Addressing Sexual Harassment in Brazil

By: Nicolas Lake

September 19, 2014

For my first blog, I decided to write about the role and status of women in Brazil’s society. Women and gender studies is a topic that has exploded in popularity in the past few decades in the Western world, but it is only beginning to gain traction as an area of study in the developing world. Unfortunately, this coincides with a lack of complete respect and equality for women in that area. While in the United States much has been publicized over the fact that the average woman makes 77 cents to the dollar the average man makes, women here in Brazil face greater challenges to complete parity.

Much like warnings about crime and the danger of favelas, before coming I had been cautioned that I would be surprised at how open men can be with their perverseness. This was hammered in at our orientation, as we were explicitly told that girls walking alone at night can expect to be catcalled or flirted at from across the street. Still, talking about sexism and experiencing it firsthand are two completely different things, and the first time that I saw a woman walk out of her house to a taxi and get obviously catcalled in the process by a man across the street was shocking. No one who was with him or walking by thought twice about it, disparaged him, or acted as if this were a inappropriate action. Undoubtedly, I have heard many more catcalls here than in the United States, and men here feel comfortable openly staring at a girl as she walks by.

One result of the prevalence of sexual harassment can be seen in the metro, which has instituted “female-only” cars during rush hours, in an attempt to stop any sexual harassment that happens in crowded cars and bring attention to the issue. Rio implemented the mandate following the passing of a state law in 2006, and it has stood in place since. Interestingly, the São Paulo metro had a similar policy in the late 1990s, but it was discontinued after complaints from married couples and worries about breaking the Brazilian constitution, which guarantees equality among citizens. Women make use of the car; during rush hour it is filled with women, although not as full as the other cars are. In my opinion, however, it is not good for the cause of women in Brazilian society. While it does bring attention to the issue, it reinforces the fact that there is a problem without providing any meaningful solution. If sexual harassment is actually an important problem to Brazilians, then they should address that by having a conversation about what can be done to change the way men act towards women, not simply ignore the problem by removing the women. Instead of confronting the issue, this policy seems to avoid it. Instead of being spent on subway cars, resources should be invested to change the way men treat and view women, and create a long-term change. We are at a point, in 2014, where it should not be necessary to have gender-specific cars, and in my opinion having them reinforces the divisions in society without doing anything to repair them.

Much of Latin America is recognized for itsmachismo culture, in which men are the primary decisions makers of the household and have many more opportunities available to them. I believe that the effect of the machismo culture isn’t as strong here as it is in other Latin American countries I have visited, such as Guatemala, where schooling for girls takes a backseat to boys, and many young women will learn to be mothers at a young age instead of professionals. Here, the amount of male and female students at my university seems equal, and there is certainly no expectation, at least among wealthier society, that men should get any priority for education. One noticeable advancement women have made here is that the two leading candidates for next month’s presidential election are female, including the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff.

Sexism in Brazil, while not as bad as other Latin American countries, is still clearly a large problem, and something that I hope to explore more in my semester here.

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