A Worldwide #MeToo Protest that Began in Chile

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2019

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Three weeks ago, members of a Chilean feminist collective called Las Tesis put on blindfolds and party dresses and took to the streets. The festive atmosphere put their purpose in stark relief: the song they sang was “Un Violador En Tu Camino” (“A Rapist in Your Path”). It’s a sharp indictment of the Chilean police, against whom a hundred charges of sexual violence have been lodged since the beginning of the anti-government protests in October. The lyrics also target the patriarchy in general. The song might have remained a local phenomenon, but someone put it on Twitter, and, in the span of a few days, it became the anthem of women protesting sexism and violence throughout Latin America. A few days later, the protest was replicated in Paris and Berlin, and, shortly thereafter, in Istanbul, where it was shut down by police. The New Yorker’s Camila Osorio was recently in Chile and recounts the exciting story of the creation of a global movement.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a special episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Camila Osario is a fact-checker at the New Yorker, and she writes sometimes for us about Latin America. She's been covering political protests that are rocking Chile
0:22.0	as we speak. Here's Camilla. I was recently in Chile. I went after a protest erupted on October
0:28.9	18, and I was just fascinated by everything that was going on because it was really a protest that
0:35.4	was about rewriting what the country should be, should look like now.
0:43.2	People want to rewrite a new constitution, people want to change completely the economic system.
0:49.2	So I went there and I arrived to a place that was changed from what it had been. It was a place that was always
1:01.5	seen as the most stable country in Latin America. And suddenly, the streets were filled
1:07.0	with graffiti. Some sidewalks were completely destroyed because people had wanted
1:13.5	to get rocks in confrontations with the police. And the violence of the police has been really
1:21.5	striking. The police have been accused of killing at least six people since the protest started and injuring thousands as well, including more than 200 people that the police has shot in their eyes with projectiles.
1:39.8	And some have lost already one eye or even some two eyes.
1:45.1	But this violence has also been gendered.
1:47.9	There are several allegations of the police raping or forcing women to get naked in police jails and to squat down.
1:59.3	There have been more than 100 accusations of sexual violence
2:04.4	made against the police.
2:08.7	But in the middle of all of that violence, it has created so much rage, there's also something
2:14.5	quite creative that was born.
2:17.4	It happened on November 20th.
2:19.5	There was a group of women that organized a performance in the coastal city of Valparaiso,
2:24.7	performance about all of this violence that was going on against women.
2:28.9	So you see this big crowd of women.
2:33.2	They're like, it's kind of like a feminist line dance,
	...

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