Dies being a woman in Brazil, where a doctor rapes a woman during childbirth – Jssica Balbino

It is impossible to be a woman/have a child and be well in Brazil today. I’m nauseated. And no, not a figure of speech. I’ve been writing for a little over a year about the dehumanization of our bodies, but not even the worst horror fantasy could handle such a desperate scene: a woman in the delivery room being raped by the anesthesiologist.

If hell exists, he will be a woman in Brazil in 2022. There is no nightmare and/or imagination that can handle the reality we live in. There is no security anywhere, we already know. But rape in the delivery room by a doctor? I, so used to reading and writing about the unusual, would not be able to think of something so unusual. Not even at the time of giving birth, the woman has peace.

The indignation is so much that we don’t even ask ourselves: how is this woman? How long will it take for her to recover from the trauma she was subjected to? Who will take care of her mental health?

But it doesn’t stop there. In 2019, The Intercept carried out an unprecedented survey that showed 1,734 cases of sexual violence committed in health institutions in nine Brazilian states. The title couldn’t be more appalling: License to rape.

However, we never imagined watching this – although I honestly recommend that you don’t watch the horrific video of the rape that circulates on social media and news sites – during a delivery. Moment when the woman must be treated well and not violated.

What scares the most: the crime was committed by a doctor. That’s right. The typical good citizen. And he did it IN FRONT OF THE TEAM. Yup. With some movements that try to ‘disguise’ the crime, the anesthesiologist commits it in front of a team in the delivery room.

There is no stomach that can handle the information that the doctor raped the woman DURING the procedure. She had her stomach open. While two other professionals were messing with the uterus and she was bringing life into the world, he raped her.

There is no rivotril, vonau, frontal, family constellation, reiki, themascal, ayahuasca, psychoanalysis that accounts for such violence.

The question that remains: where can women exist in peace?

I saw, just now, on Twitter, a request for psychologists and psychoanalysts who are present on the networks to avoid giving the famous doctor’s diagnosis, since in addition to outside professional ethics, there is a risk of pathologizing a man who has committed an act extreme malice against a vulnerable woman.

It is important to say that it is not an isolated case of monstrosity. It won’t take long for a report to emerge alleging mental health issues. The doctor is not a monster. Not a madman. At a point outside the curve. He is a doctor. in lab coat. Who studied to do what he does. He is an ordinary man. He could be your husband, your friend, your coworker. He is a man who, like countless others, rapes women.

It’s common. It is insane to think that a doctor is comfortable enough to, for 10 minutes, rape a woman in labor in a hospital – in his place of work – and to believe in impunity. And it is worth repeating: this is not a patient. This is a common man. It could be my brother. It could be someone I’ve matched on a dating app. Could be my friend.

this common man, who on social media warned “You will still hear from me” and who swore to love his work. This common man used his own social networks to show the routine on the plants, expose sedated patients and newborn children. In the last story he made before being arrested, he posted a photo of his own sock decorated with shrimp and wrote: “that saying: shrimp that sleeps, yields more on the plantation”.

We are talking about this common man who, while the patient in part-time labor was lying on the stretcher, unconscious, unzipped his pants, pulled his penis out and inserted it into the woman’s mouth. WHILE THE WOMAN HAD A BABY. She was raped unconscious by a doctor while having a baby.

For 10 minutes violence was practiced. And while he was doing it, the doctor tried to move a little, so that his colleagues, separated by a cloth divider, wouldn’t notice. The perversity follows: when he was finished, he used a tissue to wipe the mouth of the pregnant woman, immobile on the stretcher.

The hospital said it will investigate the case. The police said they will find out if there are possible other victims. Now, here’s to us: who believes that a man, out of nowhere, in one day, decides to do this? And do you do it with so much tranquility, so much security, if you’ve never done it before? It is evident that we think that this is not an isolated case and/or that the doctor entered the room and decided to rape the woman.

I haven’t seen it yet, but it may be that in the next few hours we will run into the doctor’s defenses and the woman’s blaming. There are those who will ask: but what clothes did she wear at the time of delivery? In order to try to justify the absurd violence. There are still those who try to relativize the video. Say that montage. There are those who will use the precedent of Mari Ferrer’s case, that even with images, she was not able to have her right validated by the Brazilian Justice.

Another terrifying video is that of the doctor’s arrest. In the same country where police officers kill black people on the outskirts just because they exist, in this country, the delegate calmly explains all the rights of the doctor and basically treats him as if he were the victim. I have already been to a police station to report a crime of abuse and I was not, by far, as well treated as this criminal, who, I repeat – was caught red-handed.

desperate to know that we live at risk of being raped. It doesn’t matter where. The clothes don’t matter. It doesn’t matter under what conditions. And if we are raped, they will try to discredit us. And if we get pregnant after the rape, they will try to stop legal abortion in every way (I’ve talked about that here) and if we have the drink, we could be raped during childbirth. And if someone isn’t brave enough to confront the criminal and record it, we may never know about the violence and/or never believe us.

And don’t give me the bankrupt reproduction of the chemical castration argument. Men don’t just use their penises to rape and by 2022, we should know that. Rape is about power, not libido and/or penis. Not being able to get an erection or feel desire is not going to decrease the number of rapes at all. Such a Bolsonar project is nothing more than covering the sun with a sieve.

Being a woman in Brazil is hell. Having a body like a child sees oneself burning daily in the complicity of all powers – of all men – of the entire health system – of all evangelical benches – of all journalists. Of a whole world that trivializes complaints and violence, of people who question what the clothes she wore were like, of people who criticize a woman with her ass out, happily rolling around at a funk dance, but close her eyes to such brutality or pass cloth pro guy, with the maxim “if he is guilty, let him be tried and convicted”, thus exempting himself from the judgment formerly practiced against the victim.

We need to ask ourselves the exact paths that brought us here and we need to know that, in many moments, we were his accomplices. We shut up for violence, we relativize. We pretended we didn’t see it. And we agree with the idea that our bodies do not belong to us.

I could say that I hope he will answer for the crime, which, according to the Brazilian Penal Code, provides for a sentence of 8 to 15 years in prison, but I don’t know if that is enough compared to the horror of the act he committed and the fear that settles in our bodies just by having terres. I don’t know what to say and/or expect. hard body for so much revolt.

And, by believing this: our body is not ours that a series of violence against our existences are committed without us even being able to fight back. Without us being awake and clear to see.

Today would be an excellent horror tale. An excellent dystopian tale. But the reality: being a woman in Brazil is too much.