Gustavo Rodríguez: “The woman who can support herself is a danger to the patriarchy”

And Gustavo Rodriguez had he not become a father three times over, the creation of the successful podcast “Machista con hijas” would have been impossible. “Without them I would not have been able to challenge myself as I have. I am part of a hinge generation and I feel that for some time the world has been changing its stories ”, he maintains. It was precisely those vital changes that he experienced that marked the long path of social unlearning. Raised in the midst of the patriarchal yoke, in which men are obliged to “demonstrate vehemence and audacity,” the writer confesses that his physique and withdrawn personality did not fit the prototype of a male that a macho system expects. “I did not have a very good time, but women have it, clearly, worse,” he says. The change in the author’s mentality is a hard process that is reflected in the 10 episodes of the podcast released last April and that since Monday, November 22, reaches bookstores in print.

Has writing this podcast, now transformed into a book, been a kind of catharsis for you?

Yes, I would say that it has been an exercise in honesty and transparency that I owed to my daughters and the women around me. Every time they ask me how I negotiated with my daughters (their dates and way of dressing, for example), I usually say that before negotiating with them I had to do it with myself. Think a bit about why I think what I think and why I make decisions without reasoning. Because

In the prologue, Rocío Silva Santisteban says that you reflect on “the cruel ways of masculinity in the country.” What would you say has been your cruelest experience in this regard?

In reality, one tends to think that machismo only hurts women. I do not want to minimize that damage, but I remember that my grandfather and my mother, above all, said that the man falls, gets up and does not cry. That has been the refrain I grew up with. In addition, when it was time to grow up there was a ritual that we all had to go through. A very crude rite that was to make a sexual debut with a prostitute, in brothels that were a land of leanness, lack of hygiene and squalor. Now in hindsight, as a writer I appreciate it, because writers live from conflict, but as a human being I despise it.

Currently, what would you say is your most macho lag?

I believe that the presumption that I am the one called to financially sustain every relationship continues to win me over. That is seen not only in my relationship with my partner but also when sharing an account in a restaurant with a woman. I always get the idea that this is being expected of me. That, for one thing. On the other hand, I am a little more aware that I cannot get used to my daughters having a full sexual life. I wish they had it, but I have a hard time coping with it. If I had three children, I would probably not have such qualms, the bridge would be more clear and relaxed. I find it difficult to share red jokes with my daughters. I share them with everyone except them.

When do you realize that your behavior is the product of a patriarchal society?

I would like to say that there was a specific event, but no. It was a confluence of factors. Obviously, the fact that my first daughter was born and the comments I heard while I changed her diapers was a first ring. Dedicating myself to writing was also another way of processing the child and youth that I was. And, later, to go into environments of feminist artists who gave me a point of view that I was writing down. It is this confluence of factors that ends when my daughters are raised in a different way than I was raised and they begin to have a voice.

You have cataloged yourself on several occasions as “a macho man in constant redemption”. From your point of view, could a man become a feminist?

I can only speak from my case, which is particular because I come from a macho family environment for generations, raised in a small macho town and in a religious boys’ school where God was a man and the woman served the man, that of course. That is why it is impossible that somewhere in my chest does not nest all that I have lived and suckled. I think there is also a calculation in this society of social networks that observes everything and is ready, too, to judge everything.

These are times of great changes in which the women’s fight is getting stronger.

All the current great discussions and confrontations fueled by the networks are the product of this change. The change in the role of women in this world narrative is becoming more acute. A few years ago I had to co-write with Sandro Ventura a book called “Ampay mujer”, which tries to find the place of women in Latin America and one of the conclusions of the book was that when women change their place in the family changes the society. For example, when university students leave school and go to work, it is men who begin to occupy the dominant positions and who, consequently, earn more. This has a stealthy root since we were kids. In the gondolas of supermarkets we see the toys for children have to do with employment and work and for girls with taking care of the house. It is in this custom that what years later will be seen as labor inequality is incubated.

Will the day come when men and women are truly equal in rights and recognition?

Someday, I am optimistic. Because history has evolved towards it. And if you put yourself in the role of historian, you realize that social changes are read by generations. I know that Peru was the last bastion of independence and it is also the last bastion of conservatism. No change is linear, there are advances and setbacks. If we see the advances in the very short term, we must face them with pessimism, but if we look at the history of our society from 10 years to 10 years, there have been advances.

The book will be presented on December 2 at 7 pm at the Íbero de Larcomar bookstore.