A note on harassment in the movements
From the MST website
Data of the most varied kinds show that harassment, of whatever kind, is a phenomenon based on power relations and that it reaffirms gender inequalities in the most diverse social spheres. In a relationship where there is harassment, the background is the belief that the other person is in a hierarchical situation inferior to that of the aggressor.
In this way, the conduct qualifies as harassment: if it is sexual, it is the crime (Penal Code art. 216-A), of “embarrassing someone with the intention of obtaining sexual advantage or favour”; if it is moral, it is abusive and intentional conduct that seeks to harm the dignity, physical or psychological integrity of a person. Sexual harassment is conduct that violates the sexual freedom and dignity of persons, i.e., stolen kissing, groping, touching, licking, touching intimate parts, ejaculating and/or masturbating in front of persons without consent – can carry a prison sentence of between one and five years.
Harassment occurs most often against women, as it is an action resulting from the social incidence of patriarchal relations. Or to quote an intellectual already well known to many of us, Heleieth Saffioti: where access to a woman’s body is part of the “sexual contract” that shapes unequal gender relations (Gender Patriarchy Violence – Saffioti, 2015). There are social roles that were constructed for women in the social contract that underlies modern capitalist societies. And in these roles, women are bodies “available” to men for domestic work, care and sexual subordination.
It is in this more sociological and political context that harassment is “justified” in the world of work, a place constructed for masculinities, for men in positions of command. What about harassment in political organisations and social movements, or even when it involves women in managerial positions like other men?
Women activists have obstacles to overcome in their political organisations as well as in any other social arena. Now, who among us has never had to leave a meeting early because our child needed care? Do conversations outside the “official” forums common to politics consider what is safe for women? How many young women have been questioned about their political activities, or had their emotional relationships equated? If we are dealing with issues that are social, is it not to be expected that in our political spaces there are also cases of harassment? Sadly, yes.
However, there is a sense of legitimisation of harassment as an everyday occurrence. Women activists are often forced to “get out” of these situations, not to problematise them so as not to make them vulnerable to political disputes, or even to expose the political organisation and governing bodies of which they are part. There is shame in sharing the unpleasantness and even a certain delay in understanding the borderline – not a short one – from “joke” to harassment.
It is difficult to conceive that women’s bodies can also not be respected in places where political trust is placed. And the veiled and individualised way in which it often occurs contributes to this “legitimisation” of a “superfluous”, unimportant situation. However, when we connect with the reflection on gender inequalities, it becomes clear that harassment is a form of violence that, because it is so common, should receive greater attention.
When we analyse spaces of political activism, we consider the preservation of camaraderie. It is in this place that observation is most difficult, as not recognising harassment as a violent practice leads to a lack of recording. Lack of recording makes knowledge more difficult. Lack of knowledge makes it more difficult to implement adequate countermeasures. And even if there is a working relationship involved, spaces where values that seek human emancipation are cultivated are not expected to cause any kind of violence to any living person.
Harassment directly interferes with women’s militant power, restricting their bodily and psychological performance. The notion of mutual solidarity that drives us to go forward and fight for any cause breaks down when the body and being a woman are not respected in their specificities. Let’s go in parts, but never as a whole”.
In the case of black women, this is even more sensitive, as race intersects, i.e. interacts and overlaps with other social factors. The definition of the role of black women is even further down the scale of what is considered worthy in society. I take the example of black women who suffer violence, sometimes by white women, given the even more subordinate roles historically assigned to them. Or even the sexualised body in reflections provoked by slave culture and memories of bodies previously violated by masters and landlords.
What we are concerned with here speaks to the necessary and ongoing deconstruction of access to women’s bodies as public. It also speaks to cultural changes in the understanding of womanhood in society along the dimensions of gender, race and even sexuality. Obviously harassment is not rape. But violence, however “soft”, is still violence. And if the goal is to overcome relations of domination, this also applies to the spaces where we exercise politics.
Comradely relations within a political organisation must normalise attitudes, actions and manners that reflect what is sought as an outcome of a political project. An emancipatory political project, in turn, requires men and women in solidarity, in relations of full equality. Sustaining political relations and organisations by silencing violence, including harassment, means sustaining structures anchored in the sustainability of that same violence. But “letting go” has consequences; it shows up in the elimination of women’s militancy, in the change of leadership, of political perspectives, in the weakening of any emancipatory political project.
Fighting harassment, dear friends, is a task that requires resistance and a militant stance. It is a collective political task. A political organisation that seeks to truly emancipate subjects cannot be a space for the reiteration of violence, no matter how small. Because violence, when normalised, has the power to destroy dreams, passions, what moves people in movement.
The search for spaces of trust between women allows for what is often seen as an outburst. On the other hand, it is fundamental to raise awareness within the political organisation towards a militant education in which gender equality is a constant construction; where men and women understand and learn attitudes, acts and manners that need to be reflected in order to be perceived and rejected simply because they are violence.
What are the mechanisms of action to combat harassment? It seems to me that the first task is to recognise that this is violence. To take it seriously and seriously. To understand the effects of the most varied forms of harassment on women’s political action on the basis of registration. At the end of the day, we have to find solutions and not allow more women to lose the fight because we fail to create a full space in which they can act with confidence.
Perhaps it is not even necessary to reinvent the wheel: but rather to promote collective and public debate on a daily basis. To remove harassment from this curtain that covers it and manifests unhealthy conditions that do not add to the political struggle. In fact, it only holds us back as human beings.
By Mayrá Lima*
A note about this article from the author: In this short text I want to bring some notes on harassment, especially in places of political activism. I write conscious of who will read these lines: women activists in a consolidated social movement. I do not intend to exhaust the debate here, not even for the limited space allotted. I understand the sensitivity of the subject, as well as its controversial potential. So, let’s go! No pretensions…
Notes
I am grateful to Liu Durães (BA), Laryssa Sampaio (CE) and Lucineia Freitas (MT) for their kind comments on the formulation of this text.
2. The repetitive use of the word “violence” is intentional.
*Mayrá Lima is Political Scientist/ Communications Sector of the MST/ Adão Pretto Brigade.
**Edited by Fernanda Alcántara
This post is also available in Español.