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Letís choose any point on our planet.
It doesnít matter whether itís a big city or a small town;
if it's on the sea or in the middle of the desert.
It neither matters which language is spoken,
which God is worshipped or which customs are followed.
In any place, there will always be women
and there will always be men.
And gender violence. Always.
Gender violence is a humankind problem.
But letís do the following test:
Letís open a newspaper and read the news on women violence.
What do the headlines say?
Do they tell us about a global problem
or do they tell us particular stories
about certain individuals?
Insanity, passion, jealousy and even love stories aboundÖ
Love can never ever explain violence.
And insanity, jealousy or passion donít help either,
because stories about people with irrational attitudes
seem to be rare stories.
And we said that gender violence is a humankind problem.
For all this, letís find a way to explain
what gender violence is,
how it has spread worldwide and how to stop it.
In order to do so, letís analyse what violence is.
Violence usually begins in a relationship between two parts:
one who exercises it and another who suffers from it.
Letís think together about this example:
Weíll call these two parts A and B.
A and B can be two individuals,
two groups or even two states.
What is necessary for a violent relationship to exist
between A and B? Firstly, this relationship
is usually unequal; it must be a power relationship.
Letís imagine that A and B are equal except for one thing:
A has prestige.
This is, A and B live in a society which
appreciates A more than B.
Then, what happens? A can demand that B do certain things
based on the social prestige and power that A has.
And B, on the other hand, may want to earn
that prestige she or he doesnít have.
This is a power relationship, because one of its components
has more resources than the other.
Prestige is a resource.
Other resources can be money, physical strength,
authority and education.
But power does not equal violence.
Thereís one more missing element.
What is that element?
Weíve said that A has prestige. Now, on top of that,
letís add more resources:
A has money--enough money for nurturing, clothing,
education and leisure.
B has this resource but not enough to achieve development.
Therefore, B depends on A.
So far, our first element: power relationship.
Between a worker and a company owner there is
a power relationship, and between a father and a son, too.
But this doesnít necessarily mean there is violence.
In the example, we now assume that A, threatening B
with taking away the resource B needs,
harms B either physically or mentally,
or deprives B from access to other resources,
for example, freedom of movement.
A is using resources to threaten, harm or deprive B
from something.
That is violence.
So now we have new concepts to explain violence:
we talk of inequality, power, resources, threats and harms.
But here, we want to explain
one particular type of violence: gender violence.
So, now itís time to ask what gender is.
Gender is a group of definitions, socially built on
what it means to be a man or a woman in our societies.
What does that mean?
It means that when we say ìIím a woman,î
which is a social construction,
weíre saying much more than when we say
ìIím a female of the human species,î
which is a biological composition.
Saying ìIím a manî or ìIím a womanî
is basically stating a whole group of ideas,
values, beliefs and rules that come from
the society we live in.
This group of ideas defines which attitudes,
activities and behaviours
are expected from us if weíre men or women
--itís the social is-ought.
And although every society is different,
the groups of ideas that define what is to be a man
and what is to be a woman are alike throughout the world.
To understand it better,
letís imagine that our planet is a great stage,
and that when weíre born weíre given a script.
This script represents the ideas that groups follow,
and there is one script for men
and a different one for women.
This script says how the play director,
or society as a whole, expects us to move,
to talk, to think, or to act.
Weíre going to develop that social is-ought,
according to what the group of ideas
shows is our gender role throughout our entire lives.
This is because gender roles not only define
what is to be female and what is to be male,
as in a dictionary, but also enumerate different rights,
responsibilities and acknowledgments
for each of us just because weíre men or women.
And not only that--these ìscriptsî or groups of ideas
justify the reactions the community will have
against those who ìdonít fit in;î that is,
how the play director or society as a whole will react
if somebody improvises or doesnít follow the script.
And one of the ways to punish those
who donít follow the script is violence.
Weíve said that for violence to exist,
there must be inequality.
Therefore, Where does this inequality appear?
Because in this scenario men and women
could be the protagonists,
even playing different roles.
The problem is that the play director
or the society as a whole
values one of the roles more
for certain given situations than others:
the manís role.
And do they all agree with this? No.
But a great number of people do not argue about either
their own or othersí roles.
They think that what they do is just natural
and something they cannot fight against because
ìthis is how things are and theyíve always been this way.î
This is called social norms naturalization
and helps things to stay the same.
Weíre surrounded by social codes
which never stop telling us what is suitable
for a woman to do
and what is suitable for a man to do.
Where are those speeches or the script content?
Everywhere: In our families, at school, in the media,
in state policies, and at work.
Letís do another test. Letís turn on the television
or glance at a magazine.
What do their social codes on men and women say?
What is it that they show as ìnormal?î
In the first place, just like decades ago,
what seems to be the natural thing is for women
to take care of household chores.
This presumes that she takes care of children and the old,
ìdoes the housework, buy food,
cleaning products and anything necessary to run the houseî.
It seems logical that if the woman is the biological being
who reproduces the human species,
it should be her who should initially
take care of the offspring.
Men, on the other hand, appear to be the ones responsible
for working outside the house,
earning money and carrying out ìproductiveî activities.
They also choose how to spend the money on possessions,
housing, automobiles, holidays
and anything outside the home environment.
We all know that today many women work outside their homes.
Why? There are multiple answers, but there is a common
factor which let us generalize: societies are changing,
and so does the îstage.î
However, the script or the group of social ideas
still says that women are the natural homemakers.
How can we understand this?
Simply put: Women now do both jobs.
In order to see the effects this role division has,
letís go back to A and B,
now turned into the group ìmenî and the group ìwomen.î
As men are ìdefinedî by the group of social ideas as the
breadwinners, they tend not to take part in household chores.
They only work outside the house in a paid job.
This forces women to look for part-time jobs or flexitime to be able
to perform both tasks--jobs in which they earn less.
As womenís working days are double,
they have less time and energy than men do
for other activities such as training,
joining cooperative action groups such as unions,
and even doing leisure time activities.
Also, women are offered certain jobs and not others.
It is more likely that women have access to jobs
regarded as ìfemale,î usually in the service area,
and that they are assigned to minor responsibility positions.
Why? Because it is taken for granted that
men will do better in higher positions,
as they are solely devoted to that.
Now we can see how unequal resources begin to build up.
Men have more money than women and better jobs.
This gives them wider-ranging decision powers
within their jobs and their homes.
Furthermore, they have more time to develop professionally and personally,
which allows them to access new and better opportunities.
Now, letís analyse the following.
If a group has access to better opportunities and benefits,
it has higher possibilities of developing its capacities.
Thus, it is ahead when it comes to having access
to new opportunities and benefits.
Or the other way round,
the fewer opportunities and benefits a group has access to,
the fewer the possibilities it has
to develop its capacities.
It will be at a disadvantage for access
to new opportunities and benefits.
As we can see, itís a circular system
and inequalities are emphasized
as we add more resources to one side of the relationship.
This means that men not only have more power
but also more possibilities to gain more power.
But the script or group of social ideas,
apart from telling us which jobs we should do,
also defines how we should behave, talk and mix with others.
And these characteristics also cause inequality.
Letís go over the other attitudes and behaviours
that appear as ìnaturalî for men and women,
even though we now know theyíre not natural at all.
Women are associated with the house, the family,
caretaking of others, nurturing, compassion, sensitivityÖ
all characteristics related to their role
of ìbeing in charge of housekeeping.î
Conversely, men are represented as active beings,
competitive, undertakers who do not fear anything.
These are all characteristics which are useful
for going to the outside world and exercise
their breadwinner role.
And in their relationships with each other?
Which roles are they called to represent?
Women have to do anything possible to be desired by men
and they must seduce them.
As we can see, the active role is still on the male side.
And what are we told is the most important attributes
a woman has in this case?
Her beauty, her body, her female essence.
Today, as decades ago, women are constantly
and tirelessly called to reach a certain feminine ideal,
according to the rules in each society.
But as we said before, those who do not fit in the ìscriptî
suffer some kind of punishment.
In this case, women seek to adapt,
some with desperate methods, but they donít succeed.
And this causes guilt, frustration, low self-esteem
and a particular type of violence: self-inflicted violence.
Because even from such innocent things as products aimed
at teenagers, like music, videos or magazines,
the suggested idea is:
the highest achievement a woman can wish for
is to be wanted.
A woman is represented as a passive being
who is there to be looked at,
praised, wanted and finally, possessed by someone else.
But are we talking about an object or a person?
This is the biggest problem and the highest risk.
A womanís body and the woman herself end up being an object
-sometimes we can literally see this.
And this is the greatest inequality that exists
because an object is not human.
Then, any abuse can be justified.
But if women play this role,
what is the role men should play according to this script?
Weíve already said that men are represented
as naturally active beings who should take the initiative:
they are the leaders.
But they are also aggressive beings with no contact
with their emotions, highly competitive and
unable to control their impulses, especially *** ones.
These are the ideas they are surrounded by since childhood
and which are imposed on them as natural norms.
They are male-defining characteristics in our society,
they are ìmenís stuffî
But what happens with those not speaking like a man,
drinking like a man or doing man stuff?
They are both physically and mentally punished.
He who does not follow the stereotype
is kept out of the group,
treated as a coward, or simply mistreated by the others.
He is discriminated against to a higher or lesser degree
according to each society.
Thus we see how men are called to be more and more manly,
that is, more violent, more demolishing
and women ever more passive,
devoted to turning themselves into objects.
At this stage, we shouldnít be surprised
that violence against women does not only appear in the
media as a fact between individuals
but it also becomes invisible or goes unnoticed.
Certain images cause no surprise:
beaten women in advertising,
locked up in cages in musical videos,
or simply dead.
Nor are we surprised by the fact that sex is everywhere
and what these sex images show are women
waiting to be sexually possessed,
as objects, by aggressive men who,
precisely for this reason, turn out to be attractive.
What are the consequences of all this in our lives?
Letís go back to the relationship between
the menís group and the womenís group.
Now letís think what would happen if
one of the members in this relationship has so much power
that they can decide over the otherís persons body,
their sexuality, and their entire lives.
All we can expect is violence:
against women because theyëre in the most vulnerable position in this relationship,
but also among men.
What our ìscriptsî say about what being a man
and what being a woman involve is harmful to everyone,
because weíre shaping men who must show their manliness
in every move, getting more and more aggressive.
And weíre shaping more and more insecure women
who assume that the most important thing
is being wanted and accepted in the model they have
to fit in. In spite of being packed with responsibilities
in the home and labour world, theyíre often treated
as if they were objects.
Women who find all kinds of obstacles
when they go into the world to manage on their own,
just for being women.
Now letís go over all the concepts we have found
and relate them to each other.
There are gender roles which assign men and women
certain characteristics, but unevenly.
Male roles are more highly valued
by the group of social ideas.
In turn, this allows men access to a greater
number of resources of all kinds.
This gives them more power.
This power can be used against the most vulnerable
component in the relationship:
to punish them if they donít fit in the group
of social ideas;
used to restrict their access to certain spaces
which are not expected within the group of social ideas;
used to deny access to other resources,
and used to underestimate them.
In short, used against whom they can exercise violence.
And violence will only result in one thing:
Everything remains the same.
The only way to break this circle is by building
more equal societies.
But how?
Reflecting.
The ìscriptsî are plays we can write and rewrite as we wish.
There is nothing inherently natural,
and nothing impossible to change.
Reflecting on our own beliefs
is the first step to changing them.
Reclaiming.
We must demand from our States
laws that protect the most vulnerable
and punish those who exercise violence.
We mustnít ignore the impunity of those who use
their power to harm others.
We must also demand equal policies
to bring job access opportunities
both to men and women,
and that those jobs be decent and fair,
without sex-related differences.
We must fight to equally rank the number of women
in higher positions, both in our countryís governments
as well as in unions and private companies.
Training more women, giving them more tools to allow them
to develop both personally and professionally.
Educating.
We must educate our children and youth in equality,
eliminating harsh models.
Teach them not to restrict a personís development
just because they donít fit a certain role or script.
Bringing up children who are taught
not to show their sensitivity,
not to be compassionate or helpful,
is to sever their development.
It is to block their way to being free and full human beings.
Equality means better distribution of social resources;
not changing certain unequal relationships for others.
Equality means that everybody has the same possibilities,
no matter whether we live in a big city or a small town,
which language we speak or which God we believe in.
Equality is having the same opportunities,
no matter if weíre men or women.
Itís about having freedom
freedom which removes inequality. That which denies violence.
Letís break the circles.
All of us, for all of us.