Breathe
By Soledad Durazo
In 2019, I interviewed Pedro Haces Barba, then alternate senator for Morena and leader of the Autonomous Confederation of Workers and Employees of Mexico (CATEM), on my radio space. He had recently returned from a meeting of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the tripartite UN body that seeks to establish international labor standards and promote decent conditions for workers around the world. There, he said, they had discussed how "women's dress" could influence workplace harassment. His statement was not anecdotal: it was the beginning of a series of statements that, as a woman and a journalist, I could not let pass.
"They have to be a little less provocative in the work area," he said, in a didactic tone. "A lot of times [the woman] touches and then doesn't hold back." When I questioned him that this seemed to me a flimsy and frankly retrograde position, he insisted: "Many times we have women who are very young and who behave in a way that is not correct. Then that is used for harassment and we see it every day, Soledad".
Listening to these statements, I was overcome with a mixture of disbelief and dismay. It was as if, in the 21st century, we were going back to times when women were blamed for the assaults they suffered, based on their appearance or dress. I had to restrain myself to keep my composure and continue the interview in a professional manner.
The public's reaction was immediate. I received messages from listeners expressing their surprise and disapproval of the senator's comments. Even the person in his office who coordinated the interview sent me an incredulous message, questioning what I had just heard. Feminist organizations raised their voices, and the president of the Equity and Gender Commission in the Congress of the Union at the time, Wendy Briceño, issued a public condemnation.
Pedro Haces tried to clarify at the end of the conversation by saying that provocation by clothing "is mutual" and that harassment is committed by both men and women, but it was too late. It had become clear that, for him, women were partly to blame for the harassment they suffered.
Let's move forward to the present: Pedro Haces is once again at the center of the debate, now as deputy and key operator in the defense of Cuauhtémoc Blanco, ex-football player and ex-governor accused of attempted rape, sexual violence and organized crime. The Prosecutor's Office of Morelos had requested his removal from office so that he could be criminally prosecuted, but the Chamber of Deputies, with the support of Morena, the PRI and the PVEM, rejected the ruling. The argument? That the file was "poorly integrated".
Before the vote, Pedro Haces not only opposed the desafuero, but also had the nerve to declare himself "the most feminist" of all. "If there is anyone feminist, it has always been me," he said on the legislative floor. For anyone who listened to that 2019 interview, his words sound more like a bad joke than ideological conviction.
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