The Fall of the Powerful Chauvinist

04/10/2017 - 12h50

In January 2016, the Folha announced the launching of a blog dedicated to the discussion of gender issues and what is referred to as female empowerment. Born out of the #Agora É Que São Elas (#Now We Are Them) movement, in which women occupied the space of male columnists in newspapers, the eponymous blog added itself to dozens of others. I interpreted this as a healthy dose of new themes for the readers of the newspaper.

This space had already served warning that these days of turbulent social networks were signaling that the time was ripe to reinvent the opinion pages. At that time in August of 2016, the newspaper counted 32 women among its 150 columnists.

In the early morning on Friday, March 31st, #Agora É Que São Elas published a potentially sweeping post on social networks. The post "José Mayer sexually harassed me" was put online at 12:45 AM. In the post, costume designer Susslem Tonani accused the actor of having sexually harassed her for a period of eight months on the TV Globo network. By morning, the text had already been read and shared across social networks. Around 10 AM, the Folha took it offline without providing any explanation.

I complained to the newspaper in an internal critique that circulated around 12:30 PM, calling on it to meet its obligation to provide an explanation to readers. Only at 2:22 PM was any justification published for the disappearance of the post: "The content was taken offline because it disrespected the *Folha*'s editorial principle of only publishing an accusation after hearing and recording the arguments of the accused, except for cases in which this isn't possible".

At 5:30 PM, the text was once again made available, at the same time that an article was published which summarized the costume designer's accusations and provided for the actor to be heard. He denied the accusations that had been imputed to him. Globo TV said that it would provide no comment on internal issues but assured that there would be a rigorous investigation, "hearing from all those involved, in search of the truth".

Employees of the broadcaster mobilized and ended up organizing a manifestation, whose title would become emblazoned on shirts and posts: "Mess with one of us, mess with all of us". Three days after the original post, the broadcaster announced the decision to suspend José Mayer. In a letter, the actor admitted to making mistakes and asked for forgiveness.

He waffled, though, by characterizing the episode as a "joke" and tried to spread the blame among the entire generation of men over 60-years-old, as if they were the victims of a unique and perverse catechesis.

The controversy made its way to the top of social networks, landing itself among the top ten most commented subjects on Twitter.

The removal of the post offline by the Folha, without an immediate explanation, generated complaints and led to the spread of conjectures: "I believe that the Folha needs to provide an explanation for the removal. Whether it is condoning a stifling operation on the part of Globo or whether it found mistakes in what was reported", wrote one reader.

Sérgio Dávila, the *Folha*'s Executive Editor, said that editorial management was initially surprised by the post's content and decided upon a temporary removal until the other side could be heard from. "During this interval, a report was published explaining what had happened. It wasn't, therefore, without any explanation", he declared.

For Dávila, in this specific case, there was no reason not to follow the standard procedure and respect the right of the other side to be heard.

The Folha today has 124 columnists and 48 bloggers. The majority of readers don't make a distinction between the two. But in the internal structure of the newspaper, bloggers and columnists are treated differently. All columnists are read by editors or reviewers before their texts are published.

Blogs are followed a posteriori, due to the very daily nature that the format entails. The authors themselves are directly responsible for the publication of their own texts.

Davila defends the idea that everyone who writes for the Folha, including bloggers, should submit any and all accusations of illegal activity to their editors before being published.

It is the duty of the authors of a women's and feminists' blog to publish any denunciation of chauvinistic practices if they know it to be true. It is the duty of the newspaper to work with that information and give voice to the accused, whatever they are accused of.

What should have happened was that at the same time that the original text was being published on the blog, a simultaneous request should have been sent for a report to be produced by the *Folha*'s editorial staff, subject to the Editorial Guide's standards for impartiality, transparency and balance. The removal of the post offline reveals communication and procedural mistakes.

The powerful chauvinist has fallen. Times have changed. A female reader, however, reminded the Ombudsman that this very week the Illustrated section got three new humor columnists. They will be sharing space with the famed José Simão. All of them are men. There are also no women, for example, on the comic section on page 2 of the Folha.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

Read the article in the original language