Female, Male (4)

Female, Male

No human society has ever succeeded in promoting complete equality between women and men. We still have a long way to go. Even though the old representations that associated women with the body, seduction and impurity have been done away with – albeit not entirely in certain traditional societies or in some fundamentalist or literalist circles – the fact remains that we have yet to achieve the objectives of justice, the absence of social discrimination and the right to autonomy and equal pay. We find in all societies – without exception – social and cultural behaviours that encourage the ill treatment of women, domestic violence and the stigmatization and marginalization of girls. The situation remains alarming in all societies, albeit to different degrees: in the most closed and dogmatic religious circles, in traditional (and sometimes male chauvinist) cultures that perpetuate an exclusive patriarchy that is quite unfair to women (and which sometimes practise genital mutilation, forced marriages or honour killings) and in the richest societies, where women have made some gains but where there are obvious inconsistencies and where new forms of slavery have emerged: unequal pay for men and women with the same qualifications, discrimination because of the fear of pregnancy (or because women over the age of forty-five no longer conform to the canons of youth), the commodification of bodies, a new trade in prostitute-slaves, sex tourism on the part of rich men that dehumanizes the poor, women, girls and children, and so on.

Women turned to the law in order to overcome the male-chauvinist and negative representations of the past. At a time when the means of communication are becoming globalized and when we are bombarded with images, new representations force themselves upon us within even greater power and impact, and they are even more effective. What Umberto Eco calls the ‘carnivalization’ of life, the colonizing power of fashion, the imposition of a uniform aesthetics in terms of facial features and physical weight, the obsession with youth and the instantaneous, and the feminization of symbols and ideals, all so many phenomena that influence minds and psychologies with the force of oppression. There are so many illusory freedoms! And so many forms of alienation! The social gains we have made have not allowed us to achieve well-being and inner peace. It begins at a very young age . . . because they have been colonized by ‘models of beauty’, two-thirds of sixteen-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies and experience a profound lack of well-being in the richest societies on the planet. The new representations and consumerist dictates of the modern era and neo-liberal societies are indeed tyrannical, and they now affect every society in our globalized world.

The serious crisis that is affecting men in the modern era must also be taken into account. Their points of reference have been called into question, their traditional roles within the family and society have become obsolete, relations of authority have been undermined, public spaces and everything to do with aesthetics and the body have been feminized, and the old – and reassuring – form of paternity is a thing of the past. How can anyone now be a man who is autonomous and balanced, who is a woman’s companion and a father, reconcile presence, love and some idea of authority? No matter whether we come from Mars or Venus, the upheavals have been so great that they affect men and women in the same way, and they give rise to doubts, a lack of well-being and an inability to find our way. What does it matter if the other – man or woman – does come from another planet, if he/she is like us or basically different from us? What do such considerations matter if we cannot define for ourselves the meaning of our being, our dignity, our freedom, our choices and our hopes? Whether we live on Venus or on Mars, being under the domination of a man or a woman, of a cultural system, of dogmatic norms, of money or an image means that we have lost our freedom and our autonomy. When we are, or feel ourselves to be, less than ourselves, the other always looks like a threat, a danger or a rival . . . and rarely like a partner.

And yet neither women nor men can make it on their own. They must walk together along the road of the quest for meaning as they assert the existence of a shared universal (in both the feminine and the masculine) and as they demand freedom, dignity, autonomy and justice. They are equal but not the same, and both men and women must allow the other to bring their distinctive outlook towards the resolution of common problems. Women are determined when it comes to their rights and justice, but have come to terms with their femininity and with the different way they see the world, politics and human relationships. What we now require is a certain feminization, but not that of the cult of youth, fashion or aesthetics, but one that promotes a more feminine relationship with communications, the preservation of life and the resolution of conflicts. Within this partnership, both men and women will be able to take a new look at the basic questions of meaning, freedom, masculinity, paternity and authority by coming to terms with what they are. In the ocean . . . a woman and a man are both beings who are on a quest of the same justice, the same truth and the same peace. Once they have got beyond naive talk of equality and made a critical analysis of the logics and structures of powers, they will reach – together – the shore of philosophical, spiritual or religious questions. The ocean will teach them that their difference is both a necessity and a blessing. The eyes and hearts of their children will teach them the same thing . . . and their bodies, intellects and loves will confirm it. The threat posed by their difference will then be dispelled by masculine or feminine echo of their shared humanity. Their beings and their paths may well be distinct, but their destinations and their hopes are surely the same.