Feminism is Justice

In certain contexts, saying feminism means exacerbating contrary criteria because sometimes people give opinions based on ignorance, based on imposed labels and stereotyped and popular beliefs, divorced from the environment, which only confuse and hinder. They hear the term and only think of four half-crazed, slightly hysterical women. But what does it really mean?

Being a feminist is the constant search for equality, for equity, for our rights to freedom as women. It’s a political, social and philosophical movement that promotes awareness, it does not intend to offer superiority to one gender over the other, but rather that we can live together in harmony, without being trampled on, ignored, without fear.

An empowered woman should not be seen as a threat, she is just a spokesperson for so many who are silenced, subjugated, and who now only longs for gender not to determine our place in society, nor how we relate to others.

It’s a fact that social relations are unequal and need transformation, but many sectors resist because it’s also a cultural issue that’s difficult to uproot. It’s said that before we were much more discriminated against, but currently the changes have not been global or substantial, rather slight and partial. This is not a distortion of reality. It happens.

Many cultures are still based on domination, supremacy, and inherited ancestral machismo. I’m thinking of so many African communities, also in Asia, but even within the so-called first world there are many women who are victims. For us, and for them, feminism exists.

Because it’s not fair to live subjugated to well-orchestrated mechanisms, designed to not allow our growth. Not to mention the violent attitudes, physically and psychologically, that usually accompany this frame of mind. Therefore, from the streets, the academy, and the culture, we try to transform those social relations that promote submission solely due to the generic condition.

Feminism does not equal compulsive euphoria against men, and it’s regrettable that they think of this as if it were a war of sexes. Being a feminist is justice, it’s defending ourselves, wanting to eliminate all imposed behavior and the minimum hint of domination that still remains.

It’s true that within this movement there are other variants, some with more radical positions, and it’s also valid that each person has their own way of assuming and expressing it, because it has to do with their beliefs, values, and experiences. Perhaps that’s why for many people the concept is wrong because they particularize, but, no, the common root is noble. Feminism does not deserve the discredit campaigns it suffers, organized to minimize the cause, ridicule it, and manipulate public opinion.

It’s sick to want to implant the thought that being a feminist means being rebellious, not being satisfied, or living with unresolved frustrations, when we only want balance, for our gender not to determine us, and for those patriarchal structures that carry so much weight to be dismantled. It’s unfair to contribute to the spreading of wrong constructs, which only generate distant interpretations.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff