This article was originally published on the website of the Hay Festival - here. 

#MeToo altered the global conversation on harassment and sexual assault: but its impact is still unclear. In the first of two panels on the topic during the festival, author Lydia Cacho, writer Wenceslao Bruciaga, and illustrator Maria Hesse - in discussion with Gabriela Jauregui - sat down yesterday evening (5 September) to discuss what it means for the Spanish-speaking world, from Mexico to Spain, and where that momentum might take us next.

The wave of revelations, which began nearly a year ago, changed our perception of what constitutes normality, said Maria Hesse: “Things we took to be just a part of daily life, but now many men have started to question themselves.” “It has brought on a crisis of heterosexuality,” Bruciaga said.

Women have been emboldened worldwide by the revelations of common experience, and the momentum needs to be maintained and supported; as Cacho explained: “Before, women didn’t dare speak - now they can because others dare to: those of us with access to the public narrative should support and help them.”

Though the scale of visibility is unprecedented, the facts are nothing new: the difference is who is speaking – actresses and famous women, accusing powerful men. These are allegations which have been made by campaigners, campesina activists, and Latina women both in Mexico across the border: “For Mexico, #MeToo was simply reliving what we have already known for many years.”

These issues have finally been put on the table and the solidarity is invaluable, but the debate must be relocated to focus on those without privilege: undocumented, oppressed, and vulnerable women. Genuine and meaningful solidarity is already being seen, says Cacho, and change is happening at all levels – “there has been a forceful echo throughout the world.”

Social media has been key in spreading the message, but can be a double-edged sword, said Bruciaga: it isn’t necessarily the answer, and often enables the spread of abuse. Cacho added that it is simply another tool of communication which reflects the societies and individuals who use them: “They reflect that we are violent societies.”
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The panelists concluded that hope lies in pursuing justice through criminal prosecution, as well as a holistic education: “We all need to listen and learn,” said Hesse.

This article was originally published on the website of the Hay Festival - here. 

“Men are not born men, they are turned into men,” said the author and journalist, referring to the socialisation of young boys, often characterised by cruelty and repression. She rejected gender essentialism, on the grounds that science has disproven ideas of inbuilt masculinity: “There is no machista chip in the brain.”

Cacho spoke about the toxic effects of this socialisation for how men relate to women, as well as other men: “Men are afraid of other men, particularly in Mexico.” She criticised the excuses given to men for misogyny and aggression, like loss of control or being a ‘man of one’s time’: “It often just means they are supermachista.”

#EllosHablan is Cacho’s 14th book: a collection of detailed interviews with men from a variety of social, religious, and ideological backgrounds. These men anonymously shared their experiences of maleness and manhood, from childhood onwards: when they were first told they were male, when they became ‘boys’, what that meant to them – and what it means for them now.

Cacho explained how she had decided to remove herself from the narrative as interviewer, leaving only the voices of her interviewees. This was key in a context where they have felt unable to speak, silenced by the expectation that men do not articulate suffering or vulnerability: “Machismo closes its doors to those to open up,” she said.

When asked by Lafuente whether she was optimistic, the author described the often-moving emotional development she saw in her interviewees: “The hope lies in men talking more.”

Only one month ago, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that Cacho’s own human rights had been violated by the Mexican State in 2003 when she suffered arbitrary detention, torture, and gender-based violence following the publication of her book, ‘Demons of Eden’, an exposé of child exploitation in the state of Quintana Roo.
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“This book constitutes a question: how will we do it? How will we overcome this power?”

Emily HH
Founder, Writer, Editor at Writing Rights

Yesterday, I went to Downing Street, fake blood smeared on my face, to protest period poverty. Silence, squeamishness, and dismissal of issues which relate to menstruation create real consequences for Britain's women and girls.  

The protest called on Theresa May to provide free sanitary products to girls in schools who are already on free school meals.

This article originally appeared on the International Development Journal

​“In an increasingly connected world, women are being left behind,’ says the State of Broadband Report, and the digital gender divide not only far too wide, but is actually widening, from 11% fewer women online than men in 2012 to 12% in 2015. It is a disparity more pronounced in low and lower-middle income countries.