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To be a woman means to live in fear. Every woman has a fear of men in her DNA. She thinks twice before doing something as routine as walking past a group of men. In places that are supposedly safe, like a university campus or a military institution, there are programs that teach women to avoid risky situations, and then assume that if she is attacked it is her fault. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Men are not expected to change their behavior. Moreover, sexual aggression is not only allowed, it is even celebrated as a man’s right and proof of his masculinity. Fortunately this is rapidly changing, at least in first-world countries, thanks to #MeToo and other feminist initiatives.
An extreme expression of the above are women who live buried in burkas that cover them from head to toe to avoid sparking male desire. Apparently, men have bestial impulses that are triggered by the sight of an inch of female skin or a white sock. That is to say, women are punished for men’s weakness and vice. I recognize that some women choose to wear a burka because they are religiously observant. That said, some women fear men so much that they defend the use of the burka on the grounds that it allows them to be invisible, and therefore safer. The truth is that all human beings should feel safe in this world.
The author Eduardo Galeano said that “in the end, women’s fear of men’s violence is a reflection of men’s fear of women without fear.” Sounds good but the concept seems confusing to me. How could we not be afraid if the world colludes to scare us? There are very few fearless women, except when we get together. In a group we feel invincible.
What’s at the root of this explosive mixture of desire for and hatred of women? Why are aggression and harassment not civil rights or human rights concerns? Why are women silenced? Why isn’t there a declared war against such violence, like the war against drugs, terrorism, or crime? The answer is obvious: Violence and fear are instruments of control.
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Between 2005 and 2009 in the ultraconservative and remote Mennonite colony of Manitoba in Bolivia, one hundred and fifty women and girls, including a little girl only three years old, were repeatedly raped after being drugged with a spray used to anesthetize bulls prior to castration. They would wake up bruised and bloody and the explanation given by the elders was that they were being punished by the Devil, that they were the victims of demonic possession. The women and girls were illiterate, they spoke an archaic German language so they couldn’t communicate with the external world, they didn’t know where they were, they couldn’t read a map that might allow them to escape, and they had no one to help them. This is not a unique case; the same has happened and still happens in other isolated fundamentalist communities, either religious or militant, such as Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist organization in Nigeria, where women are treated like animals. Sometimes no ideology is needed, just isolation and ignorance, as in Tysfjord, in the north of Norway, near the Arctic.
Men fear feminine power. That’s why laws, religion, and strict mores have been imposed for centuries—all kinds of restrictions on women’s intellectual, economic, and artistic development. In the past, thousands and thousands of women accused of witchery were tortured and burned alive because they knew too much; they had the power of knowledge. Women didn’t have access to libraries or universities; in fact, the ideal was—and still is in some places—that women remain illiterate to keep them submissive and to stop them from questioning or rebelling. The same principle was applied to slaves. The punishment for learning to read was a whipping and even death. Today, most women have the same educational opportunities as men, but if they stand out or aspire to leadership positions they are met with aggression, as happened to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
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Mass murderers in the United States—almost without exception, white men—have misogyny in common, along with a proven record of domestic violence, threats, and assaults on women. Many of these psychopaths have been marked by traumatic relationships with their mothers. They cannot stand rejection, indifference, or mockery from women; that is to say, they cannot stand the power that women have held over them. “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them,” wrote Margaret Atwood.
The Women’s Liberation Movement has tested the self-esteem of two or three generations of men. They have been challenged and often surpassed by feminine competitiveness in many fields that used to belong to them exclusively, like the armed forces. The masculine response to women’s empowerment is often violent. It’s not a coincidence that there is a high rate of rape in the military, where in the past women could only work in administrative jobs, far from the action.
Of course, I am not saying that all men are potential abusers or rapists, but the percentage is so high that we have to consider violence against women for what it really is: the greatest crisis that faces humanity. The aggressors are not exceptional; they are fathers, brothers, boyfriends, husbands, and other normal men.
Enough of euphemisms. Enough of partial solutions. Profound changes are needed in society and it’s us, women, who can impose them. Remember that no one gives us anything. We have to seize what we want. We need to create global awareness and get organized. Now, more than ever before, this is possible because we have information, communication, and the ability to mobilize.
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Mistreatment of women can be explained by how they are devalued. Feminism is the radical notion that, as Marie Shear said, women are people. For centuries it was debated whether or not women had souls. In many places a woman has less value than a cow or a horse. Most men consider women inferior, even if they would never admit it, so they are shocked and offended if a woman knows or achieves more than they do.
I have told this story before in a memoir, but I will summarize it here because it’s relevant. Many years ago, in 1995, I traveled to India with Willie, my husband at the time, and my friend Tabra. The two of them planned the trip to push me out of my comfort zone and to help me shake the paralysis I felt after my daughter died. I had written a memoir—Paula—which helped me to understand and finally accept what had happened to her, but after it was published I found myself facing a terrible void. My life made no sense at all.
I remember the contrasts and the incredible beauty of India. I also remember something that influenced the rest of my life.
We had rented a car with a driver and were traveling on a rural road in Rajasthan when the engine overheated and we had to stop. While we waited for it to cool down, Tabra and I walked over to a group of six or seven women and some kids who were under the only tree in that place. What were they doing there in the desert? From where did they come? We had not passed any village or well that could explain their presence. The women, all very young and poor, approached us with that innocent curiosity that still exists in some places. Tabra’s hair, the color of eggplant, fascinated them. We gave them the silver bracelets that we had bought in a market and we played with the kids for a little while. Then the driver honked, calling us.
As we were leaving, one of the women came up to me and handed me a small parcel of rags. It weighed almost nothing. I thought she wanted to give me something in exchange for the bracelets, but when I opened the rags to see what was inside, I found a newborn baby. I blessed the baby and tried to give it back, but the mother stepped away and wouldn’t take it. I was so surprised that I was unable to move, but the driver, a tall, bearded man in a turban, ran over, took the baby from me, and shoved it into another woman’s hands. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the car. We left in a hurry. Several minutes later, when I had recovered from the shock, I asked what had happened. Why had that woman tried to give me her baby? “It was a girl. No one wants a girl!” the driver answered.
Although I could not save that little girl, she has appeared in my dreams for years. I dream that she has had a miserable life, I dream that she died young, I dream that sh
e is my daughter or my granddaughter. In her memory, I decided to create a foundation whose mission is to help other girls like her: girls nobody wants; girls who are sold into premature marriage, forced labor, and prostitution; girls who are beaten and raped; girls who give birth in puberty; girls who will be mothers of other girls like them in an eternal cycle of humiliation and suffering; millions of girls who die too soon and millions who don’t even have the right to be born.
Now that fetus gender can be determined, millions of girls are aborted. In China, where the one-child-only policy to control population growth, implemented until 2016, caused a shortage of brides, many men import them from other countries, sometimes by force. It is estimated that twenty-one thousand girls were trafficked in less than five years from Myanmar (formerly Burma) to the Henan province, which has the highest disparity among the genders; one hundred and forty boys are born for every one hundred girls. Those trafficked girls, drugged, beaten, and raped, become captive wives and mothers, all against their will. One might think that given the demand, girls would be valued as much as boys, but that is not yet the case. In many places, it’s considered a disgrace to have a daughter and a blessing to have a son. Midwives are even paid less if the newborn is a female.
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According to the World Health Organization, two hundred million women have suffered genital mutilation, and three million girls are at risk of suffering it right now in parts of Africa, Asia, and among some immigrant communities in Europe and the United States. If you can stomach it, please look this practice up online. The clitoris and labia of a girl’s vulva are cut with a razor blade, knife, or piece of sharp glass, without anesthesia and with minimal hygiene. Women perform this mutilation on girls, repeating without question a custom that aims at preventing sexual pleasure and orgasm. Governments do not always intervene; it’s considered a religious or cultural tradition, and a girl who has not been cut has less value in the matrimonial market.
Abuse, exploitation, and the torture of women and girls happen on a massive scale throughout the world, usually with impunity. The figures are so high that they numb us and we lose perspective on the true horror. Only when we get to know a girl or a woman who has suffered these gruesome experiences—when we learn her name, see her face, and hear her story—can we stand in solidarity.
We suppose that nothing so terrible could happen to one of our daughters, but when they go out into the world and have to fend for themselves there will be innumerable instances in which they will be undervalued and harassed. At school and in higher education, girls are usually smarter and better students than boys, but they have fewer opportunities. In the workplace men still earn more and get the best promotions. In science and the arts women have to double their efforts for half the recognition…and so on.
Decades ago women were prevented from developing their talent and creativity because such development was considered an offense against nature; it was assumed that they were biologically predestined for motherhood only. If someone could achieve some degree of success, she had to hide behind her husband or father, who would get the credit, as was the case with composers, painters, writers, and scientists. That has changed, but not everywhere and not as much as is desirable.
In Silicon Valley, a technological paradise that has changed forever the essence of human communication and relationships, and where the average age is under thirty—that is to say, we are talking about a young generation that is supposedly the most progressive and visionary in the world—women still experience the same male-chauvinist discrimination that was unacceptable half a century ago. There, as in so many other places, the proportion of women employed is minimal; women are awarded fewer promotions, they are often harassed and undervalued, and interrupted or ignored when they speak.
My mother painted very well in oil—she had an exquisite sense of color—but because no one took her seriously, she didn’t either. She grew up with the idea that because she was a woman she was limited; true artists and creators were men. I understand, because in spite of feminism I also doubted my ability and talent; I didn’t start writing fiction until I was almost forty. I had the feeling I was trespassing into forbidden territory. Famous writers, especially those from the Latin American boom, were male. Panchita feared her creativity, as she explained it to me once. She preferred to copy other artists because it was not risky; no one was going to make fun of her or accuse her of being pretentious. She could have studied and put more effort into it, but nobody encouraged her. Her “little paintings” were considered yet another of her whims.
I always celebrated my mother’s paintings. I brought them by the dozens to California, and today they cover the walls in my office and my home, including the garage. Panchita painted for me. I know she regretted not having prioritized her art, as eventually I was able to do with my writing.
* * *
Let’s talk about peace. War is the maximum manifestation of machismo. In any war most of the victims are not combatants but women and children. Violence is the main cause of death among women fourteen to forty-four years of age, more than the sum of deaths due to cancer, malaria, and accidents. Seventy percent of human-trafficking victims are women and girls. It’s fair to say that there is an undeclared war against women. No wonder we want peace above all, peace for us and for our children.
When I saw The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, which is now a part of the culture everywhere, I was with my mother. We both left shaken to the core. At the end of the play Panchita said that she had never thought of her vagina, let alone looked at it in a mirror.
Eve Ensler wrote the Monologues in 1996 when the word vagina was considered rude and women barely dared mention it to their gynecologists. The play has been translated into many languages; it has been shown Off-Broadway, in schools and colleges, in the streets and plazas, and secretly in basements in those places where women lack fundamental rights. It has raised millions of dollars for programs dedicated to protecting and educating women and promoting their leadership.
Eve, who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her own father, founded V-Day, a global initiative to end violence against women and girls. In Congo, V-Day built the City of Joy, a refuge for female victims of war, rape, kidnapping, abuse, incest, exploitation, torture, and genital mutilation, and for women who are in danger of being killed out of jealousy, revenge, or simply because they are collateral damage in armed conflicts. There they start to heal and regain their voices, to sing and dance and tell their stories. They learn to trust themselves and other women. They recover their souls. All return to the world transformed.
For decades Eve Ensler has witnessed atrocities, but she has never wavered; she is sure that we can end this type of violence in one generation.
* * *
Rape has become a weapon of war. Women are the primary victims of military invasion and occupation, paramilitary groups, guerrillas, and militant movements of any type, including religious and of course terrorist groups and gangs, like the redoubtable Central American maras. Up to a million girls and women have been raped in the last few years in Congo alone, from toddlers to great-grandmothers. They have been mutilated and disfigured, and many suffer fistulas so severe that they often cannot be repaired.
Rape destroys the bodies and lives of women and girls and the fabric of communities. The damage is so great that now men are being raped too. In this way militias and armies break the will and the soul of a civilian population. Victims suffer horrible physical and psychological traumas and are marked as tainted forever; often they are expelled from their families and villages or stoned to death. This is yet another instance in which the victim is blamed.
Kavita Ramdas, the former chief executive officer of the Global Fund for Women, the largest nonprofit dedicated to women’s rights, and now the director of the Women’s Rights Program at the Open Society Foundations, proposes demilitarizing the world. This goal can only be achie
ved by women, because we are not seduced by the male attraction to weapons and we are the ones who most suffer the impact of a culture that exalts violence.
There’s nothing as fearsome as violence with impunity, as always happens in times of war. One of our most ambitious dreams is to end all wars, but there are too many interests invested in the war industry. A critical number of people willing to make this dream come true are needed to tip the balance toward peace.
Imagine a world without armies, a world where the resources employed in war are used for the common well-being, conflicts are resolved around a negotiation table, and the mission of soldiers is to maintain order and promote peace. When that happens we will exceed our condition as Homo sapiens, as we call the descendants of primates who can use a computer, and we will take an evolutionary leap toward contentus homo superior.
* * *
There’s no feminism without economic independence. I saw this very clearly in my childhood because of my mother’s situation. Women need to have their own income and to manage it. To that end they need education, training, and an adequate work and family environment. That’s not always the case.
A Samburu guide in Kenya told me that his father was looking for a bride for him who would be a good mother to his children, take care of his livestock, and perform domestic chores. In the future, she would probably ask him to find other wives who could help with her work. He explained that if she had other options, the fabric of the family and the community would fray. I understand this guide’s reasons for wanting to preserve a tradition that’s very convenient for him, but I would have liked to talk to that hypothetical bride and the village wives. Maybe they were not so happy with their fate, and if they had the education denied to them, they would aspire to a different life.
The Soul of a Woman Page 7