Machism on Brazilian social movements

Machism on Brazilian social movements

Self-defense feminist against a male chauvinist militant from Sao Paulo, Brazil.


It's been 6 months by now that a male chauvinist militant of
movement's Free Pass from Sao Paulo (Brazil) has been treating one
woman of an autonomous social movements with threats of death,
harassment, embarrassment, verbally assaulting, insults and also he's
limiting her space.. This offender has to be called by his name which
is Xavier (Rafael Pacchiega).

We make this complaint because the perpetrator has been frequenting
(still) the same political space as if nothing hadn't happened or as
if what happened did not have any policy relevance. Unfortunately
there's no surprise about that as the attacks against women has been
seen as something of little importance. In fact, social movements
having found hard to deal collectively and publicly against sexist
violence that happen in their midst. It's weird how the mouths of
those who argue all the time that everything is collective, or that it
should be, have been silent at this time to preserve a bizarre
attitude. They insist on treating these issues as something minor in
the face of "fights priority" or something personal that should be
resolved privately. Private no way! Personal relations between men and
women are concrete embodiments of heteropatriarchy, a historically
unequal structure of oppression that is prior to the existence of the
turnstiles and capitalism themselves.

A simple example (or not so common) what we are talking about: why
should protest in front of a brutal police crackdown, but silent and
thus cover up violence against women? Does not matter the integrity of
women's bodies? Do the women's bodies have less value than others? Or
does it only matter when they are clumped in the mass struggles of
priority and are invisible in their specific circumstances of women?

Some may say that our thinking and action diverts attention from the
main focus of the movement to less important things, weakening the
struggle that we are overly radical, that we are "demonizing" anyone
who committed a mistake ... Someone will get to say we're crazy
hysterical and even aggressive. The complaint that we are doing at
this moment is part of the reaction to the abuse and is committed as a
direct action of feminist self-defense. We want to denounce the
existence of such abuse and ensure that social movements are not
spaces of aggression, fear and oppression to women and transform them
to a safe space able to establish relationships of trust, solidarity
and empowerment of all and everyone. And that should be a task
undertaken collectively. However, repeatedly, these movements see
themselves as antagonists of all oppressions, turn against those who
report violence without addressing effectively the discussion.

We are not the first nor will be the last to be raped, assaulted,
threatened, silenced and invisible due to a militant of social
movements. But we're not the first and will not be the last to
publicly denounce the incident. We are tired of sharing space with
misogynists who like to chase women continually and then saving their
faces by saying they had a freak-out moment and getting help by
accomplices who defend them.

No aggression will remain unanswered.
Brazilian Feminist

e-mail: mariamendola@gmail.com