There are various political views in a democracy, but it comes down to life or death in the end.
In authoritarian countries women are stripped of any value and the acts that are encouraged are strength and power. There is no such thing as personality or beauty. Men are given absolute power over their wives and children.
Women live in fear keeping their feelings under wrap, pretending they do not think because to admit to feelings besides gratitude to their brothers/husbands/fathers is to endure beatings and death.
When life is so simplified by power there is no other reality. Kindness is needed but not recognized or given. Life is black and white. Like the residential schools enforced on Indigenous societies.
Usually we talk about the benefit of having power over others, making everything the same, uncomplicated, well-ordered, but when we have thirty years of records, we understand that the system kept the majority silent, obsequious.
Another way we turn away from justice is when "traditions" dictate the hierarchy.
I remember my own family where my mother did the cleaning, cooking and caring for the babies, and my father went out to work so he could afford to pay rent and feed us.
My mother didn't talk much about life beyond survival. I had to "get a man" in order to survive. It meant making sure I maintained my "femininity". Keeping my figure and keeping my mouth shut. No-one ever came out with that but I learned it throughout my life. The problem was I "was just like my father". Quick to express my opinion, to talk about how the team can get along together, how we might succeed. My mother's family would often say "I will never amount to anything" if I don't tidy up, do the dishes or iron clothes.
I wandered the world thinking about why and how human societies fall to fascism, how WWI became WWII, and how we allowed the murder of 6 million Jews? How did our world dissolve into preferred ignorance, Auschwitz, and a broken Europe? An age of broken dreams, fear and hatred?
Then I wondered how we became so shallow as to fall for capitalism's pull towards isolated egos. We had faith in leaders until it was clear there were no leaders, just bidders fighting for the top spot where they could do what they want (as long as no-one knew) and everyone else would fall into place.
Then I realized we kept our feelings out of public space or we annoyed the hell out of everyone else.
Eventually we were shaken out of that dream by Donald Trump (an example of power run amok) and Gabor Mate (an example of how the innocent have suffered when power destroys all other sensibilities) from the abuse when we let our world be with the eventual help of media and the voice of women.
Our world had become used to warriors, wars, hockey and celebrity. We could forget our fears as long as we were entertained but forgot 1984 and The Roman Empire. As long as the voice of women was sectioned away from the world into the tidy department of domestics.
But women's world has not been pretty. https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/it-took-e-jean-carroll-to-bring-him
Surely we can see how justice recognizes humanity, listens, learns and allows itself the pain to understand that suffering is not just the unintended consequence of failing societies but ultimately the end of life on this planet.
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