There is a small country in the heart of Europe. If you visit, it will surely take your breath away with its beauty. You can lose yourself in the bustling capital or hide away in the nearby dense forests, swim in the most beautiful natural lakes you have ever seen. The people are kind, helpful, at first glance perhaps even cheerful, but most of them are endlessly exhausted. They would rather take painkillers banned elsewhere just to be able to work even when sick, fearing that if they don’t, they might lose their job the next day. They live from day to day, even if they are educated and hardworking.
Small business owners anxiously await midnight, wondering what new immediate decree will appear in the official gazette, one that could, with a single stroke, shatter their lives and livelihoods overnight.
A small country where I grew up. Where my family lives, where the people I love are. Hungary. If you were to truly look a Hungarian in the eye, they would surely look away. On the street, on the metro, they make sure their gaze doesn’t meet yours by accident, because they can no longer bear the fear and pain in another’s eyes. It is always there, always present, and if you see it, you will recognize your own suffering too, compressed into the space of a single tear.
The average Hungarian undoubtedly lives from one day to the next. The votes of elderly villagers can be bought with half a kilo of potatoes, and fear—like in an abusive relationship—sustains and strengthens the system, deepening the divide with each passing day.
I was away for a month, taking a break from the news, a kind of media detox to unwind and recharge I guess.Still, some news found its way to me, as the constant bomb threats reached even my son. But today, I thought I’d pick up the thread again.
Why the threats? Gina, 35 years old. Her son, Ervin, found her lifeless body after his father brutally murdered her. The boy then threatened 46 schools.
Elsewhere.
Fifth district, January 29th. A woman, M., a wife living in fear, trying to escape with her three children. She had already sought official help, knowing her husband had repeatedly threatened to kill her. He had set their bed on fire with a cigarette. She burned to death in it. The husband was inside the apartment the whole time, found unharmed. She never smoked a day in her life.
No investigation was launched. The cause of the fire was ruled as smoking in bed.
In Hungary, there is no investigation when the victim is a woman.
It doesn’t matter what happens behind closed doors,,this is a family-friendly country, and family is sacred. It’s the first sign you see in the airport when you arrive, and then it’s everywhere.
A country where there is no investigation even when every sign points to a woman having met a violent death.Where the police joke in Facebook comments about the desperate relatives trying to raise awareness.
The country of women in sunglasses. Women who “fall down the stairs” so often that their bodies are a map of bruises. Women at fault for wearing skirts too short. Women who stay silent because it no longer matters, because there is no help, only public humiliation.
How many more Ginas? How many M.s? How many more lives must be sacrificed before we stop looking away? Before we stop accepting fear as a woman’s inheritance?
In the US I learned, they loudly promote it—Women-Owned Business—as if it’s something extraordinary, something to be proud of.
And I just stared, wondering why. Why announce it? Why not keep it quiet?
Because a woman has to fight forty times harder for half the recognition. And I just don’t understand.
And that’s the saddest part,that as an educated woman with seven degrees, my first thought was: For God’s sake, don’t write that down, you idiot.
You might nod along when they try to explain it to you, because you’ve learned how to behave, how to be a socially competent, well-behaved good girl.
But you won’t understand why someone would make their business even more vulnerable by labeling it women-owned.
You won’t understand what it feels like when someone treats you with basic decency, as an equal.
Even years later, you’ll still be waiting, waiting for the first slap.
Whether it comes as a blow to the face or a wound to the soul.
I’m going home to my dogs. I’m going home.
I feel sick.
Because this is home. And no matter where I go, there’s no escape from it.this is inside us.
There is no escape, because it has been ingrained in us on a cellular level, drilled into us through socialization.That we are second-class. That we are here to give birth and cook, that is what makes us women.
But most of all, alongside giving birth and cooking, we must endure.
In silence, if possible.
But for how much longer?
HOW LONG??