Is puncture another method of male violence?

In recent times, on this subject, much is being said about chemical submission and it is sometimes forgotten that the same action is a violation of women’s fundamental rights. To ignore it means to turn a blind eye; to put aside the real problem, the machist violence.

The growing fear of leaving the house is once again being given only to women and not to men, who continue to leave peacefully on the streets and women are on permanent alert. Knowing this, we can directly relate stings to male violence.

‘Don’t just come home’, ‘don’t get late’, ‘write when you arrive’… these are everyday messages among women, and it’s inconceivable to do the other way around. In other words, tell the man, “You will not be raped by a woman!” or, “Have you come home?” You didn't have a persecuted woman tonight, right?' These comments, which we women have so naturally internalized, become ridiculous when imagining them directed at men.

Health experts have been exposed to the public saying that in most cases there has been no chemical submission. But that's not the bottom line of the problem, right?

What the experts who are generalizing this discourse are getting is criminalization, that is, action or aggression itself, in the drug that can be inside that syringe, removing the focus on the action that the aggressor is exercising. There is talk of chemical submission, without referring to the machist violence that is at the heart of this whole issue. With this, the word of the woman is being depoliticized, saying, ‘lasai, there has been no chemical submission’. But there's a lot more, right? We have testimonies from our colleagues, complaints, right? But they focus on puncture, rather than on machista and perverse aggression.

It is essential to take care of the language we use and to review the discourses produced on it. It is essential, in order to construct the story, to base the violence suffered by the most vulnerable citizens.

The debate must be reformulated.

No doubt. The absence of chemical submission does not mean the absence of puncture and, therefore, the absence of male violence. That must be made clear.

In this man's action, we must focus on the issue and not on women's self-care. And of course, the latter is also essential, and feminist self-defense and inclusion is fundamental, but the campaign has to be directed at the sensitization of men; we know what this is, we suffer it constantly.

Where do we start to act?

I see no more real solutions than education. It is very important, at the same time, to intervene with current generations, to reflect on where we come from, to dismantle this culture of patriarchy… There is a lot of work there.

But the only solution I see with the new generations is education. Feminist education, based on emotional intelligence and sex education, goes hand in hand. It is essential to internalize respect, equality, empathy and self-control since childhood.

How can schools do it with their own resources?

More is needed. In the centers we have teachers, management, some counselor... and each one has its functions. There's no social worker to intervene with young people, there's no criminologist to design prevention plans. The teaching staff is already quite saturated with the training of students in the educational field and cannot create a protocol. This should be done by a social worker, would need a technical team to accompany the student-professor-mothers network when it is necessary to activate an emergency protocol to identify and implement it.

Teachers often have to do a double job, two different figures, and that's impossible. It is necessary to create a technical team within each center so that, in addition to the educational team, prevention work is carried out and that education is as complete as possible. Its guarantee should be one of the basic obligations of public institutions.

And what about individuals?

Take responsibility and set limits. We all know the women who have suffered a male attack, we have them all around us, most of us can tell our experiences. But there's a lot of silence around the aggressors, it seems they don't exist, let alone in our environment.

It is very difficult to point out to the aggressor when we approach, to act responsibly. But it is essential to build safe spaces between us, because we have to be clear that when the victim has suffered an attack he will never feel safe, if to tell him he feels that the company around him defends the actions of an aggressor.