INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Are you a woman? If you are, we are sure that you are going to see yourself or identify yourself with some of the facts that we tell bellow. If you are not, we wish you are as most of the man we are surrounded for and you understand the reason of these lines. And, if it’s not the case, we just ask you to please read carefully and listen one of the million screams that women make everyday for our voices to be listened loud and clear, for you to understand us a little bit more, to help you us changing the world where we live or just to allow our relief.

Let’s start:

Imagine that you are any girl from any town; you spend your time on your studies, your work, your friends and your family. You are a normal girl with her daily problems, her insecurities, her ambitions and her dreams. Everything is fine, you’re happy, you get in and out, you live your life and you suddenly fall in love with a boy. He’s perfect and he treats you very well… but you don’t know how to react.

And you don’t know how to react because the truth is that that boy/man with who you were a couple of years ago was always telling you atrocities like you didn’t mean anything but at the same time he didn’t let you go, he was always comparing you with other girls, he really made you think that you were not enough for him (specially in a sexual level), he mentioned your look: “you’d be hotter if you work tis buddy on the gym”, “hey, why don’t you wax yourself here or there?”, “you’re not coming with me to the club dressed like this”.

And you don’t how to react because one day you went out with your friends, you drank too much and you went to sleep with one of them. He wanted sex and you just wanted to sleep. He made it with you (or he rather made it to you) and you, in your condition, didn’t have the chance to answer to the question that he never asked. Because the answer doesn’t matter, the only important thing is that he wants something from you and he takes it, as one who borrows a pen.

And you don’t know how to react because one day your ex was mad and he got you by the throat, because your mother had to ask for a restraining order for your father because of beating he gave her or because you can’t believe how “lucky” you are compared with the 52 women murdered in Spain so far this year because of gender violence.

How do you feel after that?

We could spend hours listing examples of the different ways of mistreatment suffered by women nowadays, but it’s enough to live it inside. Every woman who has suffered any kind of mistreatment, wither psychological, sexual or physical, is troubled for life and doesn’t recognize herself when she looks at herself in the mirror because she has lost her identity, personality and dignity, she feels completely cancelled and she needs to rebuild herself. On the other hand, the woman who has no experience it in her own skin, know any friend, relative of colleague who has suffered a violent situation.

When we talk about this kind of violence, the discussion is always focus in sexual or physical mistreatment, but the psychological one is pretty usual and also produces important effects. We need to pay attention because it uses to be related to the rest and in many cases it’s not recognize as gender violence, specially the victims, who doesn’t realize that they’re being mistreated. And, however, the day arrives in which they are conscious that they don’t think by themselves and they feel scared, really scared.

Threat, emotional neglect, isolation from your circle of friends or self-blame are some of the signs. If you ever find yourself in any of these situations, ask for help.

Please, listen to this shout and shout it even louder than ever because gender violence is not a private thing, it’s a social problem and we should fight all together against it. We should educate ourselves emotionally and learn how to distinguish what is considered violence and what it’s not, we should be conscious and help people involved in mistreated relationships or sexual abuse. It’s our duty and it’s in our hands to put an end to these situations because no one deserves to be a victim of violence against women. In the end, everyone deserves to recognize her/himself when looking at the mirror.

Shout with us today and hopefully the day in which we don’t need to shout it never again will come soon.