In the ultra demonstrations in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid, those who led the protest on the front line raised about 20 inflatable dolls. Naked and with their holes, of course. And also, of course, with the company of songs like: “It’s not a headquarters, it’s a brothel!”, “Here are Ferraz’s nieces!” or “These are the PSOE ministers!”
This is not an isolated anecdote nor is it just about the ministers. Much less, the amnesty. It is a reflection of what the extreme right has promoted in its public speeches these years, where women who are not “his” They are insulted, belittled and sexualized. Where feminism is that misnamed “gender ideology” that their leaders have sold them as an enemy.
This is evident how they consider us: objects. Inflatable dolls to humiliate, spit on or whatever you want. On their networks they leave comments like “it is better to have one of these dolls than a real woman, because they don’t speak.” and they can “let off steam” as you like. If only one woman is objectified, we all are in her imagination. Things are not people. And if you are a thing, you no longer have rights. That’s why they instrumentalize us like political weapon. Especially those who do not fulfill what is expected of them.
They are not alone. I have seen how on social networks they have questioned whether feminists write or give their opinions on these intense days about politics. Because doing so already broke “their expectations.” I don’t know where the incompatibility is. Because feminism is politics, not just the 8M t-shirt to show off on Instagram. They questioned you just for saying that using the words dictatorship or coup d’état was intolerable.
I understand feminism as internationalist and humanist. Like the defense of the rights common to all. And as feminists, we are citizens with a voice and a vote. If we are feminists, we are democrats. Banalizing, trivializing and manipulating our own democracy with language should make us all, even if we feel like we belong to different political parties or are non-partisan, defend that this violence in language is unnecessary.
Related news
If we have historical memory, the freedom that many women began to conquer in the Second Republic, and that was erased under Franco, it was only possible to recover it in democracy. That has been the space for the development of our rights, with a lot of effort and even with a lot of opposition. Some even within politics and opposing part of their own parties.
Do I respect all ideas and express them? Always. Do I respect lies? Never. What really damages democracy is using it to set back women’s rights with denialist policies. And if, maybe those dolls and what we have endured these years of this stale machismo explains why a part of the women’s vote has stopped the far right. And that’s what bothers them. That and we don’t allow anyone to manipulate democracy. Because it goes for everyone. There each one with his own silence and who he shakes hands with.