They find it funny, even mocking, that so many women spend their afternoons doing what they contemptuously call "adult extracurricular activities." And it's true that reading clubs, conferences, workshops at community centers, and courses on a wide variety of subjects are mostly supported by an attendance almost always made up of women of a certain age. Men who prefer to devote their remaining vital energy to watching a couple of dozen children in shorts chasing a ball don't wonder how women behave this way, how they have acquired this hyperactivity. First, because they have no interest in little boys running around on the grass, and second, because many of them are part of a generation that has never been able to do what they wanted, that has gradually put aside, over the years and decades, all those interests that weren't strictly useful for supporting family life and other work. Some complain about this massive and normalized theft. One of them expressed it with reasonable indignation: "Now I realize that I've been deceived my whole life." Others remain silent, leaving their husbands "staring at them on television" (a phrase used by a Valencian feminist when explaining her beginnings in equality associations in the 1970s and how she managed to attend meetings), and have their own time now that they no longer have to care for children, grandchildren, parents, or even friends.
I'm not saying that caring for others is a waste of time; quite the opposite: it increasingly seems to me that we only have meaning as individuals in relation to others, and that without others, we not only don't exist but would not survive. There is an intrinsic dignity in caring for someone, a profound sense of existence that, for those of us without faith or religion, serves as a foundation for understanding what we came to this world to do. If we didn't sustain life, by the way, nothing would exist: neither the economy nor progress, nor global banks nor stock markets that rise and fall. The problem has been the distribution of duties, which has placed on women, simply because they are women and mothers, each and every one of the tasks necessary to keep us alive, healthy, and happy. I read, for example, the routine Vargas Llosa followed: exercise in the morning, write until noon, read in the afternoon, and exercise again at night. Some admire this commitment to his profession and emphasize that he wrote seven days a week. They are neither surprised nor shocked that there wasn't a single hour in his schedule dedicated to cooking, cleaning, or caring for loved ones who might need him. They will tell me that he was a rich man and could afford to hire other people to take care of this uncreative part of the Nobel Prize winner's life, but how do we know that none of the women who worked for him are writers who will never become one because neither their social class nor their gender allows them to raise their heads above the fertile mud? And in fact, there are thousands of men who, without having had as much money as the Peruvian and without being blessed with literary grace, have neglected that part of their existence, always entrusted to the very responsible female section. Even the progressives who wanted to change everything made a revolution because the "companion" put the children to bed and took care of the snacks.
Fortunately, all this is changing, and now we know that if the distribution is equitable and we all get involved in the most important task there is, which is taking care of each other's lives, we will not only have a more just order, but it will be one with more meaning.
