The violent murder of two Argentinian tourists in Ecuador’s beachside party town, Montañita, has divided the country in a social media debate that tells a story of the profound misogyny and gender inequality still present in our society.
On one side, there are those who blame the girls for their tragic end. “Why did they travel alone? What were they thinking going to a place known for its hippy (read ‘drugs’) lifestyle?” In other words, their choices led to their murders, not the murderers themselves.
Someone close to the government wrote on Twitter that the victims had it coming. Walking around in their tiny bikinis while high, what did they expect?
The person who wrote this is a woman.
Ecuadorian feminists turned to Facebook and Twitter, pointing fingers at their society for its misogynistic mentality in claiming women do not have the right to enjoy their lives as they see fit.
Bloggers came from every corner to inform the social media world that they were also “women who travel alone,” providing explicit details of their bold adventures around the world.
Others have tried to take advantage of the situation. One local journalist who, in hopes of getting her fifteen minutes of fame, appropriated and retold the story as if she had been the one assaulted and murdered.
Last but not least, after some controversial declarations to the German press in which she (again, a woman) blamed the victims and their parents, Ecuador’s Minister of Tourism had to step down from her position.
Last December, I went to visit my family in Ecuador. The temperatures were reaching the upper 90s in my hometown, the coastal town of Guayaquil. When invited to walk downtown, I chose to wear a light summer dress.
Undressing me with his eyes, a man walking by whispered something demeaning accompanied by disgusting gestures and sounds. I yelled at him. My mom grabbed me by my arm and forced me to keep walking.
The rest of the people on the street looked at me as if I were a madwoman.
I was the insane person for defending my right to walk around dressed as I pleased without having someone rape me with their eyes. That man, well, he was just being a man.
As we celebrated International Women’s Day, I reflected on the never-ending plight of women around the world and realized there was so much I wanted to say and write about the subject that I didn’t even know where to begin. But in the end, I believe that all that I need to say can be summarized in one wish:
I wish for a world in which—when telling the story of how a stranger at a bar in Tennessee felt he had the right to grab my butt—instead of getting asked, “What were you wearing?,” one day they will ask me, “Did you punch the bastard?”
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Melanie Márquez Adams was born and raised in the coastal town of Guayaquil, Ecuador. She holds a Masters in Liberal Arts and is a regular contributor to Miami-based online magazine La Nota Latina. Her short story “Appalachian Ballad” was recently published in the bilingual anthology Nos pasamos de la raya / We crossed the line. Adams lives in Tennessee’s Appalachian region and is currently working on a collection of short stories and co-editing an anthology of Andean authors.