Autor: Coral Herrera

Publicado el

What do your children learn when you separate from your partner?

 

Your husband treats you like a servant and behaves as if he were the eldest son. He doesn't take any responsibility as an adult and lives like a king in his home.

If you separate from him, your male child will realize that it's a great injustice for men to abuse and exploit women. It will also help him understand that if he does the same, he will end up alone. Because fewer and fewer women are working for their husbands for free.

If you separate, your daughter will know that love doesn't mean enduring, that women haven't come into this world to serve, and that all women can and should rebel against selfish men. She will learn from you to stand up against sexism, as it is through examples that girls and boys learn.

Your husband mistreats you when he's angry or nervous. He insults you, humiliates you, speaks to you with contempt, or stops talking to you for days as a punishment.

Your husband controls you, watches over you, and limits your freedom.

Your husband lies to you, hides information from you, deceives you.

Your husband cheats on you, has other partners, and doesn't allow you to have other relationships.

Your husband doesn't let you use your money, doesn't consult you when taking a loan, doesn't allow you to work, and spends his income on other women or parties with his friends.

Your husband doesn't love you, doesn't treat you well, doesn't take care of you, doesn't worry about you.

If you separate, your sons and daughters will learn that you should stay away from people who don't take care of you, that marriage isn't for a lifetime, and that women deserve life partners with whom to work as a team and face difficulties. And if they find themselves in the same situation someday, they will know that they don't have to endure, that they aren't condemned to suffering, that being alone is better than being in a relationship that doesn't care for you.

If your children see you fighting for your freedom and rights and see you liberating yourself, they will learn to fight for their freedom and rights and can break free from all relationships based on sexism, abuse, and exploitation.

If you're unhappy and you separate, if you take care of yourself and take care of them, your sons and daughters will learn to take care of themselves and work for their well-being and happiness.

Coral Herrera Gómez

Publicado el

Love in a Relationship and the Women Right to Free Time

Love in a Relationship and the Women Right to Free Time

Men have more free time than women. They can rest and sleep more hours than we do, and they have more time to enjoy their passions and loved ones.

They have more time for physical exercise, for playing sports, for engaging in art, music, writing, reading, creating, inventing, and exploring new things.

Time for doing nothing, for enjoying nature, for advancing in their careers, for traveling and discovering new places, for recovering from illnesses, for going on excursions, for learning new things.

They have more time to study languages, pursue master's degrees, prepare for exams, and they have more time to have friends and other partners besides their official one.

Men have a higher quality of life than we do because they have more free time. This is one of the great injustices experienced by women in heterosexual relationships: having to give away our time and energy to men just because we were born women.

If we could negotiate on equal terms, if we had the same rights and the same income, none of us would work for a man for free.

So that they can live like kings, we work twice as many hours as they do at home, and therefore, we have half the free time they do.

This is the case in Spain: according to statistics from the INE (National Institute of Statistics), half of Spanish women in relationships perform the majority of caregiving and household tasks. 32.5% of men do nothing at home.

Globally, women dedicate almost 6 hours a day to these activities, while men spend less than half of that time, around 2 hours a day.

Can we love each other well under these conditions of inequality? Can women enjoy sex and love in abusive relationships?

Obviously, no.

Even though women take on all or most of the caregiving work, we don't do it with a smile. They medicate us so we can keep up the pace and coexist with exhaustion, stress, anxiety, frustration, and anger. They give us pills to activate us and to relax, and to prevent us from exploding.

But even though they want us medicated and numbed, the majority of us protest, demand collaboration, try to negotiate the distribution of tasks, rebel, get angry, fight for our rights, go on strike, and when we've had enough, we separate.

Women are the ones who file for divorce the most, and domestic exploitation is one of the main causes.

Once women rebel against the injustice and realize that care should be mutual and shared, men are left with two options: either start working as a team with their partners or remain alone and pay for the domestic work they used to enjoy for free.

No relationship can function based on abuse and privilege: many of us have already come to the realization that we were not born to serve and that we want to enjoy a Good Life.

As soon as all women in the world become aware that we have the right to have free time, time to rest, and time to enjoy life, the monarchy and male privileges will come to an end.

We have been fighting for this right in the streets for centuries, but above all, in our homes and in our beds—our main battlegrounds.

And we won't stop until the final victory.

Coral Herrera Gómez

Publicado el

I am better than You

"You are much bigger than her, you are prettier than her, you are worth much more, she's not even close to your level..."

Does it console you when someone tells you this after your partner goes with another woman?

It has never consoled me.

Comparing myself to the other woman, making derogatory comments about her in public, or attacking her to seek approval from my circle has never made me feel better.

So, I never use this approach to console a woman suffering from love, because I believe it only serves to inflate our ego, not to raise our self-esteem.

I think if our self-esteem didn't depend on whether a man loves us or not, we wouldn't have any need to feel better or superior to any woman.

"I am more than you, you are worth nothing" does not help ease your pain or allow you to build a beautiful relationship with yourself.

Perhaps belittling the other woman may help you vent your anger and frustration, but it won't console you over such a painful loss.

Having others side with you and speak ill of the other woman won't aid the most important task in the process of grief: accepting that your partner no longer loves you and has fallen in love with another woman. A woman who is different from you, neither better nor worse.

Causing her harm won't bring you happiness or make you feel better, I believe.

What has truly helped me in times of grief is not war, but love: being with my friends, gathering with wonderful women, and becoming aware of all the love inside me and around me.

I wish we didn't need to feel superior to anyone to feel better or to bolster our self-esteem because in this battle between women, it's the patriarchy that wins.

Coral Herrera Gómez