Shocking Video Of Male Students Verbally Abusing Women Sparks Outrage In Spain. In Spain, there has been a huge uproar following the stunning discovery of a video showing more than 100 male students yelling sexist epithets at an all-female institution. At the Madrid Elias Ahuja Hall of Residence, the incident happened on Sunday.
The video, which Spanish politician Rita Maestre posted on Twitter, showed a large number of windows suddenly opening, exposing young guys hurling derogatory and sexist epithets at female students in a nearby building. Additionally, a student can be seen in the video asking the female university students to “come out of your dens like rabbits.”
Shocking Video Of Male Students Verbally Abusing Women Sparks Outrage In Spain. In the caption, Ms Maestre condemned the students’ behaviour. “Then they will wonder why we are afraid of the street,” she wrote in Spanish.
Other senior Spanish government officials, including Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, also condemned the behaviour of male students. In a Twitter statement, Mr Sanchez said that the actions that “generate hate and threaten women” would not be tolerated. “It’s especially painful to see the protagonists are young people,” he added.
Spain’s equality minister Irene Montero stated that the episode was the “clearest proof” of the need for education on sexual consent. “That way all the boys and girls and teenagers in our country will learn that treating people right is right and that treating them wrong is wrong,” she said. “That way they’ll 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,” she added, as per The Guardian.
Meanwhile, in an Instagram post, the college Elias Ahuja called the behaviour “unacceptable”. The university condemned the public display as “incomprehensible and inadmissible in society”. The officials also added that they will take action against the students involved, offer public apologies and ensure the student body attends mandatory gender equality classes.
Separately, speaking to Cadena SER radio, the director of the Ahuja Hall, Manuel Garcia Artiga, said that the sentiments expressed in the video “go totally against the values of the hall and are unacceptable and inexplicable”. As per The Guardian, he said that he and a night porter had attempted to stop the chanting but had arrived too late.
Mr Artiga added the “full force of the hall’s disciplinary rules” would be applied, and that those involved had been asked to write letters of apology to their neighbours.