Since the beginning of the pandemic, the months take us by surprise, we have lost track of what we did, was it a year ago? was it five years ago? Was it before the pandemic? March arrives before the calendar decides it, announced by the jacarandas that cover the pavements of Mexico City. In my case, it is my neighbor’s jacaranda that paints my garden purple, I appreciate it. It is the moment in which we begin to ask ourselves all those questions: will we march? Are we still in time to order the purple shirts? what other actions can we take? We hang ribbons, we admire the women who renamed the streets in honor of other women they admire, or in memory of those who are no longer here. Forums, talks, events, discussions are held, private initiative, governments, schools participate, women are the center of the conversation. This allows March to be a different month, the one in which many women finally decide to tell their stories of violence, expose their aggressors, others turn to see their own story and recognize themselves in that of others, review their past, their relationships, and rethink the future they plan to build. We talk about violence and we see the furious demands (and I use this adjective in a positive sense, not with the negative connotation that is usually given to the emotions that come from feminist movements or women in general), it is that moment of the year when everything our anger is seen, validated and justified, something that those of us who have been educated to behave well rarely do.
Those who say that feminism is a political movement are not mistaken, indeed it is, “the personal is political” was part of the motto of the second wave of feminism. Politician not understood as a project of personal ambition to have the power that cares for the next 6 years, political as the intention to transcend and change the world, political as someone who makes the private a public problem.
Every March we transform, we see something new, we remember the value of the collective, we recognize our history in that of others, and we learn that there are other and better ways of being a woman in this world. We do not ask for change, we demand it, because the marches and exercises in which we participate allow us to see what we are capable of doing when we are together.
Those who believe that nothing is achieved are mistaken, we are not the same as we were 60 years ago, and it is thanks to them that we are better; those who come in 60 years will not be the same as us, and it will be thanks to all those Marches that they are better.
Thanks, March, for reminding us of what’s important.
rrg
Mexican journalist, host, broadcaster, writer and communicator
guest column
Mexican journalist, host, announcer, writer and communicator. She hosts the program “A Todo Terreno” on MVS Radio. She has written for various publications and worked in different spaces on radio and television.