Is Chile’s new anti-domestic violence campaign homophobic?
0A new anti-domestic violence campaign in Chile uses a traditionally anti-gay slur to describe a man who abuses a woman.
Soccer player Pablo Pozo and gay journalist Jordi Castell appear in the spots, which Chile's Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM) produced. "People have shouted faggot at me hundreds of times," says Castell in the campaign (as translated from Spanish into English.) "A coward is someone who mistreats his wife. We have to call him what it is."
Maric�n can mean either coward or bastard in Chilean Spanish.
On its Web site, SERNAM said the campaign strongly reinforces the idea a man "who mistreats a woman is less of a man." The agency said 35 percent of Chilean women experience domestic or intimate partner violence.
SERNAM's campaign will run through Nov. 25.