“Machismo kills” and “No means no”

A gang-rape in Brazil has caused outrage.

Brazilians reacted with shock after the May 21 assault came to light last week. Graphic photos and videos of the unconscious, naked teenager were posted on Twitter, and several men joked online about the attack.

Of course they did. Women are a joke, girls are a joke, rape is a joke, the degradation of women and girls via rape and social media is the most hilarious joke ever.

The authorities said the teenager had been raped in the São João shantytown on the west side of Rio de Janeiro as she was visiting her boyfriend, The Associated Press reported. The girl told the police that she was briefly alone with him but remembered nothing until she woke up naked the next day in another building among dozens of men who had guns.

The case has rocked Brazil, Latin America’s largest nation, and highlighted its deep-rooted problem of violence against women.

Unlike other countries that have no such problem, for example…

…no, I don’t know of any.

Demonstrators gathered in downtown Rio on Friday night with signs that said “Machismo kills” and “No means no,” Agence France-Presse reported. In São Paulo, protesters made a mural with messages that included “I like to wear necklines, that’s not an invitation to rape me.”

The girl, in brief comments to the O Globo newspaper, said: “It’s the stigma that hurts me the most. It is as if people are saying: ‘It’s her fault. She was using scanty clothes.’ I want people to know that it is not the woman’s fault. You can’t blame a robbery victim for being robbed.”

And yet people keep doing exactly that.

 

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