“Nothing like the silhouette of a naked woman covered in indeterminate fluids to show equality. “It’s not objectification or anything.” The comment of a Facebook user to the campaign poster of the City Council of Cee (A Coruña) for this 25N summarizes the roar that shakes the networks and groups of WhatsApp of Galician feminism. The image chosen is that of a naked woman, “a stereotype”, faceless, in a submissive attitude and covered by something that could be paint or even blood. Another Internet user asks: “This poster is not understandable. Is it a mockery, a mockery of the 25th, to use the image of a brothel?” The socialist mayor of Cee defends that the design shows “a woman torn with pain” and blames these interpretations “on the machismo that we have internalized.”
“It’s terrible,” Priscila Retamozo tells elDiario.es. This gender equality expert and political scientist finds that the design chosen for the campaign Sowing equality (Sowing equality) falls, exactly, into everything you should avoid. “You can’t see his face or his eyes… which makes you recognize a person and empathize with him. Without head or gaze, lying in that attitude causes her to become dehumanized. And it is precisely seeing women like this, as an object, that causes sexist violence.”
Priscila is one of the people to whom the image had reached through feminist networks. For her, more than bad intentions, what it conveys is “laziness” when it comes to creating a poster aimed at denouncing machismo. And that is “disheartening” for him. “We don’t take equality seriously and that’s part of the problem. As if the law had not been in force for 20 years”, a time in which it has been insisting that “we do not give flowers or discounts to women, nor show images of slapped women.”
“I don’t understand the controversy.” The mayor of Cee, Margarita Lamela, finds it difficult to hide her stupor. He responded to elDiario.es having just finished his institutional speech for 25N in which he denounced “the internalized machismo” for which he blames, precisely, those interpretations. “We raise our voices to show that we must fight against that machismo that leads us to judge ourselves and our colleagues,” she said.
Therefore, delving into that reflection, he asks himself: “Does not the fact that a woman is sensual, attractive, or that she is a prostitute give her the right to suffer as much heartbreak as any other?” Because that is what Lamela sees in the poster – which was already used last year without causing any stir -: “A woman torn by pain.” For her, any other interpretation, she says, is based on an “internalized machismo” that needs to be reviewed.
The image circulates on the networks as a background for the announcement of the events planned for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Next to the logo of the Ceense town hall appear that of the Ministry of Equality and the State Pact against Gender Violence, in addition to that of the Department of Social Policy and Equality of the Xunta de Galicia.
#Cee #city #council #Coruña #sexualized #image #woman #promote #25N
