"Victims are not women. Victims are the men"

Have you ever thought that maybe the real victims of our history are men and not women? Sometimes I do… very often, to say the truth.

Nobody can deny that thousands (millions, perhaps) of women are dying daily as the result of men attack: at home, at the streets, at war fields.

But precisely as the result of that terrible numbers, I am starting to ask myself: are men the real enemy of women? Apparently yes. Newspapers, television, internet and even history books are faithful witness of the cruel reality that women have been facing before and today…

But, for real, can we blindly trust in those testimonies? Are the media and books telling us the truth about the violence against women?

As a journalist and as a woman, I suspect that we are missing something, because, at the end of the day, things haven’t changed so much for women destinies, but neither for men’s history. We still prisoners in a circle of violence.

Talking about the violence against women, it is useful to ask us: are we living a war? Well, yes. We are in the middle of an old, unfair, unbalanced, terrible and very deadly war. That is the first thing that we have to accept.

However, we also must ask us: who are fighting against whom? Where is the field of battle, and which are our tools to combat?

Because only by knowing the nature of a conflict, we can make the steps to solve it; otherwise, even if we fight bravely, we will only losing our energy and our opportunities to find a real and lasting peace.

I am going to sound subversive, I know. But I think that history is now asking us to change our look. We must to start to think that women are not the real victims of this system. The real victims are the men… we, the women, are only that that war language use to call: collateral effects.

If we (men and women) start to understand that the war is not between each other, maybe we could walk ahead in the same direction to stop all this fatal hostilities. Because for each woman killed, actually we lose one creature made for give us life. Do we want to die as human beings? I don’t think so.

Ok. Let’s concede that we had made some advances. Is that true or that is only history wants to make us believe?

Around 1900, women in France needed a special permission from the police to wear pants in public, and only for very special reasons and causes. Just few weeks ago, (a century later!) we read in the news that a woman could be flagged precisely because she dared to wear pants in public. And that is only an inoffensive example…

No, I am afraid that things haven’t changed so much, even if we like to believe that yes, that we the women are enjoying more freedom and justice. It is true for some of us, it is true in some places, it is true for some situations, but it is not true for all of us in all places in all situations, so, it is a fantasy, a failure from a society, which is trying to make us believe that “we won some battles… but indeed, not the war”

To truly win, we need to change our look. We must start to understand who the enemy is, and who the ally is.
That implies to understand that our system is torturing men in first place.

It is the actual culture which is stealing men’s soul, and pushing them to the violence, and then, making us believe that violence it is prohibited and will be punished.

For real, let’s open our eyes; let’s understand that our fight is against violence in general, not only violence against woman. Otherwise, the system will continue winning by causing separation among women and men.

Let’s realize that if the actual system, -supported by media and history- is not teaching us about pardon and compassion, it is because precisely there is the secret of its destruction

Men are the prisoners of this patriarchal trap. Women at least, we preserve yet alive, our natural power of forgiveness. That could be the key to transform the world into a better place.

If we, the women, don’t start to see men with a different look, a look of compassion, then, this cultural system will continue succeeding, taking the men’s soul, and women life’s.

This article is part of a writing assignment for Voices of Our Future, which is providing rigorous web 2.0 and new media training for 31 emerging women leaders. We are speaking out for social change from some of the most forgotten corners of the world. Meet Us.