8-M: Is it possible to say no?
Does the patriarchal context nullify or condition women's decision-making capacity? If so, how and why? Is this incapacity – if we accept it – inherent in all women, or are there differences? Where can we begin to set limits? How has fiction contributed to distorting the idea of consent? In this choral piece, six commentators explore the (im)possibility or difficulty of women saying no and the open cracks through which we can operate to reverse this inequality.
For the good of all
by Najat El Hachmi
When the Me Too scandal broke out, I remembered my female colleagues in many workplaces who would never have been able to openly denounce their aggressors. Because when you risk your children's livelihood, it is very difficult to be brave, especially when you take into account that the environment often turns against the victim. If I had reported the colleague who snatched me from the factory toilets, I would have been fired: my contract was temporary, he had already been made permanent. He did not rape me because I am big and I was strong enough to get him off me, but I did not report him. Before we can change laws and point out injustices, women learn to defend ourselves as best we can. The possibilities of openly refusing to accept humiliating, degrading, unjust and discriminatory situations have existed since we had a collective conscience, since we realized that we are a subordinate group. In this sense, we could think of the equality movement as a union defending sex-based rights that wants to end patriarchal exploitation. But as has also happened with labor rights, fragmentation, division and, above all, the lack of group consciousness have played against us. And we have numerous squirrels who, despite being in a position to say no, consent out of self-interest. I think of all the highly visible, powerful and capable women who have remained silent despite first-hand knowledge of situations of violence and abuse, who have sold out or renounced feminism because it was in their best interest. How many of our colleagues with secure jobs and good salaries have looked the other way when we have explained to them that we had been attacked? Those who can afford it should not speak out. No It is much more damaging than if it were done by a precarious, lower-class person. In this sense, it is necessary that we all assume our responsibility and say No whenever we can. To preserve our own dignity but also to defend that of all women.
Don't complain: resign
by Joana Hurtado Matheu
Sometimes it is impossible to say no. Today, a neoliberal and at the same time feudal logic concentrates power in a few elites who benefit from relationships of dependence and personal loyalty. This extremely hierarchical and exclusive clientelism is exacerbated by structural inequalities of gender, race, class, age, etc. Perhaps it has always been like this, but now it is more cynical. And if you are also a woman, be prepared: either you become Thatcher or you will be told that you complain too much.
In the world of art and culture, there are few professional opportunities that come from a transparent system based on merit and fair competition, and even more that are decided by political, personal or family affinities. For the rest, the toll to opt (not to say access) to become part of the medieval castle is the precarious vassalage that defines Angela McRobbie, a servility without guarantees or rights that is accepted in order to remain within the system and have opportunities – or so they make you believe. In this context, not only is it impossible to say no, it is also unthinkable to dissent, not to mention denouncing or fighting for anything. Retaliation is not dismissal, it is ostracism, not opting for what they promise (a job, a grant, an exhibition space) and that perhaps they would never have given you either.
In this context, maybe, as in the can, the system controls you and suffocates you. Those who have power know this, because they have surely endured and kept quiet a lot to get where they are. "Now it's your turn. And if you don't like it, you know where the door is," they told me when I had recently won a directing competition. I must have been disobedient, tooreply, as bell hooks would say, because after a year my superiors decided to undo the project, reduce my years, my salary and make me self-employed. I consulted a lawyer and then I learned that my competition was a mask to cover a position of trust, that I did not have a contract but an appointment and that they could dismiss me whenever they wanted. I tried to negotiate, but ended up accepting. I was pregnant. I could add that I am a single mother and I pay only one rent in Barcelona, but it is not necessary, being pregnant is already being at risk of exclusion.
All the renunciations of a woman are understandable, and even more so if she is a mother. Everything pushes you to abandon your desires and ambitions so as not to deny those of others. I, who have fought gender mandates since I can remember, suddenly discovered that it is not always possible. And when you become aware of how they silence you, then you do not keep quiet anymore. Since then I am the feminist killjoy Sara Ahmed talks about. And this also takes its toll. It doesn't matter how assertive you are or how you smile while saying that it's not personal, that it's political because it's systemic. The doors that are closed to you are those that deny other ways of understanding cultural work. That's why, when they did the same to the director of the Born, I thanked her for saying No. She closed one door, but opened others for herself and for everyone.
It's a question of rights
by Nuria Alabao
Prostitution allows us to think aboutthe possibility of saying thatNo from another place, based on the debate it generates: do you accept freely Who is dedicated? Can you say? No?The law of only yes is yes The law on consent was drafted and published last term under the premise of "putting consent at the centre". At that time, organised sex workers criticised a part of the law that attempted to penalise various aspects of the exercise of prostitution (which was ultimately not passed). How was it possible that a law on consent denied the possibility of consent to sex workers?
Consent requires a series of attributes: it must be specific, informed, reversible, not coerced and conscious. All of these factors can occur in prostitution. In fact, these workers understand the breach of consent as the failure to comply with the prior agreement that is agreed upon before the provision of the service. These could be situations such as removing the condom, forcing non-agreed practices, actually using violence or not paying the stipulated price. It should not be forgotten that in the case of prostitutes the exchange is negotiated and delimited more than in ordinary sexual relations.
However, the concept of consent is not a violation of consent, but rather a violation of consent. freedom (for saying yes, for saying no)Here it is misleading. Paula Sanchez in Critique of the whore reason explains that when we talk about prostitution we should not focus on the notion of freedom, since it is never absolute because this sexual pact – like all others, in fact – develops within more general structures of power and oppression. In that case, working is not an option, but an obligation linked to survival. Precisely for this reason, what we should do is expand the possibilities of saying no. The less autonomy, less capacity for negotiation and less social protection prostitutes have, the more exposed they will be to violence, exploitation or violations of previous agreements.Therefore, the conquest and reinforcement of women's rights (work rights, legal residence rights, or the ability to organize and fight in the specific case of prostitutes) are elements that always expand the possibilities of saying no.
What fiction tells us about the female 'yes'
By Denise Duncan
When I was studying direction and dramaturgy at the Institut del Teatre, we studied Richard III by William Shakespeare. One of the most disturbing scenes in the play is the one starring Lady Anna. Ricard, after murdering her husband and father-in-law, asks her to marry him. The scene is a fascinating example of how fiction has constructed the idea of the No Women'sand female consent. Lady Anna insults, curses and spits at Ricard, but at the end of the scene she accepts his proposal. How can we explain this delirium?
Shakespeare shows consent as a battlefield, not as a free decision. Richard III is powerful, he is a murderer and a manipulator. The only possible answer that can be given is that forced yes, so close to surrender.
If we go back in time, we find many classic tales where women are rescued from death thanks to a non-consensual kiss. In The sleeping beauty, in the Grimm brothers' version, Aurora's unconscious state is resolved by a kiss, without her having any agency in what happens. Since she is supposed to have been awakened by true love's kiss, the prince's act is understood to be right, acceptable, and desirable.
In earlier versions of the tale, such as Sun, Moon and Thalia In Giambattista Basile's The King who finds her sleeping not only kisses her, but rapes her. The princess becomes pregnant, and a series of bloody incidents ensue, including a queen who wants the cook to prepare the newborn twins for dinner, and the king punishing his vengeful wife by marrying Talia.
In contemporary terms, we can reflect on how much fiction we have consumed that depicts coercion disguised as conquest. Sometimes you can't say no (the state of real or metaphorical unconsciousness is a good example of this), and other times the Yeah It is not always synonymous with wanting, especially in the face of certain power structures that condition the way in which women can express their desire or refusal.
The (im)possibility of setting limits
by Gemma Altillo Albajes
Setting boundaries – choosing what we say No What do we say now? Yeah– It is not easy in any area of life. It is a learning process that requires, above all, becoming aware that we are beings with the right to set limits, to prioritize ourselves and to respect ourselves as people. For women it is even less easy. And this has nothing to do with the fact that we have less capacity to set limits nor with the fact that we use them to obtain benefits or privileges. Among other personal and contextual factors that act as conditions, there is one structural and transversal one: our gender socialization. How we have been educated by build ourselves as women according to the expected model. With all possible variants, women learn that we must be obedient, accommodating, helpful and discreet –among other attributes– and our main value lies in complying with this (in this gender socialization or indoctrination we also learn that not complying with these mandates has as a consequence social, professional and emotional punishments). None of the attributes mentioned above helps us learn to say no or to say yes to what we want, basically because all these mandates of the female gender guide us to prioritize and listen to the needs of others above our own. The transformation of this pattern means beginning a complex process that involves feeling inadequate and questioned at every moment of your daily life. An inadequacy highly penalized by the patriarchal system. Therefore, it is never an easy path.
In recent times, current events have led us to talk about different cases in which the impossibility of saying no has been made evident, and social incomprehension has also been made evident. We are talking about cases of sexual harassment, some in the workplace, which have been in the news in recent months, but they are not unique cases. That is why collective feminist strategies are so important beyond individual ones. To legitimize ourselves in the possibility of No.
The school of surrender
by Alba Alfageme
Say No It has always been difficult for women. The patriarchal system, according to gender doctrine, has taught us to keep quiet, to accept what we do not want, to prioritize others before ourselves. We have been taught by punishing our confrontationand rewarding our submission. In this school of surrenderWe have been taught lessons that have made us small, invisible and that have gone against our self-affirmation.
In this blurring of our ways, sexist violence has been key. Specifically, sexual violence has become a tool of special oppression: it is where it is often more difficult to express a No. We have learned that the NoIt has very painful consequences, and so we have often ended up assuming that it is better to tell ourselves a No ourselves (denying what we want), than giving aNo
This also has a lot to do with the fact that historically our desire has been muted. We had it so poorly identified that sometimes it has not even been necessary to use explicit violence to make us give in: in a field as complex as that of desire, male voices have been placed in the center and have become the only subject, occupying all the space. What mattered, in sex, was male satisfaction. This has been very invalidating and coercive for women and has often prevented them from expressing a desire. No in a clear and forceful way. It has corseted us into complacency towards them and has removed assertiveness from us. A sexual object that has no right to decide.
The No It requires self-esteem, will, recognition... everything that has kept us apart until now. The individual act of reaffirmation, of saying No, must become collective to end the painful school of surrender.