“A girl who is qualified, who has a master’s degree, who is a Treasury advisor, who has cultural background… First of all, how does she allow herself to be harassed? Also, why does it take so long to report? We like to think that time puts everything and everyone in their place, but that’s not always the case. Nevenka Fernández, the councilor who, in 2002, denounced the mayor of Ponferrada Ismael Álvarez and managed to win the case for sexual harassment, is today alive. public reparation thanks to the film Iciar Bollain. Before, there were those who saved his memory, in a documentary produced by Newtral and which can be seen on Netflix, or in the book published at the time by journalist Juan José Millás. But it is now that his figure has finished consolidating itself as a pre-MeToo symbol.
And I say that time does not always put everything back in its place, because there is surely a lack of forgiveness and self-criticism, and because what some have suffered, others continue to suffer. This sentence with which I started the bulletin was said by Ana Rosa Quintana on her show when the Nevenka affair broke out. This sums up very well the great prejudices that exist against the victims of sexual violence: they cannot be educated, nor have good jobs, nor be in a good position, rather they are expected to be poor, somewhat stupid, better if they are of a low level socio-cultural, low-skilled.
They must resist, if they try to harass or attack you, don’t let them! It always seems like women should have done or stopped doing something to avoid being raped, as if the subject of the action was us and not the attackers. If you report quickly, it’s suspicious. If you show up late too. The ridicule against Nevenka puts us face to face with the mirror of the society that we have been and the one that we are as soon as we lose ourselves.
It is difficult to explain otherwise what happened in Murcia with the case of eight businessmen who abused several minor girls and who will not go to prison. The network included recruiters, drivers, pimps and clients who requested young girls and who knew that none of them had reached the age of majority. The affair lasted no less than a decade to be tried and what justice is fair when it takes years to solve such a serious crime against minors.
The case does not end there either because the prosecution has reached an agreement with the accused, so that they admit the facts, but are released from the prison, where, curiously, several women who captured and accompanied the girls. The prosecution and the court were much harsher towards them than towards the men who asked for fresh meat and carried out the attack. I wonder if anyone here has wondered if this process has compensated the victims in any way.
Meanwhile, Gisèle Pelicot remains immersed in the trial against the 51 men, including her husband, who raped her for years. The applause he sometimes receives when leaving or the comments praising his courage coexist with stigmatizing questions defenses and the feeling that she, like Nevenka, perhaps could have done or not done something to avoid being attacked. The actions of women like Nevenka or Gisèle are catalysts, but it is the activism, pedagogy and work of many anonymous women that enable profound conversations and change. When we think of asking all the victims for the same courage that these two women had, let us also remember the price they paid and let us remember the miners of Murcia and many others who had neither reparation or justice.
So in 2024 we get Nevenka back and we applaud Gisèle, but we continue to lose others whose stories will perhaps never reach a series or a film.
A few weeks ago I asked you for your testimonials on the use of clitoral suction cups. It was very interesting to read you. It turns out that the technology behind suction cups, which have become the most popular sex toys, is now ten years old. and in this text I reviewed what the appearance of these devices meant: breaking the taboo of female masturbation, broadening the debate on women’s pleasure, creating spaces for self-discovery and eroticism. There are even those who had their first orgasm with a cocksucker, when they were already over 40 and had two children….
You might be interested
- A year of war in Gaza. Or destruction, or genocide, or violation of human rights, all at once. There is a lot to say. But this saddens my heart even more: 50,000 women They were pregnant when the bombings began.
- Azahara Nieto is a nutritionist and is used to the fact that when she publicly reveals the discrepancies in her schedule, strangers write to her to meet. It’s just one of the experiences that counts in this article for Micromachismos (by the way, go ahead and share your story with us, in micromachismos@eldiario.es)
- At CSIC they carry out the Manuela project, with which they want to analyze some important aspects of women’s health, “from mapping their microbiota” to the study of “factors such as diet”. And they need volunteers willing to step in. this investigation.
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And another call to share: did you not separate or did you do it later than you would have liked for economic reasons, because of the difficulty of maintaining two family units, because of price of housing, because of insecurity? are you already separated but still living together? I’m interested 😉
Anne
