Post by Radical Girlsss

I’m sitting at a cafe and three women in their late forties are talking about ‘gender’. ‘Pansexual is someone that is attracted to absolutely all genders. So really they are attracted to the personality of people rather than their gender’ says one of them to her friends whose silence is not tacit consent but dissent.

Figliarcato. The rule of the son in Italian. Too many essential notions in politics have Latin or Greek origins. English is too far removed from the roots of those words so it makes it difficult to appreciate their weight. For once Latin macho countries are advantaged. 

Family comes from ‘famulus’, that is the slaves and servants owned by the pater, the father in a household. The defenders of the traditional heterosexual family are actually consistent. There can be no happiness for women in the family.

Vagina comes from ‘guaina’ which means sheath in Latin. In Latin the penis could also be called a ‘gladius’, a sword, same root as gladiator. There is no such thing as ‘vagina power’: we are the place man rest when they are not fighting. Or rather they fight in us.

Clitoris could come from key. Who holds the key to what door?

I am always told etymologies do not matter. No one knows the origins of the words they use anyway, just like they seem to forget where the origin of the world is. If words are not that important why have we been using the same ones for thousands of years? If our perceptions around women had changed surely our words would have changed?

Why do you think there are genders in languages? Why do you think that even in languages that don’t have gender, there is verbal rape?

Fuck. ‘Fuck’ is a strong word. By using male insults we perpetuate male sexual violence. Why for instance do we not exclaim ‘Rob you! but ‘Fuck you!’? Because we understand that there is no violence above sexual violence. So strong that even uttering it is enough to humiliate someone.

Patriarcato, patriarchy in English: the rule of the father.

Figliarcato, sonarchy in English: the rule of the son.

Viriarcato, viriarchy in English: the rule of man.

It keeps going on. It’s not just our fathers that tell us what to do. It’s our sons that lecture us about an infinite number of sexes. It’s our younger brothers that treat us like their ‘famulus’. It’s men, be they homo or heterosexual, who want to be called ‘creators’ for being ‘artists’ in a desperate attempt to make up for the ultimate creation they will never access: life.

As Radical Girlsss we participated to the Brussels’s Call and to the FiLiA conference. The lack of boldness that still permeates the institutional struggle against prostitution is striking.

We are afraid of making up words. Male activists are pulling us in their terrain: they invented ‘sex work’ in 1974, we followed them down the sex trap with the nonsense of ‘sex purchase’. But prostitution is rape not sex. You’re not a sex buyer! You’re a prostituter! A sexploiter ! A rapist ! For once the original word is good. Prostituire: put up for sale in the public space.

We are not fierce enough. We are told we cannot mention violence otherwise it scares people away. We play it positive. But this is the terrain of the libbylibfem tralalala. By being quiet on violence we are playing the hush hush game. How did we get into feminism? Because we were aware of the violence and we knew there was a way to end it. We can be positive and still talk about what needs to be talked about. We need to remember who we are doing this for: women and girls. Our boldness will attract them.

FiLiA was refreshing. We could talk about violence. We could condemn it. And we could dance. There is nothing more moving in this world that women and girls who let their female energy flow. It makes me cry every single time. Watching those wonderful women who were just going on about their lives. Systematically crushed, beaten, reduced to tears. We don’t deserve it. It’s so unfair.

At FiLiA there is a sense of belonging. Despite all the neoliberal talk about the individual we all know and feel that there is something bigger than us. Religious extremism is just one negative proof that people still need a sense of belonging, a common goal and values to move forward. At FiLiA we do not hear things about how important it is to be sexy and enjoy penetration with men. At FiLiA we listen to women talking about ourselves. We are part of a movement.

Sisters, we’re doing it for ourselves.