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“I am 15 years old and I panic for men because I experience sexual harassment at least once a week.”
“From the age of 5, my stepfather was sexually harassed, then raped, and at 16 I was raped in the forest.”
“The teacher used to say that she was wearing a skirt because the ‘tympos’ highlighted her butt too much and distracting the boys.”
“I can’t go anywhere alone without talking on the phone because I always feel insecure.”
These are just a few excerpts from the stories shared by Lithuanian women and girls with Roberta, a women’s rights activist who speaks openly about sexual harassment on the social network Instagram and the issues faced by women.
From the 15 minutes she told herself, not expecting to receive so many stories in a few days. Many of the writers admitted that they spoke about their experiences for the first time and only because they were able to do so anonymously, in addition, after hearing the experiences of other women, they did not want them to feel alone.
How it all started
Roberta opened an Instagram account earlier this year to talk about gender inequality, the body, and women’s rights.
He said that in other countries, such as Great Britain, United States of America (USA), there are many similar platforms, but such platforms were lacking in Lithuania, which is why the idea of creating such a page came up.
“I follow many similar Instagram pages where activism is developed, talks about things like gender inequality, about the body, about LGBT things, I’m interested, I feel that I’m involved in these things, I have a lot of experience and I can share many different topics “, the reason why the one that founded a platform of this type, called Roberta.
The account has received a lot of attention lately, following several posts shared by Robert about sexual harassment and female insecurity.
When on March 3 in London disappeared after walking Sarah Everard, 33, and was found murdered a few days later (charges of murdering a woman against a 48-year-old policeman), protests broke out in the streets of the city, and not only #saraheverard, a grotesque to honor the murdered girl, spread on his Twitter account, appealing to the fact that not all men are murderers or stalkers.
Reuters / Scanpix photo / London police arrest woman mourning Sarah Everard
In her account, Roberta wonders why, even when the only victim is a murdered girl, men and their “innocence” receive more attention.
Screenshot of Instagram account ta_lezbe_feministe / Reaction to #notallmen playlist
After sharing a post about that and another girl’s story, she received messages from women on her account who began to tell her what they had experienced themselves.
Roberta, who shared this anonymously, received even more messages and thus accumulated more than 300 experiences from women in a few days.
“I have a lot of followers, they doubled over the weekend. The letters doubled too. They all started writing, telling me that I sat for almost 8 hours a day, like working full time, because it really takes time to read those letters. and put them in stories and cover the photo to be anonymous. But I was still determined to hear those stories, “she said.
Raped by a family member
Roberta said that a lot of women used to share experiences when a completely unknown man started harassing me on the street: “I went, I walked, a man came up to me and grabbed me by the ass, he also told you good chest.”
“We have to understand that there is no compliment here when a strange man approaches you and tells you that it is your good chest. I have many stories like that. And the worst thing is that men do not understand it, they think everything is fine here” Roberta lamented.
But these are not the only stories. “I was brutally surprised by what was happening in schools and kindergartens, where the boy was lying with the girl and the boy put his hands in the girl’s panties and nobody did anything about it. I was shocked.
The same in schools: they took a panel, closed it in the classroom and began to grab it. The teachers seemed to see what was happening, but did nothing, ”the women’s rights activist shared the girls’ painful experiences.
I was brutally surprised by what was happening in schools and kindergartens.
The most painful stories are the rapes, which continue in families. One of the anonymous stories tells that the girl was raped by her father.
“We are all afraid that homosexuals will abuse our children, but their children are being abused by their men. Wake up, ”Roberta said. “It was what surprised me the most.”
She regretted that little was said about it, and the women who had suffered sexual harassment or abuse were afraid to speak about it, society was restrained and closed, so the women affected were silent with their experiences.
We all fear that homosexuals will abuse our children, but their children are being abused by their men. Wake up.
Does not ask for responsibility
Roberta pointed out that men who tend to say, “I didn’t rape, it’s not about me,” must take responsibility. Harassment must be avoided.
“Talk about this issue in the company of men, shut up a girl, if you see that they are harassing her, do not laugh at sexist jokes. It is said that if you do nothing to prevent evil, you yourself become part of the problem. And in this case, men are the problem. There would be no rapists, there would be no victims ”, he urged not to turn a blind eye to the crimes.
He also drew attention to the debate on the Istanbul Convention, which he said has unjustifiably become a battlefield and people believe misleading information.
“Of the more than 300 publications on the Istanbul Convention, only about 20 are Convention experts. Only 15 human rights activists. People blindly believe priests with influenza and rumors.
I share the experiences of women who have suffered violence, because now we live as if they did not exist, despite the fact that one in three women in Lithuania has suffered physical or sexual violence.
Nobody wants to hear them? Or maybe you don’t pay? I guarantee that there will be those who say that it has been provoked, that it has crept in to thicken the colors, not all men are like that ”, shared Roberta.
I share the experiences of women who have experienced violence because now we live as if they did not exist.
Statistics don’t reflect everything
Agnė Pakšytė, project manager at the Lithuanian Center for Human Rights, noted that sexual violence in Lithuania is still difficult to recognize as a form of violence, making it difficult to name its extent in the country.
For example, in a survey commissioned by the Ombudsman for Equal Opportunities in 2019, two-thirds of respondents said that domestic violence was associated with physical violence and only 8 percent. mentioned sexual violence.
Another, 2018 a survey conducted by one in five women in Lithuania has experienced sexual harassment.
“However, again, if we want to link these two numbers, if we have poor recognition of sexual violence in the country, it is obvious that the numbers of people who have experienced sexual violence are not entirely accurate,” the specialist emphasized.
Photo from personal archive / Agnė Pakšytė
The public does not recognize the problem
The problem is not only sexual violence, but also public attitudes towards it.
A large part of the public continues to agree with the claim that the victim is guilty. During the 2019 survey 41% agreed or partially agreed with this statement. surveyed.
According to A.Pakšytė, the accusation of the victims, on the one hand, is the reluctance of society to understand the magnitude of the problem of sexual harassment.
“There is a certain illusion of how bullying happens.
The public usually thinks that it has to happen at night, in a club, in a bar, when they drink alcohol. The girl has to be clothed, clothed, etc., but looking at the statistics and the fact that one in five women in Lithuania has suffered sexual harassment (possibly the figures would be even higher if the visibility were better), it shows a huge level of sexual harassment and violence, which is difficult and terrible to understand ”, he explained.
Photo by Irmantas Gelūnas / Photo of 15min / Sexual harassment, violence
According to A. Pakšytė, society does not accept the fact that bullying can take place at any time of the day and in any place: at school, at work, at home.
Teachers and professors, relatives and even family members can also be harassed.
“Blaming the victim is an attempt to rationalize and delineate certain circumstances, a situation in which sexual harassment occurs,” 15 minutes she said.
In addition, the specialist from the Center for Human Rights pointed out, the perception of female sexuality in society contributes to the phenomenon of accusing victims.
Blaming the victim is an attempt to rationalize and delineate certain circumstances, a situation in which sexual harassment occurs.
“From a feminist theory, sexuality is very often perceived in society through seduction, men’s desire for attention and the achievement of fulfillment through male attention,” which is wrong.
This is again an interpretation of sexuality that arises from unequal gender relations. He should have the right to be alone, not in conjunction with male sexuality, ”he said.
The issue of sex education is unresolved
One of the main ways to combat sexual harassment is education and public awareness and recognition of this form of violence, believes A. Pakšytė.
However, at the moment, according to her, there is a “reverse” trend: harassment is declared as an immutable fact and women seek awareness of how not to experience or avoid sexual harassment.
Photo by 123RF.com/ Crushed Child
“At this point, we would like to turn this around and focus more on how to respect a woman’s limits, how not to harass, how not to rape, rather than teaching women how to avoid it,” he said.
According to her, sex education is a key issue in the sexual violence prevention mechanism, but in Lithuania this issue has not yet been resolved.
On the one hand, its implementation is stagnant: exactly who should participate in sex education in schools is not planned, there are not enough trained specialists.
“On the other hand, the problem is the content of sex education itself. Based on both scientific suggestions and international recommendations, such as the World Health Organization, sexuality education should include drawing limits in a relationship, teaching what a healthy relationship is, a toxic relationship, the importance of consent.
Both social and emotional skills are needed to help a young person navigate their sex life and feel safe in it, not only safely due to the use of contraceptives, but also to feel safe emotionally and psychologically ”, concluded A. Pakšytė.
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