I had to snort at this though: “The only way to enjoy a harrassment-free night out is if you have a guy by your side.”
Even that’s not enough in Nicaragua. I’ve been hooted/whistled at, had my ass grabbed, even propositioned while arm-in-arm with my novio (who’s a pretty big guy as Nicaraguans go, too).

@ bluebars — Yeah. It’s a pain in the ass to go to bars and clubs as well. Some guys will grab you by the waist or follow you around or sit on your table without asking for permission. The only way to enjoy a harrassment-free night out is if you have a guy by your side.

Most of Brazil’s population declares to be catholic — so, although most don’t actually go to church or agree with the things the pope says, a sort of “catholic mentailty” is very strong here. And you know what that means: women are viewed as sinful and dangerous, provocative — therefore, you gotta restrict her sexuality. The saint/whore dichotomy is INCREDIBLY STRONG in our culture.

So, although we do have all those women in revealing clothing on TV, movies and magazines… They’re just seen as whores. Like: “they are nice to look at, but ones you shouldn’t marry”.

The thing is those “whores” are the standard of beauty offered to all of us. So girls are taught that showing their bodies and looking sexy is a very important thing and that is what they should do to be “feminine” and accepted. However, when you do exactly what you’ve been told all your life, you get punished for that. Like Geisy did. So we, brazilian women, live with this bizarre contradiction: “be sexy! But still look virginal! Unleash men’s desire, but don’t look like a whore!”

The difference between this case and everyday life is that it took huge proportions and became an outrageous case of harassment. But in everyday life, the sad truth is that everyone would just call you a whore behind your back (yup, as is THAT was ok…). So we see comments on brazilians websites condemning the harassment, but ALSO blaming Geisy for her dress. So they agree with the harassers, just disagree with how loud the harassment was.

Hope I made it a little bit more clear.
Hugs,
Marjorie.

I’ll try to explain this big contradiction (although it is quite nonsense to me as well).

Unfortunately, our culture is very male chauvinistic and relies heavily on the objectification of women’s bodies. When you turn on the TV in Brazil at any hour, you’ll see women in reveling clothes, sometimes almost naked. During carnival they ARE actually naked! Some mainstream brazilian movies are filled with hardcore sex scenes, with close-ups of nipples, butts and pubes… But only of women! If you show a tiny bit of male nudity, bet your ass it’s gonna be considered an outrage. But women… Oh, that’s what they’re there for!

It’s also very common for brazilian TV shows to have women in revealing clothing just as props, dancing on the background so that the camera, every now and then, does a close-up under their skirt. Those girls are usually portraited as dumb and constantly sexually available. As a consequence, brazilians always associate any nudity to the intention of turning someone on.

It’s great the school changed their stance (an act of defense, wtf???) but I don’t know how she could return to class. I would be terrified to even go near that school again. Good on her for standing up for herself like that and refusing to back down.

What does that mean? What other straws do you imagine took place? Multiple weeks of wearing miniskirts? She flirted with someone? This makes absolutely no sense as written, if you’re really not victim blaming. The only way those sentences have meaning is if you’re saying her actions provoked this.