INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

25/NOVEMBRE/2017

"To my daughters,
to all the little, big women who belong to the world, on the international day for the elimination of violence against women.



Much is being done to surface a reality which still exists beyond the imaginable, whose manifestations are manifold whether or not reaching the tragic ending called femicide.

Violence, we must bare in mind, is not just that suffered by many within their households, or what we could be the victim of while walking on the street at night. Violence is also renouncing breastfeeding your child, or, worse, to give up nursing him and nourishing him because of fear of losing a job, for example. Violence is being penalized for choosing to follow one’s maternal instinct, too. Violence is having to accept certain kinds of compromises for fear of being left out, or so to progress in career. It's being made to believe that we must cover up, deny ourselves, even to the point of giving up making a family, because walking without the burden is simply easier.

One’s nature should never be a burden or a guilt, nor a disadvantage. Rather a value, if anything.


I’m aware, on a personal level, of how grateful I am for the privilege that life has granted me. I have never known true violence in the first person, I have never really suffered it. Never was I forced to fear the meaning of it, for the good. And that’s no small thing.
The man I’ve chosen to have next to me, after all, I’ve chosen also for the immense sense of justice and respect which he shows towards others every day.
With him, I have taught our daughters how important it is to ask for and to give respect, and how anger should always be transformed into something positive.

I don’t know if this will be enough to protect them. However, even if not completely exempted and safe, I hope that it will at least have made them more aware women. That wouldn’t be small thing either.

So, if one day they will ever receive unpleasant gender comments, or any kind of oppression and injustice, I hope they will face that with the strength and serenity of those who have made justice and equity life driven values.

A nuisance, a violence to us or others, is always a violence to ourselves, which we must not accept.

I wish for my little, big women to be able to choose freely, as per what they will want to be in life. Mothers, workers, women who feel their place is at home or perhaps on the front line. Without, in all cases and in no ways, ever feeling “violated” nor forced, to accept what in their hearts they will feel to be unacceptable.

Simply free to choose."


E.