On the occasion of Science Women's Day on February 11, I read a report on the gender gap between researchers. The media also kept in mind the news about the beating of a young transsexual woman from the Region of Pamplona/Iruña. Agitation, anger and -- surprise?

Steps towards equality have been evident in some respects, both in political decisions and in some social attitudes, even though much remains to be done. However, I have long had a feeling as to gender roles, which today remains virtually the same. In fact, we have long heard that in the education of children, roles related to women and men have to be broken, among others, to modify what was described in the report about these researchers: women dominant researchers in biosciences and men in areas related to industry, technology and informatics. Roles are internalized from a young age. The trends emerge from childhood, taking into account the expectations that mark society and the family. New policies are established by the institutions (sometimes preceded by the majority of society, although on other issues they lead to the persecution of society), many of them with the intention of influencing adults. However, upon reaching a psychosocial development, the mindset and trends, whether gender or gender, are very difficult to change. They're so internalized. Sometimes they are nothing more than a form of change, of publicly adapting to society and responding to the environment in which we find ourselves, of maintaining within political justice…

The problem is structural and in this structure we must also place the family. Yes, although it is a difficult subject to deal with. The heteropatriarchal system has one of its most important pillars in the traditional family. And the family is given some competencies about the child that will largely define their personality, values and role. Featured toys for each gender

Penguins alone won't be impressed. We are also a long way from overcoming the blue-pink dichotomy. There is nothing else to go around the sports shops and look at the color of the sneakers and the clothing for each sex; or in the woman’s career, see all the women with the rose under the slogan “Girls win today”. But beyond the colors, there's something special that I find strange. I have never understood, let alone in these times (where messages not to condition children’s gender roles are becoming more and more widespread), how it is possible for a society to agree to make a hole in the ears of a newborn, as if it were marking sheep or cows. Frankly, is it necessary to do so to a minor? Is he predestined to be born with Allah to bring earrings? Gender gaps and harassment against sexual choices that are extracted from the norm can lead to a smallness, but the later roles of a life are also established. What particularly surprises me, however, is that there are no references or debates about it (apart from what there may be in feminist collectives). It is considered normal for a newborn girl to pierce her ears and put her earrings, to look great. Can we imagine the awkward conversation “What a pretty girl!” “No, no, it’s a boy,” a few weeks old boy with a earrings in his ears?

On this subject, and returning to the previous idea, we have not met the Church (well, to a certain extent, as always…) but with the family institution, because parents have practices that cannot be called into question, because the red alarm (yes red, like the ghost of communism) would be put. Certain specific practices, alien to our society, are not allowed, such as the ablation or denial of blood transfusions to their children by Jehovah's Witnesses. However, there are many other practices that are not directly harmful to physical health, perhaps not physical health, but that can clearly condition it psychically. Like the earrings, baptism and preparation for the communion of children according to the rituals of the Catholic religion are naturally accepted. Using the decision-making capacity of adults, this person is imposed something that is not essential for their psychosocial development, but that will condition their psychosocial development. You are not allowed, years later, to choose for yourself the belief or thought you want. Fathers and mothers choose to place a slope and mark their gender role, send it to the Church or to places of prayer of another religion, or enroll in models and educational centers (which education to receive and to whom to relate). All claiming freedom of choice. And they say it's normal in this society. There is broad and implicit recognition, and the institutions will not dare to question it. It would be a revolt against, even of many of the parents, who are believed to be progressive.

In-depth reflection is essential if we are to advance in the dismantling of the heteropatriarchal roles linked to equality and to the binary system of gender, in order to also influence these private areas that condition so much. If not, we can move in falsehood for decades; moreover, as we have advanced so little surprised… Let’s think about whether the fact that the newborn is hanging her ears does not have a certain connection with the possibility that this woman will be an engineer for the next two decades.

Yes, with the intention of taking the real path to a fast, egalitarian, empathetic and solidarity society (and, as History has shown, the doors of the opposition are not closed…), some aspects today considered normal and legalized would be very different in the future. From the discourses of apparent institutional and corporate sustainability, we would go on to prevent the indiscriminate use of plastics, bullfights would be a bad memory of the past, it would be illegal to religiously indoctrinate children, and it would be forbidden to dig the ears of newborns…

In the meantime, let us be aware of the pillars of society that we continue to nourish and do not maintain violations of rights or hinder the liberating development from the supposed trench of the freedoms of the family institution.