Josef Carel
I was born in the infinite Pampa of Argentina in a small quiet village and slept about 72 years ago. Then my Jewish family moved to a large city, Rosario, to be closer to the Jewish community. From childhood, I conceived the problematic of human society that I can sum up in one word, injustice. By my modest means I discovered the magic of the written word and I got stuck with hundreds and then thousands of books, of which I learned much more than in all the schools to which they sent me by obligation, to create, I was told, a person of value. At the age of 22, I came to Israel to fulfill the Zionist dream of bringing the Jewish people together in their territory. I am convinced of the need for a national Jewish home, but I discovered my other universal ideals and then I came to libertarian ideas by my own deduction, to which I devote my greatest intellectual efforts today. I write a lot, many of them published through books, but also in magazines that have a greater diffusion and reach.
My Son
I do not recognize you any more.
Nor do I see myself as your father.
How has this come to be?
Pictures haunt my memory:
A beautiful baby, a snuggly child,
Dirty diapers and a waterfall of tears,
Crawling, kneeling, at last standing.
Days after nights, nights after days
Pride as I watched you grow.
The heavens followed your development.
You seemed happy in our family.
But life had its ups and downs.
With new pain came new demands.
You wanted freedom; you screamed away your youth.
We slowly lost our authority.
You demanded your sovereignty
One day you came home a changed man.
And began traversing skies and seas and far-away lands,
You made a family and a new chapter began.
One with much happiness but also sorrow.
As with Lot’s wife, you didn’t look back.
And so, you stopped seeing us
We were left alone.
On my night table are many medicine bottles
For old age ailments, hiding all images of us.
Your Queen’s house is silent
Preventing recall and contact.
So, I ask, who is this man who once was in me?
I want to understand.
I have searched in all the ancient philosophies
And still don’t understand this simple word, “son”.
Oh, how I lament!
Josef Carel
The stolen woman
Just reading the news in the media when they report on cases of violence against women, I get the hair out. Be it aggression or sexual harassment, but also other manifestations of force against half of the human population. It is absurd also that, at least at first glance, it is not possible to define the type of violent man, his descent or origin or cultural identity. Nor is it clear or forceful any single motive or reason behind which such facts are hidden.
What is clear, however, is that, despite social and political progress, women’s status in the modern world continues to persist. Then we can question the whole picture and the system under which our modern life is organized. I do not intend to establish any research method or reach exhaustive conclusions, but to raise a series of questions that can open an enlightening dialogue. Observations.
I admit, as a man, my admiration for the female figure and the pleasure that his presence produces. And yet I wonder why they have been chosen to carry the banner of aesthetic beauty in the world of humans? Could not the other genres of this world also be so? Referring to antiquity, the example of Greece, in whose society were the men who represented the best of human aesthetics, jumps to the memory. Although in parallel, the Greek woman was relegated to the lowest condition. Aristotle defined them as “incomplete men.” However, the principle is partly demonstrated, the “beauty” awarded exclusively to women, is a provision imposed by society and has nothing “natural.”
I cannot but raise my perplexity, as I observe the field in which we turn. I ask, then, why are the usual garments of men and women owed? They are dressed in attractive, brightly colored and aesthetically combined dresses, narrow clothes, no doubt to emphasize the shapes of their bodies, generous necklines, high heeled shoes that accentuate the muscles of the female legs and increase the height. The use of elements of adornment, but also developed and exquisite makeup and all the arts of cosmetics. In a paradoxical comparison, men appear as representatives of asceticism and neglect, caring almost exclusively for hygiene and body health. It is worth mentioning that behind such culture, there is a whole system of world reach. The industry of fashion, cosmetics and aestheticism. At the same time, I find ridiculous public men in dapper gray suits and similar ties. The images in which groups of politicians or businessmen appear, for example, repeat one by one the same outfits and it is often difficult to identify people. Worse, according to my knowledge, are those women who, in public office, are forced to take almost masculine forms, wearing suits in the same manly style, and to top carry shoulder pads in a greater attempt for similar manliness.
A former minister of government admitted that during the exercise of her public function, she had to adopt a model of behavior assimilating a certain masculinity. For example, lowering the pitch of his voice, making it as serious as possible, it seemed more manly. Of course, the clothing he wore at that time also served the same purpose.
I am disconcerted. With these examples, it seems that the “normal” world is going on, reflecting the situation of the whole of humanity. Surprise does not just happen for this, but expresses from within, and in more detail, the very condition of the woman and the functions that have been granted. Being a mother, above all and as an exclusivity, based on human physiology, by which it is they who give birth to new beings. In this case, it is assumed tacitly that there is a “natural” inclination of the woman to be a mother and then to develop an exclusive relationship with “the fruit of her womb.” I rush to clarify that I have no opposition to the terms before mentioned in quotes, but I do intend to awaken the questions and conclusions that are based on the concepts of exclusivity. I am opposed to this simple and superficial nomination, for I guess that behind them there is an intent to plunge women into all kinds of discriminatory occupations. But we will see this later.
As for the question of creation and maternity, it seems obvious to me that it is nevertheless within the female body where the future being develops, but this will be the fruit of two humans, also of man. It is true that the child has remained in the woman’s body for nine months and she is physically suffering during the birth. The community that takes place between these two beings is strong and it follows that it can unite them forever. And yet, the seed has been laid by the woman’s companion and then he is perplexed and admired at his side. It makes great efforts to participate, as in the rare example of an African tribe, in which men are present during childbirth and add their voices of pain to that of women in labor. It may take the male part to develop strong bonds with his offspring, but in the end that happens unfailingly. Parents committed suicide when they lost a child. Also known are the pernicious effects, in terms of relationships with the newborn, in parturients who fail to overcome traumas postpartum. No doubt, both parents are needed to carry the heavy car of new life.
But let us return to the aspects previously developed here as well. What is evident and radical is that human society, perhaps from ancient times, chose to divide the functions of its members, between the public and the private. To this end, he developed a series of distinctive characters of men and women. To these, being mothers in the first instance, they were awarded the character of grace, which means, quality and set of qualities that make the person or person who has them agreeable. That is to say that from this it is seen the woman as graced by the softness, beauty and more deeply, caretaker of the weaker beings, the children. Marking the great difference, the man was granted a manly character, manhood. With this, by its own “nature”, it would be more rational, then righteous and persevering, in the best style of Kantian moral theories, those of pure reason.
To all this, the concepts previously poured out, were the basis for dividing the powers between men and women. Therefore, the public domain, such as politics and the power of administration, ie the serious issues that require well-developed abstract thinking is delegated only to men, and that would be the means of their performance par excellence.
To women, then, par excellence, they were “properly” destined for the private environment, that is, the care of the home and of the children. That which needs the feminine character as detailed above; Emotional subjectivity and not pure reason. Of course, the well-being of the husband in the home fell of course, also under the jurisdiction of the woman’s care, being that one more fundamental concern.
Hence the cultural historical process by which man has adjudicated himself dominion over all the political public spheres of the world. The woman was thus relegated to secondary functions and absolutely lacking in authority. Her voice was silenced for centuries.
No less important in that process, and even more serious, was the harmful influence of the religions, particularly of the monotheists. In them grew the myths that degraded women to roles that are almost demonic and particularly pernicious for the male man. The ability of women to awaken in this their more “low instincts”, those of sexuality and carnal desire, was streaked as extremely destructive for their male pair. Then he loses all his powers and surrenders to lust instead of reasoning and worship of the supreme, which imparts justice. The best-known myth is that of the Biblical Paradise; The man subjected to derision by the criminal action of his female companion, loses forever the heavenly opportunity. This is not the only or last example that condemns the woman to suffer dragging her “beautiful” body on the dust and stones of the road of misery and suffering, like that of the serpent. Pandora would be the typical case of the woman always punished and harassed, because she was responsible for the opprobrium of his male partner and then this assumed the power of absolute. How could you trust a being as evil as women? It is necessary and forever to submit it by all possible means, even by force. It is indispensable to relegate it to the simple functions of “beautiful wickedness”, the caretaker of the children of man and his male heirs, always under parental control.
But the opprobrium and the false status of the modern woman, pale in front of the events of those days, as indicated at the beginning. It is almost incomprehensible how women today still remain possessed by the same roles imposed by paternalistic society. However, we are witnessing the struggle for equal rights and also the emergence of women in political positions, in science and in many other previously exclusively “male” fields. But even so, it does not seem to be understood yet that the roles of “beautiful and sensual”, “mothers and caretakers”, and other stereotypes, have as motive to continue with the same male domination, denigrating women, although with more sophisticated methods .
Josef Carel
Revista Literarte No. 88
