It's like the plot of a Netflix series, between tragedy and comedy: we go to bed, it's a night like many others, with nothing strange. In the morning we wake up and the scenery seems the same, a blue sky, the sounds of the city, the routine of every day. Yet something has changed. We go out (with a mask, why yes and because we are in the absurd 2021) and one particular thing catches our eye, initially it is nothing special, we notice that most of the people we meet are women, then it's only women. What now?
This is the question posed by @girlsagainstoppression, an intersectional feminist community focused on human rights, to its users: what would you do if men disappear from the face of the earth for 24 hours? Most of the answers delineate a depressing scenario.
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A scenario framed by two fundamental characteristics: lack of freedom and fear. Most users have expressed incredibly simple wishes, such as going for a walk, alone, with friends, at night, spending some time in nature, sleeping outdoors, stargazing, hiking, camping, going to the disco, jogging at any time of the day and obviously feeling free to wear whatever they want, in any context. But above all a desire, the desire to live without anxiety, the anxiety of being attacked, harassed.
This situation is a product of centuries of history and the establishment of a patriarchal society that is still standing, with some roots. Male chauvinism and toxic masculinity lead men to consider women as creatures not worthy of speaking, meaningless envelopes, over which they can exercise a kind of possession. Women in this context carry a sense of fear, because it is the man who holds the power, holds the knife by the handle and therefore they live in perennial terror that he exercises violent actions against her, verbal and otherwise.
We lack the freedom to live as human beings, we are first of all female bodies, on which anyone can express an opinion, even when it is not rquested, in a context steeped in slut shaming and rape culture.
The essence of this discourse is not to build an antagonism between feminine = good and masculine = evil, on the contrary it is exactly the opposite: we need to work to create a bridge between the sexes, less parallel universes, less Venus and Mars. To the detriment of a large public opinion that still divides men and women into pre-established categories, with a series of characteristics that seem to be imprinted in their very nature, these characteristics are a product of culture and history.
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