It’s good that sexists are afraid to behave like this. It is also very positive that sexists are leaving politics. Where people watch a drama, and without minimizing the electoral and emotional impact of disappointment and defeat, I see a process of improvement.
They say the bells are ringing for the funeral of the left. Honestly, I can’t believe it. It is true that the landscape is desolate, the horizon very cloudy and the troops in retreat. A friend told me the other day that after recent events, she felt disappointed, devastated and defeated. Other friends have pointed out the same idea to me. Without a doubt, no one can blame them: it’s understandable after what we see in the left’s ecosystem. But I see it differently.
I don’t want to be misunderstood. I also think that if there were elections now, the reactionary right could achieve a considerable victory. I also believe that the mess of statements, press conferences, cross-accusations, identification of culprits and other processes in which the left is mired do not help it in any way. But I want to say something else.
I argue that the left is maturing and growing, and that the events of recent days indicate, in fact, that the left is incorporating new aspects that make it better and stronger. Far from pessimistic readings, which have their meaning, I consider that we are witnessing a strengthening of the left thanks to the feminist movement.
Let’s start with one observation: the left has coexisted without problem – and still has – with this cultural structure that we call patriarchy, which normalizes the exploitation, oppression and abuse of women by men. Perhaps there are people who think that Errejón’s case – or cases, it seems – are the first to happen. In fact, I have come to read that the fault in all this new policyanything. But both things are very far from true.
On the sexist gradient from disregard for the value of a woman’s voice to sexual harassment and rape, there are many points in between. At a given point in this gradient, after prior interpretation by a judge, there is the border with the crime. Between the two, certain behaviors of men towards women remain in the shadows and, at most, are morally reprehensible but not necessarily criminal. And unfortunately, the daily practices of organizations are weighed down by these behaviors.
Patriarchy is very old. I don’t need to go back to its origins, but only ten years ago. It was then that, in an internal process of Izquierda Unida during which an accusation of sexual harassment was being settled, an old leader – one of those hypocrites who still fill their articles with continuous ethical references to behavior exemplary – justified his friend, the accused. , because “other generations flirt differently”. The case ended when the accused withdrew from the training to avoid being investigated during the training.
The fact is that ten years ago – and two, then three, and many more – sexist behavior already existed within left-wing organizations. The difference is that these practices were previously much more normalized and, as if that were not enough, their perpetrators were much less exposed and much more protected. The problem with idealizing previous generations is that it implies ignoring their private behaviors, which are much more preserved than today.
What has changed, and this is the main point of my presentation, is that these behaviors are no longer easily tolerated. Women are no longer afraid to denounce sexist practices, wherever they come from. Victims become agents of change because they want a society in which these behaviors are eradicated. Responsible for this enormous development is the feminist movement, which has fought hard in the trenches of everyday practices and, in doing so, provided tools for women, educated men and exposed sexists. The change, seen in perspective, is brutal.
Machismo is everywhere; in businesses, in families, in administration… and also in politics. From a meeting where the leader looks at the ceiling while a woman speaks, to the leader who uses his power to harass women who work for him – or who could work for him – all political life continues to be crossed by patriarchy. But what was once normal has fortunately become a political problem. This revolutionizes politics.
It is true that women are still afraid to file a complaint, because sometimes even the category of abuse suffered is not enough for a judge to rule in their favor, but they can talk among themselves and report the sexist. This is why our ecosystems are full of “rumors” about men who use their erotic capital to take advantage of women – generally much younger than them, in fact. These conversations have no legal status, but they are the defenses women use to protect themselves by warning other women of places where danger lurks – especially when that danger is disguised as feminist allyship. These are safe spaces for women. And the consequence is that the harasser is afraid to continue harassing.
I have read that some consider that we are entering a new phase of puritanism. What nonsense. Sex, if consensual, can be as wild as its protagonists want it to be. But if there is no consent, then the political leader – like any man – must keep to himself this hand which rests on the woman’s waist; this invasive position with which he makes the woman uncomfortable during a conversation; this hand that slides over your knee as if to say “I control you”; and countless more deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviors that, even though they have no legal place to take root, are, to me, pure sexist harassment.
In short, it’s good that sexists are afraid of behaving as such. It is also very positive that sexists are leaving politics. Where people watch a drama, and without minimizing the electoral and emotional impact of disappointment and defeat, I see a process of improvement. There will be time to improve in investigations. The important thing now is to rule out, for the first time in history, these sexists who, until very recently, lived with complete impunity.
