Autor: Coral Herrera

Publicado el

There is no reward for suffering for love.

For women to voluntarily dedicate themselves to suffering for love, the patriarchy had to invent the romantic paradise. Love is like a religion: they ask us to pass through the valley of tears with resignation and assure us that in the end, we will be able to enter the gates of heaven to enjoy eternal, wonderful, and perfect love. But there is no reward, no paradise as a prize for enduring.

Women are raised in a culture of endurance, sacrifice, and renunciation with the promise that at some point in their lives, they will be rewarded and receive their prize. In Princess stories, this is the main message conveyed to women: if you suffer and endure, if you wait patiently, if you persevere and remain loyal, he will realize and fall to his knees before you, promise to love you forever, and you can be happy.

It's the perfect trap for women to care for men with problems: they seduce us with the idea that our love can conquer all, and with great patience and tenderness, we will change the ogre and turn him into the Prince Charming. Our role model becomes the Beauty who transforms the Beast by enduring his mistreatment. We fall in love with the scared and traumatized little boy that resides within every monster. Women tend to feel pity right away for these babies who demand love in a misguided manner, convinced that our love will save us both, and that we will be rewarded for being so good, generous, patient, and loving.

However, there is no reward. There is no prize, no possible paradise when we "for love" give up our freedom, our rights, our passions, our projects, our self-care. There's no way to give and receive love under conditions of suffering and abuse. It's impossible to build a healthy and beautiful relationship, and happiness cannot be achieved when we carry the burdens of others and they become our own problems.

When women come together with men who have problems, what happens is that we take on the responsibility for their well-being, and guilt is immediately triggered. We believe that we could do more or do it better, but nothing seems to satisfy the suffering man.

No matter how submissive, obedient, and accommodating we are, they won't love us more for behaving as expected of us, nor will they treat us better. On the contrary, our masochism exacerbates the sadism of those who know they hold power.

Our victim status will never provide us with the eternal love we were promised. It doesn't matter how much we suffer, how much we endure, or how much effort we put into saving the poor man who doesn't know how to love. Truly, sisters, there is no reward, no prize, and no paradise.

Alcoholics are not saved by love, gamblers, drug addicts, and violent men do not become good men through love. Each person must come out of their own hell if they want to and if they invest energy into their personal work, but no one can pull someone out of depression, their childhood traumas, their accumulated hatred, their pettiness, and misery.

There is no paradise in exchange for suffering and hardship: life slips away as we wait for the romantic miracle that never arrives. Penelope waited for Odysseus for 30 years, Sleeping Beauty waited for her Prince for a hundred years, and thus all the women of warriors and princes spend their lives, waiting for him to return, or for him to change, or for a miracle to lead us to the romantic paradise we deserve.

In all the stories, women wait and endure, but in reality, very few actually enjoy happy endings where the man redeems himself from his sins, stops being emotionally wounded, or solves his problems to make his princess happy. And usually, the price we pay for enduring is too high: suffering leaves a mark on our bodies, our brains, and our hearts, it deteriorates our mental and emotional health, makes us look unattractive, and ages us.

We cannot afford to waste our short existence waiting for the situation to change or for the other person to change. We can only change ourselves. We cannot squander our energy trying to save our loved one from their problems: we need partners by our side who know how to care for and love us properly, who can give their best in the relationship, who are generous and supportive, who know how to share and be there for us in both good and bad times.

Let's demystify love so that we can love with our feet on the ground, so we can love each other without hurting ourselves, and to avoid abusive and exploitative relationships, so that no one can take advantage of our need to be loved.

We need to be realistic and love in the present, here and now, without being complacent, without victimizing ourselves, without believing that our love will change them in the future. The only time to enjoy love is in the present, so let's forget about rewards: paradise is on Earth, and in the good moments you can experience with people who know how to love you properly.

Coral Herrera Gómez

Artículo original:  No hay recompensa por sufrir por amor

 

Publicado el

Among us: empathy, camaraderie and sisterhood

 

If you've never knelt before a man, if you've never suffered from partner violence, if you've never had to serve a man and work for him for free, if you're proud of yourself because you don't depend on a man economically or emotionally, it's normal that you find it difficult to understand why so many women in the world are suffering exploitation and violence from their partners.

But surely you can work on empathy within yourself to try to understand that the victims are not to blame, and that there are women who have been raised to be addicted to romanticism and to spend their lives taking care of a man, enduring, tolerating, and sacrificing themselves for him.

Romantic love is a trap for many women because the whole system is geared towards making us believe that happiness lies in marriage and family, even though the statistics on gender-based violence, violence against children, violence against the elderly, and violence against pets within the "happy family" context tell us the opposite.

Home is the most dangerous place for women, and for millions of them, escape is impossible. The more children they have, the poorer they are, the more trapped they become.

But there are also free and economically independent women who are imprisoned by love, and they could get out of it, but they don't. It's because we've been made to believe that suffering for love is rewarded, and they have to realize that it's a lie. That suffering has no reward and is not worth it. And that takes time.

Why is it so hard to leave? Because we have the myth ingrained in us, and love is a very powerful and addictive drug.

Not all women are clear that we haven't come to this world to suffer, not all know they have the right to a Good Life, not all have the tools to take care of themselves and to defend their freedom and human rights. Not all women have feminist women nearby to help them open their eyes.

So please, show some empathy if you've already opened yours. It doesn't help to talk about women who suffer for love from a position of superiority: each one needs her own time to escape the hell. From the outside, it's easy to judge and say, "I would never allow a man to treat me badly." But from the inside, many can't leave even if they want to. Some have resources and a support network, others are alone and don't even know that the emotional, sexual, and domestic abuse and exploitation they suffer is gender-based violence.

Some manage to free themselves, others never do, and others lose their lives along the way, murdered at the hands of their abuser. It's not a personal problem that everyone has to solve on their own, it's a social and political problem, it's a collective issue, and it's a matter for everyone. What we need to do is help and care for each other, and create networks of mutual support.

If you have already liberated yourself, or if you've never been in the prison of love, be supportive and help others remove the blindfold, open their eyes, and escape the cage.

We are making a revolution and we need cooperation and teamwork; on the path to liberation, we must all go together.

Coral Herrera Gómez

Original en Español:

Entre nosotras: empatía, sororidad y compañerismo

Publicado el

Self-Care is a Political Issue

Self-care is not only a personal matter, but also a political issue.

It serves not only to preserve your mental and emotional health, to learn to defend yourself against abuse, exploitation, and violence from others, and to keep away from people who mistreat you. It's also a powerful tool for learning to care for the people who love you and care for you.

Self-care is a valuable tool for learning to relate to yourself from a philosophy of care, and for learning to use your power in a way that doesn't harm anyone. Both things always go hand in hand: care and self-care, because none of us can live well if the people around us are not living well either.

Happiness is political, meaning it's a collective matter: you cannot be happy if your people are not happy. I take care of myself to be well, and the better I am, the better I can take care of others, and the more I can contribute to the Common Good.

The idea of thinking about others in such an individualistic and narcissistic world is truly revolutionary.

Why are care practices revolutionary?

Because if we could organize our economy around them, the world would change in a radical way, from top to bottom.

Firstly, people who provide care would have dignified incomes, not like now: the vast majority of women who provide care are condemned to poverty and economic dependence on another family member, usually a man.

Secondly, if self-care is our responsibility, then care is a social responsibility shared by everyone: if we receive care in our childhood, adolescence, old age, and during certain periods due to accidents or illnesses (a considerable number of hours that our loved ones dedicate to caring for us), then all of us should be capable of reciprocating that care and contributing when we have energy and health. Right now, adulthood is solely dedicated to producing and consuming, and we don't have time to care for others.

Caring for and being cared for would be a collective right: States would have to work to ensure that no one is excluded from care, to eliminate suffering in the population, and to ensure the well-being of all citizens.

And what do we need in order to be able to provide care?

Time, energy, and income.

But also tons of empathy, generosity, altruism, and genuine love.

I imagine a world of care in which...

no baby would be separated from their mother at birth,

all of us could raise our own daughters and sons, instead of having to part from them a few weeks after birth,

mothers would receive care from the entire community during the postpartum period, instead of being alone with a baby that requires a lot of energy and full dedication,

everyone would have time to share in the family care of the elderly or members with disabilities or dependence,

companies wouldn't lay off pregnant women,

all of us could care for our children and elderly when they are sick.

we could recover from a painful death instead of having to go to work the day after burying your partner, your mother, your sister.

the most impoverished women wouldn't have to stop caring for their own children to care for the children of the middle and upper classes.

we would be provided with tools for self-care and care for others from school, to stop relationships of hatred, discrimination, and violence, and replace them with relationships based on respect, empathy, mutual support, emotional responsibility, and radical tenderness.

This is the world I desire and work for every day:

A world based on cooperation and solidarity, where everyone would have the time and income to care for themselves and others, a world built on networks of affection and care, oriented towards the Good Living.

That's why self-care and care are political: because they are collective, because they are loving, because they are subversive. They go from you to others, and from others to you, but they reach much further:

I take care of myself, I care for others, I receive care from others, I care for my community and my environment, I receive care from them, I care for animals, nature, and the planet.

Coral Herrera Gómez

Original en español: El Autocuidado es un asunto Político