In April I attended the one-day Women’s and Men’s Leaders’ Workshop led by Diane Balser [International Liberation Reference Person for Women] and Tim Jackins [International Reference Person] for the west coast of North America. It was an opportunity for me to think and discharge about sexism during COVID-19. 


Diane pointed out that women are the majority of the essential workers and that our attention goes to being caretakers when society is in crisis. She asked us to notice the struggle to prioritize ourselves as females during COVID-19. Two questions stand out: How is sexism affecting your life during COVID-19? Are you quiet about it? 


During COVID-19 statewide stay-at-home orders, I chose to shelter in place with my Cuban American father, who is in his eighties, and with my niece, in order to protect my dad from the disease and also to not live alone during the pandemic. It’s been an interesting challenge to set things up to go well for me as I assume new shared responsibilities for cooking, cleaning, listening, and shopping safely for groceries for a household. 


Diane worked with a woman on early memories of caretaking. She asked the woman if she had been expected to take care of someone at her own expense. That question has helped me get my mind engaged around taking care of others as a female. When is my caring for someone enhancing my experience of being alive and contributing to the well-being of my family and community, and when is it being done at my own expense? Can I tell [perceive] where the border line is? Can I counsel, take a stand, and do something differently when I am going toward caring for someone at my own expense? 


Diane talked about our struggles to challenge sexism in our lives. Women feel like they have two choices—scream and attack men for their sexism or go silent. In Co-Counseling we are aiming to have our voices as females and also reach men as men. We can expect to have men as our allies, which Diane said will mean taking the initiative to be vulnerable and show men how we got hurt. 


Tim talked about how men don’t understand the effect of sexism on women, and women don’t understand the effect of men’s oppression on men. Men need to be informed about sexism without blame or upset being aimed at them.


During and since the workshop I have counseled on how sharing my experiences of sexism restimulates early humiliation. Restimulated humiliation ends up enforcing my silence; I go quiet and let opportunities to share an experience of sexism go by. 


The week after the workshop I felt empowered to take on the early restimulated humiliation and see it for what it is—something that happened in the past. My dad and I were eating breakfast and looking at the day’s COVID-19 news on television. There was a news story about violence toward women. My dad made a comment that revealed he thought this was something that happened to just a few women. He seemed not to know how widespread sexism and male domination can be. I took a deep breath and made a decision to share with him my story of having been wrestled to the ground by my boss’s boss at my workplace when I was a junior in college. My dad’s eyes grew huge. He was surprised to learn that something like that could happen to his own daughter in a college workplace setting. It had taken me thirty-five years to share this story with him. I felt the early humiliation being restimulated as I talked about the experience. But now I could take a stand and choose to stay in the present and be open and vulnerable with my dad. I stayed anchored by remembering the faces at the workshop and thinking of my sisters who also are trying to take risks by reaching for openness and vulnerability with the men in their lives. 


Later that night my niece and I were having dinner and the conversation turned to the workshop. I shared some of what I had learned and was thinking about. She shared a personal experience and I shared my college story. Again, I took a stand in my mind for openness and vulnerability, this time with a young adult woman. We had a conversation about challenging the feelings of past humiliation so as not to go silent. I could feel our connection and our sisterhood deepening. Later she texted me her appreciation for our conversation and our shared commitment to ending sexism and male domination while reaching for men as allies. 


I am grateful for this workshop—I am thinking more actively and with more awareness as I move forward as a Catholic, Latina, and female during COVID-19. A big thank you to Diane and Tim for your leadership, to Micaela Morse [Area Reference Person for East Oakland, California, USA] for organizing given the complexity of a Zoom workshop, and to all the people who supported with tech and other jobs. I am hopeful about the ways we as Co-Counselors can lead and be a force for good in the world during this time.