To fill it and willing

To bring teacups and roll away headaches

And do whatever you tell it.

Will you marry it?

It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end

And dissolve of sorrow.

We make new stock from the salt.

I notice you are stark naked.

How about this suit…

Sylvia Plath, The Applicant.

Emmeline Pankhurst, Wilhelmina Drucker, Louise Weiss, Hoda Shaarawi, Voltairine de Cleyre, Victoria Woodhull, Simone de Beauvoir, Carol Hanisch, Gloria Anzaldúa, Bell Hooks, Cherríe Moraga, Amelia Jones, Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, Meera Nanda, Virginia Woolf, Billie Holiday, Dolores Ibárruri. All this women represent a century of struggles for equality, for common rights, for respect and for survival. They all saw themselves as equals in front of the ruling gender. They conceived a world where the genitals weren’t defining features in the development of the individual.

A hundred years are easy said, but historically they represent a simple sigh. It was only yesterday when women where used as a mere object by husbands and common men in the streets; when women couldn’t elect their public representatives; when little girls where raised to serve and not to create or to be whomever they wanted to be.

This seems to be what history tells us, but the reality is distressingly different. When The Washington Post released the video where the Republican Candidate Donald Trump was having a revolting conversation about his benefits as a “famous figure”, the entire feminist struggle was ripped to shreds.

During his conversation with Billy Bush, Trump referred to the female body as a consumption product, inanimate objects designed only for male entertainment, that can be taken at will, “grabbed by the pussy”.

The misogynist postures of Mr. Trump are no secret: from his history as a supposed sexual aggressor to his attempts of collection of beautiful women in beauty pageants, he has always relate to women as a lower gender, transforming himself into the evidence of the validity of machismo in the current century.

How dangerous can it be to allow such a character to take the reins of one of the most powerful countries in the world? Are we willing to give in and lose all the accomplishments of the feminist struggle? Is this the role model we want for our children?

To all the women and men out there: the fight has not ended, the fight begins now. Let’s raise awareness from the simplest dialogues; lets help our kids to realize the power of the word and the entitlement it can give to aggressive discourses like the rapist one. Let’s lead by example and teach our brothers and sisters to respect the human being regardless of the gender. Let’s give our girls the empowerment they need to go out to the streets and know they deserve respect.

We are not talking about feminism anymore… we’re talking about humanism.