We tend to make it a question of color. White or black. Pink or blue. Without shades or with a fixed color based on what you do or should be. «The social worker is gray or brown in the collective imagination, a figure that goes from bad to charitable with no middle ground. The drag queen is super colored, but also a speckish figure, the court jester, without a common life, which seems impossible she can be serious with a depth and intelligence ». This is the stereotype she faces every day Cristina PrenestinaDrag Queen and LGBTQIA + activist, this weekend’s guest WeWorld Festival in Milan.
Three days of talks, music, performances, exhibitions and a selection of eight national and international films, with free and open access, at Base, to talk about the condition of women. The central theme of this edition, from 20 to 22 May, is the Gender barriers: physical, cultural, social and psychological. The visible and evident ones and the more difficult ones to see, but that many people still live, every day, in their family, social and professional life. WeWorld is an independent Italian organization that has been committed for 50 years to guaranteeing the rights of women, girls and boys in 25 countries.
Cristina will read a story because she believes that children have the power to change the world. You proposed in Italy Drag Queen Story Hour, a project born in San Francisco that wants to educate children about diversity and inclusion through fairy tales told by a Drag Queen. In How do I explain it to you? – Gender barriers told to children will tell a fairy tale and will talk about it with Monica Martinelli, founder of the publishing house Seventheducator on the themes of gender stereotypes and feminist activist and Fiore Manni, writer and influencer.
In her 34 years she says she has had more lives, certainly not just the two of the social worker and the Drag Queen. «Cristina and Francesco are two entities that cohabit the same body, one gives way to the other. Francesco “gives birth” to Cristina with two hours of makeup, with a whole ritual, every time. Cristina has had an identity for 8 years, she has her own perfume that I always wear to leave her entity of hers. And then Francesco “kills” Cristina when she begins to take off her make-up“.
The goal is to always break through those walls that classify people. Immediately. “Children must be told everything, there must be the sensitivity and awareness of those who are addressing that topic. If telling a story is to destroy that stereotype that if a child cries he is told you are a girl, so be it. We must abolish the dynamics of the patriarchal society whereby females are worth less than males. The daily femicides prove that these differentiations still exist and the false belief that a woman is worth less and is a man’s property “.
The tale, which he will tell on Saturday 21 May, proposes female self-determination. The protagonist is one princess who wants to leave the traditional clothes and travel, be free, dress in green, purple and yellow. She very democratically asks all those around her, the pink queen, the blue king and the fairy godmother, to be able to dress as she wants, as her soul suggests. In the end it is the fairy godmother who gives the green light for everyone to dress up the way they want. She is a princess who wants to take her life in hand.
«Our generation must be aware and render fertile ground for new ones generations so that these sprout non-binary visions of the world »explains Cristina.
«My family has always taught me that I had to see diversity as a strength. What I do today is to offer a different imaginary, even just to a child, on which to project their own future vision and not instead think that they are wrong because they are different from others. Many send me messages after my readings: mothers thank me by talking about their children who are made fun of for passions that are different from others. For me it is victory if even a child does not feel excluded“.
The stereotype can no longer be a limit or even an absolute truth. “Fables have served and serve to build and educate societies, they must change with the change of society. Gender values and roles have changed, everything has become more fluid. We need new tales that represent the new families, the new relational dynamics of society “.
– White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre: African American and homosexual
– Rainbow families, registrations denied to children: that’s why we need a law
Source: Vanity Fair
