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Underground > Switchboard >

Bogota celebrates 'night without men'

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:08 / 14.08.01

In a decidedly unusual measure to
highlight the high levels of street crime and domestic violence in the city, men were ordered to remain at home under curfew for a night, looking after the children while the women of the city roamed the safe streets.

quote:Policemen took the night off while 1,500 female officers patrolled the streets. Women also ran the city's firetrucks. Police Chief Jorge Enrique Lenaris resigned his position for the night to let Col. Gloria Cardilla take the reins of Bogotá's police force.

Dozens of bars and restaurants offered women free drinks and discounted food. A strip club in a swanky north Bogotá neighborhood hired men to strut their stuff [...]

Triumphant city officials reported that serious crime was down 25 percent compared with a typical Friday evening, with just six felony arrests.

(from Sussex Women magazine).
Brilliant.

Ellis

09:09 / 14.08.01

Sexist.

Ganesh

09:11 / 14.08.01

Let's just hope their menstrual cycles don't converge upon the same night.

Take my mother-in-law. No, really, take her. Please.

Etc.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:30 / 14.08.01

okay, for the sake of balance (although it's not nearly such a good story): Bogota's mayor follows this with a night without women.

Which wasn't nearly as popular, oddly.

Whereas the night wihthout men saw a drop in crime/arrests, quote:going out without women is very boring and dangerous

according to one interviewee...

Just think it's a fabulously inventive way to highlight the problems of safety for women in a large city (and the vast costs involved in attempting to enforce safety).

Eliminate them, if only for one night, creating a temporary space space all over the city.

V.cool.

[ 14-08-2001: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]

Ellis

09:32 / 14.08.01

So... Men need women (to have a good time), but women don't need men?

So either: men only go out to commit crimes cause they know women are about or (more likely) women commit more crimes than men.

[ 14-08-2001: Message edited by: Ellis ]

Ganesh

09:35 / 14.08.01

I expect all the men were leering out their windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of drunken females snogging...

Ellis

09:36 / 14.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh:
I expect all the men were leering out their windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of drunken females snogging...

I would be, wouldn't you?

Ganesh

09:40 / 14.08.01

Er, no.

09:40 / 14.08.01

If crime dropped by 25% ,does that mean that 75% of crime is commited by women?

Scary. Ban them.

09:40 / 14.08.01

hello i'm new here.

i had fantasies of london doing a similar men free night years ago. whenever i've walked home late from a friend's or whatever, it's only been men who've hassled me. bogota is way ahead for doing this, hopefully both the men free and women free nights have woken people up a bit to their own behaviour.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:40 / 14.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Ellis:
Sexist.

Wait, don't tell me - it's political correctness gone mad!!

It does sound great though - but can I get a shout-out of solidarity for the six sistas on lockdown for "felonies" committed that night? Keep ya head up!

14:18 / 14.08.01

I heard about this some time ago (the Night Without Men), and I thought it sounded like the bomb-itty!! Like a big gigantic ladies night!! Without some gross dude leering or shouting at you on the way home!!

I would say it's sexist, but since they did the night without ladies as well I think it remained rather egalitarian.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:36 / 15.08.01

hmph, not sure about the cries of sexism, myself. The night, as I understand it, wasn't about a notion that men should be kept indoors while the women could carouse into the small hours...

but was to highlight the problems of domestic violence and street crime and the extent to which a city could become a dangerous space to women, primarily because of crimes committed against them by men (off to check facts on this, if i'm wrong please let me know) and was a temporary strategy to achive this... far better imho than an adveritising campaign, for example...

so why sexist?

I also really like the general idea of changing the makeup of a city for a day, which in this case seems to have led to a greater awareness of the 'normal' conditions of the city being affectable, changeable, rather than givens... remaking a city for 24 hours as a demonstration of the potential for change. In a weird way, transforming a whole city into a woman-friendly ghetto, or taking the idea of woman-friendly/safe and secure spaces out of the 'ghetto' and making it citywide...

The notion of being able to walk around a big city late at night, relatively sure of avoiding sexual harassment (from annoying but typical 'leery man' syndrome right the way to serious sexual assualt) really strikes a chord with alot of women i've talked to about this.

and why stop with sexual/gender curfews?

Ellis

17:39 / 15.08.01

Actually Plums, I was just being sarcastic...

22:02 / 15.08.01

Don't forget we're talking about Bogota, a city where "kidnapping" is referred to as an "industry", like drug dealing. Kidnapping is the second most profitable activity in Colombia after drugs, sparing no social class, no sex, no age group. An average of 1000 to 1500 persons are kidnapped every year and held for ransom. Some hostages are exchanged for something as simple as food.

In a country like this, such social experiments are to be expected. I mean, they'll try anything.

- Mercury

18:41 / 18.08.01

you forgot to quote this brilliant piece about the mayor:

quote:The mayor - who once declared himself "Super Citizen" and strolled the city in red-and-blue tights, and who also posted mimes at stoplights to taunt reckless drivers - spent a quiet night at home reading to his daughter.

I think all our cities need crackpot superheros running our cities and creating Temporary Autonomous Zones... the idea of switching the rules around in a city to see what would happen, and to prove the arbitrary structures that create violence, is completely ingenious.

but imagine if someone tried that in the US. yikes...