Since the news broke of Harvey Weintstein’s prolonged sexual abuse towards hundreds of women in Hollywood, there has been a widespread movement of woman seeking equal rights and the end to men getting away with sexual misconduct. This movement, however, began in Brazil when woman decided to speak out against a “leading man in Brazilian soap operas.” Celebrities created t-shirts with the slogan “Mess with one woman and mess with us all.” The women behind this movement were fully aware of how difficult it would be to go up against a huge male public figure, but they decided to expose him anyway. This provoked an online trending of the hashtag #myfirstharassment which saw more than 80,000 responses. On a larger scale, this has brought attention to what is called “femicide”, which is the killing of women simply because they are women. With this, there are 14 Latin American countries on the list of 25 countries with the highest femicide rates. People believe that the abuses of women are part of a culture in which boys grow up seeing their fathers beat their mothers, thus thinking that it is okay from an early age. Another part of the problem is that women go to courts that are usually run entirely by men, thus creating a bias in the judgment of the case. Another social justice issue remains the question of legalizing gay marriage in Latin American countries, specifically seen in the upcoming presidential election in Costa Rica. One of the front runners is Fabricio Alvardo of the right wing National Restoration Party. Alvarado is an evangelical preacher who opposes same-sex marriage. His views have resonated strongly with the countries socially conservative citizens, which is the result of a strong affiliation with Christianity. Currently, courts have ruled that same-sex marriage should be recognized, which could have to do with a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that is requiring Costa Rica and other member states to recognize same-sex marriage.\u00a0As for the current status of the election, Alvarado stole the lead with 25% of the vote, while his runner up, Carlos Alvarado (no relation) of the left-leaning Citizen’s Action Party, took 21% of the vote. The final election will be held April 1. Altogether, Latin America is witnessing a rise in social rights reforms through its protests from women, but could be taking a step back if Fabricio Alvarado wins Costa Rica and outlaws gay marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since the news broke of Harvey Weintstein’s prolonged sexual abuse towards hundreds of women in Hollywood, there has been a widespread movement of woman seeking equal rights and the end to men getting away with sexual misconduct. This movement, however, began in Brazil when woman decided to speak out against a “leading man in Brazilian soap operas.” Celebrities created t-shirts… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}