Breathe
By Mariana Conde
Last weekend I wanted to write about women's autonomy and how without economic equity there is no true equality. And although I don't believe in coincidence, in the course of those days I received two texts from completely different and unconnected women, with very different trajectories, but each one of them, in its own way, brings me back to the same premise.
First, the excellent text by Consuelo Sáizar de la Fuente in this same medium on the eve of Juana's birthday, in which she says: "Sor Juana refused to marry in order to be free of husband, children, housework, to devote herself to reading. And with her example, she showed for the field of reading and libraries what Virginia Woolf would affirm centuries later about writing: to have a personal library, a woman must have a lot of money and a large room of her own".
The other, the literary beginnings of my friend Bertha which reflects on the precarious situation of women who decide to give up their independence and careers to attend to their husbands and children: "You postpone. You give up. You wait. What do you wait for? No one gives you back the power you unwittingly surrendered yourself, lost in agreements never uttered but implicit in your role as wife and mother. You are fifty years old and you look back. You realize that you became an adult to become a child again by surrendering your autonomy, your will, your freedom, like so many other girls of fifty."
Two opposite angles with centuries of distance between them that bring us to the same problem, one that, in the face of all the advances of humanity, is still unresolved .
I hope you are reading this, girl who is thinking about what to study. Or you, young professional in the first job of your career. You, mother of girls...
There is no dignity or true autonomy without self-sufficiency. And we women have to forge it for ourselves. The time of the MMC career has passed (while I get married), the time when he takes care of the money and you take care of the house. In this the house always loses.
I am completely in favor of every woman being able to decide to dedicate herself to the home and her children, or not. It is a great opportunity and even a privilege if that is what she wants and it brings a great dose of benefits for the children and the family nucleus. Be that as it may, it is essential to discuss the terms of this arrangement with the couple and to make clear not only the responsibilities of each one, but also the recognition of what each one contributes and that, just as the tasks are divided, the division of resources is openly agreed upon. The certainty of the joint account and the blind faith that the husband will respond fairly no matter what happens are dangerous.
Incredible as it may seem, many women with whom I have spoken do not know how much their husband earns, or the number of the debit card or where to pay the water bill. It may seem comfortable that he is in charge of the bills, we are too busy with the things of the house, of the family, but the bills ARE things of the house and family, we have to get into the subject, find out, participate in the management of the family income. How much comes in, how much goes out and what are the spending priorities are issues that concern both members of the couple and we cannot abdicate that responsibility. New flat screen or speech therapy for the child?
When it comes to separation, whoever controls the money has the upper hand. The letter of the law begins to recognize unpaid labor and what both parties contribute to the family. In several states, their codes already state that in the event of divorce, the spouse who has devoted him/herself mainly to the home and raising the children will receive a financial compensation of "up to" 50% of the assets acquired during the marriage. A national homologation is expected for April 2027. However, in practice we are still a long way off and there are a thousand ways to force the wife to accept crumbs of what she is entitled to: dragging out the trial for years, during which time there is no defined pension, asset stripping, secret accounts here or abroad, declaring insolvency and surely others.
So, not everything is rosy in the fairy tale we hear since we are children. Love is wonderful but it is only truly reciprocal when there is a balance of power and part of this power comes from the economic certainty of each of the parties. It is not about money as wealth, but as the means to level the playing field, for a negotiation between equals, so as not to lose by forfeit.
You can't always. Sometimes changes catch you off guard and your security is derailed. Then the mirage falls.
Someone told me some time ago, it sounds so petty to talk about money, our love is not based on that. So-and-so is very good to me and we trust each other. She trusted him so much that when he decided to leave her for another woman, he even took her out of the house where he lived. Today she, who fortunately has been able to resume her career, although with the mediocre income with which the market punishes those who stopped working during the years she raised her children, can afford a comfortable and simple life. But it is Fulanito who decides where the children go to school, whether or not it is time to buy shoes and where to take them on vacation; with him, of course, she does not have enough. The children adore their mother but they are children, young, with needs and longings and have to choose between glamorous trips with daddy or respecting the turn to vacation with mom visiting the local attractions for the tenth time. It's a dirty war where affection is trafficked, bought with whatever dad can give them to lure them into his foxhole.
I don't want to paint the man as the villain and the woman as the sweet victim. There are plenty of upright, exemplary men, just as there are also plenty of scumbags. It is not a matter of them being the bad guys and them being the good guys, it is just that in our Latin culture and in the world in general it is, and will continue to be, as long as science does not manage to impregnate a man, much more common that it is the woman who leaves her job, if she ever had one, to take care of the house and children with the subsequent financial disadvantage. Not to mention when there is a sick or elderly relative to take care of, the workload increases and the pay remains the same, nil.
A central part of the problem is that domestic work is neither accounted for nor remunerated. It is common to hear the obnoxious: Ah, she doesn't work, she's a housewife.as if this were not one of the hardest and certainly the least recognized jobs in the world.
The recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Claudia Goldin, won this award because she succeeded in clarifying once and for all the contribution of women's work. More than counting domestic work, she broke with her research fallacies about women's participation in the U.S. labor market, which does not grow along with the country's development, but is also subject to other forces such as the social conventions and prejudices of each historical moment, the example of their own mothers and the impossibility of dedicating all their time to their jobs when they also have to take care of their children and home. This last point also contributes to the wage gap and access to higher positions, issues that are painfully current today. Thus, a woman can work twice as hard and earn less than her male counterpart. The International Monetary Fund does not believe this can change unless the public and private sectors once and for all assume at least part of the cost of care work for children and other dependents.
Back in the realm of the Fourth Transformation, we see this far, far away, no matter how many crumbs in the form of pink cards are handed out.
In the meantime, you have you, yourself and all your beautiful self. Which is a lot, you just have to know how to manage it.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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