March 8th: Think strategically
March 8th is coming again, and many women will once more take to the streets to denounce all that remains to be done to achieve equality, and, above all, to highlight the unbearable violence of all kinds that, once again, seems to be escalating against us. How distant that March 8th of 2018 seems, when girls, mothers, and grandmothers flooded the streets, and for a moment, we thought that the path toward true equality was finally unstoppable!
It hasn't been that way, and this March 8th we will celebrate it with a very different perspective, in a climate of extreme confrontations, of escalating violence, of the resurgence of an old-fashioned machismo, which we thought we had overcome, and which is rearming itself on a global scale but also in our country. Murders of women, mistreatment, sexual violence, humiliation... And even at a daily, minuscule level, but one that is the foundation of the future: we once again have schools where four-year-old boys who want to do ballet are told by their classmates that it's ridiculous for a boy, that it's for girls, and that combing their hair is something else, because they have no other free space in which to move around freely.
Why have we reached this point? The wave of the "might makes right" movement, being driven by the far right, has as one of its most powerful demands the return of women to the place from which, according to these great leaders, they should never have moved: to obedience, silence, and submission. And it finds fertile ground for its arguments because, like all groups of people who enjoy privileges, there are still many men who resist losing them and believe that feminism has gone too far. Unfortunately, the first followers of this movement are young men, as a series of surveys and studies we are seeing demonstrate.
The magnitude of violence against women is yet another aspect of the confrontation we are currently experiencing. Many girls and women are beginning to see men as monsters, to believe that we cannot trust them; some are already talking about returning to segregated schools to protect girls. And men, likewise, are beginning to imagine women as dangerous beings, to be distrusted and dominated. This is a disaster at a time when outdated roles, established over centuries, are not only useless but destructive, and more so for men, who resist change, than for women, who have struggled to break free from our traditional roles, so ill-suited to our current desires and possibilities.
Look, if you don't believe me: in 2024, 1,039 young people died in Spain from causes other than illness; suicides, traffic accidents, drugs, homicides, and extreme sports, in that order. Of these deaths, 77.2% were boys and 22.3% were girls. More boys than girls begin to die from the age of 3, and the process accelerates: between the ages of 25 and 29, men They accounted for 82.6% of the people who died that year from these causes. Proving "being a man," being fearless, being capable of anything comes at a very high price. Is it worth it, guys, to risk losing your life to "be a man"?
From my point of view, we must lower the levels of confrontation, which are being artificially fueled because someone is profiting from it. I know that many feminist colleagues disagree with me on this: it's easier to denounce—and there are reasons for doing so—than to build consensus. Women aren't very used to thinking strategically: we tend to think that if we're right—backed by laws and rights—we should demand change, and that agreements always harm us. But we're in the midst of a war, many wars, and it's necessary to think strategically. Faced with the growing offensive against women, we need solidarity, we need allies. The world is full of men who are kind, reasonable, civilized people who have understood the need for equality and change. And who, faced with feminist proposals, have much to gain—in terms of health, personal well-being, and enjoyment of life—if they reject this old, supremacist, and destructive machismo, so contrary to life itself.
For many years I have worked for coeducation, whose profound message is to eliminate gender roles and allow each person to live as they wish, with the general limitation of not harming anyone. It's about freeing the sexes, a biological reality, from the mutilation caused by gender roles. Women have changed a great deal, but men have not. There has been a lack of institutional will and resources, and now we are all paying the price. May this March 8th serve as an opportunity for us to thoroughly debate what is at stake and to build winning strategies in this confusing time.