Woke don't get a joke? Ecuador's Moreno backpedals after suggesting women only report harassment by 'UGLY people'
by RT
Woke don’t get a joke? Ecuador’s Moreno backpedals after suggesting women only report harassment by ‘UGLY people’
Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has apologized after claiming that women only consider unwanted sexual advances harassment if they come from unattractive men. His theory was not well received on social media.
Speaking at a conference in Ecuador’s second-largest city, Guayaquil, Moreno told attendees that women have subjective criteria when it comes to reporting alleged harassment.
“That is to say, it is ‘harassment’ when it comes from an ugly person,” he said. “But if the person is good looking… they usually do not think it is harassment.”
He also suggested that men are constantly at risk of being falsely accused of harassment by women.
His comments sparked a predictable avalanche of outrage on social media, with Twitter users queuing to fire verbal volleys at the Ecuadorian leader.
Ecuadorians accused their president of trivializing sexual harassment and violence against women, with some even imploring Moreno to leave office before he damages their country further.
The backlash prompted an apology from the president, who wrote that he “did not intend to minimize an issue as serious as violence or abuse,” and apologized if his comments were “understood that way.”
Si en algún recóndito lugar de esa sombría mente suya queda un poco de dignidad…barajese, no destroce más este pobre país pic.twitter.com/EoVebcTklS
However, some people argued that the mini-scandal was overblown. Several women responded to his comments by arguing that the president was clearly joking, and that there was no need to politicize something so trivial.
