Let's talk about patriarchy

Translated  by Marvin Najarro 
Patriarchy should be a topic of conversation, as when we talk about football, music, literature, art, movies, etc., etc.
We should speak of patriarchy and its consequences, in school, college, social gatherings, everywhere and at all times.
Why? Because it is our enemy to defeat, and it is not a theme that involves only feminists, we do not have to be feminist to talk about patriarchy; patriarchy is hurting us all, some more than others, because a man doesn’t get killed because of his gender, but women do.

A man, if he has lovers he is a stud, he-man, a Don Juan to whom they applaud, a woman, if she has lovers, she’s a whore singled out and despised by society. Of course, how many of those Don Juanes who single out her don’t want to sleep with her and, how many of those virtuous women who point an accusing finger at her don’t want to be like her. But that’s another matter.
The enemy to be defeated is patriarchy, which has enormous tentacles, such as corruption and impunity; it is so powerful that it has taken roots in our society as something natural and cultural, regardless of the country.
It’s something as natural as a habit, like walking or closing the eyes while sleeping. Patriarchy is learned, no one is born a misogynist, sexist or homophobic, is so powerful that most of the time we don’t realize we are following patterns that limit, stereotype and have a negative impact on us.
Of patriarchy, one doesn’t have to speak only in the marches of Ni Una Menos (Not One Less), or in the wakes of the victims of feminicide, or when we learn of a rape; it does begins with language, continues with gestures and ends with actions that have their most drastic consequences in feminicides and transcides. Patriarchy is a structure that is cemented in the system, gender violence is not promoted by reggaeton, it is promoted by the system that says that a girl has to dress in pink, and a boy cannot wear a skirt. That the boy has to go to a brothel, as soon as him attain puberty, to lose his virginity, and that the girl has to wait until the day of marriage. What is to lose virginity in a brothel? Is it not to cover up the millionaire business of trafficking in girls, adolescents and women for the purpose of sexual exploitation? Is it not teaching boys how to use women as an object? Is it not dehumanizing that boy? Is it not to abuse those girls, teenagers and women?
Gender-based violence and patriarchy are promoted in the school which says: boys with long hair are not allowed in, as well as the girls who color their hair or dress like a man. What does it mean dressing like a girl or dressing like a boy? On what do we base our judgment, who are we to say how each gender should dress, behave and feel? And if a person feels that she has no gender, how do we treat her? That same school if it sees two boys, or two girls kissing each other says they are bad example and should go to therapy to get straight.
And the heterosexuals, what is it that needs to be straighten out about them? Are there really heterosexual people? What is heterosexuality? The majority of street harassment, beatings and feminicides are committed by heterosexual men against women, homosexuals and transsexual women? What does patriarchal society say about this? «She deserved it for being a whore; he deserved it for being a fagot.» What else does it say? And what does the justice system say?
What happens to those boys who feel like girls? Do we exclude them, insult them, and despise them until they commit suicide? Until they are frustrated adults, unhappy in a world of hypocrites? That is, of heterosexual hypocrites.
Gender-based violence and patriarchy are promoted by a system lacking laws that support legal and safe abortion. A system of education, health and justice lacking gender perspective. The system that says that a woman does not have the intellectual capacity to perform the same work as a man and therefore her salary must be lower. The system that says that although she has the same capacity, but because her gender a woman must earn a lower wage than the man.
And these patriarchy guidelines, which lack labor and human rights, are concealed by those who benefit from injustice, and here, unfortunately, women and men are counted. Virtuous women who are against abortion, for example. Virtuous, and homophobic men who are against egalitarian marriage, for example. A society that conceals inhuman actions of a patriarchal, sexist, misogynist and feminicidal system of government.
Patriarchy is everywhere, in literature, art, in the bus stop, in the classroom, in the language of the teacher, in sports (the almost naked aides, who give the medals and recognitions to the vigorous athletes) in the hands of the doctor, in the promises of exclusion of a presidential candidate. It’s in bed, in sex.
What does constrain us in talking about patriarchy and its consequences? Our double standards? Fear of losing masculinity, in the case of alpha males? Fear of ridicule?
Let’s talk about patriarchy, misogyny, feminicides, transcides. Let’s talk about homosexuality, about rights, and justice. Let’s talk about losing privileges, some, and about the integration of a society that respects differences and diversity. But do not just talk, let’s do it, words alone are not enough; it is our obligation to root out patriarchy, eradicate it.
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Ilka Oliva Corado @ilkaolivacorado contacto@cronicasdeunainquilina.wordpress.com

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