Text written for “Venimos desde el Futuro”, a temporary radio project
organized by artist Beatriz Santiago that took place for 4 days in November 2014 from
100 years in the future reporting from a post-patriarchal society.
_______________________________________________________________________________

- Greetings,
- It’s the year 2114 and I am transmitting to you live from a post-patriarchal society.
- A society where women have demystified and subverted the role to which women have been confined within a capitalist society.
- A society where our mothers no longer prepare us to carry out the role of housewives.
- Where our mothers no longer train us to be docile, submissive and dependent women.

- We live in a society where women are no longer at the physical, emotional and sexual service of men.
- Where housework has been de-naturalized and de-sexualized.
- Where housework is not a natural attribute of our bodies and our femininity.
- Where domestic work is no longer a necessity and an aspiration that comes from our deepest feminine character.
- Where women do not accept domesticity as their only destiny.
- Where women are no longer dependent on the work and salary provided by men.

- We live in a society where we have put an end to our dependence on men.
- Where women are no longer in a relationship of servitude with men.
- Where domestic work is recognized as work.
- Where domestic work is considered productive work.
- Where housework is no longer denied a salary.
- Where people are guaranteed a salary for housework.
- Where housework is not reduced to an act of love.

- We live in a society where unwaged domestic work has ceased to be the capitalist system’s most powerful weapon.
- Where we have identified that domestic work performed by women has been essential to the reproduction of the capitalist system.
- Where we have exposed what capitalism has done to us.
- Where we have exposed how the capitalist division of labor creates the feminine role of the housewife and how the figure of the housewife has been central to this feminine role.
- Where we have exposed how the specific nature of domestic work has determined the place of women wherever she is and whatever class she belongs to.
- Where we have condemned how the capitalist system has isolated women by forcing us to carry out domestic work.

- We now live in a society where we have recognized what enslaves us.
- We now live in a society where we fight against what enslaves us.
- Where we have identified and demystified the divisions created by a patriarchal capitalist system.
- Where women’s struggles are not secondary to men’s struggles.
- Where we fight against the social roles imposed on us.
- Where in the sociability of our struggle we have discovered and exercised a new identity and a new degree of social power.

- We have built a society where there is real solidarity among women.
- Where we do not accept the logic of power that divides us and enslaves us.
- Where we refuse to be tied to the home.
- Where we have proposed a new alternative.
- Where we do not accept inequality between men and women.
- Where we do no accept to be silent victims.
- Where we refuse to be dissatisfied women.
- Where we have attacked capitalism and forced it to restructure social relations in terms that are more favorable to women.

- We live in a society where the role of women is no longer the unwaged caring servant of the working class.
- Where men are no longer disciplined through women and women through men.
- Where men and women aren’t disciplined against each other.
- Where housework is paid a salary.
- Where paid domestic work has demystified our femininity and made our work visible.

- We live in a society where everyone is responsible for the reproduction, procreation and care of people.
- Where we have established that our work is work.
- Where we call work what is work.
- Where we have discovered what is love.
- Where it is possible to imagine where our work ends and our desires begin.
- Where we have let go of the scars marked on us by centuries of exploitation.
- Where men no longer exploit women.
- Where we have control over our lives.
- Where we have control over our bodies.
- Where we have time.
- Where we have choices.
- Where we have the power to decide whether or not we want to have children.
- Where we have the power to organize free day care centers for our children.
- Where we have the power to raise our children according to our beliefs.
- Where women who wish to leave their kitchens to reach their potential don’t have to hire less fortunate women to do their housework.
- Where the work performed by women outside the home is not an extension of domestic work.
- Where we have the power to demand free health care, that includes maternity leave and contraceptive methods that do not harm our bodies.

- We live in a society where men’s attitude towards women has changed.
- Where men are no longer violent against women.
- Where men are no longer the head of the family.
- Where men don’t assume that domestic work is women’s work.
- Where men no longer claim that women like to do domestic work simply because they are women.

- We live in a society where men share the housework.
- Where men recognize our work as work.
- Where men recognize our love as work.
- Where men don’t earn more money for their work.
- Where gender is no longer the determining factor in the sexual division of labor.
- Where Women are no longer the crutches of men,
- The slaves of men,
- The chains of men.
- We live in a society where we are not afraid to be identified as housewives.
- Where being a housewife is not something humiliating.
- Where we are all housewives.

                            ______________________________________________________________________________

Monica Rodriguez (b. 1980 San Juan, Puerto Rico) received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2011, a BFA in Sculpture from the Escuela de Artes Plasticas, San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2005 and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York in 2012-2013. Rodriguez currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
http://monicarodriguezmedina.tumblr.com