This action is the third part of a trilogy conceptually and formally focused on masculinity, male emotionality and violence.
Here, taking as my point of departure the hierarchical and gender-producer model yielded by Christian religions (the Catholicism in particular), I will symbolically work on this model, a model which keeps women apart from any public role, except the one consisting in “being consumed/possessed by men and giving birth men”. A hierarchy and gender-based role assignment which justifies male violence against the “bad Maries”, those women who aren’t/don’t do what women must be/do.
By using Kübler-Ross’ techniques of emotional-expression-in-secure- environment, I will propose and perform a self-consciousness system aimed to stop the violence all of us men exercise not so much impelled by our Male nature as by the cultural heritage transmitted to us as a means to perpetuate the hierarchical system.
Greeting traditions in Spain are very revealing about the value socially assigned to gender. Men greet each other by shaking hands. Women are cheek-kissed.
By shaking hands, men prove each other that they do not carry a weapon, and their arm length establishes the maximal distance the other is allowed to approach, the “personal space”.
When a man cheek-kisses a woman, he symbolically activates the cultural norm denying women a “personal space”, as well as the prohibition holding on women to decide about the use of their own body. Women have no personal space, and must be available any time a man wants to use their bodies, since their bodies belong to men.
The angel Gabriel announced virgin Mary that god had chosen her for being the mother of his son, and that this would happen without sexual contact. Mary answered: “"I am the Lord's slave, May it be to me as you have said.".
God is male. God does not ask Mary to be the mother of his son. God will obtain from Mary a son. Mary considers herself as the slave of god. The conception of the son of god will happen without physical contact, since the main role of Mary is getting pregnant, not having sexual intercourse. A woman enjoying sex can only be a prostitute.
Virgin Mary is the good María, the paradigm of the good woman. A woman who ignores the sexual pleasure, who does not rule on her own body, and whose main role is conceiving men and giving birth men.
In this action, “la buena María” ´the good Mary´, virgin Mary is represented by a kind of spanish cookies, the “Maria” cookies, which the Fontaneda company publicized as the “Maria Fontaneda, la Buena María”. A cookie is the perfect symbol of the model for women imposed by christian religions. A sweet and good food available for consumption at any moment. It will not protest if you eat it by rudely biting it, or previously bathe it with milk.
The bad Marías are all those women who dare to do what they shouldn’t do, or decide to use their body at their will. In my action, the bad Maries are symbolized by female dancers.
In the Spain of my childhood, the fact that a daughter wanted to be a dancer meant a tragedy for the whole family. She was announced a future close to prostitution. According to the societal imagery, only prostitutes enjoy and use their bodies, and know the pleasure mysteries, and any aggression against them is justifies, or is just a lesser offence, since they are “bad women”.
Verbal or physical violence uses to be a tool for men solving conflicts, and is always “the” tool in front a woman. The good Maries, when behaving as bad Maries, must and should be insulted, punished, beaten, killed…
We men exercise violence against women most often in form of micro-violences, without “micro-“ implying “less harmful”, since they validate the whole cultural repression system. Insults and disdain against female drivers; the infantilization operated on female workers; and so on and so on.
This behavioral patterns are transmitted to us, and present-day men have the responsibility of stopping their ongoing transmission.
We men must walk backwards, see how much violence we have exercised, but also perceive how much harm exercising it has done on us, since violence is harmful for those who exercise it as well.
We must feel responsible for violence, but also assign our ancestors the burden of responsibility for the legacy of violence.
By allowing Maries to behave as they want we men will also obtain the chance to be as we want, not as the inherited norms want us to be.
In this action I am accompanied by a tree trunk with roots, a symbol of the patriarchate which I have borrowed from an action by the Spanish performer Analía Beltrán i Janés. This image, coupled with a video recording her action, also accompanied me in the second part of this trilogy
Thank you, Analía, for having struck my heart and stomach until the nausea with your action about the violence exercised against women, on April of 2007.
http://analiabeltran.blogspot.com/
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario