We moved to Buenos Aires recently and she was initially very satisfied, but some things have happened over the past 8 months that have made her scared for her safety and of going out alone.
She feels unsafe walking alone because random dudes stare at her and sometimes make comments. She says they even harass her further if she doesn't react at all or simply walks past them.
I can attest to a sexist culture around here. Not that I need to confirm it personally to believe her, but she says nobody harasses her when she's with me.
One time, on our new building, a technician went to our home when she was the only one there, to install/fix/start the water heater, and she said he mistreated her for about 5 minutes before I got there. She said he treated her condescendingly and referred to her as "little new girl" and scolded her for not knowing how the heater works.
After I got there, she said he immediately changed his attitude and shook her hand, which he hadn't done before. I only knew he had mistreated after he left.
She also said, on a different occasion, that a random dude suddenly broke personal space while she was walking on the sidewalk towards the building door, and started whispering things to her ear. She walked faster to the apartment and the dude laughed as she was entering. She said she cried for about half an hour after she got home.
I told her we should report it since there are cameras but she doesn't want to.
I mean, I don't know what to do. This is generally a safe city, but there are rough neighborhoods, which we mostly don't frequent, much less at night. I feel like I can never understand how vulnerable she really is and how some men will prey on her if they see her alone. She said that she read that a woman is murdered every 30 hours in this country and that freaked her out and she decided she wouldn't leave home at night without me.
This is definitely the city we planned to move to and somewhere we want to stay, but it hurts to see her so anxious and scared about this, and I don't know what I could do about it.
To be clear, we have had mostly positive experiences roaming the city, but the bad experiences have been terrifying enough that she doesn't want to leave home without me at night.
Is there anything I can do for her?
tl;dr: My GF has had terrifying encounters with sexist men since we moved to our new city. She doens't want to leave home at night without me, and wants to minimize going out without me in general. Is there anything I can do for her?
Submitted July 26, 2019 at 11:53AM by WeeklySorbet3 https://ift.tt/32WAMYU
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