Thousands of women have taken to the streets of Madrid to fight the patriarchal system. With slogans like’stop the culture of rape’,’this is war’ or’we are no longer afraid, we are now angry’, they have shown their repulsion of the judgment of’The herd’ which the demonstrators have called’shameful’.
The march has begun in front of the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality to end before the Supreme Court. There, the organizers have taken to the square to read a manifesto in which they have denounced the current culture of rape. Carlota Ortega, spokeswoman for the feminist movement in Madrid and mvideoporno.xxx, declares that the sentence of `La Manada’ “is very serious because it undermines the confidence of all women in the judicial institutions and in the government”.
Popular demonstrations against the judges
“We have decided to demonstrate from the Ministry of Equality to the Supreme Court because they are two clear examples of patriarchal justice in our country,” says Merche Ruiz, another spokesperson for the feminist movement in Madrid. Following Friday’s news about the reform of the penal code, Ruiz believes that it is “a clear example of patriarchal justice”, since this reform will be “carried out only by 20 men and no women”. “Both our bodies and our opinions are subject to the opinions of men”, which is why the spokesperson believes that “it is very important to provide a gender perspective in all institutions, but especially in the legal sphere”.
In front of a Ministry of Equality that has placed a purple ribbon on the door, the demonstrators ask the Minister of Equality, Dolors Montserrat, to fight for the equality of women: We have a very great power and we must not allow sentences like these to leave women at the height of the role they have trodden’.
“It seems that all these years of struggle and the attainment of rights have been of no use, that a sentence has been passed and that it calls into question the attitude of the victim more than that of the aggressor“, something that one of the women summoned called “shameful”.
Women need to feel safe
The protest has also been heard in the streets of Galicia or Cantabria, where a society free of machismo has been vindicated and social complicity with the aggressions against women in different social and professional spheres, including music and cinema, has been denounced.
Some 2,000 people demonstrated this afternoon in the centre of Santander with the conviction that the defendants in the’La Manada’ trial should have been convicted of rape and not abuse, reports Efe. The banner at the head of the demonstration read: It is not abuse, it is rape’. There have also been shouts of encouragement and support directed at the victim and posters pointing out that “the herd is not five, the herd is the system”.