How #MeToo puts us, women, at risk.

Author: Raquel Varela, Historian, Researcher and University Professor

These days another scandal of alleged sexual harassment has filled the pages of newspapers, in particular Público, which is the one that has denounced the case the most, and which treats it as an accusation of "rape". On Cristina Martins' Facebook, and in two articles by the jazz musicians Leonel Santos and Ricardo Fortunato - I don't know either of them, or those involved - I read that the case of "rape" is that of a pianist who arranged a date with a DJ on social networks, where they arranged consensual sex, and he took off the condom. It is the case of "rape". He was not her teacher at the Hot Club, nor was she a music student. They did not know each other.

I confess that I am conservative. I have never "marked" sex in my life, much less on social media. I have always thought that sex is born from desire after a dinner looking at the moon. The most libertarian thing I read about sex was written by Alexandra Kollontai, in the heat of the Russian revolution of 1917, and that was where I focused on the theory of sex.

Anyone who has been the victim of attempted rape knows that calling an arranged date for sex "rape" makes you gag. Rape is one of the most heinous crimes in existence. In one year, according to the PJ, more than 300 women were raped. It is ignoble to use the name of this crime for situations that are not even a crime. It might be a crime to take off a condom, which I find shameless, serious, at the very least, but it is not rape. Period.

The seriousness comes from afar. Boaventura Sousa Santos - with whom I have always theoretically disagreed - was burned in a public square, with long petitions and was never charged or tried, he had to ask to be charged in order to defend himself because there was no complaint in court against him. He did not invalidate a woman who says that he invited her to dinner and to go to his house, she said no, he insisted, she said no, and he left, this was treated as an attempted rape, even reaching the televisions. The emails she sent him also reached social networks, which reported a friendly exchange about a nice dinner and that she asked him for money to finance books.

Why is all this so serious? Because Boaventura has already been removed from the various positions he held, from academic examinations, from juries, from scientific committees. The accused pianist, without Boaventura's retirement, saw his contracts broken and perhaps his career destroyed. The newspaper Público asked itself in this case, as in others, why the accused professors would continue teaching?

What!? Now the newspapers are firing workers? Is there no trial, no evidence, no prosecution and no defence? We are faced with a suspension of the rule of law, promoted by the accusers and by the newspapers.

With the silence of the parties and institutions: where is the MP, the justice unions, the Bar Association in the face of this suspension of rights, freedoms and guarantees of the accused? Are they afraid and responding to pressure from social networks and newspapers instead of guaranteeing the law and freedom?

The delirium is total. Susana Peralta argued in the same newspaper that teachers and students - adults - should be prohibited from having relations in universities and should inform the Rector. Someone told her that there is no shortage of happy marriages between them. And that - the most important thing - after the Father and the Priest, the Boss, in this case the Rector, cannot enter the bed of two adults, because the law, fortunately, does not allow it. Only in the feudal world and in the fascist dictatorship did the Boss decide with whom women slept or not.

The second reason why all this is very serious is that by reading these emails, without questioning their veracity, all women are discredited. Because the scandal is built around an invitation to dinner without any kind of coercion, a connection or a "date" to have sex. And the cases of rape - more than 300 - are covered with 3 lines in Correio da Manhã.

Soon, if we continue with these scandals, and remain silent out of "fear", no raped woman who files a complaint will be taken seriously. The old story of the wolf. The #MeToo , which embodies the fight for women to reach the top of companies, after the crisis of 2008, when companies themselves wanted to reduce costs, puts us increasingly in danger.

All proposals to combat sexual violence against women are subject to a network of puritanical antics: complaint boxes, usually anonymous, of course, petitions that are real pillories, to be monitored and punished. A police officer and a complaint for every woman, in short, this is #MeToo , but only when it comes to desirable places in academia, business and culture. If it is a nurse or a worker who comes home at 4 in the morning, savagely raped, the subject does not even make it into the newspapers.

Sexual harassment exists. It exists with and without complaint boxes because workplaces are infested with uncooperative relationships and, above all, without employment. The Portuguese economy - dependent capitalism - does not absorb academic and cultural frameworks. There is no work. There is a fight of all against all for the few available places and scarce funding. Individual complaints instead of collective struggle for full employment has been the motto.

I do not want to live in a repressive society that demands a police officer for every woman and a whistleblower for every worker. A far-right policy demands complaint boxes, police, repression and pillories. A left-wing policy demands education, cooperation and transformation of working and living conditions. A policy of fear, of accusation, without trial is far-right, even when it is designed to save women and has the support of #MeToo and many signatures.

A left-wing policy is a policy of creating conditions for people to be free in relationships. Democratic management of workplaces with elected hierarchies and shorter working hours is necessary. Doing away with the top management of companies, whether it is occupied by women or men, is the superpower that must be questioned. It is urgent to put an end to non-essential night work. Create safe neighbourhoods instead of dormitories, two hours from work. And of course, humanised neighbourhoods, with bookstores, a theatre and an open café so that everyone can dance, touch each other, listen to jazz, and not have to schedule sex through social networks, which are the opposite of sociability, I sincerely believe would help create more equal and free relationships.