[Music]
when I was six years old
a man tried to sexually abuse
my
a worker who was working on a
construction in my house asked me to
I will help you to sand a door and I
I agreed happily he stood behind me to
teach me how to do it and after
for a while he started to hit me
body and rubbing against me when I
I asked what he was doing
He unbuttoned his pants and started
touch me what they just heard
it was the beginning of one of the first
versions of this presentation had
It has been completely ruled out until
that I read it again and a part that I
let frost know which one I give them a
track is not the part where he said that
an adult man touched me against me
will when I was just a girl
but what I say
just before that they did not hear it
I’ll say it one more time when I had six
years
a man tried to sexually abuse
I am people what I said because I said
he tried and not simply that he abused
sexually from me I’ve been years
writing about sexual violence and
gender but here I am the supposed
Christ was a feminist reproducing
same limited ways of understanding the
sexual assault against always
protested the issue is that I’m sure
I’m not the only one who happens to her
this
let’s do an experiment that
imagine when you hear the
sexual assault words
take a second and conjure in a
image in his head has it
I’m sure that in this auditorium
one see my different answers but
I’m going to encourage myself to rehearse one that maybe
share many of you maybe
imagine a violation that goes more or
less so
a woman who shouts fight struggles and
kick furiously against a man who
he imposes himself violently on her
maybe it hits her maybe subject
humans with strength behind his head
so that I have already resisted or the
threatens with a knife so that for
avoid tea
if this is so
maybe it’s because this is the image of
the sexual assaults that we usually see
for example in the movies that are
terrible and definitely real but
what would they do if I told you that many of
the stories of violence and aggression
sexual do not look anything like the one
I just narrated
if I told you that she said no but
he did not say it so firmly and well
I think we all know what we have
made all of life that is that the
women we say no when in truth
we want to say yes or yes I said
who already said no but in the meantime
continues to take off lingerie clothes
in these cases as forms of aggression
and sexual violence
the problem is that many of us
we have an idea not wrong but yes
deeply limited of what is the
sexual violence and this happens for a
simple reason is that we do not talk about what
enough grip on that
our society has normalized the
gender violence while it has
become a taboo the possibility of
talk about it and when we talk
about it we do it in a way that
is totally mediated by the cinema
the television or the news and the
result is that we consume violence
sexual as if it were one more way
entertainment instead of getting closer to
she or empathy
This has three consequences each
worse than the other and they are fed
mutually in a vicious circle
First, it forces women to
live your most painful moments in
silence as if they had to feel
ashamed of what they did not
nor did they ask for second place limits
deeply our understanding of
sexual violence and in third place
prevents us from doing something real and
effective to overcome this epidemic
because how are we going to change something that neither
we do not even know how to recognize in a
context in which women
we have been forced to live our
stories of silent violence
for centuries break that silence not
It is only a level transformer
personal but that is fundamental and
profoundly revolutionary
at a social level and that’s precisely what
of what I want to talk to you today about
how one day a group of women
decided to break that silence and what
we could achieve if this event
exceptional became a norm
maybe many of you have heard
talk about a month
the march that took place on the 13th
August of this year but participated
they probably saw the images in
the good news newspapers
hundreds of thousands of people
mainly women
we take the streets of the city of the
capital and all regions of the
country to make our voice heard
protest against a macho society
and a state that in the best of cases
has been indifferent to us and in the
worse accomplice our aggressors according to
official figures
the biggest march of our
history and if they were not there then
they’ll have to trust me word
it was immense
moving and unforgettable touching
today, however, I am going to tell you about another
thing of something currency did not see in the
news because his power could not be
captured by a camera of a process
much quieter but not for that
less powerful that happened in the
weeks before the march when
We decided to convene a national march
of women
we did what a lot of my generation
he does when he wants to get something out
we entered facebook at that time no
we knew what would happen
when to mobilize and masters but we decided
create a group to which our
friends to start organizing ourselves at
start we were ten or twelve at the hours
six hundred a day later 2000
suddenly and not many days went by
that happened to something happened that
we could never have imagined a
woman left a message in the group that
I would change everything said more or less
something like that I think it’s fundamental to give a
step forward and leave the closet
start it I was kidnapped
raped several times and torture does
many years and until today he suffered stress
post-traumatic because of what happened to me
aggressor was convicted of robbery and the
violation did not aggravate the case nor was it
taken into account
when we read that in the group it was like
if the doors of a dam are
open after centuries of having
been closed those words in the
screen were a cry of rebellion
against the silence that has been
tax and against the peso that we see
forced to shut up that we see
forced to charge when we are silent
our stories your statement
it generated a chain reaction
unstoppable one by one
first by scenes and then by
hundreds of women decided to leave the
closet and start counting your own
stories of violence
for that moment and we were a group of
more than 60 thousand people
if they asked me to summarize in one
phrase what happened
I would say it was like an act of alchemy
that transformed silence into
solidarity and pain in empathy for
first time we could talk and we could
hear us stories that had
kept secret for years or
decades suddenly stopped being a
painful moment to live and relive a
and again in private and they became
in testimonies not only of violence
but of survival and resilience
statistics of sexual violence
they stopped being statistics and they
they turned into women of flesh and blood
women like me or like those who are
sitting in this auditorium today women
with imperfect women stories and
deeply human
who were lucky to live that
experience we spent weeks in a
kind of transforming euphoria and
cathartic a unique experience in the
lifetime
one by one we begin to heal through
of the power of words and
testimonies
we begin to discover our
stories in the stories of others
and have in the pain of those there
wrote in our own stories
we begin to understand ourselves as part of
a network of stories a lot
wider and that are as unique as
deeply interconnected by
first time we knew we were not
alone it was good to talk and other
women could and wanted to hear us
when this woman decided to leave the
closet and breaking that silence made us
a gift reminded us that it is not fair
that we are the ones we carry in
silence with the local weight and more
he has done to us as if we had
feel shame or guilt for what
we never ever ask ask
you imagine what to keep a
secret for 20 years
I would if someone had told me
five years that one day I would be able to
stop him in front of a group of
strangers and tell them the story of
sexual assault
Luis King of them for too long
time I refused to share what I
had happened with someone felt
shame as if I were responsible
what had happened to me as if I and
only I had the responsibility of
have gotten where apparently not
had gotten in and that an adult man
I touched my body as a girl but what
I discovered is that when we share
our stories we started a cycle
that nation that extends beyond
of us we have spent too much
time alone without knowing that our
best allies are right at
our side
the first time I share the
story of my sexual assault
publicly in an article
I received dozens of messages from women
that they had never spoken to anyone
about what had happened to them
some were women and I knew of
all the life in the school of my neighborhood
and even in my own family
each one had a different story
but everyone said the same
I thought it was the only
that’s why when we break the silence
We also say that we will not continue
accepting that we are denied the
possibility of recognizing ones in
others as victims
yes but mostly as survivors
and if any of you are listening
this and think
not in their own experiences only
I can tell you one thing is that they have the
absolute certainty that they are not alone
and that his allies are much more
close to what you imagine
the second problem that this silence
generates is that it profoundly limits
our understanding of what is
sexual violence
we have become accustomed to a narrative
unique to sexual assault and is for
that we discard everything that is not
adapt to that and that’s when
we began to wonder why not
He said no because he did not lose because he did not
He shouted why he did not report because they do not
he resisted what the diversity of the
testimonials on the page demonstrated
however it is that pigeonholing the
sexual assault in a single type of
experience or in a single type of mold
it is impossible from the most rugged
even the most seemingly everyday
the testimonies in the group showed
that limit our understanding of the
sexual assault to what most of
we imagine as a violation
not only is it absurd but it prevents
that we can recognize the true
extent of the problem
everyone here we agree that
a woman who was raped and dragged
on the floor by your partner is a
victim of violence
no one in their right mind could not be
according to that but what about
the other stories that happens with the
forms with the aggressions that are
violent in a way that is not so
graphic or visible that happens with the
forms of violence that the law does not have
how to typify or penalize for example
what’s up with this story was my friend
I had never seen it as more than that
but she’s a little drunk and the party
It was fun, so we ended up
kissing us when I told him that I already
I wanted to go
He told me to ask for a taxi together
that my house took us we went up to
car but on the way he asked me to
we went to his apartment to take
last drink
I told him I did not want but
He insisted and I did not want to be like a
believed in his house began to kiss him
I said I did not like that form that was
my friend but he did not stop when
I turned my face
he welcomed me with his hands and continues
kissing me he began to take off my clothes and
when I told him that I did not feel
Comfortable, he answered me, well, you know
that if you want I did not know what to do
I just wanted him to finish I wanted to go
I was ashamed to react to my house
more firmly he is not doing
nothing bad is not only at the party
and he was there in his apartment stop
resist me
it was the way it ended more
Quick
later I found out that he had
told his friends that the frigid and
bad in bed
maybe this story turns out
family may have gone through something
similar in more than one opportunity
that moment when it is true maybe
you did not say no with the firmness that you
would have liked but at the same time
heat was not good and he also knows that
the other person should have known
without the need to protest more
strong but why he did not know and for
what does not protest is stronger
the truth is that women do not
we react as expected
let’s react for a thousand and one reasons why
someone I trusted we go and we
we repeat again and again that it would not be
able to do what we do not
we would like our boss our
Ali teacher more powerful than us
a man we admired because
from girls we have been taught that
our value is measured by how they see us
the men and because frankly there is no
nothing worse than a bored girl and
prude because we are afraid of
reprisals because we know that a man
annoying can quickly become
in a violent man and that’s why we’ve
learned to smile and shut up because
we are afraid because we have learned to
survive because we do not know what else
do what we do with these cases what
first and the most important thing is to talk
about them
many times ourselves we do not even
we know because we have reacted from the
way in which we have
powered and that’s why we feel
responsible guilty and ashamed
but what all these stories
show that there is a component
structurally violent in the way
the one that we have built relationships
between men and women
we have fathered we have created and
normalized absurd and harmful roles
that engender forms of violence
the idea that women always
we have to make ourselves more difficult and
that the one who follows it gets it and is
why many times when a
woman says she does not really feel
uncomfortable men think that she
is only playing the role that
wait for it the problem or the reality
is that the only way to understand this
is talking about it otherwise
many will not even have the
possibility of knowing that something they
they considered a normal interaction
it was actually an act of violence
few days after the march
I was talking with a very dear friend
about what he had felt when he saw the
testimonials on the page
we talked for a while and then he told me
something that I will never be able to forget
I would never force a woman to do
something that I no longer wanted or at least
that’s what I believed because after
to read those testimonies I can not avoid
ask me if I ‘m not that man
for a woman but I was the
responsible for a meeting that another
person remembers that way
The truth is that there are many types of
violence or some types of violence
that we will not be able to eliminate but others
that we can change with something so
simple as the power of words and
of empathy
do not get me wrong with this I do not want
say that the laws the police stations and
the emergency protocols of
attention are not necessary because they are
very important and urgently
necessary but in most of the
cases they will only solve what
what happens after an assault
the only way to change the structure
that allows a lot of this violence
possible in the first place is breaking
the silence and normalizing these
conversations but for that we need
first learn
we need to create secure environments where
Women can talk without feeling
judged or assaulted and we need
have difficult conversations and
uncomfortable that frankly we should have
had a long time ago we do not deserve
much more than what we have today and
we have the obligation that this
problem does not extend indefinitely
towards the future
Soon a new generation will arrive
one of what many who are here
will bring to the world they will take care and
they will accompany to grow and it is fundamental
that this happens in an environment where
these conversations are normal
frequent and promoted so that of that
way they can learn to relate to each other
a more horizontal empathic way and
fury
the only way to achieve that is
talking about this we have the power to
change things and the best thing is that
we can start doing it from today
same
I am absolutely convinced that
we have the tool to do it and
that this is as simple as starting
to speak
the table is served so I spoke
month
[Applause]
”
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