I’m a teacher.
And I remember very well.
the first time I went to give a class in a postgraduate course.
I was so nervous, so nervous!
It was in Piracicaba, in the interior of São Paulo.
I took a bus, Friday, I arrived at the bus station.
And then I got a cab at the bus station.
The taxi driver, a nice little guy,
turned to me and said like this: “Did you come for a ride?”
I said, “No, I came to work. I’m a teacher.”
He said, “Oh, child teacher?”
I said, “No, no, I’m a teacher of great people, really.
I came to teach here at the university. “
He paused, even slowed the car,
looked back and said:
“Oh, ‘fia,’ and you think someone takes you seriously? You’re just a girl!”
(Laughs)
And I, who was already nervous, right?
(Laughs)
Anyway, then I realized, even,
that it did not matter as much as I had studied
on rescission action in the labor process,
which was the theme of the class.
I needed to get there and prove, first,
that they could believe what a girl would say
on rescission action in the labor process.
Well, this story has a lot to do with what I wanted to tell you today,
talk a little about what I affectionately named
“climbing the vulnerable”.
Guys, it’s great to be scared.
It is very healthy to be afraid.
It’s natural, right?
The fear I had, the insecurities I had before that lesson,
as well as the ones I had and I have here behind the scenes and on the stage now,
are super important for us to challenge ourselves,
to build more, to make things better.
It turns out that some people
have received some kind of extra insecurities of life.
There is an ideological, social,
that some people are already born owing something.
We still hear a lot about minorities,
to talk about us, women, in black,
of gay, of person with disability,
to speak of Latin, African, Asian.
Law nowadays prefers to use the term “vulnerable groups”,
because, not always, we are a numerical minority, right?
Today, on this stage, by the way, we are the majority.
But that does not make us stop being a group
which is an eternal target of discrimination
and of a double walk, of a double effort,
for something other people can do with only one step.
I wanted you to think of me as an idea.
Let’s imagine that life is a climb, a mountain.
Not in the sense of competition, none of it.
Whose goes faster, nothing to do with it.
But one way.
It is a path that is going to be challenging, a hole, a thing for you to stumble.
And up there, I do not like to think much about the idea of success:
“Ah, up there is my success,”
because I think success is what others think of our trajectory.
I like to think of achievement. Realization is what we think.
Then, there on top of that mountain has realization: personal and professional.
At the base of this mountain, it has a starting point.
And this starting point is occupied by a subject,
which we will call today as the “ideal subject”.
It’s that guy who was not born owing anything to anyone.
It is “zeroed”.
I doubt I’ll find one here today.
That guy, for common sense, for the collective unconscious,
or even to a sad “collective conscience”,
it is flawless, “zeroed”.
Let’s build this guy?
Is this guy a woman?
It is a good question. Is this guy a woman?
No, he’s a man.
Is he black?
No, he’s white.
He is gay?
No, he’s straight.
Is he obese or skinny?
He is thin.
Is he Latin? Is he from Latin America, from Africa? Is he Asian?
No, he’s American or European.
And, even being European, is he Croatian, Greek, Portuguese?
No, let’s make the person complete: he is French, German, English.
Do not bring me a person with less than that.
Does he have any syndrome, any disability?
No. I do not know if there are any here but, anyway, congratulations.
(Laughs)
This guy’s there, folks, and I’m not saying his life is easy.
I’m not saying his climb is a sea of roses.
No, his life will also have a lot of trouble.
But a trouble he does not have:
he does not have to prove to anyone that he’s good enough.
Only in the career, in these ways.
On this mountain that we’ve talked about, that’s the base.
It turns out there’s another mountain here, with another base.
This mountain I would call a “previous climb.”
It’s a climb that a gang has to do
to prove only that she can be as good as the ideal subject.
“Look, I’m sorry, even though I’m a woman,
I think I can get here from this guy’s side, you know?
I guess.”
Although I am a Brazilian living in Europe,
and the crooked looks I get,
I think I can stay here and maybe think about writing a column in a newspaper
from Portugal.
Well, I’m going to leave, people, of my experience as a woman,
which I think is the most relevant vulnerable group to which I belong.
But this idea –
I continue to be a Brazilian in Europe, I belong to other groups –
but this idea that I’m going to talk about now
it is for you to move to any group to which they belong.
And it’s very interesting something a friend of mine said
and that I never forgot, she said thus:
“The woman who says she has never felt discriminated against
is an extremely distracted woman. “
(Laughs)
Just like a nigger who feels the same way,
as well as a gay person who feels the same,
and anyone belonging to a vulnerable group,
to any, even, “minority”, so we call it that way to get easier.
We have to be very careful,
because it is very tiring to be a vulnerable group, it is very tiring.
And sometimes we tend to close our eyes to certain things,
for the sake of survival, self-preservation, you know?
Because it’s so annoying we spend every day
recognizing the little big injuries they do to people.
Life begins to turn into a battle, you know?
And it’s natural for us to close our eyes.
“No, it’s okay, I think it’s okay. Let’s go, ‘play the game.'”
“Ah, I noticed that there, but you play under the rug, it’s okay.”
I understand, I also do this.
But we can not allow ourselves to think that discrimination is diminishing,
that things are getting quieter, lighter,
because we close our eyes, really.
And we have to have the conscience
that we do not have to go to the Middle East,
to Africa, to the hinterland of the Northeast.
He’s here every day.
Discrimination, our injuries are here every day,
they accompany us at every step.
I like two stories of mine –
I do not like them at all, I’m really sorry,
I hate both of them, but I think they are very timely –
which made me have a very strong, very solid dimension,
of how things still are.
When I was a trainee – it was another day, ten years ago, already –
when I was an intern, my boss gave me –
I was a judge’s intern, very cool –
he gave me an assignment that I loved:
I went to the door when a lawyer arrived to receive them.
before they spoke to him.
I really enjoyed doing it, I would go and say:
“Good afternoon, doctor, is it urgent?
Do not you need to get anything down there? “
He explained a little of the case, I warned the judge, and the person entered.
Very well.
And then, a new trainee arrived after a year that I already worked there.
And then my boss said, “Ruth, take the trainee along with you.
and then he learns how he does this screening. “
Cool, I felt like a teacher and something.
And I went.
Then, the first time we got there, we arrived, the two of them, and said:
“Good afternoon, doctor.”
And the lawyer said, “Good afternoon,” and addressed the boy, not me.
I found it a little weird and walked in.
Soon another lawyer arrived, and it was the two of us again:
“Good afternoon, doctor.”
And she: “Good afternoon,” to him, “Good afternoon, I wanted to talk to the judge.”
And I was realizing that I started to get a little “fish out of water” in the conversations,
and that it was much easier for people to trust
in a boy in a suit, than in a girl in a sneaker.
And I got so sick of it, I got so sick!
I remember, I cried coming home that day and I said,
“This is going to happen, that’s because I’m new.
Ten years later, now, not long ago, I went, along with my partner –
we have a law firm together,
and 50% of the quotas each, half each –
we went to a meeting at a Union Employer who was a customer.
We did the meeting, we said what we thought, I thought, he thought, everything was right.
When the meeting is over, the union president turns to him and says:
“Doctor, will you give me your card, then?”
Then my partner looks in his pocket and sees that he has no card.
And he will apologize, and the President of the Union is very educated:
“No, do not worry, doctor, do not worry!”
He puts his hand on my shoulder and says:
“My angel”.
(Laughs)
I really like this dichotomy: doctor, my angel.
It’s 50% of the quotas!
(Laughs)
He puts his hand on my shoulder and says,
“My angel, then you give me an e-mail, then, with the doctor’s contacts?”
My luck was that, before I had any reaction, my partner turned around and said,
“No, you’re sorry.
The doctor has something more important to do at the office.
I’ll send my contacts myself. “
And then I realized that, ten years later,
I was still “just a girl,” as the taxi driver said.
That, ten years from now, and ten years from now, whenever I’m standing next to a guy,
I will continue being “just a girl”.
I think that here, we come to the heart of this conversation.
I had a teacher, in fifth year of college,
who told me something I never forgot.
She said, “The more emancipated a woman is,
the greater its responsibility to fight for the emancipation of others. “
This is very important.
This is very important.
Because the question is this: I did, there my “previous climb”, right?
I did and I got there, at the base of the other mountain.
I arrived, people, not only on my merit.
But also by a series of privileges that I enjoy throughout my life:
I was born into a middle-class family,
with access to good teaching, good schools, language course.
I arrived. I am the partner of almost an ideal subject.
He’s just not European, but that’s all. I’m his partner!
I’m there.
And then I ask you:
now that I’ve got here, I see the mountain there in front of me –
I’m a newspaper columnist, dammit, look at that “of the hour” –
I look forward. What is my role now?
It is climbing, climbing,
not look back and disengage from that mountain that is there?
Is that my role now?
Or do I still have some role, an important role,
to go back to that mountain, throw a rope and try to pull more people with me?
“Oh, how good she is! What a generous person.”
Maybe it’s not even that, people.
Maybe it’s because we have to get the consciousness
that as long as I am a woman, a vulnerable person
next to “ideal”
I’m visiting, right?
I’m sorry.
It’s the famous: “Sorry for being here, but I think I can be here.”
Now, as I begin to bring more women with me, more gay, more black,
more people with disabilities, more asian, muslim, jewish, evangelical,
everyone,
when I bring all these guys with me,
will not I begin to deconstruct a little this idea that the ideal is it?
If we are so many here together, if we are already at the base of this mountain,
Is this ideal right?
Do you realize this: what is easier to climb in a group than climbing alone?
And what I find interesting is that we still fall into many pitfalls,
in many clichés, for example,
who here has never heard a woman speak:
“I’m a woman, but I do not really like working with women, it’s very difficult”?
Do you know the name of that? Self-sabotage.
You’re saying it’s bad working with you.
How long are we going to hear things like that?
Until when we will hear:
“It’s okay to be gay, but you do not have to ‘look’ in the office”?
Until when we will hear:
“I have no problem with black, imagine!
But I do not know if customers are prepared to meet him at the meeting? “
“I love northeasterners, but they work slower, do not they?”
You know, that sort of thing.
How long will we fall into these pitfalls?
in which we throw each one of us further down our mountain
and increasingly strengthens a subject
to which, theoretically, we owe things?
Even when we are going to have to feel that we were born in debt,
that we were born being less than we should be?
Until when, folks,
we will accept to waste such a valuable time of life
climbing a mountain that should not even be there?
Thanks.
(Applause) (Live)
”
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