On November 4th, a drunken, clumsy man assaulted Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, during a walk through the capital. The president filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office to set an example that this type of behavior is more than unacceptable: "It's a crime, and if I don't file a complaint, what becomes of all Mexican women?" In a press conference, Sheinbaum proposed reviewing whether sexual harassment in public spaces should be considered a criminal offense. It seems that important women—and here she uses "important" to clarify that they not only wield power but also symbolically embody a series of shared values, such as freedom and mutual respect—must confront this type of violence far too often.
Athens. Fifth century BC. A group of important men dismiss the flute players who entertained them and decide not to get drunk so they can deliver their speeches. They are like peacocks displaying their feathers for all to see. Vanity of vanities. They all talk a lot, and they talk well. There isn't a single woman present, until one of the guests, Socrates, recalls an important woman, Diotima, who taught him everything he knows about love. Love, Diotima says, is an intermediary between what we would like to possess and what we don't yet have. Diotima is important because a man like Socrates, a role model for other men, recognizes her as such. But Diotima is shrewd; she knows that Socrates is rambling, even if the others don't notice. She knows the secrets of the world better, but she doesn't say so: she hints at it. Rambling is human. Talking, too. The dialogue between Socrates and Diotima reveals the two sides of men and women in an incomplete and precarious relationship.
Today (although, unfortunately, some women still don't experience it this way), an important woman doesn't need the recognition of any Socrates, because she can demonstrate her worth on her own, through her actions and her words. Women who pursue political careers, like Sheinbaum, are a clear example. However, being an important woman is not easy for women, nor for some men, who feel their small share of territory threatened when a woman occupies their space. Feminist academics have called this phenomenon of power pressure through sexual harassment "bringing someone into discipline" (disciplineStrong (and inept) men "discipline" important women. By treating them as objects, they denigrate them. To denigrate is to diminish a person's dignity in order to destroy the good opinion others have of them. Some men depend on this sexual fantasy, without which they cannot function in private. Others put it into practice in public spaces. In all cases, and even if they are unaware of it, men who denigrate women also denigrate themselves, in a human sense. Then the black hole opens through which civilization seeps, a shared symbolic space that makes us realize, like Diotima, what we still lack and what we don't yet have.
