On the one hand, we felt that there was good news. More and more women were like Nevenka, we dared to speak, to denounce, to shout that we were not alone. However, that percentage that with the courage of Gisèle Pelicot was able to narrate her suffering, always did so years or months later.
Psychological violence, often prior to sexual violence, economic and power abuse, the shock of having placed trust in someone and the emotional bond that follows, makes it tremendously difficult to tell what happened.
But to all this, the condition is added. It is even more complicated if it is a “great man”, known, famous, powerful, prestigious. That is, the condition, together with the terrible Deleuzian difference of an “between”. The sense of complementing-to. Who complements whom? as Amelia Valcárcel reminds us. And to what extent? For what purpose?
Depositing such an intimate reality in the hands of the police, judicial institutions, large national newspapers or law firms - most of which are not yet specialized in gender violence and to which many of us could not afford economically - does not yet generate sufficient confidence. This is one of the underlying problems that invites reflection and we should all ask ourselves why. Perhaps the institutions themselves, political parties and the press, are - although I would like to think that to a lesser extent each time - dominated by the same people who seek to silence the voice of women.
Make no mistake, the common denominator of these abuses is called patriarchy and spheres of power.
It does not matter if it is located in cinema like Vermut, in the Royal House or in the names of deputies from different political parties. The root begins with a “Jessica 20 minutes” or “Spain can wait”, because for many we are not seen as subjects, as Simone de Beauvoir rightly stated, but as objects.
The same predators who stopped the car in the middle of the night on the road are now located on the network. It is striking how many politicians by chance only follow women on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The alert was there. They were not “names that sounded”, it was not a “there were rumors of...”, it is not that all of Spain knew that King Juan Carlos had relations with Barbara Rey. The alert was announced years ago by Amelia Valcárcel, Celia Amorós, Laura Freixas, Yolanda Domínguez...so many in whom we recognized ourselves.
“Abalos, the emeritus king and Errejón” are nothing more than other guys in the bunch. Yes, and be careful, with power. That power that makes us think of admiring them, that condition that persists from their omnipotent universality and their apparent impunity.
It is striking that this issue is treated from sensationalism and partisanship when what is happening has much deeper and more historical roots. The revelation of a “moral anthropological novum” that we women build with effort since the Enlightenment. The rights and freedoms that we build together and for which, as you can see - despite so much verbiage - we must continue fighting.