Saturday night, I'm in a bar, one of my friends complains about the mandate of motherhood. I'm not a woman so I don't have an opinion, but another one comes out and argues loudly that post-industrial capitalism doesn't need workers or soldiers, that everything is done with drones and that the mandate is economic, social-media and professional success. I carry a large mammua so I don't have an opinion either.
A third one gets into the conversation and says that the mandate depends on where you move, who your parents were and how much money you had. And at the end a fourth one jumps in and tells them not to be crybabies, that if you can stand the mandate you can tell him to fuck off and what do you care what the salamis say? And she finishes by invoking Tita Merello:
-She was born 118 years ago, she was poor, orphan and illiterate. There was no maternity leave, you could not vote, and they expected you to have children and be submissive and good. Tita was mouthy and quarrelsome. She slept with a lot of guys. And she broke it. And when Sandrini, the love of her life, told her "you're with me or you'll never see me again" she chose her career and her talent. Mandato, the tits," my friend said and we all laughed while I thought "I have to do a column about Tita".
It was only the next day, while I was praying to God that the hangover would disappear before my parents brought my children, that I thought of Tita and the mandates. True, she broke everything. But it is unfair to think that because an extraordinary individual threw off the yoke of the times, that yoke did not exist, or was not harmful. Or that it is the duty of each one in solitude to throw off the collective pressure.
Not all of us have that power. There are killer mandates, there are social expectations that destroy hearts. And, let's be honest, no one gets rid of them in absolute solitude. There is always a group, a pack or a love that helps you resist. Even Tita, when she sang "Se dice de mí" and finished "yo soy así" she was saying "that's how I am, and that's how I want to be loved".
There is no individual rebellion
and if it exists
does not last
There is no change in solitude
and if it emerges
it withers away
Even in the infinite difference
we seek the warmth
of the gaze that receives.
We don't want to be equal
only loved.
SOURCE: Juan Sklar, Lone Hunter