Rafael Hernando: the man who should not be

By  Octavio Salazar ,  www.eldiario.es

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• June 16th, 2017
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Whenever some days the question of what is meant by "new masculinities" -a term that to me at least generates own rejection of the labels that do not transcend political correctness and in this case can even play along arises the patriarchy, I find it very difficult to define what being a "new" man. 

It is much easier, as in many other complex debates, specify what in any case should not be part of a new understanding of manhood stripped at the end of chauvinistic ballasts and willing to travel on trails where the equivalence is possible women and men. 

In this regard, reference is tremendously didactic use of public life to indicate precisely what should not be a man of the century. 

A territory, that of public life, which is still almost entirely populated by individuals who comfortably wear the suit of "hegemonic masculinity" and are naturally delighted to be the privileged part of the contract.

If a positive result can draw from the debate that took place in Congress a few days ago because of the motion of censure tabled by Unidos Podemos is, besides confirming needed is the Parliament of feminists strongly voices like Irene Montero, the fine example they offered us once again the spokesman of the Popular Group on the kind of man who should be out of public life and that no young person should aspire to look like. 

As is usual with him, and as I guess it awaits the audience applauds and communicant with his misogynist cockiness, Rafael Hernando showed that one of the essential pillars of the dominant male subjectivity is contempt of women, denial of their individuality and authority as well as the need for empequeñecerlas them so that we can see us double our natural size. 

Something already discovered us with his illustrious lucidity Virginia Woolf which I imagine Hernando and his phratry have no equal among his readings header.

Comments popular spokesman, let alone subsequent justifications given by himself and some members (and miembras) of his party, highlight one of the biggest obstacles women continue to exercise their status as equal citizens terms with men. 

I mean not only how we keep virtually monopolizing the pulpits, that too, but how from those same spaces in which we act as representatives of all and all we tend to devalue the contributions of our colleagues, we deny them value themselves and continue finally extending the notion that women can only be beings who live by and for others, and therefore if they are in politics is because there are men who allow it and always, of course, they remain in a subordinate place . 

In this way, and while for men the emotional and sexual ties have never been an argument that undermines our authority -at contrary, it may even become a factor recognition among equals, for them their personal and family relationships they play against and are cited by the opponent as argument for detracting from its political action.

Rafael Hernando, not only for what it says but how he says, is the best example of a model of manhood we should overcome if indeed we want to build a society in which sex / gender system does not continue to establish hierarchies between us and them. 

If indeed we wish the ethical values ​​that pervade our democracy have to do, as well teaches feminism, with the recognition of our fragility and therefore our interdependence, with the need to build bridges between and different or taking that public and private life are not opposing but necessarily complementary, we need a different model of manliness to leave behind the omnipotence of those who know privileged subject and be able to recognize women as half the same without which the democratic pact He does not deserve this adjective. 

This necessarily involves the renunciation of our situation convenience, overcoming the idea that our desires can become rights and the recognition of the equal authority of some companions who have yet to justify their merits twice as us and it is common to be denied competition so easily much more mediocre men applaud them.

What good are your minutes of silence against the gender violence d if the gallery then you behave like a chauvinist? #disgust

- Leticia Dolera (@LeticiaDolera) 14 June 2017

Following the echo of the  successful twit my admired Leticia Dolera circulated  after hearing Hernando, if anything showed us the censure motion failed this country needs is not so much a pact against gender violence but a pact against machismo. 

Which necessarily involves the loss of prominence on the public scene who seem unwilling to get off the pulpit of his virility and by the active militancy of all of us, the privileged subjects in renunciation of our dividends and fierce denunciation of any behavior or attitude that marks us as machitos accustomed to the exercise of violence. 

Violence not only results in usually identified strictly with gender, according to Law 1/2004, but also expressed in many ways, also simbólicas- through which humiliates or despises women.