Every year, in March, when commemorative messages for International Women’s Day begin to appear in the media, I am seized by two strong feelings.

On one side, the persistent hope that one day we will no longer need a date to remind us who each woman is and how much she needs to be respected, valued, validated, included and, above all, seen. On the other, an insidious despair settles into my thoughts, accompanied by its companion, helplessness, which weighs on the chest and makes it hard to breathe. That is right. Thinking about these things hurts. A lot.

Many times it seems to me that we have taken many steps toward a world in which human beings will be human beings, without any discrimination. Yet I am forced to see that we have slid back, as a species, in some cases to barbarism.

I am the mother of two courageous, resolute, independent women, evolving, each on her own journey, facing her battles with poise and elegance. I also live among women like that. That companionship feeds my hope. I am the mother of two splendid, generous, resolute, independent men, each on his own journey, also facing battles without destroying people along the way. I live among men like that. That companionship feeds my hope.

Men and women with whom I work, or with whom I enjoy the pleasure of symmetrical sharing, keep choosing respect, attunement, connection, or what Berne’s concept names: “OK-ness.”

OK-ness is a concept developed by psychiatrist Eric Berne, a humanist at his core, that covers a sequence of cognitive decisions and decisions arising from unconscious subjective experience related to the perception of oneself and the other. Each of us is the product of layers of experience and relationships. If, along this passage, in interaction with caregivers and people of importance, a person can absorb and model comprehensive, respectful behaviors, they can, as they evolve, strengthen them to the point of validating their own existence and that of other human beings.

It sounds like poetry, but it is not. The violent practice against women, with countless social, economic and cultural roots, also originates in models. These models cut across groups, since this violence is not restricted to a particular social, economic, cultural or ethnic layer, although any of them may drive it more.

The power play that constrains, assaults, diminishes, annuls and, many times, kills a woman is learned: each move, each strategy, each manipulation, each movement of control, each aggressive word, each offensive insinuation, each slap, each shot, each death.

I think there is still much to do; in recent times, the setback has been frightening. For decades I had not heard such medieval talk (from men and women). At times I fear seeing Salem reenacted, when wise, caring, cheerful women were convicted and executed as witches.

Today violence is categorized and named. Old behaviors are baptized with compound, simple names, usually in another language. What is new is only the name. They are old practices in disguise and, to my horror, transposed to the networks, expanded by anonymity, spread as discourse and accepted through the complicit silence of men and women. Yes! There are women who go along with violence itself and with the creation of new violent people.

I have invested time and life in developing people, as a sister, mother, manager and now mentor, believing in and planting, with care and love, the seeds of respectful and peaceful coexistence between men and women, among the human beings who inhabit our pale blue dot, Earth. And I still hear that people do not matter, that results are the objective to reach and must happen without whining, and that you women insist on making us lose time with these “airy-fairy” questions, human beings.

There is a scream stuck in my throat. I join my voice to those who cry out and make mine the voice of those who were silenced.