Long live life

Welcome letter to little Ona (and to all girls)

Intervention by Bertral Fotografia on a photograph by Amparo Garcia that reinterprets the famous We Can Do It!, a propaganda poster, created in 1943 by J. Howard Miller for the company Westinghouse Electric as an inspiring image to boost the morale of female workers during the Second World War.
21/09/2026 - 07:01 h.
Escriptora i guionista
3 min

Welcome Ona, you have been alive for very few days, so few that we haven't even seen each other in person yet, but while you get to know your mother and your father and you all learn what each other is like, I felt like writing to you. You are a girl and you have had the immense fortune of ending up in an open, beautiful, and free family that will allow you to be the girl you want to be. Even so that at some point you might say that you are not sure if you are a girl, a boy, or whatever you feel like. Take advantage of the bonus because it is not always like this. You will see when you start to socialize that there are girls who are saddled with certain colors, certain decorations, certain things that it would not occur to anyone to saddle them with if they weren't a girl. You ask and do. Go for it. And as soon as you can, play whatever you feel like. Don't limit yourself to the typical game of pretending you have a hair salon, a school, a food stall, do it, if you want, but don't hold back, open your mind. Play at being the quantum physicist who finds the formula to shove Donald Trump into a black hole. Or at being the human resources director of a toy multinational who fires all the assholes. These are examples, but for real, don't hold back. I should tell you that the first extracurricular activity you should do is jujitsu, because, I won't lie to you, being a girl, being a woman, is a bit complicated when you go through the world, and self-defense would do you good. But I refuse for you to grow up out of fear. I want you to know that, in this sense, the problem will never be you. The problem will always be the aggressor's. I would advise you to sign up for the "feminist demonstrations" extracurricular, or "feminist organizations", "non-violent feminist guerrillas" or "how to be a feminist president in the 21st century"; it will be much more fun. But there is still time before you have to choose. Meanwhile, you can learn to vomit every time someone you don't know comes up to you and tells you that you are beautiful instead of telling you that you have an alert look or that you seem very clever or that you have very witty comebacks or what strength you have or what loud farts you make. Because Ona, all girls grow up hearing only that we are beautiful and pretty. This is the content of 95% of the praise we receive in childhood. And then, of course, we grow up thinking that this is what we are worth. And no, Ona, no. You are worth it no matter what your body is like, because Ona, you don't have a normative body or a non-normative body, you have the best body, the body that you care about. And when you start to talk, ask them to teach you to say: red flag, heteropatriarchy, emotional responsibility, gender pay gap your father, sorority, and words like that. I insist, you are very lucky, but you also have to know that we are a family that lives in Catalonia (Europe), we have light skin and we don't worry about money and we have access to things that many people don't have. And that it is not the same to be a girl like this, as it is to have darker skin, have less money, etc. Anyway, just so you note it down. I have only seen you for a second in a photo, but I have already realized: you have an alert look and you look like you are going to let out the loudest and most impressive farts in your town. Welcome, Ona, and long live your life and that of all girls!

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