A viral video of around 100 male university students shouting sexist abuses in the direction of an all-female college in Spain has sparked massive outrage across the world.
The video, shared by a Spanish politician Rita Maestre on Twitter, showed roughly 40 windows opening all at once revealing young men from the Elías Ahuja hall of residence shouting obscene insults at female students in the neighbouring block. They called the women in the Santa Mónica hall “w****s” and “f*****g nymphomaniacs” and told them to come “out of your dens like rabbits”. The abuses were accompanied by roars and cheers.
Rita Maestre, the spokesperson for Más Madrid, a political party, condemned them in a tweet: “Then they will wonder why we are afraid of the street.”
The college released a public statement on Wednesday calling the behaviour “unacceptable, incomprehensible and inadmissible in society.”
The college also said it would offer public apologies and ensure that the student body attended mandatory gender equality classes.
Reports state that the ringleader of the incident has been expelled.
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez heavily criticised the episode saying it was important to send a “united and common message of rejection of these machista behaviours which are unexplainable, unjustifiable and absolutely repugnant.”
"We should not take a step back in everything related to the real and effective equality between men and women,” he told media in Prague.
“It’s especially painful to see the protagonists are young people," the Prime Minister said, as reported by The Guardian.
The episode was “the clearest proof” of the need for education on sexual consent, said Spain’s equality minister, Irene Montero. Sexual education would help young people to "learn about the culture of consent so that we can stop reinforcing the culture of rape and sexual terror that makes women into sexual objects", the minister said.
Spanish news outlet El Público reported that the sexist chants were a tradition at the school and also alleged that students there have sung songs using Nazi salutes.
In August this year, the Spanish government passed a “only yes means yes” bill, which ensures any sex that takes place without clear consent can now be prosecuted as rape. Prior to the bill, rape victims needed to prove that they had been subjected to violence or intimidation.
Spain toughened its rape laws in a move driven by its left-wing government following a notorious gang rape of an 18-year-old woman in 2016 by five men at the bull-running festival in Pamplona, northern Spain.
The men, who were initially convicted of “sexual abuse” and not rape, had filmed the assault, during which the woman is shown silent – which the judges had interpreted as consent.
In 2019, the Supreme Court in the country overturned the verdict, convicting all five of rape and increasing their sentences from nine years to 15 years each.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – a self-described feminist – had vowed to introduce a law on consent aimed at removing ambiguity in rape cases when he took office in June 2018.
AFP reported that the new law also tightens the rules on street harassment, expands emotional and sexual education in schools and strengthens protection and compensation for victims of sexual violence.
(With inputs from AFP)