My art is never political. Usually, it's not even social commentary, but one thing I learned, mostly by meeting students in schools, is that education is the first stronghold against savagery.
When I was a child, my father would always say “women should not be touched even with a flower”.
It was a simple but very powerful statement; a direct and practical way to allude to the inviolability of the female body. I, therefore, grew up with the clear and automatic perception that violence against women was simply inconceivable from both a theoretical viewpoint and a practical one.
Something that categorically should not be done. Then growing up, you realize that for a lot of people, too many people, this absolute truth is not so absolute. Boundaries, nuances, mitigating circumstances are redefined in many ways so that violence against women is accepted, justified, and brutally carried out. Quip after quip, the common man’s irony festers to the point that terms like femicide become part of everyday vocabulary. Just another news story to be inserted between the political column and the weather.
What makes a human being turn into a beast? What induces him to do something that should not be done? Instinct? Personality? Or perhaps, above all, one’s upbringing?
Perhaps, this is not about contrasting races, religions, or cultures. Perhaps attention should be focused upon an individual’s education. Teach the value and importance of a woman right from the formative years. Transmit her qualities of beauty and dignity. Stimulate, through education, a “A Clockwork Orange” type of reaction in every degenerate, who, even for a moment, thinks of raising a hand against a woman.