It’s not one, nor two, nor three, nor four. Every day, new women join a string of painful mysteries; facts that hurt because they are not heard, are not said, do not exist.
If there’s anything more devastating than abuse, it’s … silence that follows: the imposed shame, the repeated humiliation; the unwritten, but iron, order to shut your mouth.
Within the PSOE, a party that has made feminism its flag, uncomfortable and impassable cracks are beginning to appear. Complaints from women who claim to have suffered sexual abuse or seriously inappropriate behavior within the organization where, far from finding refuge and protection, they were hit by the wall of political opportunism. Shut up. Tighten your mouth. Do not stir. Do not disturb. Don’t make any noise. The party, in front of the victims.
We are not only talking about facts – which must be clarified with all guarantees – but about a culture: that of silence as an internal discipline. That of looking away when the person denouncing is a woman and the person denounced is part of the power mechanism. That of making feminism a slogan, in theory, but not in practice; this ideological perversion which dynamited feminism from within.
Without losing sight of the fact that these abuses still exist in all areas of society, it is all the more indecent that this occurs under an acronym erected as a scourge against sexist violence which has, rightly, demanded exemplary behavior from others. But the ethical bar cannot be lowered when the accused is “one of us.” Feminism is an inalienable principle, it is not an electoral slogan in the service of the men and women who imposed silence when shit soiled the carpets of homes.
The victims who have spoken out – and probably those who still do not dare – are not demanding revenge or lynchings. They ask to be heard; that they should not be forced to relive the abuse every time someone tells them that “now is not the time”, that “there are more important things”, that “this is hurting the party”. As if they didn’t already carry the damage within them. So inside.
Staying silent does not protect victims. Staying silent protects abusers and the structures that support them. And when a party that calls itself feminist chooses silence, it ceases to be part of the solution and becomes part of the problem, part of the shame, a pure lack of protection for victims. This grating silence, this double standard, this disgusting hypocrisy of those who suppressed everything.
It’s not feminism, it’s an ideology. It’s indecency. Everything for the party, even if it means protecting, protecting the aggressors from complicit silence.
There was not one, nor two. The question is no longer how many there are; The question is how many more complaints will it take for silence to cease to be the norm. For freedom, for the dignity of all.
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