Filling conference rooms about feminism with only women. Talking about humanitarian projects for the disadvantaged and there are no funds to pay for them. Creating foundations to help orphaned and undocumented immigrant teenagers and having no legal framework. Creating products with social impact and not being able to compete with top brands because you don't have distribution capacity. Believing in the importance of listening to those no one listens to and saving lives, literally one by one, and not having any budget from the administration. We all want to be good people, help and see abandoned lives come out of the pit, but no brand invests in these people or projects.
Good and evil. Black and white. Man and woman. Public and private. Right-left. Legal-illegal. The norm and the exception. We continue to polarize life and that no longer serves us. It is in the margins where things happen, from the margins we can grow. In the GRAY there is more light.
We all want to be inspired, for someone to come to the University, to the company, to the civic center or to the YouTube channel and open our eyes to think differently and to see things from another place. We all appreciate that smile of the young person who has not made a bad decision because someone inspired them, but all the machinery that made this person now inspiring receives no help, neither public nor private.
We are hypocrites.
They call me and ask me to inspire about the importance of bringing feminism to business, about the importance of creating brands with a gender perspective, the importance of collaborating with responsible consumption, third sector companies and activism. But in many cases there is no budget, and they have the audacity to ask for your collaboration without budget or intention to pay. Evidently, it is my obligation to decline the offer, not only for myself but for all the other people (mostly women) who are in the same situation.
Why don't we listen to new discourses or new opinions? Why don't we read authors who are not of our line of thought, from other generations, political tendencies? Why don't we have circles of people with dissenting opinions? Why don't we interact with people with different lifestyles, with different hobbies, different beliefs, from different countries? If we don't inhabit the margins, we cannot see the entire spectrum of the sphere of life. Nor do we grow much in diversity of approaches or opinions.
I want to talk about feminism to men, not to women. How do we get them to come to these conferences just like women? I want Rolex and Banco Sabadell to sponsor the Godó Tennis Open, but also the foundations that provide second chances and lift young people and women out of extreme poverty, abuse, and illiteracy. Social enterprises that heal us from marginalization when it's due to social exclusion are essential to care for, listen to, and accompany these groups. And thus, transform society.
Doing good is sexy. Thinking is sexy. Investing in the margins is sexy.
I advocate for occupying the margins. Navigating and enjoying them. Let's be curious, daring, adventurous, brave, and mischievous, and explore those environments we would never have entered. These margins need to be made visible, professionals to accompany them, and brave brands to finance this journey.