Everyday Feminism

"Women from before were truly strong and had to fight for equality. My mother had 9 children and only asked to find a gynecologist who would understand that she couldn't have more children and wanted to enjoy a sexual life without bringing another life into this world". Rosa, an attractive middle-aged woman, told me this in the gym changing rooms this morning. With Rosa, there has always been a special chemistry. She is also the daughter of fishmongers, and that gives us a certain complicity from having lived the harshness of the market, of entrepreneurial families, of very hard work and homes with very masculine disciplines and authorities. Today she told me about her mother and her grandmother, for that small tribute we pay when talking about the women who raised us, who with their silence, solitude, and generosity have made us educate and step with assertiveness. When she told me that her mother didn't want more pregnancies and finding pills or condoms was something clandestine and frowned upon, and I see how far we've come, I feel fortunate to have been born in the 70s and to be the protagonist of my own sexuality.

I leave the pool (I only go to the gym to swim) and look at Whatsapp, which was buzzing. I see and read the news that a 44% of men believe that the promotion of equality discriminates against them, the headline is controversial. We can interpret in the same way that more than the majority, 56% do not feel discriminated against by feminism. But this headline would be too positive and would not ignite radio talk shows or be front-page news in major newspapers.

Upon reading the news and contrasting it, I shared it with men and women in my life whose opinion I respect greatly. They don't think like me, which is why I generate debate, to question myself, always. My friend, a law professor, tells me that the most worrying thing is that adolescents are part of this high percentage; my advertising friend tells me that we've gone crazy and now the balance is on the other side, that our discourse has generated enemies; my sociologist friend tells me that this is not substantiated, that it's pure controversy and that it's made to mislead public opinion, and she talks to me about Ockham's razor to synthesize and understand it better.

My engineer and feminist friend compares it to apartheid and argues that those who have been born with a given advantage will never give it up or admit it; my journalist friend tells me that machos go from executioners to victims; my multinational executive friend highlights how alarming teenagers' thinking is; my entrepreneurial friend and mother of three teenagers also emphasizes the new generations, and my friend, an expert in new masculinities and gender, highlights to me that 56% of men do not feel discriminated against.

In a couple of hours, I went from swimming and talking to the fishmonger's daughter who reminded her mother that she wanted illegal contraceptives, to interacting with eight educated and well-traveled professionals who see feminism and the news of the day from different perspectives.

What is clear is that we cannot ignore what post-war women suffered for us to be where we are, and that our sons and daughters, the sexist teenagers in the study, understand that women owe nothing to men and that acquired advantages must cease to be advantages and acquired.

It is necessary to rethink feminism, and we cannot destroy what so many women and some men have lost to be where we are.