What we don't tell

by Caroline Mathias (Brazil)

I didn't expect to find Brazil

In Brazil, I understood the word community. When lecturing about female writers to a classroom filled with Brazilian women, it was almost impossible to ignore the invisible bound that seems to connect us all. For instance, Virginia Woolf advocating for independence in "A Room of One’s Own", Clarice Lispector portraying an unreal judgment in "The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels" and Katherine Mansfield confessing in her journals the flawed perception that casts a shadow in our discernment excusing male in what we condemn in women. We felt the strength that made those women speak and write in a time that they were not allowed to. After centuries, those voices are still needed. In Brazil, four of us are killed every day. Here we need women-only carriages on commuter trains because we don’t know what to do with the harassers. We also have signs in female restrooms trying to discourage men from invading this space. Whenever a new rate of femicide is released, I get reminded that I am from one of the most dangerous places for women to be living in. Bewildered, I stumble across the voices of writers I much cherish fading away, and I can’t help but wonder: how writing can serve as a magnifying glass of the symptoms of gender inequalities? This predicament rose in a class I taught on the complexities of the exploitation of the female body and the resolution of the theoretical research was rather alarming: the perception of female bodies as objects of contemplation throughout the History of Western Thinking has taken its price, which led us to see women as objects itself. It is clear Brazil did not escape this trap yet. Nevertheless, I believe that literature can bound us in a way that violence and prejudice cannot do and education can thrive where laws cannot go. It is duly noted that Brazil has been suffering a major drawback in the gender equalities' scenario after several cuts of research scholarships. What we don't tell about Brazil, behind those gorgeous beaches and breathtaking smooth ocean water is that underneath that beauty lies a secret. What you can't see in our mesmerizing landscapes and craftily designed Carnival costumes is that this glowing facade covers our roots. Covers our present as well. Don't be fooled by the light. We are still a deeply sexist and misogynistic country. And despite that, the question of women will be in every line I write, in every story I make, in every country I intend to go.