25^th November – International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

If you, man,  think you can think better than any woman ; if you think you can hit me , just because; If you think I’m yours ; if you think you can call me Dumb for I do not know how to park my car or do the washing up ; if you beat me, and push me, and kick me, and ..look down on me because it’s…me; if you  think I’m more “ woman “ just if I seduce, or dress in mini-skirts, or …you think I’m just a whore if I do that ; if you shout at me and demand, never ask, and force me to do what I do not want ; if you drag me…to feel stupid when I know I’m not ; if you make up my face in black and blue…and then you cry and swear it will never happen again ; if you ever crash my friend once more against the wall;  if you ever touch my child with filthy hands …or cross his face with a huge slap ; If you ever promised not to break my heart…but broke my arm; if you ever thought I’m less than you… You shouldn’t be called a Man.  You’re Nothing.

I want to invite you to come with me into such a difficult task so as to try to understand the world of domestic violence. Join me !

Imagine yourselves as a baby. Imagine you were given memories of your first moments in life and imagine the first person you saw was your father. Imagine he screamed in terror when seeing you….Imagine he couldn’t bear your ugly face and ran away from you as fast as the wind. Imagine you were left alone, without anybody to caress you and hold you in their arms… nobody to whisper you sweet words or sing you a lullaby. Imagine you were left alone….Imagine people didn’t want you either… Imagine they would scream, faint, or even hit you because of your aspect. Imagine you had nobody to go to and tell them how lonely you felt. Imagine you had nobody to teach you about goodness, equality, dignity, justice,…about humanity.

 Can you ??? Then you know how the Creature that Frankenstein created must have felt from the very beginning of his life.

 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin , known as Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein in 1818, when Queen Victoria hadn’t been born yet. As in any Gothic novel, the main character, Doctor Frankenstein, commits a crime against Nature : this time it is to create a child without a woman. The book can, however, also be read as an account of a woman’s anxieties and insecurities about her own creative and reproductive capabilities. In fact, we could say the story of Frankenstein is the first articulation of a woman’s experience of pregnancy and related fears… but when dealing about the education of the monster, Mary Shelley stresses how the nurturing of a loving parent is extremely important in the moral development of an individual.

 Indeed, without somebody teaching us our moral values , we wouldn’t be such good, decent people… the same decent people who despised the Creature because of his ugly-looking face. 1818…and Mary Shelley was depicting our world…a world where you need to be beautiful if you want to succeed … or , at least, this is what we are taught. 1818… and the world hasn’t changed much.

 You may now be thinking we are not this way… we all look inside the soul of everybody, we all try to see the qualities inside. Is that true ???

I’m sorry but I can’t help thinking how we can be so cruel when we have such good intentions …deep down.