“We will never stop being afraid of visibility, of the cold light of scrutiny and, perhaps, of being judged, of pain, of death. But we have been through all these things except death, and we have done it in silence. Every moment I remind myself that even if I had been born mute or had kept a lifelong oath of silence to feel safer, I would have suffered anyway and still died. In December 1977, black and lesbian feminist Audre Lorde gave a lecture in which she spoke of transforming silence “into language and action.”
Lorde, who died in 1992, would have liked to see the last decade: her text, an explanation of how silence is functional for systems of oppression and, at the same time, a justification for speech as an engine of change, might well or the description of these years during which the silence of women was broken like never before. This lecture is now collected in the book other sister (Editorial times and times).
The Errejón case gave rise to a new twist in speech. The testimonies of several women on the behavior exercised by the former deputy and his resignation, surrounded by great social and political agitation, have stirred up the mess in which many, many, keep stories of machismo, harassment and aggression that they have accumulated.
Breaking the silence is one of the defining characteristics of what some have described as the fourth wave of feminism. On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published a gripping article in which he accused a powerful Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual harassment and abuse of dozens of actresses.
Speaking out, breaking the silence, is a mechanism so that, as Gisèle Pelicot has highlighted these weeks, shame changes sides and society can no longer avoid discourse on machismo and sexual violence.
Women around the world began sharing their own stories under the hashtag #MeToo, but there were others, from #MyFirstHarassment to #Cuéntalo. In Spain, the case of “la manada” also served as a catalyst for hundreds of testimonies. Initiatives such as the EverydaySexism blogs, Micromachismos or organizations that have begun to denounce street harassment in dozens of countries, such as Hollaback!, have channeled testimonies and stimulated public debate. The same thing happened with #SeAcabó, launched by the players of the women’s football team and which reignited the fuse.
the word
The principle is not the complaint, understood as a judicial device, but the word: women are tired of remaining silent about their experiences and their attacks. Speaking is the way to break with guilt and also with the idea that what is happening to us is exceptional to emphasize that we are faced with something structural that we can only fight collectively. Speaking out, breaking the silence, is a mechanism so that, as Gisèle Pelicot has highlighted these weeks, shame changes sides and society can no longer avoid discourse on machismo and sexual violence.
Journalist Cristina Fallarás publishes this week Don’t publish my name (Editorial Siglo XXI), a compilation of some of the thousands of testimonies that have reached his Instagram account over the last year and a half. From this story came the story of a politician who turned out to be Íñigo Errejón and who, when questioned, resigned from all his political positions. Fallarás assured this Wednesday in his presentation that the spirit of the testimonies he receives is rarely “punitivist or judicial”. Women come to her channel, she says, to spread stories that can help others identify and break their own silences.
“The networks give us a space to build a collective memory,” believes the journalist, who emphasizes that the publication of testimonies – “that you do not report” – is not journalism but the construction of this testimonial memory on “this which we consider to be gender-based violence, whether it is punishable or not.
At the origin of our silence, each of us paints the face of our own fear: of being belittled, censored, judged, recognized, challenged, destroyed…
Audre Lorde
Since the Errejón affair, profiles have appeared on social networks that receive and publish testimonies about the publishing or advertising sector, which are added to others that already existed and which spoke, for example, of the world of music. There are those who came together to compile the stories of women from a city or an autonomous community. In the case of the city of Granada, the testimonies accumulated against the rap singers Ayax and Prok – which were later supplemented by those of two ex-partners of the artists – caused the abandonment of their manager and the cancellation of a planned concert. .at the WiZink Center.
The debate on the consequences of these publications comes later. The collective breaking of the silence of the last decade has more to do with relief and visibility, with the fight against the fear of speaking, than with the search for criminal sanctions, even if it is ultimately these which take the most of importance. This coexists with concrete indications, with the need to repair the damage suffered, with the difficulty of knowing what we do with all this, and with debates on the way in which testimonies, complaints, channels for demanding responsibilities when necessary and guarantees for all.
But it is not necessary to discredit the phenomenon of breaking the silence and what is implied by the massive revelation of the experiences that they wanted to pass off as “normal”. “At the origin of our silence, each of us paints the face of our own fear: of being belittled, censored, judged, recognized, challenged, destroyed (…)”, describes Audre Lorde in her text, which includes a phrase frequently cited recently: “Your silence will not protect you”.
