March is Women's History Month.
At least in the US
so over the next 26 days,
I will make sure that all my entries
are related to the topic.
I will start the trend, as I usually do,
on a personal note.
Below is my first personal essay
on the matter.
It's being edited as we speak,
so what I share it's probably quite raw
but this is my own platform,
so I don't mind not waiting for the final version
and showing it as I first wrote it.
***
I AM A WOMAN, SO WHAT?
Right, so I am a woman. Actually, we aren’t that unusual. We make up a little over half of the
world's population and yet for some weird reason, we still need to prove that
we are worthy. Isn’t that absurd?
I personally think it is, and not
just absurd, but exhausting and painful and draining and the list can go on and
on and on. Believe it or not, I only
came to this realization 5 years ago when all of a sudden, the dots began to
connect and I could see the picture that they were forming.
I guess everything began the moment
that my parents conceived me and I was a XX chromosome. That day, I became the first daughter, the
first granddaughter, and the first niece of a loving family from the north of
Spain. From that day on, I checked most
boxes -- I went to an all-girls school, loved being dressed up in princess
costumes, took care of real-looking baby dolls and wore grandma knitted purses. There were also a few unchecked boxes -- I
played soccer with dad in our long corridor at home and I was one of the
youngest female members of my hometown soccer team but again, those were just a
few unchecked boxes.
Very soon, I got to understand that
most of the affectional support came from mom, grandma and aunties and most of the
practical support from dad, grandpa and uncles.
This was one of the most “helpful” realizations, since I quickly learned
to adjust my behavior to my need and to the type of human I was dealing with. I also came to realize that duties were
divided and that in most cases, mom, grandma and aunties shared the same
responsibilities and that dad, grandpa and uncles shared others. Then, I realized that what was happening in
my microcosm, was also happening at my friends’ houses, at school, at the
stores, everywhere I went. It was so
predictable. We were like robots and I
was one of them in the making.
Suddenly, one Sunday, during one of
our typical lunches at my grandparents’ house, something sparked. Gathered around a big family table, there
were three generations enjoying grandma’s cooking and each other company. There was grandma, grandpa, three of my
uncles and aunties, mom, dad and my four eldest cousins (at that time, I was
still the first and only daughter, granddaughter and nice). We were all eating, laughing and
interrupting each other while talking when suddenly my grandma stood up and
said: “Silvia, my love, help me clear the plates, so that I can bring the
dessert.” I am pretty sure that everyone
kept going with their usual business – why wouldn’t they? Grandma was just fulfilling her robotic duty of clearing the table to make sure that
the rest of us could eat dessert. Nothing
shocking for the rest but it was for me.
Grandma, my intelligent and loving grandma, had asked me to stand up and
help, even though I was still chewing my food and had 1/3 of my meal on the plate. I looked around and my cousins were all done and
playing with the bread, so timidly, I suggested that one of them helped
her. To my astonishment, grandma said:
NO. I quickly swallow what I could and went
to help my sweet and robotic grandma.
Clearly, that day, I was too young
to make a sociological study of the situation but I wasn’t too young to feel unfairly
treated. 25 years later, at a therapy session in
Manhattan, I realized that that Sunday was the trigger that made me embark in
the life that I have embarked. When I
turned 18, I left my loving microcosm to venture and discover myself and the
world, only to realize that my microcosm and that Sunday lunch was repeated
everywhere I went; that the world is in fact a robotic structured system that treats
women unfairly.
And the fact is that we women make
up a little over half of the world's population, but yet we account for over 60%
of the world’s hungry
[1]; that we women perform
66% of the world’s work but still earn 10% of the income and own 1% of the
property
[2]; and that up to
70% of us women experience violence in our lifetime.
So
I wonder…until when?
http://community.feministing.com/2011/06/24/invisible-women-where-is-half-the-worlds-population/
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