Shut up!

My generation had no voice. I am speaking about the women in my generation. Born in a country with rampant racial injustice and where a third-grade education was the average norm if you were white, wealthy and privileged you definitely had a head start, as long as you were a man.

As a woman, all of the above advantages did not allow me a choice: quite the opposite, they put me in a gilded cage. It is such a cliché, I know.

It has taken my whole life to find my voice and many doors slammed in my face to dare use it without fear.

It seems dated today -the notion of women with no power and no ability to make money on their own and most of all no education- but it all happened and changed in the course of one lifetime, mine.

I was a good student, actually a passionate student which is different. Got into a good university, thrived, loved acquiring new knowledge, yet after two years, and with two more to go, my father pulled me out. “Enough studies: You are coming home”.

I was not the only one. I do not remember any of my childhood girlfriends getting a degree. I do remember one, fifteen years or so younger telling me she applied to university got in only for her father to tear her acceptance letter and instead send her to secretarial school to learn typing, “So I could become his secretary”. With no skills allowing us to break into the work force we had no financial independence, wielded no clout, no power.

Our only sense of being or self-worth came through a successful marriage and raising children. Charitable work was accepted, plain work not “because you would be taking a job away from someone who really needs it”.

(I was born argumentative. I relish a healthy discussion based on logic and ethics, the result of a Cartesian education, I would’ve made a damn good lawyer. I am also attracted to good design from any period; I would’ve made a fine architect. Instead my two-year college experience only allowed me to teach French, and I was a lousy teacher; in my defense I was barely twenty and most of my students were past forty: it was night school. They terrified me.

So being an avid reader I turned to writing instead, something for which you need no degree, and in the process fell in love with that wondrous craft).

In hindsight the most amazing thing is that everybody including women thought this was a pretty good state of affairs.

In later years when I have spoken about the subject women invariably become extremely defensive saying they never felt oppressed and were quite happy with their lot. They actually resent that I may think they had limited opportunities to make their way in the world; they never think, even today with daughters and granddaughters graduating from higher education, that men controlled their lives and that this was no accident. But I do. And I know I am still fighting the fight.

When recently discussing a subject in the news I voiced an opinion. I was advised not to go public with it because “coming from someone from a privileged background who is perceived as frivolous you will hurt the cause you wish to help”.

So there, 24 years as a columnist and 3 books later and I am still being told to shut up. I cannot change my race, color or where I was born. But I must keep silent lest the prejudice of how I am perceived –not of whom I am- destroys my best effort to support a cause I believe in.

How fair is that? How self-defeating and backwards is that, in a world where women should speak up and be recognized for what they have achieved, regardless?

A couple of years ago I wrote an autobiography, the first ever written by a Peruvian woman. My publishing house learned of the work-in-progress and they made me promise to bring it to them first. A couple of other editors also contacted me.

When the book was finished I sent it. They all turned it down with the same answer, “We love it but we cannot risk retaliation from some of the powerful men you mention in the book”, loosely quoted. I was flummoxed. Could not imagine censorship like that still existed.

The Anglo-Saxon or French publishing world lives and breathes to bring out groundbreaking or controversial books. That is what makes literature great and publishing a unique adventure

Maybe in 50 years a struggling sociology student could stumble upon an old copy of my book.

“Is it any good?”

“Well, it’s not too bad”

“Who wrote it?”

“No idea”.