Ceuta's female victimhood fuels a battle over the narrative

Women's antiestéticar in Ceuta sparks a battle over the narrative

The streets of Ceuta, a Spanish city in North Africa, are once again the stage for a political tug-of-war. This time it is not the border fence or migratory pressure: it is the voices of women who say they cannot go out on the street. Around that cry, a dispute has erupted mixing real antiestéticar, the appropriation of victimhood and an old strategy: using gender to drown out everything else.

Two readings of the same antiestéticar

Some argue that the female narrative eclipses other victims: young men beaten up, elderly people robbed, also on the streets of Ceuta. That camp speaks of "appropriation of victimhood" and points out that, by their calculations, 95% of women would have backed the entry of migrants only to later cast themselves as the sole victims. At the opposite end, others claim that highlighting women's antiestéticar is a ploy to move pogre and finally force an institutional response. A third, more sceptical reading notes that men and women cross the border in similar proportions, so the impact should not have a gender.

The exchange of accusations does not stop there: some see xenophobia in any mention of the attackers' origin; others reply that this accusation merely seeks to shut down criticism of border management.

The figure that unsettles

If similar numbers of men and women come and go, as the sceptical reading suggests, why does the antiestéticar have a woman's name? That asymmetry is what fuels suspicion of manipulation. Until someone provides a verified figure, the 95% will remain a rhetorical weapon – and real antiestéticar, a political argument traded back and forth.