Silence has noises

“Reality wants to take the floor.”
Karl Rahner

“The voice, being fragile and ephemeral, can bear witness
of the strongest realities…
But before we talk, you have to listen.”
Gaston Bachelard
The Poetics of Space

The Ablation of the Word

Almost every day I read or hear an event that relates to women because of their status as a woman. A few days ago, three of them were sentenced to more than fifty years! because they took off their veils in a region where it is obligatory to wear it; in Peace, Bolivia, a group of men mobilized an end to femicide1 in that country; in the Cuban case, in whatever was the Neptune cinema in our capital, one woman was launched after murdering her and I was told that another husband left her without her hands, I also got to see some creepy photos of a survivor pulled by the husband of a balcony. Also, the moment I sat before the computer to write these ideas, I heard a song from the beloved program Palmas y cañas, where a peasant music singer delighted the audience by saying horrors of the mother-in-law and the chorus with the phrase “kill the old lady”.

The responsibility of intellectuals is very great with regard to their time and to the nation to which they belong. The duty to communicate truth is part of the office of the philosopher and sociologist (as of any other profession); precisely Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) drew attention to the idea that the idea did not itself have strength, it is weak, so it is very important to disseminate it, because we teach, we write, we often talk about multiple topics. On the other hand, the word can be the most dangerous of goods, with it can be said the purest and the most hidden, the greatest finesse and the harshest vulgarity, the truth, but also falsehood. Millions of women are ablation of their genitals and word ablation is also available.

I read on Facebook an important issue, about a meeting of senior state officials where it was disclosed on television that certain actions will be taken on behalf of “people with wandering behaviour”. Just a few years ago, a sociology student defended her bachelor’s thesis precisely with this subject. The aforementioned sociologist immediately reacted through this means of communication when she read the official news of the measures, noting that it was annoying that this social phenomenon should be named that way, when in fact it is called destitution – as anywhere in the world – that is, extreme poverty. He proposed as a solution to carry out deep social work, explained that the centres that exist for those considered “evicted” lack the necessary means and that only medicalization and care will not solve such a problem. He thanked his teachers and ended up with a how much to do! Then – according to the young specialist – the name “people with wandering behavior” does not correspond to the heartbreaking reality. Sometimes words are unfaithful to things.

Ethics of the finite itself

The word feminism has turned out to be throughout history of enormous complexity. However, it is a stream of thought, a different ethic than the traditional one, a social movement. Chilean Juliet Kirkwood was quite right when she stressed that every social movement is more what she pretends to be than it actually is. This idea is important to make a critical and qualitative assessment and to realize what cannot be changed. Love is someone’s recognition of what it is, without having to define or prove anything. A human community weeds, at the same time, with what changes and what remains, with what accumulates and what dissipates.

Twenty years passed from my approach to gender studies. During that time, I had the opportunity to travel and bring with me some literature on the subject, to exchange with many colleagues and attend events where transcendental aspects were discussed. I also participated in international competitions that allowed me to deepen and reflect on what I had naturalized as “the truth”, I contributed with a grain of sand to form the reconstruction of scattered memory, without measures, without names.
I am certain that philosophy has taught me something of invaluable value: things are, and at the same time, they are not. Diverse institutions develop a whole set of actions aimed at achieving gender equity. The intention of this Article is only to record a number of issues that could be taken into account in the task of achieving a more robust society in respect for difference.
Gender relations have historically proved a relationship of inequality. However, it is necessary to oppose injustice without succumbing to the myth of justice. Freeing women is at the same time freeing them from belief in liberation. Any representative of this, say movement, works under certain conditions, controls inputs and outputs. It is often spoken on behalf of those who have no voices, without consulting them, this explains the emergence of other feminsmos such as black, Arabic, indigenous.
Ethics of itself must have a place in feminist thought. Why place in the sexed body of the other, the cause of all evils in a Manichean, absolute, essentialistic way. Feminism has as its unfinished business that truth must be achieved not as something that belongs to us, but as something with which we must establish a listening, a relationship, for the center is everywhere.
The concept of autonomy is necessary to develop it in a society where paternalism has long been present, understand autonomy as the ability to choose and pursue one’s own goals, or, in other words, the ability to choose between possible models of life.2 Addressing the feminine issue accordingly would not allow a total and unconditional subordination to political power. The policy of “presence” (of women placed at different levels in the political system) is not the same as solving their problems, as these representatives would have to act with a gender approach, not reproduce patriarchal relations. The quota system ensures equal opportunities, but does not ensure the outcome of the race to power. This peculiar way of exercising politics on the part of women who come to leadership positions, some theotives call it the “incomplete endowment”.

A women’s movement should not be conceived away from the social context where it is born. How is it possible that we only conceive of a struggle for gender equity, without expressing concern for the environment? Ecofeminism is now an imperative to achieve certain results in the face of the effects of climate change. The Chipko movement was born in India in the 1970s, which means “Hug”, because a group of women in a village in that country hugged the trees to prevent the logging of a forest that fed that community. Ecofeminism considers women a giver of life, which is why it links her to nature – which does not mean that she takes an essentialist position of casting women with habitat – and aspires to the development of her care from the maternal, not because she is suitable and useful to the human being, but because we need to learn to love her.

A female movement that advocates true justice and devotes itself only to gender-based actions, without taking into account other meaningful debates, is not conceivable, when its theoretical expression is supposed to be constituted in a new ethic, in a new culture. I read that in Australia they will impose a fine of five hundred euros for throwing cigars on the floor, how is it possible to divulge this without alluding to the creepy dirt on our streets that leads to the tupition of sewers, to the flooding of many places when it rains? , as a result of a collapse, is it a common fact that happens in other countries and thus try to lessen the enormous pain caused by irresponsibility and dissatisia? It is essential to understand that this was not just the drama of a fatal moment, these deaths symbolize the result of a long and painful history, there is a worse sign than weeping tears and it is that of written tears. Here Cubans could contribute, because it is clear that there is violence in this unfortunate fact, and feminism must essentially be a culture of ambient peace.

It is necessary to read that which was not read in a read work, to see in the middle of the night what is not visible, with the gaze of blindness.

Notes

1 Femicide: The terms femicide and femicide are sometimes used as synonyms, but at other times they are used differently. The first is considered to be the murder of women like any other murder committed. The second relates to crime when carried out on the status of gender, taking into account a man’s power relations over a woman and is linked to the participation of the State by action or omission.

Femicide, part of the feminist theoretical background, comes from both authors Diana Russell and Jill Radford in their work Femicide. The politics of woman killing as by Mary Anne Warren in 1985 in her book Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection. Both concepts were castilian by Mexican feminist Marcela Lagarde as femicide.

2 See Alejandra Castillo: Feminist Knots, Santiago de Chile, Editorial Palinodia, 2011, p. 67.