Julian Guarani on the application to combat street harassment
IN RUBRIC "BUSINESS" we introduce readers to women of different professions and hobbies that we like or are simply interested in. In this issue, we’ll talk with Julian Guarani, who invented the Whistleblower Women app, which will allow victims of street harassment and domestic violence to send a message with a request for help at the touch of a button.
I lived in Brazil for thirty years, and street harassment was part of my daily life. And then I went to Denmark to study. And I saw all these incredibly beautiful men around - who did not even think about pestering girls. I suddenly felt that I could calmly walk along the street, without lowering my eyes, without making a fierce face, and not be afraid of anyone's harassment. Then, returning to Brazil, I somehow walked down the street, looked at the phone screen, and a guy came up to me and said: "Tits are awesome!" I yelled at him and he ran away. Then the story repeated, I was again "weighed a compliment" on the street, and I decided that I could no longer tolerate it.
Almost all of my friends came across this. Such an appeal has become part of the macho culture. These men in childhood, no one taught to respect women. But even those who know that it’s bad to pursue women still do it without thinking. It's very simple - how to "break" on a diet. Everyone knows that breaking a diet is bad, but they still do it because they don’t think, because they don’t care. People who send vulgar comments to the girls on the street do not even think about what these girls feel. A couple of years ago, I stopped going to the pool in my neighborhood in Sao Paulo after a guy like me stuck at the entrance. I began to carry a camera with me because she frightened off such people. Then I thought that an application that would allow shooting the abuser at the camera and posting the video on the Internet could already be useful. There are several applications for victims of street harassment. Many of them are just maps where you can leave tags with a description of your unpleasant experience. I want to release an application with a message function to a friend or a group of activists. Victims of domestic violence can also send a request for help. Their friends themselves can already call the police or come no help. I would really like to be able to directly send a message to the police. But for this you need to agree on cooperation with the police, which is not so simple. The map will be another function that will show the big picture, harassment statistics.
There is so much violence around that many girls are ready to put up with him and even consider vulgar comments in his address as compliments.
We have just started developing the application and are now writing to large organizations that could sponsor us further. The meaning of an application like Whistleblower Women, besides being able to call for help, is to show how many people are suffering from the violence around them. Because there is so much of it that many girls are ready to put up with him and even consider vulgar comments in his address as compliments. Now there are even women who allow themselves the same thing because they see how men do it.
Everyone saw the viral video "Hollaback" about a girl who walked 10 hours on the streets of New York. But soon after him another video came out, but with a handsome guy in the lead role. And they just screamed after him and pestered him. But this is no equality, but just a bad attitude towards people around. Disrespectful and traumatic. I would like to join forces with other groups that have created similar applications in their countries, and combine our maps to make the situation around the world appear.
Of course, in Europe, especially in North, street harassment is not as common as in Latin America. But there are some problems here too. One of the most serious is domestic violence. It is going on behind closed doors, and it is not customary to talk about it. You can run as many campaigns as you like, but still you cannot reach out to women who suffer from domestic violence. Because many of them condemn them and turn away from them because they allegedly chose such partners who beat them. It is difficult to explain to people that often a girl may not see any alternatives to her life with an aggressive partner. She may not know who to ask for help. We can really help such women if we show them that they have a chance to get rid of violence. But this is the hardest part of our entire project.
If a woman has money, she can make vital decisions herself and, for example, get away from her drunk husband
Unfortunately, poor and single women seem to be invisible to the rest of society, they are often not taken into account. This is not always the case: for example, the Bolsa Familia (Money for the Family) Brazil program is aimed primarily at women. This is a more practical approach: it’s known that an ordinary man simply drinks this money as soon as he receives it. A woman spends them on his entire family. Besides, if she has money, she can make vital decisions herself and leave her drunk husband if she wants. At first glance it seems that in Brazil the situation with women’s rights is not bad - we have not so few women in power, but this is not quite true. Women of previous generations have achieved a lot - they got the opportunity to work, sexual freedom and so on. And many said to themselves: "Everything, we have achieved what we wanted, and now the struggle is not needed." In our generation, it seems, there was some kind of rollback. We see more stupid stereotypes and sexist jokes, more and more we emphasize the difference between the sexes. This is taught from childhood. Girls are surrounded by all pink, they are trained only to dolls. My husband Marcello once bought three sets of “Lego” as a gift to his nephews, two girls and a boy. The boy, of course, immediately grabbed hold of him, the older girl looked askance: "Is that a designer? And I need to collect him?" - but the younger girl was just crazy about joy, poured all the parts on the floor and began to play them. Probably, she has not yet grown to her "pink" phase.
Now many are in favor of more girls going in to do science and engineering ... Women have taken certain roles in their work, but they stayed there, not moving any further. I worked for several years in the electronic edition of the magazine Veja - and in the technical department we did not have a single girlfriend. We jokingly called it the "garage". Of course, some kind of sexism in our relationship was - but I was older than many in the team and had seen enough in life not to pay attention to quarrels and attacks in my address. But my younger colleague was much harder to work with them, she was often simply ignored. I see why: with such an attitude, girls find it harder to succeed in technical professions, and many of them go where women are more. In Brazil, our huge problem is that people occupy diametrically opposed, radical points of view and do not want to put up with each other. I consider myself a moderate feminist and do not want to quarrel with anyone. But there are radical feminists who are called femi-nazis in Brazil. They want to build matriarchy, because they are confident that the world will be better if they are ruled by women. At the same time, they have a very important role - they draw attention to serious problems. They ask important questions: can we imagine a society ruled by women? Equality, in my opinion, is expressed in the fact that people in power are moving away for a while to the side, give steer to others. Should a woman declare that she does not want to live according to the established rules - for example, that she is a lesbian or prefers a family career - she is immediately threatened with a finger, they will say that she is wrong, and they will be asked: "Who will do the housework? "