alessandra berton

© photo by alessandra berton

What is strength?
I think most of the problems that we have, come from this specific definition. The continued balance from strength and weakness will always make us feel low and incapable to have real success in our life.

Once, a psychologist explained to me that strong people are the ones who can accept their weaknesses and they just fight for them. But usually “strong” is used to educate a woman or a man to be exactly what they are supposed to be on the base of their gender. “Don’t you cry, be strong”.

A strong man, in the “gender rules”, never cries, never shows a psychological problem but he has to be capable to move heavy loads, to earn money, to have a lot of women, to have many powerful friends.

A strong woman can basically do everything, if she is still pretty. She just can’t complain herself, she can’t move heavy loads, she has to love one man for the rest of her life, she has to show that she likes sex but just with the one man she loves, to have children, to smile, to cry, to be a good mom, she can also have a job if it lets her be there for her family and still be pretty.

I’m an Italian actress and an acting coach and I’m good at my job, but when I do an audition I’m always judged on the base of my look. “I can believe you are an actress! That’s why you’re so beautiful!” it just happened to me yesterday evening. Well no, honey: I’m beautiful thanks to my parents I guess, but I’m an actress because I’m good in it and I earned it by studying in a professional Academy, as most of the Italian actors we see on tv that are not so beautiful but they’re lucky that they were born with a penis.

Yes, I’m complaining myself, but I’m still pretty and with a big smile on my face.

But I do think that men have the biggest problem. They can’t be sad. Basically we are asking them to live a half life, to be half themselves. They can’t show weakness, in this way they can’t accept it and be strong for real. They can’t accept a part of their feeling, a part of their thoughts, a part of their being alive. I think that’s important as the need to have the same opportunity for both males and females.
We are not the same. We have differences in our bodies and our physical strength, but not in the psychological one. I think that strong is everyone who is fighting every day for something that it’s unfair or for resolving problems. I think everyone is strong.
And I do think that we should stop using this word just to defying people with the only purpose to limit human beings in judgments that contain their thoughts and feelings. So: “Be strong, let’s cry”.