The compilation, with an epilogue Nerea Barjolawas produced by the journalist Andrea Aldana, who called it “hell”. For her, the testimonies that struck her the most were those concerning health centers. “I would not have imagined that there would be so much sexual violence during a medical appointment,” declared the journalist specializing in human rights during her presentation.
Cristina you will fail She herself recounted the one that impressed her the most in the book. “A girl from a rural area said boys of her generation took her, put a motorcycle helmet on her, put her in a garage and raped her with the helmet. They told her that “She was so ugly that they didn’t want to see her face or while they were raping her,” she said.
Europe Press
Madrid
The work presented brings together 1,500 testimonies told by more than 750 women. Episodes that occur when women are minors represent more than 70%. “70% of women who report episodes of sexual violence place them in childhood,” said Cristina Fallarás.
One of them is:
09/22/2023 3:54 p.m.
I’m going with my story, which is similar to that of many others. At thirty-six years old, I begin to remember the sexual abuse committed by my father when I was around six or seven years old. I am now fifty-six years old and have been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder which I have had since I was abused and which saved my life.
Throughout my life, I have suffered abuse from bosses, taxi drivers, co-workers and strangers. By dissociating, I was easy prey. I forget almost everything and I know it through nightmares or flashes. This is just bullshit.
Cristina Fallarás during the presentation of the book.
Europe Press
Madrid
The stories show, in the author’s words, that there are few “safe places” for a woman. The next story freezes.
08/30/2023 7:24 p.m.
I realized and connected to this abuse as an adult. I am thirty-nine years old. A police colleague of my father’s spent a whole night near me when I was seven or eight years old, he hugged me a lot. I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t say anything, it was my father’s partner, my parents and his wife and children were in front, and what’s more he was a cop… He told me ‘even whispered: “You didn’t dry your pussy properly when you peed.” because your tights are wet. I didn’t say anything.
The book’s editors only corrected a few spelling and grammatical errors. Fallarás understands that the way women convey what happened is also very important and shows this clearly in the book’s prologue. There are no synonyms, there is no whitewashing.
09-08-2023 22:11
It was at my brother’s wedding. My ex fucked me while I was sleeping. At home, they still regret because I left them. When he left me, he sent me a forty-five minute audio message to tell me that if he was no longer interested in me, it was because he no longer wore thongs like he used to. nor heels, and that he was now dressed in a very masculine way. .
The first time I went to the gynecologist, I was eighteen, I went with my aunt. And the gynecologist they hired for me said, “I already knew you had something really pretty hidden,” when I opened my legs. His look… Disgust. I was so traumatized and terrified that I never went back to the gynecologist. I am thirty-five years old.
Among the testimonies, there are also those which are less explicit, even if the messages are direct:
08/29/2023 11:48 p.m.
And when the person who abuses, physically and psychologically, is a national police officer with a service weapon, handcuffs, a baton, etc. Who defends you?
Who believes you?
It is also difficult to believe that within a family there is a man who mistreats women. As in the following testimony:
09/22/2023 1:16 p.m.
At six years old, I was left in the care of my maternal grandfather because my mother was working (my father didn’t recognize me, which is why I have my mother’s last name). I was taking a nap and woke up to my panties pulled down and my grandfather hugging me behind me. When my mother wanted to leave me with him again, she saw the fear in my face and there was no need to tell her. But my aunts didn’t believe it until the rest of my cousins, a few years older than me, said he was abusing them too (they were never willing or able to give details). I was the first to speak up and I’ve always spoken about it, I think that’s why I handle it well, but they find it unbearable to talk about it and they never do it. I only say that, but of course I suffered other abuse.
The stories, which are not intended to be a complaint but rather a compilation of “what we consider to be gender-based violence, whether punished or not,” take place in almost all walks of life. Men of the left, the right, police officers, doctors, businessmen, liberals or conservatives.
08/28/2023 01:16
I’m writing two stories, one that has darkened my existence for a few years now, ever since I can remember; wow, with my dad. And a second that came to mind while reading other women’s stories, with my brother and one of his classmates. I felt really identified and motivated to share, anonymously.
I grew up in a liberal environment, one where we walked around the house naked and we all took baths as a family; going to bed in the morning in my parents’ bed (my brother participated on several occasions), one of which I even found my father in bed with a friend and, upon asking about my mother, she told me that she was with the couple of the house. lover, at home. “Oh, okay,” I replied, and left just as casually (I must have been about seven). When I was little, I suffered from vaginal itching when I washed my vulva with soap and they used baby bottom cream on it. I guess I ended up applying it myself, because in this unconventional environment I had to remove a lot of chestnuts from the heat (I remember cleaning the house, taking out the dishwasher while the adults slept on it on weekends in the morning), here the time has passed to go to the marital bed.
One day (I must have been between three and seven years old, no more), my father, applying the cream to my vulva, asked me: “Will you let me do this to you when you are fifteen?” I didn’t react. Maybe I responded with a shy yes, held back by shyness, shock, respect for my parent, but mostly confused because that’s how I received affection. One of my greatest references in life is believing in the right to act perversely and lustful self-interest to trample on my freedom. and leave this disgusting mark for all my life. I suffered attacks
the touching sexual acts of my father throughout my adolescence.
The other event with my brother, below: I must have been a little under eight years old and one day, while I was coming home from school, my brother and one of his classmates forced me to lower my cheeky. It was a blatant violation, I resisted, I refused with all my strength trying to block his hands on my crotch. They were two to one, older than me, but I had to react so hard that they didn’t succeed. It was just as humiliating.
You will fail during the book presentation.
Europe Press
Madrid
The era in which women write is important for Cristina Fallarás. This is why he left marked in each testimony the moment he received it. Every five minutes he receives a different one.
09/26/2023 04:00
I work in a consultancy and have had to hear a multitude of misogynistic comments from my former boss: “It doesn’t hurt, it’s because she’s so ugly even God can’t hear it ” or “it’s so big you can’t hear it.” I see her pussy when she pees.” That was how borderline and unpleasant it was. I didn’t have the courage to stop him until one day he blurted out, “So young and so bitch, that’s how she dresses and then she’ll complain if they rape her Luckily I confronted her and left. Currently I only regret not doing it sooner. . This pig is a doctor and has three daughters.
There are recent accounts, but most of the stories are old. It took years before women made the decision to tell them.
09/14/2023 09:44
They abused me and my eight friends during an attraction at the April Fair. We were twelve or thirteen years old and we entered the house of terror, where those who worked there, in disguise, began to grab us all the way until we ran out of there, very scared.
08/30/2023 09:25
In 1994 I worked in an advertising agency in Barcelona. On Friday afternoon it closed and only the management and the person responsible for answering the telephone remained on site if asked. That afternoon, I had lunch at the agency. I thought I was alone when I started hearing screams coming from downstairs. I went down the stairs to ask what was happening and halfway up the phone operator came crying and clutching her blouse and took cover behind me. The second time, a CEO appeared with a red face and bulging eyes, telling me, “Move away, I just want to touch her breasts.” I reduced the attacker as best I could. The girl ran towards the door, terrified. I reported it to management, they apologized; I felt nauseous. I left my job as creative director and the telephone operator didn’t even come back to collect her things.
Fallarás considers it essential that this book reaches the academic world, particularly in rural areas, where it is more difficult to free oneself from these abuses. Silence is also told in these stories.
02-09-2023 05:19
I’m going with a simple one: me, a twenty-seven-year-old consultant; Him, a lousy and downright sexist businessman who could be my father. At the end of one of those terrifying visits where I was trying to do my job while avoiding and processing his sexual comments about me (it seems “someone like me” is what he needed ), he cornered me to say goodbye, forcing me to say goodbye. me to give him two kisses. He grabbed me by the waist and, without hesitation, lowered his hand to my ass and grabbed it hard. He released it quickly. Nobody noticed it. And there were witnesses, all women, his workers. I was blocked. Cold as an iceberg, rigid. I left as quickly as I could and cried in the car. I cried in the office with my colleagues, out of rage, out of helplessness, out of wanting to beat him up. Of these, similar or not, I must be bored. It’s strong, isn’t it? And I am no longer a consultant, now I am a manager and HR manager. HH. I talk to a lot of women and they all tell me the same thing. It’s incredible.
