Mimi wrote:
But you seem to be asking for an understanding that your society, way of life, priorities should be different from that of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Western PC culture’ that is ‘infecting’ your way of life, but it’s perhaps one of the tenets of a more understanding (‘PC’, if you will) way of seeing things that asks people to step back and say ‘I understand your way of life may have different values...’. Otherwise you might write whole nations off as savages for their differences. Unfortunately sexual assault is slightly different in that speaking up is still taboo... here in the UK as much as many other places, and you, whether from UK, Portugal, anywhere else should perhaps not make a call on the worthiness of a victim for the abuse they have suffered, or the point at which, or age at which, somethjng becomes inappropriate, affecting, life changing... Portuguese victims of sexual harassment need space and support to say ‘this happened to me and is wrong’ as much as anybody else on the planet if they need to. You, with your experiences, say you have no need, and that’s good that you have moved on unaffected, but war, famine, oppressive regimes, natural disaster... whatever ‘big’ and nationally awful things that might happen to a nation may not eclipse the awful things that might affect people on a personal level, but rather add on to it. An extreme example, but somebody raped during an occupation of their homeland does not get over the rape because their country is suffering on a large scale.
Of course not, because rape is rape and rape is terrible. But rape isn't what this is about.
I'm complaining, but for some reason i still read The Guardian when it comes to world news. Don't know why I would read something so skewed. The last week there was an article about how a judge here in portugal pardoned a wife beater because the wife was being unfaithful. They painted Portugal as a land of savages that don't respect women. They "forgot" to point out two things:
a) This judge pardoned a women last year who shot her husband (attempted homicide, in this case) because he was being unfaithful. So his deal was against adultery and not against women.
b) There was rightly an huge uproar by everyone, and the judge was stripped of his powers and put on trial (which is still going on and it's still one of the hottest topics in the news these days).
The Guardian wrote like this is "business as usual here". But well, I like the comments on The Guardian's football news, so that's why i still go there.