It’s very likely you have all come across this video recently. The level of sharing on social networks struck me, so I took a peek at the video: what I found made my jaw drop.
How is it even possible to think it is in any way instructive? Boys so young they are hardly aware of how to behave with a girl, are telling us what a Man is, all the while caressing the poor girl who is kept on a leash by perfect strangers.
What we know of her amounts to this: her name is Martina, we can touch her and we can order her on delivery. Above all, after the most idiotic questions ever heard, we find out that one cannot hit her because “Jesus won’t like it” (deo gratias), or because “she’s a cutie” (…) or because “I am a man” (said strictly in dialect). Over the span of two minutes and a half we don’t even have the chance to hear Martina’s voice once.
As an heterosexual male, I often find myself at a dead end, caught up in my honest endeavours, the news, my natural flaws and prejudices, which are mainly expressed through stereotypes. They are mental shortcuts, where the reasoning is ripe with banal ideas and fear of diversity, as well as historical and social inaccuracies. This kind of shallow thinking leads to serious consequences, and I include this video among them.
Violence finds its place inside the stereotype of the man of honour. At first it is expressed between peers as a way to test one’s strength; then between rivals and contenders in love, for obvious reasons; eventually, on the unfortunate partner, probably guilty of lacking respect for her knight. If the first two forms of violence are socially accepted, even encouraged, the third displays a contradiction: a man cannot hurt a woman. Because, no.
By accepting this, we reconfirm the gap between man and woman: he will be in charge with her protection, always harshly looked down upon by his fellow citizens, and she will have to honour him by fitting into prepackaged roles.
There is no room for the insubordinate woman, the “less honourable” man cannot exist. (We won’t discuss non-heterosexual culture in this instance). When she will stop respecting him, their two worlds will collide, relentlessly escalating into violence.
Silly me, I thought it was clear this idiocy must be turned on its head. Silly me, I thought this was a clear concept, at least to people dealing with social interventions, even simple ones like this video. I was wrong.
This video is not decisive one bit and on top of this, it also gives value to those clichés which are fertile ground for the violence against women.
I am rather let down by all those who shared it over the past few days, stressing how tender those kid’s upset faces were, how cute their clumsy words were: in spite of themselves, I didn’t see pretty children smiling at each other as playing the grown-ups; I didn’t see, as I wished for, mature and self-assured people who respect each other while discussing these topics.
This video (like other similar items) is not explaining how to deal with one another peacefully and with respect. In my worried eyes, these are unconscious male chauvinists, bestowed with the right to do whatever they feel like with a girl: they are barely dignified enough to spare her from slapping. For this time.
