Chile is supposed to be the most developed country in Latin America, so that's why is so unbelievable what happened last Tuesday in Santiago, when the end -year dinner of the Chilean Exporters Association took place. As always, many economic authorities were invited, including of course prominent Chilean businessman, two presidential pre candidates, and the minister of Economy, Luis Céspedes. At the end of the ceremony, they were all invited to the stage and Roberto Fantuzzi, the key note speaker, gave each one a special and symbolic gift. But this year, his election to the minister of Economy was simply outrageous: an inflatable "love" doll, with a note in her mouth saying: "to stimulate the economy".
The all-male panel at the center of the stage laughed and enjoyed the moment, as the pictures taken at that time show. They all seem delighted with the famous doll -completely naked, by the way, with her genitals in the center of the photo.
That night, says Fantuzzi, nothing happened.
But the morning after, it was all over social media. President Bachelet herself tweeted early, saying that the gift was misogynist. Tweets and posts on Facebook by women and men all over the country showed the outrage and the shock over the whole situation. At the end of Wednesday, the minister had to apologize, but it was too late because his picture with the doll was all over the world: media outlets were also clueless about this situation.
All the men related to the now infamous joke ask for forgiveness and acknowledge their serious mistake; however the deepest question is why in the most developed country of Latin America things like this keep happening? The answer was given by the same President Bachelet: this demonstrates that machismo, sexism and misogyny still exist in our country. Even thou we have a woman president and many accomplished women show their value in every domain, deep down, discrimination against women is still a serious problem, and we have all suffered it, one way or another. That is why smart and educated men simply don't see that giving an inflatable doll as a gift is not funny, on the contrary, it's offensive to women's dignity, and this violence helps perpetuate stereotypes and unconscious bias against women. That bias help maintain a machista status quo in Chile, one that pays 30% less to women for the same job, has less than 6% of women on boards, and only 15% of women in Parliament.
I wonder what could happen if a women's association decides to give a sexual gift to a minister....
If Chile really wants to lead the region, and become a developed country, situations like this have to be banned. And the only way to do it is to work together to achieve gender parity, to be equals in opportunities, freedoms and dignity.
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