On June 28, a man stabbed a professor of philosophy and gender studies at the University of Waterloo, as well as two students. The assailant had planned this aggression: he had chosen his target, Katy Fulfer, professor. Waterloo Region Police Chief Mark Crowell says the actions were motivated by a hatred of gender identity and expression. The three people affected are said to have sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries. And yet…
You have to be a feminist, write, publish, teach, live as a feminist, dare to speak in the public square as a feminist, to measure how much the voice of those who defend the rights of women and gender minorities , who choose to reflect on and question gender issues, is constantly put in danger…
You have to read Mary Beard, who, in women and power, highlights the fact that since the Greeks, the voice of women is forbidden. Télémaque tells Penelope that speaking is a male affair because public speaking is masculine. Ancient Greek women were only allowed to speak as victims or martyrs – usually just before they died – and could only defend their homes, children, husbands or the interests of other women; they have no right to speak on behalf of men or the community as a whole.
Even today, there is a bias against women’s voices, which are too high pitched, too slender. Women in positions of power will work on their voices in order to lower their pitch. Even today, it is more difficult for women’s voices to be authoritative.
In reaction to speaking out in the feminine, and even worse feminist, the threat will often be sexual: the “shut up” coupled with “I’m going to rape you”, humiliate you, get dirty in the public square , which is the contemporary equivalent of the stake.
You have to read Silvia Federici to measure the harm that was done to women in the Middle Ages, precisely because they dared to speak out, defend their right to the common, protest against private property, capitalism and patriarchy. You have to read Silvia Federici to remember the means used to silence those accused of witchcraft. Those who were said to waste their time “gossiping”.
In the Middle Ages, “gossip” meant: godmother (god – God and sibb – parent), then midwife or companion in childbirth, and finally friend. The word “gossip” changes meaning as misogyny grows and women are accused of witchcraft. In the XVIe and in the XVIIe century, we are witnessing a war against working-class women. Patriarchal authority is reinforced, women are excluded from guilds and corporations (women are forbidden to meet to discuss matters), poverty is feminized.
At the head of the state and the family: men whom women must obey or else they are punished. What is the punishment? The “gossip bridle” (an instrument which appeared in 1567), this bit which is inserted into the mouth and which presses on the tongue, bristling with points so that the culprit cannot move her tongue without pain and that she is unable to speak.
Today, as we know, the “gossip”, the rumor mill, continues to be closely associated with the feminine.
Indeed: what comes out of women’s mouths, especially when they talk together, and what’s more when they are feminists, tends to be devalued, mocked, questioned without real argument.
Today, the stake is that of anonymous messages, threats on social networks, vitriol sent in private and in public to attack everything that touches, directly or indirectly, the identity gender and those who dare to defend it as a complex thought that encourages us to see beyond heterocentrism, the male-female binary and the hierarchy that results from it. This world where the masculine eternally prevails over the feminine.
An important thought, necessary, to counter the hatred towards sexual and gender diversity.
I will not accept giving up in front of hatred. I will not bow to anti-feminism. I will continue to advocate for the need to intelligently and empathetically address gender identity, to make it a place in our classrooms, our government policies, our hearts and our minds. For hate to retreat. That the knives do not replace the pyres.