Sexual harassment leaves its mark. And the statues of women and girls, with their breasts discolored and worn out due to the inappropriate selfies of intrusive tourists, demonstrate this perhaps more than many withheld complaints. This is the slogan used by ‘Terre des Femmes’, a German organization committed to combating violence against women, which released photographs taken of three female statues, The Rhinewoman (Frau Rhein) on the Neptune Fountain in the center of Berlin, Giulietta in the center of Munich and La Jeunesse in Bremen. What immediately catches the eye is the wear and tear of the bronze, discolored by the hands of those who enjoy touching the statues’ breasts. But to be even more explicit, the NGO placed large white panels behind each statue with the phrase “sexual harassment leaves its mark”. Furthermore, by scanning a QR code, you can access the entire awareness campaign, as well as the videos produced by the association in which it is imagined that the statues can speak to denounce their fate.
And to also give voice to all the other statues, even outside Germany, who suffer the same harassment. The Telegraph newspaper, for example, reports that a campaign was recently launched in Dublin to ask tourists to stop having fun with the cleavage of the statue of the fishmonger Molly Malone, which was also discolored due to repeated manipulations. In France, the broadcaster Bfmtv points out, even the bust of the singer Dalida located in Montmartre in Paris is a victim of the same wear and tear, of the same abuse. Created by the artist Aslan on April 24, 1997, the bust sees, every year, thousands of admirers who do not hesitate to caress the statue’s breasts, causing them to oxidize. In addition to Germany, the statue of Juliet is also targeted in Italy, in Verona, where tourists use to touch her breasts in a ritual of good luck in love. The result is that the work was damaged and today has a hole in the right breast.
The damaged statues ”bear witness to many decades of sexual violence”, declared Sina Tonk, project manager of ‘Terre des Femmes’ which organized the awareness campaign ‘Unsilence the violence’, literally do not silence the violence. “In our society it is not uncommon for women’s bodies to be touched or kissed without their consent,” Tonk continues. ”If these traumatic experiences do not leave visible traces, such as the discoloration of statues, they instead leave invisible marks” on women, he added, recalling that in Germany alone two out of three women reported having suffered sexual violence during their lives.
Through this awareness campaign, the spokeswoman for ‘Terre des Femmes’ also highlights how the feeling of impunity of the perpetrators of these abuses is minimized and how widespread it is. “We are so used to this type of phenomena that we barely notice them,” she regrets. “Phrases like ‘it’s not that serious, it’s just a kiss, just an inappropriate gesture’ are so common that they illustrate this minimization well”, he added. And as demonstrated by many photographs shared on social networks and relaunched by the association itself by obscuring the faces of the protagonists, the tourists with their hands on the breasts of the statues are not ashamed of appearing in that posture. Indeed.
