In a beautiful place in my country, Mexico, I wake up calm, I look out the window to see a huge green field and the dawn that breaks the night and the calm.
There, still in the dark, I wonder: how does one wake up after the horror?
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The voice of the silenced
Not many nights ago, a friend from Madrid wrote to tell me that something had happened in our neighborhood.
Later, a Mexican friend told me by phone that something similar had happened in hers, in Mexico City.
In both cases, women murdered by their partners, in the bosom of their home.
We all already know the figures, the numbers, the excessive increase that arose from the pandemic, the slowness of the judicial organs, the indignation, the rage, the disbelief even.
I wonder again: is there something we don't know?
Yes. What is the matter with men?
What is that that is not said or not spoken?
Why so much pain?
Tired as I am of hearing what women would have to do - even the way we should demonstrate or protest - I have never heard certain demands made on men's behavior.
Not even the smallest of suggestions that make them responsible for their actions.
In other words, institutionally that dialogue still remains closed.
Closed I would say.
Which makes it clear that this same dialogue also remains
pending
in the private and intimate sphere.
I often see men broken by not meeting the pattern that would be expected of them
Gentlemen, it is time to ask yourself: what is really being a man?
Why the condemnation of representing one and only one form of masculinity?
What are they afraid of?
What hurts them?
Is life that?
I often see men broken because they do not meet the model that would be expected of them, but above all, because they do not have tools, not even basic ones, to rediscover themselves in a different light that allows them to contact their fragility or even their doubts.
There is no map for tenderness, crying, the soft, the sweet, to free oneself from the yoke of being the provider, the strong.
And yes, the time to get hold of a pending account is this.
Brothers: you and only you have in your hands the decision to decode and resignify what it is to be a man.
Ask yourself questions, be disturbed by what is going on, go to therapy, find circles of support, be brave to experience other ways of existing.
Authorities: the urgent message is that of a new masculinity.
Do your homework.
Women can't wait any longer.
Cecilia Suárez
is an award-winning actress and global advocate
for the European Union-United Nations
Spotlight Initiative
.
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