Post by Bozur on Jun 29, 2017 22:30:29 GMT -5
28 Jun 17
Bulgarian Women Don’t Need the Protection of ‘Patriots’
Elitza Stanoeva
While Bulgarian ‘patriots’ apparently feel an urge to ‘defend’ Bulgarian women from various ‘threats’ from the outside world, the real abuse inflicted on them by Bulgarian men continues to be exonerated by appeals to the same patriarchal values.
Street of Bulgarian capital Sofia.
Photo: Ulitsa Ignatiev.Flickr
A few years ago, I was at a bar with a friend talking about a trip I had taken with my boyfriend, easily identifiable as a foreigner by his name. Suddenly, a stranger sitting close by turned uninvited to give me condescending “advice” on my relationship along the lines of, “If you date foreigners, all you’ll get is to be f**ked and dumped”.
While this certainly pales by comparison to watching your beloved being beaten up by Bulgarian men in the street simply for being a foreigner, I still remember feeling chilled by the fact that a man who did not know my name, let alone anything about me as a person, found it within his rights to judge my choice of partner.
Unlike this stranger that I had nothing in common with, apart from nationality, the person he “rejected” was the one with whom I shared my thoughts, dreams, my home – everything significant and intimate that makes me the person I am. I cannot even start to imagine how such an invasion of your private life by a “patriot” hurts and infuriates you when it is executed through street violence.
Indeed, some of the most serious hate crimes in recent years in Sofia have targeted dark-skinned men in the company of their Bulgarian wives or girlfriends. All these attacks seemed to be triggered by a sense of “infringement” of Bulgarian men’s “birth rights” over Bulgarian women.
This assertion of exclusive rights over women’s decisions was bluntly conveyed in graffiti adorning Sofia for many years that roughly translated as, “Bulgarian men, do not let your daughters date foreigners.”
If, back then, this was a somewhat marginal message, lately we’ve witnessed a surge in xenophobic machismo in the official public discourse that centres on weird word combinations such as “our homeland, our women”, “our borders, our women”, “our security, our women”.
While this recent rhetoric focuses mainly on refugees, the common thread is that only the privileged club of “patriots” should decide on what is best for the “fairer sex”. Fairer above all in judgement, life choices and ultimately capacity to be independent actors of their own lives.
The paradox is that while Bulgarian “patriots” feel the urge to “defend” Bulgarian women from imaginary wrongs perpetrated by their foreigner partners, real abuse inflicted on them by Bulgarian men can easily be exonerated by the very same patriarchal values.
To mention just one among many shocking cases in recent years, a girl was splashed with five litres of paint by her ex-boyfriend and his friends, who also filmed the attack and posted the footage online. She barely survived this monstrous act of violence, suffering severe burns, damaged eyesight and deep psychological trauma. The perpetrators, by contrast, were charged with hooliganism and sentenced to fines of around 750 euros [1,500 leva].
The media, meanwhile, did not shy away from coverage that highlighted the victim’s alleged infidelity or from headlines quoting the attacker’s statement of no regrets. The victim was not even spared the circulation of the horrifying footage by media outlets. Given the shameful tone of the reports, it is hardly a surprise that news forums were dominated by applause for those who had “administered justice”.
Militant patriotism and violence
If the link between militant patriotism, patriarchal values and violence against women still seems random, consider Dinko Valev, the latest “patriotic hero” who organises vigilante groups to “hunt migrants” along Bulgaria’s borders.
Valev reappeared in the news recently, accused of systematically battering his girlfriend who has reportedly been in and out of hospital many times.
While justified as a selfless act of chivalry, this “patriotic defence of our women” seems more like a protection racket. The last time I was pulled into a debate on the topic, I was told that the term “our” simply signals affection. Well, when affection is not reciprocated but forced on the object of affection, we all know what the proper term for that is.
The attacks against women in Cologne during the 2016 New Year celebrations stirred yet another wave of macho xenophobia in Bulgaria.
Well-meaning politicians, many of whom seem convinced that feminism is a product of Western decadence, or a lesbian plot, and that deep down every “normal woman” craves reassurance that a brave man will shield her from the threats of the world, did exactly this. Full of pathos, they reassured “their” women – mothers, daughters, wives and sisters because what else are women but relatives of men? – that they would watch over them.
Macho patriots – the same type that feel justified when punishing “cheating whores” – joined the chorus, pledging to act as a human shield between Bulgarian women and foreign [this time, Muslim] men.
Public intellectuals and even jurists jumped on the bandwagon and embraced this rhetoric of tribal self-defence, criticising the German government, police and media for doing their job by launching a criminal investigation into the attacks rather than engaging in xenophobic purges of migrants.
Strangely, ideas about equality did not shape the “debate” that followed. Instead, the overall message boiled down to: “Muslims are barbaric, we are enlightened and civilized. They don’t let their women drive, we do let ours, we also let them join the army and enter politics [not that it’s any of their business but we let them anyway]”. And each time a woman would sarcastically inquire “You let us?”, a true macho just cannot grasp what provoked her to raise an eyebrow.
Home-grown sexual violence
Then something unexpected happened. For a brief moment, Bulgarian women had enough of this double-faced “chivalry”. Social media brimmed with angry accounts from women of home-grown male disrespect and of the violence they have endured or witnessed.
Given the persistence of patriarchal values, domestic violence still evaded the sympathy of many – with arguments such as “she must have deserved it” or “what happens at home is private”. But one recurring theme was groping at school – a humiliating “initiation” that generations of Bulgarian girls are forced to endure day after day, which teachers dismiss as a “natural part” of growing up.
Maybe some perceive it to be educational – learning your place in your community from early on. In primary school, this place is your desk. During the break, you either sit patiently at it or venture into the boy-owned “public realm” of the school [corridors, playground, canteen] at your own risk, to be aggressively groped at every step you make.
The prospect of sexual assault hovered in my mind as a dark cloud at every stage of my youth. In primary school, it was groping inside the school, then the occasional slap on the backside by a boy my age on the street. By the age of 12, when I was still playing with dolls and Lego, I had already learnt to cross the street pre-emptively each time I saw a group of boys walking towards me in broad daylight.
As a teenager, I lived with the constant panic that I would be raped eventually – which happened to several of my close friends. I often dwelled on this horrifying prospect and tried to convince myself that if it came to it, I would have to survive it, that I should not allow a monster take away my will and right to keep on living.
Meanwhile, I learnt to be on alert at all times, fully aware that this might not be enough. I had a few occasions when I ran as fast as I could, when I hid in random buildings too embarrassed to ring the bell of a stranger’s flat, when my heart was pounding with the terrifying thought: “It is happening, my worst nightmare is in the car that is following me”.
At university, I learnt to ignore catcalls from all-male groups hanging out in bars. Yet it always astonished me how much rage was unleashed by my passive reaction – just walking on without a blink, not hastening my pace, not turning around, not looking scared over my shoulder. Not responding in any way verbally or bodily – thus not showing fear or respect for their incontestable male dominance. The initial crude remarks were followed by violent obscenities, curses and the mandatory: “Bitch, who do you think you are?”
The recollections of such everyday abuse – and much worse – shared by Bulgarian women after the surge in machismo that followed the Cologne attacks passed unnoticed by the media. The media merely continued to invite male politicians and public intellectuals to explain how they would protect “their” women.
And the chance for an open debate that for too long has been urgent yet absent was lost. After all, it is far easier to pass judgement on societies you are unfamiliar with than to look into your own and admit responsibility for its ills.
In Bulgaria, as elsewhere, sexual violence is a terrifying reality for an astonishingly high percentage of women and yet it remains invisible as it is rarely reported. As long as it remains unreported, it is not a societal problem – and as long as it is not discussed and tackled as a societal problem, it will remain largely unreported.
And hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian women will go through its horrors on their own. Just like those who fall prey to domestic violence – otherwise they might be branded hysterical for bothering people with details of their “intimate life”. As if there could be anything intimate about violence, be it domestic or not.
Crime becomes our social responsibility when we cultivate public attitudes and cultural norms of acceptability. In this, the political elite, the mass media and society at large bear responsibility for reinforcing patterns of crime and hate by not condemning them outright.
By presenting human rights violations as acts of heroism, by normalizing an attacker’s “reasons” for a despicable crime, by suppressing the grievances of victims of aggression as a private matter, we – not an external they – become a collective agent of violence.
www.balkaninsight.com/en/blog/bulgarian-women-don-t-need-the-protection-of-patriots--06-28-2017
Bulgarian Women Don’t Need the Protection of ‘Patriots’
Elitza Stanoeva
While Bulgarian ‘patriots’ apparently feel an urge to ‘defend’ Bulgarian women from various ‘threats’ from the outside world, the real abuse inflicted on them by Bulgarian men continues to be exonerated by appeals to the same patriarchal values.
Street of Bulgarian capital Sofia.
Photo: Ulitsa Ignatiev.Flickr
A few years ago, I was at a bar with a friend talking about a trip I had taken with my boyfriend, easily identifiable as a foreigner by his name. Suddenly, a stranger sitting close by turned uninvited to give me condescending “advice” on my relationship along the lines of, “If you date foreigners, all you’ll get is to be f**ked and dumped”.
While this certainly pales by comparison to watching your beloved being beaten up by Bulgarian men in the street simply for being a foreigner, I still remember feeling chilled by the fact that a man who did not know my name, let alone anything about me as a person, found it within his rights to judge my choice of partner.
Unlike this stranger that I had nothing in common with, apart from nationality, the person he “rejected” was the one with whom I shared my thoughts, dreams, my home – everything significant and intimate that makes me the person I am. I cannot even start to imagine how such an invasion of your private life by a “patriot” hurts and infuriates you when it is executed through street violence.
Indeed, some of the most serious hate crimes in recent years in Sofia have targeted dark-skinned men in the company of their Bulgarian wives or girlfriends. All these attacks seemed to be triggered by a sense of “infringement” of Bulgarian men’s “birth rights” over Bulgarian women.
This assertion of exclusive rights over women’s decisions was bluntly conveyed in graffiti adorning Sofia for many years that roughly translated as, “Bulgarian men, do not let your daughters date foreigners.”
If, back then, this was a somewhat marginal message, lately we’ve witnessed a surge in xenophobic machismo in the official public discourse that centres on weird word combinations such as “our homeland, our women”, “our borders, our women”, “our security, our women”.
While this recent rhetoric focuses mainly on refugees, the common thread is that only the privileged club of “patriots” should decide on what is best for the “fairer sex”. Fairer above all in judgement, life choices and ultimately capacity to be independent actors of their own lives.
The paradox is that while Bulgarian “patriots” feel the urge to “defend” Bulgarian women from imaginary wrongs perpetrated by their foreigner partners, real abuse inflicted on them by Bulgarian men can easily be exonerated by the very same patriarchal values.
To mention just one among many shocking cases in recent years, a girl was splashed with five litres of paint by her ex-boyfriend and his friends, who also filmed the attack and posted the footage online. She barely survived this monstrous act of violence, suffering severe burns, damaged eyesight and deep psychological trauma. The perpetrators, by contrast, were charged with hooliganism and sentenced to fines of around 750 euros [1,500 leva].
The media, meanwhile, did not shy away from coverage that highlighted the victim’s alleged infidelity or from headlines quoting the attacker’s statement of no regrets. The victim was not even spared the circulation of the horrifying footage by media outlets. Given the shameful tone of the reports, it is hardly a surprise that news forums were dominated by applause for those who had “administered justice”.
Militant patriotism and violence
If the link between militant patriotism, patriarchal values and violence against women still seems random, consider Dinko Valev, the latest “patriotic hero” who organises vigilante groups to “hunt migrants” along Bulgaria’s borders.
Valev reappeared in the news recently, accused of systematically battering his girlfriend who has reportedly been in and out of hospital many times.
While justified as a selfless act of chivalry, this “patriotic defence of our women” seems more like a protection racket. The last time I was pulled into a debate on the topic, I was told that the term “our” simply signals affection. Well, when affection is not reciprocated but forced on the object of affection, we all know what the proper term for that is.
The attacks against women in Cologne during the 2016 New Year celebrations stirred yet another wave of macho xenophobia in Bulgaria.
Well-meaning politicians, many of whom seem convinced that feminism is a product of Western decadence, or a lesbian plot, and that deep down every “normal woman” craves reassurance that a brave man will shield her from the threats of the world, did exactly this. Full of pathos, they reassured “their” women – mothers, daughters, wives and sisters because what else are women but relatives of men? – that they would watch over them.
Macho patriots – the same type that feel justified when punishing “cheating whores” – joined the chorus, pledging to act as a human shield between Bulgarian women and foreign [this time, Muslim] men.
Public intellectuals and even jurists jumped on the bandwagon and embraced this rhetoric of tribal self-defence, criticising the German government, police and media for doing their job by launching a criminal investigation into the attacks rather than engaging in xenophobic purges of migrants.
Strangely, ideas about equality did not shape the “debate” that followed. Instead, the overall message boiled down to: “Muslims are barbaric, we are enlightened and civilized. They don’t let their women drive, we do let ours, we also let them join the army and enter politics [not that it’s any of their business but we let them anyway]”. And each time a woman would sarcastically inquire “You let us?”, a true macho just cannot grasp what provoked her to raise an eyebrow.
Home-grown sexual violence
Then something unexpected happened. For a brief moment, Bulgarian women had enough of this double-faced “chivalry”. Social media brimmed with angry accounts from women of home-grown male disrespect and of the violence they have endured or witnessed.
Given the persistence of patriarchal values, domestic violence still evaded the sympathy of many – with arguments such as “she must have deserved it” or “what happens at home is private”. But one recurring theme was groping at school – a humiliating “initiation” that generations of Bulgarian girls are forced to endure day after day, which teachers dismiss as a “natural part” of growing up.
Maybe some perceive it to be educational – learning your place in your community from early on. In primary school, this place is your desk. During the break, you either sit patiently at it or venture into the boy-owned “public realm” of the school [corridors, playground, canteen] at your own risk, to be aggressively groped at every step you make.
The prospect of sexual assault hovered in my mind as a dark cloud at every stage of my youth. In primary school, it was groping inside the school, then the occasional slap on the backside by a boy my age on the street. By the age of 12, when I was still playing with dolls and Lego, I had already learnt to cross the street pre-emptively each time I saw a group of boys walking towards me in broad daylight.
As a teenager, I lived with the constant panic that I would be raped eventually – which happened to several of my close friends. I often dwelled on this horrifying prospect and tried to convince myself that if it came to it, I would have to survive it, that I should not allow a monster take away my will and right to keep on living.
Meanwhile, I learnt to be on alert at all times, fully aware that this might not be enough. I had a few occasions when I ran as fast as I could, when I hid in random buildings too embarrassed to ring the bell of a stranger’s flat, when my heart was pounding with the terrifying thought: “It is happening, my worst nightmare is in the car that is following me”.
At university, I learnt to ignore catcalls from all-male groups hanging out in bars. Yet it always astonished me how much rage was unleashed by my passive reaction – just walking on without a blink, not hastening my pace, not turning around, not looking scared over my shoulder. Not responding in any way verbally or bodily – thus not showing fear or respect for their incontestable male dominance. The initial crude remarks were followed by violent obscenities, curses and the mandatory: “Bitch, who do you think you are?”
The recollections of such everyday abuse – and much worse – shared by Bulgarian women after the surge in machismo that followed the Cologne attacks passed unnoticed by the media. The media merely continued to invite male politicians and public intellectuals to explain how they would protect “their” women.
And the chance for an open debate that for too long has been urgent yet absent was lost. After all, it is far easier to pass judgement on societies you are unfamiliar with than to look into your own and admit responsibility for its ills.
In Bulgaria, as elsewhere, sexual violence is a terrifying reality for an astonishingly high percentage of women and yet it remains invisible as it is rarely reported. As long as it remains unreported, it is not a societal problem – and as long as it is not discussed and tackled as a societal problem, it will remain largely unreported.
And hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian women will go through its horrors on their own. Just like those who fall prey to domestic violence – otherwise they might be branded hysterical for bothering people with details of their “intimate life”. As if there could be anything intimate about violence, be it domestic or not.
Crime becomes our social responsibility when we cultivate public attitudes and cultural norms of acceptability. In this, the political elite, the mass media and society at large bear responsibility for reinforcing patterns of crime and hate by not condemning them outright.
By presenting human rights violations as acts of heroism, by normalizing an attacker’s “reasons” for a despicable crime, by suppressing the grievances of victims of aggression as a private matter, we – not an external they – become a collective agent of violence.
www.balkaninsight.com/en/blog/bulgarian-women-don-t-need-the-protection-of-patriots--06-28-2017