Violence against women in Latin America has recently been classified as an epidemic in the region, sexual violence is one of the main forms of violence, and the situation of women in the rest of the world is not very different. According to a report by the World Health Organization and data from the UN Women, "recent figures of the global prevalence indicate that one in three women in the world (35%) has suffered physical and/or sexual violence of a couple or sexual violence by third parties at some point in their lives ".
In the wake of the growing wave of violence against women, protests are organized in different parts of the world, in an unsuccessful effort to stop it, especially after cases are heard that shake the population for their cruelty and sadism. And in those protests, you can read countless posters with phrases of repudiation of violence and support for women. One of those phrases that caught my attention and that I have seen repeatedly is: "We live in a world where they teach women to take care not to be raped, instead of teaching men NOT TO VIOLATE"... I was called to attention for two reasons:
The first, because I saw a harsh truth in that phrase, since I was born and raised in a macho society where it is taken as normal for men to harass women in the street, to tell them obscenities or to touch them impudently; where it is common for men to beat their women because they have "rights" to them - in some regions of my country, women consider that their husbands have the right to hit them, because they are their husbands, and they even get angry if someone tries to defend them!!! It seems a joke, but it is not-, and I think that to a large extent the high rate of sexual violence against women in my country and in the rest of the world is machismo.
