The unsolved murders of Ciudad Juarez, alledged police abuse, and the specter of machisimo. Rather than focus on these difficult problems facing Mexican women, the Catholic Church feels that lesser issues deserve higher priority:The outrage is directed at the Roman Catholic Church for warning women that the skimpy clothing can provoke sexual violence.
Rev. Sergio G. Roman sounded the alarm against miniskirts in an online publication to prepare Catholics for a church family-values forum next year in Mexico City.
"When we show our body without prudence, without modesty, we are prostituting ourselves," wrote Roman, a Mexico City priest.
Roman’s message also questioned “the lack of modesty” in the media for showing “naked women as if it were the most natural thing”, and even suggested that women avoid “spicy jokes or conversations.”
The Mexican archdiocese has claimed that Roman was trying to “morally orient the catholic community,” yet the Archbishop of Durango agreed with him and added that Mexican women dress provocatively in order to “arouse men.”
Women’s rights advocates have expressed their ire with Roman and the Church; “it’s machismo’s fault, not my miniskirt” was one of several placards used during a small protest held on Sunday in front of Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral.
Sadly, there are other examples that reflect Roman’s way of thinking. In the aftermath of the brutal gang-rape of an 8-year-old girl, a senior Jamaican police official blamed girls' use of skimpy clothing for an increase in rapes on the island.
This all reminds me of a terrible miscarriage of justice when an Italian high court ruled a decade ago that women wearing jeans cannot be raped since the victim had to consent to taking them off. (That decision was mercifully overturned).
Image- La Cronica de Hoy
Sources (English)- The Latin Americanist, AOL News, Associated Press, BBC News
Sources (Spanish)-Milenio, La Jornada, El Universal, Pueblo en Linea
it is a slippery slope, the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteAs a mexican, i'll side with women's rights, but there is a part of me, maybe the "macho" side that wants to blame the provocative. But that can't be right.
Murder is wrong no matter what, but it is stupid for a young woman to walk around at three in the morning down a lonely street dressed like a whore. You are just begging to attract the WRONG kind of attention.
ReplyDelete