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BLOG FREEDOM FOR WHOM? 10.07.2014
PANMELA CASTRO
POSTED: FEATURE
STREET ARTIST PANMELA CASTRO FROM RIO DE JANEIRO SHARES HER VISION ON BRAZILIAN GIRLS, SEX AND THE FIGHT FOR FEMALE FREEDOM
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Someone Like Me When I was a teenager in the late 1990s, the big question for us girls was whether we should keep our virginity. It was a much debated issue. Getting maried without our virginity was often regarded shameful. Because of this, many girls decided to keep their virginity. Myself? I decided to get rid of the burden of being a virgin as soon as I had opened my first affectionate relationship with a kiss. I think I was part of a group of girls who no longer cared so much about pleasing Prince Charming, but more about their own sexual discovery. Today, I can see that virginity is rare amongst the current generation of teenage girls in Brazil. It’s actually so rare that we often joke that girls are born without it. In a way, we’ve made a lot of progress towards doing what we want with our own bodies. However, the macho culture still prevails in Brazil, and today we face a much more complex question: to whom does our newly found sexual freedom allow more privileges? To women or men? What I see at many teenage parties is that young people feel the need to score. I see that girls nowadays feel obliged to get into relationships. They are afraid that if they don’t offer sex or don’t offer enough sex they will be rejected and replaced by a girl who does. Consequently, men also have the power to dictate whether or not they use a condom during sex to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy. This, rather than the lack of information on contraception, is probably the real explanation for the high teenage pregnancy rate in Brazil (71 out of every 1,000 newborn babies are born to teenage mothers). In Rio de Janeiro particularly, girls are very much influenced by sexist ‘funk carioca’ music, in which women are always presented as objects. It is also from this form of popular culture that powerful feminist artists like Valesca Popozuda (‘bigbutted Valesca’) or Tati ‘Quebra Barraco’ have emerged, whose lyrics include lines like ‘if I pay the motel, he does what I want’. Despite the leadership role taken by these feminists and their ability to hold their own, I find the way they subgujate women in their lyrics problematic – lyrics which have influenced generations of young people since I was a teenager. It’s not that I object to the idea of a woman using her body as a bargaining tool – on the contrary, I think we have a right to use it that way. I object to the fact that this is presented as the only way a women can gain power. We need to show young girls that there are other ways to take power in life. We need to show them that it is not just through sexual relationships or through submission that one can claim power. Girls have to love themselves the way they are; they have to value themselves based on what they like, on their personalities, on their
LATEST TWEETS Young people + @UNAIDS, @UNAIDS, @UNFPA, @GlobalFund, @WHO, @PEPFAR = #EndAdolescentAIDS
http://t.co/oDSEAv2E2N 7 minutes ago Study shows sexual coercion of girls is disturbingly common. http://t.co/TQbGSMsvs5 What can be done to change this? @NSPCC
About 1 hour ago “Pressure to have sex can be so strong, being coerced into having sex when you’re not ready becomes normal.” http://t.co/TQbGSMsvs5
About 3 hours ago Youth must be central to new campaign to end adolescent #AIDS! http://t.co/oDSEAv2E2N
About 6 hours ago . @MTVStayingAlive take a look back at @MTVEx stars #Chaz’ crazy bucking history!
http://t.co/yC669JKlD7 About 7 hours ago
intellectual activities and on everything else, so that they can be successful, free and dignified women. Today in Brazil, we women are still referred to as sluts, not only by men and but also by other women. It’s exactly because of this that we need to keep fighting to normalise a culture of freedom for women and their having control over their own bodies. Clique aqui para a versão Portugeuse.
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