MORE THAN FED UP. True measures against gendered violence.

Last tweet by Laura Luelmo, art teacher.

[Este artículo está disponible en castellano aquí]

Two days ago, the corpse of young teacher Laura Luelmo was found half-naked a few kilometres away from a small town. She is the last known victim of gender violence in Spain for now. Dozens of women have been murdered this year in this country, a year marked, on the other hand, by shameful sentences related with sexual violence, and I am more than fed up.

I am more than fed up with listening to political parties’ defences of hardening sentences against gender violence and "measures" of protection the nature of which we never get to know about.

While agreeing with regards to the urgent need to clarify in the Spanish penal code what consent, intimidation and rape are, while also agreeing with the implementation of formative programs on gender issues within the judicial career and with proposals of coordination between different departments (health, social services, etc.) to respond quickly and effectively (let me laugh, this is Spain) in cases of violence exerted by couples or ex-partners, defending even the augmentation of the length of freedom deprivation for plainly non reinsertable convicts, I consider that all of these proposals are bloody insufficient (submodifier chosen on purpose). 

Except for the particular cases in which the duration of confinement prevents reocurrence by criminals already condemned, it is proven that harder punishments don’t reduce crime rates. Neither will the training of judges, although the sentences resulting from it would undoubtedly be more satisfactory than they have been up to now. And yes, an increase in the effectiveness of responses to signs of violence by partners or ex-partners can contribute to the reduction of recurrence and murder. But all this makes up a machinery that only works a posteriori! Every time it is set in motion, the terror (perhaps sustained for years), the beating, the humiliation, the violation of physical integrity, the no less important destruction of the sense of self-worth, the disintegration of what Jean Améry called trust in the world, the trauma and/or death have already happened. 

Yet, of course, investing time and money in prevention is too long-term for some parties that do not see beyond electoral dates. Perhaps it would even be counterproductive for them, because if we want true prevention it is not enough with a couple campaigns on the media. Besides measures to ensure the economic independence of coupled women, true prevention would come with a revolution in education. A revolution that made critical thinking (and not memory) one of the central axes of the system, a revolution where gender issues would not be circumscribed to a subject or contained in a teaching unit, a revolution where the deconstruction of traditional gender roles would be a structural practice as much as critical thinking, and a revolution that would involve the integration of psychologists in the educational system to promote, among other things, an empathetic and self-conscious citizenship. But no, in here we only worry about the status of the subject of religion and about budgets without asking ourselves what will the investment be used for. 

An in-depth reform of the education system is something about which, surely, we are not prepared as a society to debate. And, if debated, I am afraid that the proposals that I have just outlined would generate fears, rejections and accusations of different kinds. However, this discussion must be initiated so that the future in which we reap its fruits is as close as possible. In the meantime, we will continue to let the figures on the scoreboard increase day by day.