There is no thing that I hate more than Sanremo; Yet this year he offered us the opportunity to show it blatantly to everyone what we are hypocritical when we talk about sexual harassment. At one point, the presenter Mara Venier turns to the singer Olly, calling him “love”, and, with a wolf tone of Red Riding Hood, invites him to undress, since he will certainly be skied. The boy is visibly uncomfortable, since the lady is trying to remove his jacket, and he replies trying to joke while he gets through every time she discovers the shoulder.

If we are looking for the news on Google, we will notice that very few articles dedicated to this specific moment of the evening are very few, which is most often inserted, with a certain carelessness, in the midst of the general report. In short, it did not scandalized much; At least on social networks a minimum controversy was born, which some article mentions this way.

The double standard in the conception of “harassment”

Now, it’s not that I am saying that Mara Venier’s gesture is sexual harassment. Always, on this theme, I have an unhappy opinion: the concept of harassment has become too generic and a little of everything is returned, mixing rude gestures and violent and harmful gestures. However, I would say this even if there had been a conductor and a singer; I would have found rude and slimy the behavior of him, I would have interpreted him as a sexist act, and that’s it.

We cannot pretend that, on the other hand, most of the public opinion does not show a good degree of hysteria when a man touches a woman without first asking her for permission. Among other things, here we are also talking about a remarkable age difference, with an apparently maternal attitude that is particularly lousy, and which instead I have even read that must be interpreted as harmless for this. It also seems to me – but I am not very informed about the deeds of Mara Venier, fortunately – that it is not the first time that something of this type has happened.

Beyond the single person, however, we all know that when there is a beautiful boyfriend it is perfectly normal that women make jokes about his body, touch him, in short, as a doll that will certainly be flattered by the bullshit attitude of the kind sex. The men who find themselves in this situation, in fact, even when they are uncomfortable do not have the opportunity to show it, because they would come around, or, in fact, ignored.

The usual silence of the paladins of the equality of the sexes

The double standard in this area is therefore very evident: if a woman is touched, we talk about it for whole weeks, we even dedicate to this entire television services, interviews, publishing. If a man is touched, nobody cares, and we will not talk about it. Obviously, the digital activists of feminism are silent, always ready to march and shout even when a poor unfortunate touches a guy by bus by mistake, but certainly in difficulty in the face of the possibility of admitting the opposite situation also, and even having to condemn it.

Attention eh, this is not because they are misandrics, but because violence against women (even when it is not violence) is systemic; The one on men no. Of course, it is not true that violence against women is systemic (systemic means that it involves the entire system in all its parts, and the system would be our society here), but the important thing is to remain consistent with the premise; What does it matter if this is false? Here the sexist gestures towards men (sexists because they are accomplished on that person because he is a man, while he would not happen if he was a woman) are only sporadic episodes, “curtains”, as the newspapers call them, who show nothing.

It is time for the phenomenon of violence to men

But this is also false. Also given for good the irrelevance of the phenomenon in statistical terms (which, however, should also be valid for violence against women), irrelevant to tell the true suppository, since the data is missing; The fact remains that these attitudes towards men are granted and mostly they are a source of rice, or at most embarrassment, or, more modernly, of “cringe”. On this there is no discussion. To think that this is limited to the touched and the joke is either naive or ignorant: the realities that deal with violence on men, such as the Associations Perseus and Akyra, are increasingly active and noisy, and begins to be a little too much Comfortable ignore them. The great clamor that has been built around male chauvinism can only prove to be a boomerang, which can be managed either very well or very bad. Manage it well means not to conceal, not to tell about fraud, but having the courage to rethink one’s position, the result of ignorance and prejudice like many others. Gesture it badly means continuing to deny the evidence and feed disparity and hatred, which ultimately also damage women themselves.

And for men who are aware of themselves, of belonging to their genre, and the difficulties and injustices that this entails: it is the time to wake up and fight your battles.