TV presenter María Verdoy reports two sexual harassments in one week

María Verdoy reports two sensual harassments in seven days

Two episodes of sensual harassment in the same week. That is the account that María Verdoy, a television presenter, has made public through Instagram, and what is uncomfortable is not only what she recounts: it is how what she recounts is received. She herself framed it that way, lamenting that society has normalised this type of situation. Normalisation begins in language, continues in the street and almost never ends in a courtroom.

The first of the episodes, according to her own testimony, occurred when she left the gym. A man approached her to ask for money; she made excuses when she refused, he called her "guapa" and, when she started walking, he began to trinc her and toca in front of her. There is no record that she has filed a police report, a question that hangs over the whole matter and that no one has publicly answered.

The pattern that repeats every time a woman tells it

One episode is an anecdote. Two in seven days are not a coincidence: they point to a pattern. And the pattern is not only in the street. When a woman recounts harassment, a good part of the public conversation does not discuss the fact, it discusses the victim: what she was wearing, where she was going, whether she was exaggerating, whether she was looking for something. Another current resorts to the shortcut of the aggressor's mental health, a recourse that is sometimes true but almost never useful for the person who suffers it. A third way shifts the case to partisan terrain, as if a hand in the street needed ideological affiliation.

Reporting at a police station: the problem is not the door, it is the evidence

Filing a report is possible and free. Pursuing it is another matter. When the aggressor is an unidentified stranger, with no witnesses and no recording, the victim's statement stands alone and the case rarely moves forward. Hence many women opt for the public account: it is immediate, has no procedural cost and does not depend on anyone. The paradox is that the digital showcase amplifies the fact at the same time as it trivialises it.

Verdoy has recounted two. If the gym episode is repeated as many times as the stories in circulation suggest, how many cases like hers are never told?