The theater company “A Panadería” has reported sexist attacks during its performance at the Víctor Jara
“The performance began. The stage went completely dark. Then the screaming started, a deafening uproar at full volume.” This is how the statement from the theater company “A Panadería,” formed by three young women from Galicia, begins, denouncing the ordeal they endured during their performance at the Víctor Jara Theater in Vecindario. The performance was part of the Meeting of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa and Latin America (ESPAL), and was attended by young people from several high schools in the municipality.
The actresses recounted how their voices were barely audible over the shouts of the young men yelling insults like "whore" and "go clean up," accompanied by whistles and shouts. "How quickly men learn to insult," the actresses stated in a press release issued after the performance. The audience consisted exclusively of students and teachers from local high schools, totaling approximately 500 attendees.
At the end of the play, one of the actresses , "furious ," as stated in the press release, rebuked the insults directed at the young people, asserting that "whore is not an insult, you don't insult us with that. An insult is being a whoremonger."
The members of the company stated in a comment on their press release that no one stopped the children despite their screams and that no one approached them after the performance. The Facebook post has already garnered over 800 reactions, nearly 300 comments, and has been shared more than 500 times.
In response to this statement to Maspalomas24H , the Santa Lucía administration issued an apology to the members of “A Panadería” in a press release, also stating that they had met with the municipality's educational community to address the incident. Mayor Francisco García joined in the apology but asserted that only one young man shouted “clean whore ,” suggesting it was an isolated incident and not a recurring one. According to the mayor, this young man has already been identified. The mayor also indicated that the organizers offered to stop the performance, but the company refused and continued with it. This version of events offered by Francisco García contradicts the account of the members of “A Panadería ,” who maintain that the insults were constant throughout the 90-minute performance.
This situation and the indignation of the theater company highlights the serious problem that machismo and the violence that results from it among Canarian youth represent. According to a study published by the University of La Laguna in 2021, it reflected that half of young people in the archipelago deny the existence of gender violence.
The Canarian Institute of Equality, in another investigation carried out with young Canarian people, came to the conclusion that almost 20% of young people in the archipelago have at some point committed gender violence and that up to 70% of young people know of some close case.
