The writer Alana S. Portero and the communicator Nerea Pérez de las Heras participated this Wednesday in a meeting with members of elDiario.es held in the newspaper’s editorial office in which aspects such as vulnerability, pressure from networks or the theatricalization of masculinity in events such as Rafael Nadal’s farewell to the tennis courts.
This latest meeting in the editorial office of elDiario.es, moderated by the editor-in-chief of gender, Ana Requena, has started precisely with vulnerability, an issue on which they have agreed and which both the writer, playwright and activist as well as have discussed. the communicator in her writings and conversations.
Nerea Pérez de las Heras made it clear from the beginning that class vulnerability “is at the center” and left some details about the way she has faced her accident and her own disability as something “political, collective” after having lived together. with the disability and dependency of their parents or with economic vulnerability.
Alana Portero added that the vulnerabilities of the two are “very political” and explained that their way of standing up to social expectations has also been a matter of fatigue: “My closet is made of glass. “My closet doesn’t exist,” she described before saying that she understands that others can find “some meaning” in her way of showing herself vulnerable.
One of the consequences of publicly showing that vulnerability is public exposure, which Portero says he has renounced in spaces like Twitter (now X): “Because I can’t stand it.” “Entering Twitter is like entering a Nazi bar,” said Pérez de las Heras, who defined this type of sexist attacks as “sterile violence”: “They are organized in these spaces to undermine you.”
The author of The bad habit and the co-host of the podcast ‘We will be better’ agree that they are going through a moment of success in their respective careers, which has even led Alana S. Portero to meet and, as detailed, establish a personal relationship with the singer Dua Lipa, a who defines as “a charming person.” Of course, he insisted that his self-esteem is “irrecoverable” and left some advice: “Trusting self-esteem to public recognition is dangerous.”
Nerea Pérez then proposed extending the impostor syndrome to the entire population: “Let it be democratized first and then we do therapy for everyone.” And he explained as a counterpoint the story of the tanker commercial that, on one occasion, kept part of the staff of his magazine “kidnapped.” But not before leaving to the imagination the possibility that there exists “a Pérez-Reverte with the little inner voice of a 30-year-old woman from Madrid.”
The writer Alana Portero hinted that the characters in her novel are “distillations of many people” that she has met throughout her life and denied that there will be a second part: she is now working in a scenario of the Spanish civil war.
There were also moments for feminism, in addition to Nerea Pérez de las Heras remembering that the American feminist poet Eileen Myles had recommended her partner’s book on her last visit to the Reina Sofía Museum, to defend the approach to feminism from the acceptance of the sexist education we have.
It was precisely in this conversation that the tennis player Rafa Nadal made his appearance, who retired from the courts just a few days ago and whom Alana Portero recommended “since you make a six-minute farewell video, dedicate three to the people who He has sacrificed himself for you.”
The activist described this type of behavior as a “theatricalization of masculinity” that “is an instruction that is taught through these examples” and acknowledged that to write her novel she had to ask everyone around her to “sustain her life.” .
There was also time to address mental health and the difficulty and loneliness that adolescents sometimes face in dealing with their problems, especially regarding LGTBI+ issues, to which they both reminded the younger girls that they have something that they did not have: being able to “seek their community outside their class” and that they have “better communication possibilities” than previous generations.