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Brazil: Marching for women’s rights and against neoliberal agenda

March 15, 2018 By Correspondent

Yasmin Curzi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, SSH Blog Correspondent

For months, feminist Facebook pages announced and spread the word: A women’s strike was going to happen in Rio on Thursday, March 8, 2018.

The page “8M – RJ”, one of the most vital representatives of the strike, says in a manifesto on their Facebook page that they “belong to national and international feminist movements” and are also from “labor’s unions, parties, collectives and other social movements.”

They are also from Black women, lesbian and trans* movements. The heritage of the Russian Revolution is also highlighted. “We are the vanguard in revolutionary processes in Brazil and worldwide. And the March 8th of 1917 remarks it when, in a context of crisis and with country’s brutality, women factory workers organized a strike which was the very first cause of Russian Revolution.”

It was expected nearly 30 thousand women would attend the rallies and march in the city center.

I woke up on March 8 to the news that women from Landless Movement had occupied a Globo^[1] graphic park in Rio in defense of democracy^[2]. It gave me hope that even the torrential rain that day wasn’t going to stop women from their combative and fiery demonstration. This article is about what I saw there.

As soon as I arrived, because of the rain, I spotted the tent for the women’s sector of Labor’s Party. They were distributing material to inform the people of the risks of the “evil’s pack” from President Michel Temer’s administration. A sound car was parked in the square in front of Candelaria’s Church, and women with legislative mandates were speaking against Temer’s administration. In their speeches they were opposing the federal intervention in public security in Rio de Janeiro^[3], against the conservative mayor of Rio de Janeiro Crivella and gender-based violence, and speaking in favor of women’s reproductive rights, legal abortion and political representation.

At 6 p.m., the march began. It was time for “Slam das Mina”^[4] to make a splendorous presentation in the sound car. Women’s World March Brazil had a drum music group who were chanting and shouting lyrics like, “Women against war, women against the capital! / Women for the end of racism and neoliberal capitalism! / Women want the land, women want to be equal! / Women want international socialism and feminism.”^[5]

We marched until 8 p.m. and we finished with a big circle of women holding hands and chanting in solidarity with Latin America and each other. We spoke against feminicide and male privileged citizenship and in favor of a real democracy – one truly produced by the people.

Former president Dilma Vana Rousseff’s impeachment opened a wound in Brazil’s already fragile democracy – for it has always been with its economy under the control of international market’s actors. Neoliberal measures of Temer’s administration, in relation to labor laws, social security, art, culture and public security, do not seem to come from the popular will. All of the public policies against poverty of the Labor’s Party governments have suffered somehow with the austerity actions. Likewise, institutions created by Labor Party toward the combat of racism and gender inequality were affected, e.g. Special Secretariat of Policies for Women^[6] lost its statute of Ministry to become a part of Justice Ministry, in a dismantling process.

For the political scientist Flavia Biroli^[7], “parliamentary coup of 2016 put an end to the channels of dialogue between government and feminist movements”. In this way, the advances conquered by social movements struggles since the end of military dictatorship have been under constant menace. Neoliberal capitalism, holding hands with conservatism, push its agenda against gender equality with fake news and spreading fear to canalize people insecurities in relation to social changes — i.e. transformations in sexuality and in family models — in order to turn society against left parties and social movements. To explain better, this economic agenda isn’t in public debate, but hidden inside a moral agenda.

Biroli also points to Patricia Collins’ work about citizenship, saying that the sub inclusion of all women and all Black people signifies the super inclusion of white men – which are a numeric minority in Brazilian society. The struggle against power and wealth concentration should be the fundamental concern of feminist movements in order to redefine the concept of democracy.

The usual concept of democracy, centered in representative institutions, neglect discussions of relevant subjects which have huge impacts on minorities everyday lives. We can say that the “institutions of public life”, in reality, were built by the interests and discussions of the power elite. And if the distance of Brazilian parliament from the actual people is extensive, and we are living in a context where social movements can no longer act with and alongside the State, it’s terribly necessary to engender an other type of democracy that could be able to really articulate the popular will. True channels of civil society to achieve the representative institutions, such as mechanisms to enable the pressure from civil society over parliamentarians, and also for people to decide the destination of public resources.

Fundamentally, from my experience as a militant, feminist movements have been the ultimate source of hope against apathy. They have the potential to combat the hegemony of neoliberal and conservative sectors, for they incarnate the project of an inclusive democracy. And, even with the constant backlashes, young girls and women are more and more conscious that they have to fight for their rights – that they aren’t fully conquered, for liberal democracy is controlled by men and our rights are always seen as a bargaining chip in legislative trading desks. We have a lot to achieve and the organization is just beginning.

[1] The country’s largest TV and radio broadcasting company that supported the military dictatorship, indirectly supported Dilma’s impeachment and helps in Lula’s persecution, and has an explicit neoliberal agenda against left sectors, despite being a government grantee and despite the fact that the guarantee of the right to communication should be a State duty.

[2] See: http://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/cidadania/2018/03/mulheres-ocupam-parque-grafico-da-globo-no-rio

[3] A populist way of Temer’s to conquer some kind of legitimacy was by putting the National Army in the command of public security in Rio de Janeiro. Also, now there are two militaries occupying chairs as ministries. See: http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=42012

[4] A slam poetry group of pheripheral women that make poetry with their everyday experiences and about the impacts of State and male violence in their individual trajectories.

[5] In the original “Mulheres contra a guerra, mulheres contra o capital! Mulheres contra o racismo e o capitalismo neoliberal! Mulheres querem a terra, mulheres querem ser igual/ Mulheres querem feminismo e socialismo internacional.”

[6] See Lourdes Bandeira, “Que vont devenir les actions du Secrétariat de Politique pour Femmes (SPM) au Brésil?” Available at: <https://www.cairn.info/revue-cahiers-du-genre-2016-3-page-243.htm>

[7] See Flavia Biroli “Gênero e desigualdades: os limites da democracia no Brasil” 1ª Ed. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2018.

Yasmin is a Research Assistant at the Center for Research on Law and Economics at FGV-Rio. She has a Master’s Degree in Social Sciences from PUC-Rio where she wrote her thesis on street harassment and feminists’ struggles for recognition.

USA: Breaking the News about Street Harassment

February 26, 2018 By Correspondent

Elizabeth Kuster, Brooklyn, NY, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Like most women, I’m out and about in public a lot — going to work, running errands, meeting friends downtown. And like most women, I get attention from men — young and old; white, black, Hispanic; well dressed and not — as I go about my daily routine. I’ve been whistled at and pinched. I’ve received thousands of “Hey, sexy”s and “Wanna f*ck?”s. I’ve been stared at. I’ve been followed. I’ve had my hair, breasts and behind stroked.

It has happened to me so often that I started to get used to it, told myself it was normal.

“It’s just the city,” I said.

“It’s what I was wearing,” I said.

It’s no big deal,” I said.

I was wrong. It’s street harassment, and I’m not alone. It happens to millions of women every day. And it’s time we do something about it.

So began “Don’t ‘Hey, Baby’ Me: How To Fight Street Harassment,” the first-ever mainstream-media article on the subject, which I pitched and wrote for Glamour magazine in 1992. Since no studies about street harassment had been conducted at that time, I had to break up the subject into its various components and tackle each one individually. I covered aspects such as improper touch. Sexual profanities. Objectifying language. Physically intimidating behaviors such as staring and stalking. And I delved into how each of those male behaviors changed the way women behaved when they went out in public.

To get a chorus of women’s voices, I sent a shout-out to Glamour staffers and contacted friends, family and stringers in other states. I had 10 of them keep street-harassment diaries for seven days, listing every single comment, look or gesture they received. To debunk the myth that what you wear invites harassment, I and several other women from Glamour were photographed on the street in our regular clothes, after which each of us set off alone for a different New York City neighborhood, where we, too, detailed the incidents of street harassment we received.

I called the NYPD press office, told them what I was working on, and was forwarded to a male police officer — who proved to be so patronizing that I didn’t even quote him in my article. Incredulous at being interviewed by someone from Glamour in the first place, he literally laughed at my questions and said — and this I did quote in the piece — “Street comments are not a serious problem.”

I interviewed Naomi Wolf, feminist author of The Beauty Myth. “Our taxes go for the upkeep of parks and streets, but women do not own full use of them because of street harassment,” she said.

I interviewed Callie Khouri, the screenwriter who’d taken the world by storm with her Oscar-winning script for the feminist blockbuster Thelma & Louise. “A woman who enjoys being yelled at on the street is a woman who has been socialized to think that she is valued and defined by her sexuality,” she said.

I interviewed Carol Brooks Gardner, a professor of sociology and women’s studies and author of the book Passing By: Gender and Public Harassment. “I’ve talked to [many] women who complained to police officers who were right there and saw what happened, yet they didn’t do anything,” she said.

I interviewed D.C. police officer Patricia Harman, author of the newly published book The Danger Zone: How You Can Protect Yourself from Rape, Robbery and Assault. “[Harassers] have watched their fathers do it, their brothers do it. The only way we’re going to get a handle on it is if we start with the next generation,” she said.

And I interviewed Cheris Kramarae, a professor of speech communication and sociology. “Organized anger will eventually make a difference,” she said.

You can read my article in its entirety via my online portfolio. I’m still proud of it. At the time, it received critical acclaim — and a respectable landslide of reader mail, mostly from women who had their own street-harassment stories to tell. They were grateful, at long last, to finally have a name for the discrete and difficult-to-describe form of sexual abuse they’d been enduring out in public all their lives.

*Feminist Apparel and Pussy Division sign in NYC, 2015*

Oh, how I wish social media had existed at the time! Had I been able to start a #StopStreetHarassment initiative back then, we might not still be dealing with the issue today.

Elizabeth pitched and wrote the very first mainstream-media article about street harassment. She has held full-time editorial positions at publications such as Glamour, Seventeen and The Huffington Post and is author of the self-help/humor book Exorcising Your Ex. You can follow Elizabeth on Twitter at @bethmonster.

USA: Compassion over Compliance on the College Campus

February 23, 2018 By Correspondent

Connie DiSanto, USA SSH Blog Correspondent

Street harassment, or sexual harassment in public spaces, involves an unwanted and unwarranted interaction with a stranger in a public place. Sexual harassment on a college campus also involves an unwanted and unwarranted interaction but it’s happening between peers (and in some cases, it involves faculty or staff) and the place could be an academic hallway, a quad, in a classroom or on the street in town that the college resides in. And when efforts are made by a harassed person to avoid a repeat interaction, it may be tough because of the community setting and the fact that often both the survivor and the harasser live on or near campus.

Although this type of behavior has been prevalent for decades across on campuses, it is not taken seriously enough, and in many cases, it is still seen as the normal culture of the college experience despite federal legislation prohibiting it.

*Students, staff and faculty at the 2017 UNH Anti-Violence Rally & Walk.*

Long gone are the days when you heard someone reference Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and it only brought to mind equal access to sports for girls and women in public education. Today Title IX acts as a federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination and addresses sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination and sexual violence. Yet the original intent of this protection with survivor-based policies is now under siege.

The current administration has begun to dismantle Obama Administration-era guidance and protections claiming that it denies due process to accused students. But in reality, it provided more protections, to both the accused and the victim, then any other law on the books. Under the leadership of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education went as far as claiming that false accusations occur at the same rate as rapes, which is gross misrepresentation of the actual 2-6% of false accusations compared to the 1 in 5 women sexually assaulted, according to many studies. The Department of Education is supposed to be issuing new regulations to colleges for guidance sometime next month, and the general public will have an opportunity to give input via a “notice and comment” process, but until we see the actual proposed rules, we are left to wait and see and then act.

And despite demands for more funding to the Office on Violence Against Women, budget cuts to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which investigates charges against schools for mishandling sexual assault claims and Title IX violations, are still among those cuts that will be made under the current administration.

If federal guidance becomes less strict on accountability and funding diminishes, then compliance becomes yet another barrier to a survivor’s protection under the law.

Just as the #MeToo movement recently spurred all 50 state attorney generals to demand from Congress an end to the practice of forcing sexual harassment cases into mandatory arbitration, changes need to be made on college campuses to help to put a stop to the culture of silence that protects perpetrators at the cost of their victims. One such promising recent action is the Alert Act which was introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators. It would ensure that the “I didn’t know” excuse can never again be used by university presidents for not protecting students from abusers, in particular, employees of universities. This bill would require an annual certification for federally-funded college and university presidents ensuring that they have reviewed all cases of sexual misconduct reported to their campus Title IX coordinator, and that they have not interfered with investigations of those cases.

Compassion for student survivors was the focus of the Obama-Biden campus sexual assault advocacy era, due to, in part, the “Dear Colleague Letter” that was announced here at the University of New Hampshire in 2011. We need that focus again.

Connie is the Marketing Communications Specialist for the Sexual Harassment & Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) at the University of New Hampshire.

USA: Harassment Doesn’t End on the Street

February 19, 2018 By Correspondent

Nearly Half of Working American Women Face Harassment in the Workplace, and 75% of Workplace Harassment Victims Faced Retaliation When they Spoke Up

Patrick Hogan, Chicago, IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

*“With My Headphones On… With My Headphones On” by Norsez via Flickr*

Street harassment is generally an interaction between strangers. The victims, trying to mind their own business; and the harassers, strangers intent on degrading and endangering people they may never see again. The harassers enjoy a sense of anonymity: they will not have to face their victims, nor any retaliation. Women may face harassment on the streets by strangers while walking to work, but at least they are safe in their work environments with people they hold professional relationships with, right?

Unfortunately, wrong.

A poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News found that 48% of working women in the United States are victims of workplace sexual harassment. The poll found that 56 percent of working woman under the age of 35, 44 percent of working women between the ages of 35 to 44 years old, and 40 percent of working women over the age of 55 faced harassment in the workplace.

What happens if these women speak up against their harassers? Quite probably retaliation. According to a 2016 report by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 25% to 85% of working women experienced workplace harassment (the disparity in percentages a result of different responses to different surveys). The study goes on to state that only between 6 and 13 percent of workplace harassment victims file a formal complaint. Why wouldn’t victims file formal complaints? According to the EEOC’s report, 75 percent of women who made complaints about their workplace harassment were retaliated against in some form or another.

When women filed complaints they were met with retaliatory behaviors such as disbelief, humiliating remarks, social stagnation, and continued harassment by employers and coworkers alike.

I interviewed Dr. Amy Blackstone, Professor of Sociology at the University of Maine, on her research on workplace harassment. When I asked her about the effects of retaliation against working women, she explained: “Retaliation is not limited to targets of harassment. Even women who are not themselves harassed, but who spoke up when they saw it happening are sometimes targets of retaliation so they too could be bullied for speaking up against harassment.”

This harassment and retaliation directly affects potential for career progression. Dr. Blackstone described to me a 2017 research paper she and others published:

“We were looking at women in the early point in their careers, and what we found was that indeed experiencing harassment early in your career does have or can have a derailing effect. We found this one example that women who experienced harassment are six-and-a-half times more likely than those who are not harassed to change jobs after harassment– and often not even just change jobs, but change entire career paths. In addition to our survey data, we interviewed a number of women and we learned in the interviews that some sought out jobs that they thought they would be less likely to be harassed in. And oftentimes that meant choosing jobs…that are not on the fast track to getting promoted; jobs where they could kind of be alone and not have to risk interacting with too many people because of the fear that they might be harassed again.”

But what of women who are in leadership roles or positions of power in their workplaces? According to Dr. Blackstone, they may not be free from harassment either. She stated: “Women who try to move up in the workplace may be targeted [for harassment] simply because they’re trying to move up in the workplace.” She explained that, “Harassing women who are supervisors is a way of ‘putting them in their place.'”

Dr. Blackstone provided an example: “A woman I interviewed who is a manager in a manufacturing firm was the only woman in management at the firm. She attended a dinner with some clients and some colleagues of hers and, in this case, it was a client who was harassing her by groping her and making sexual comments about her and to her. This is a woman who had a position of power in her workplace, but she was experiencing the kinds of behaviors that we often hear about happening to women with less power in the workplace.”

It is clear that workplace harassment is not merely a terrible phenomenon—it is an all-too-common occurrence. It affects women trying to advance in their careers and even women in positions of power. We live in a world where many women face harassment on their way to or from work and also cannot be at work without worrying about their safety. Then they cannot even report harassment without fear of retaliation. Something needs to change.

Patrick is an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology and minoring in Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago, preparing to continue onto law and graduate school. He is particularly interested in legal anthropology and the ways victims are viewed by legal systems.

Brazil: Feminist ‘bloco’ at the 2018 Rio Carnival

February 18, 2018 By Correspondent

Yasmin Curzi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, SSH Blog Correspondent

”Márcia Benevides. Presente.”^[1]

It was with tears that the “Women who get around” feminist Carnival block began its procession on Ash Wednesday, in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. In September of last year, one of its members, Marcia, was cruelly murdered by her former partner, from whom she was getting separated. She had sought the workshops of the bloco – which take place throughout the year, in preparation for Carnival – precisely to deal with the separation process. From the workshops, she found the comfort and strength to go ahead.

In her honor, the first song of the Carnival procession was “Folhas Secas” by Nelson Cavaquinho, from “Estação Primeira de Mangueira” one of the first of Rio’s samba schools. “They killed one of us,” said Renata Rodrigues, one of the founders of the bloco. She was heartbroken that Márcia was supposed to be free and alive and parading this year, but now she was dead due to misogynist violence.

Next, the band, comprised mainly of women, followed the procession, playing classic samba and popular music as Clementina de Jesus’ “Marinheiro Só”, “Ouvi alguém me chamar” by Dona Ivone Lara, “Ô abre alas” by Chiquinha Gonzaga and “Lenda das Sereias” by Marisa Monte, but also funk, making the audience shout while walking through the streets, “I don’t wait for the carnival to be a bitch, I am one everyday”, verses of Pablo Vittar’s “Todo dia” and “Hoje” by MC Ludmilla. The members of the bloco wielded banners of female canons of Brazilian music, but also of Nina Simone.

The “hula hoop dancers section” was the Commission of Front of the bloco. The women spinning and dancing with the hula hoops were followed by the “wooden leg section”: seven women and a girl of about 10 years old, wearing costumes and wooden legs. Finally, they were followed by the band and around them, hundreds of women, men and children, jumping, shouting and singing along.

The procession went from Largo do Machado to Aterro (about 1km), where there was an incredible performance set to the music of “Geni e o Zepelim” by Chico Buarque. The “wooden leg section” held posters denouncing feminicide and misogynist violence. One could read that Brazil ranks fifth in the world for the number of women murdered due to their gender (crimes motivated by gender hate, such as domestic violence and sexual violence) and that Black women are still the number one victims of gender violence in the country. There also were signs encouraging women to report harassment.

They then simulated a funeral and threw flowers over a woman’s body. While the band played “Throw rocks at Geni! / Throw shit at Geni! / She’s made to be beaten! / She’s good to spit on! / She will screw anyone! / Damn you, Geni!”, the audience shouted, “No!”

This was an example of how art can be utilized for feminist causes, in this case, to show that it is intolerable for women to be victims of violence only because they want to be free.

Another highlight to me were efforts by the “Mete a Colher”^[2] organization, which, in partnership with the organization “Meu Recife” produced the report “Happened in Carnival.” This report focused on reports of violence suffered during the Carnival and highlighted the necessity of public policies to address the problem. Renata Albertim (co-founder of Mete a Colher) said that in the, “(…) Last year we collected 66 reports and presented them to the Women’s Secretariat of Recife and to the Women’s Secretariat of the State of Pernambuco. This year, the Secretary of State promised a more ostensible policing at the points we identified that the more the harassment happens.”

In Rio de Janeiro, the “Carnival without Harassment” campaign took over several blocos – promoted by Catraca Livre, in partnership with “Azmina” magazine and the collectives “Now it’s them”, “We Women of the Periphery” and “Let’s go together?”

The stickers were distributed free of charge during the processions and it was also possible to buy removable tattoos with “No is no!” to wear.

The denunciation of the coup was also remembered by the bloco, which sang the cries of “Fora Temer” and “Fora Crivella”.

“Women who get around” is more than just a fun bloco: it is the materialization of the counter-discourse in the streets and is absolutely necessary to change our culture.

Conservative parties define all these movements as part of a “gender ideology.” They think that to show the many ways that female subordination and male domination are normalized is to threaten a “natural order” of things. They use this phrase as a motto and turn it into a great scarecrow, capable of camouflaging their real intentions: economic programs of religious sectors, alliances with private capital and support for labor rights retrogressions. These conservative sectors do not want to debate gender roles and are generally extremely reactionary to social transformations. One group placed a figure simulating Judith Butler in a “bonfire”, in an “inquisitorial act,” calling her a witch – they wanted to crystallize the “place of women” around an ideal of femininity and subalternization. They don’t see toxic masculinity as the real cause of violence and instead, they blame victims for the attacks suffered.

In her book Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici discusses the transition from feudalism to capitalism from a gender perspective, pointing out that it was essential for capitalist accumulation to make women circumscribed to private spaces, with domestic work being unpaid, in addition to state control of reproductive functions. The myth of witchcraft was fundamental to legitimize the genocide of women and the control of bodies, solidifying this social structure. The reproductive autonomy of women was precisely the greatest of all crimes – not surprisingly, witches were generally represented by women who did not dedicate their lives to the domestic sphere and who broke with the ideals of the time in some way.

For today’s conservatives, as well as the inquisitors of the Middle Ages, it is an assault on the natural order of things that gender roles are put into question. Federici also shows that capitalism is responsible for producing these moments of intellectual retreat to maintain its hegemony. Certain segments of the political elite enact it to remain in power in times of profound economic crisis.

But we also know that a certain noise is being produced when we see the reactionary extremely uncomfortable. If the status quo were not being shook, there would be no need to organize so many obscure acts. There is, therefore, room for women to infiltrate cultural “gaps” and contest the hegemonic discourse – denouncing, questioning and talking about corporal autonomy, about violence, about their places in public institutions and in the market. Bringing these issues to the streets makes Carnival a way for feminists to raise awareness and agitate for change!

Although during this Carnival there were some of the same problems as always – there were a lot of cases of sexual harassment, abuse and violence – overall, Carnival 2018 was marked by political acts, anti-harassment campaigns and demonstrations of sorority.

[1] “Presente” is what people say in protests to remember people who were victims of violence and public personalities that are important for the cause.

[2] In Brazil there’s a popular quote that says, “Em briga de marido e mulher não se mete a colher.” It means, “When husband and wife fights, one does not interfere.” The campaign “mete a colher” puts in evidence the necessity to look to domestic violence as a social issue.

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