This hashtag was broadcast on Twitter today. It had not been communicated before by social networks. It quickly became a trending topic in Chile. And they surprised, despite having organized everything with a lot of discretion. This afternoon, women over 40 years of age massively attended the performance “A rapist in my path” in front of one of the most iconic places of repression during the years of the military dictatorship: the National Stadium. This compound was a detention and torture centre, from there gender violence was now denounced and the women who were tortured during the dictatorship were made visible.
The feminist choreography created by Las Tesis has traveled around the world. It has been represented in many places, viralized by social networks and is part of the various ways of manifesting itself in the social outburst that has taken place in the country over the past 48 days.
Some of the organizers of the Senior Thesis warned that different women dared to speak out to denounce their own abuses, violence sometimes experienced many years before, and that they dared to personalize the lyrics of “A rapist in your path”. They made an audio-visual record to reinforce these denunciations and recorded those who appropriated the lyrics in order to tell it or sing it in the first person.
Many other participants resonated especially with the last stanza that was added for the occasion: “We don’t want your people to represent Me / In the Constituent Assembly / We must be present / The rapist is you / The rapist is you / The rapist is you”, as a direct allusion to the fact that until today the politicians who signed the Peace Agreement and for a New Constitution have not been able to agree on equal participation between men and women in its drafting.
They dressed all the women in black, painted their mouth red and wore a red scarf around their necks, blindfolded. And in spite of belonging to a generation that knows about social struggles because it is the generation that got rid of the military, to which they are the protagonists of the 30 years of that pseudo neoliberal democracy from which Chile says it has already awakened, those women whose place has been taken by the young feminists today, were encouraged today to go out again to dance and chant together – with a powerful voice – the stanzas that denounce the patriarchy and the different forms of violence against women.
The massive intervention forced to stop the traffic on Grecia Avenue since the thousands of women not only occupied all the sidewalks that allow the entrance to the stadium, but also both roads of the street.
After the intervention, Marcela Betancourt, spokeswoman for the conveners, told us: “We want to participate equally in the constituent convention, we want to put an end to human rights violations, particularly against women,” she said. “The transformation must be feminist. If it’s not feminist, it’s not a real social transformation,” she said, “especially since this senior generation has had to endure many abuses: How did we allow this to happen? This new generation teaches us that we will never be alone again,” she said.
Here is Claudia Aranda’s photo-report:
Translation Pressenza London
Videos also by Claudia Aranda: [Rough translation of the lyrics:
Patriarchy is a judge,/that judges us for being born/ and our punishment/is the violence you don’t see.
Patriarchy is a judge,/that judges us for being born/and our punishment/is the violence you already see.
It’s femicide/Impunity for the murderer/It’s the disappearance/It’s the rape
And it wasn’t my fault, or where I was, or how I was dressed.
And it wasn’t my fault, or where I was, or how I was dressed.
And it wasn’t my fault, or where I was, or how I was dressed.
And it wasn’t my fault, or where I was, or how I wore it.
The rapist was you./The rapist is you./They’re the cops./The judges/The State/The President/The oppressive state is a male rapist./The oppressive state is a male rapist.
The rapist was you./The rapist is you.
Sleep easy, innocent girl,/without worrying about the bandit,/that by your sweet dreams/and smiling candle your carabinieri lover.
You are the rapist/The rapist is you./The rapist is you./The rapist is you.]
