GUATEMALAN WOMAN TAKES ON MACHO CULTURE
By Fiona Ortiz

October 2, 1997 - (Reuters’ article in The Toronto Star) In the maze of smudged walls at Guatemala city's Social Security Institute, it is not unusual to encounter a slack-faced clerk behind a rarely used typewriter whose job description seems to be "ogler of women."

His female co-workers, accustomed to a society where machismo is unchallenged, meet the unwanted attentions of this breed with rolled eyes, giggles, or silent forbearance.

But one data processor who claims her boss groped her in a dark stairwell at the institute is taking on the entire macho culture with an unprecedented lawsuit.

No woman in Guatemala has ever sued someone for sexual harassment. There is not even a law against it.

"She is challenging an entire system," says Carolina de Peralta of the government Women's Defence Office. "Her bravery could encourage more women to make complaints."

Floridalma de la Paz grew up in the southern Guatemala cowboy town of Zacapa, where male dominance is a cultural staple. But university studies in law made her aware of her rights, she says.

At first de la Paz, a single mother who lives with her mother in a middle-class home, just laughed when her new boss started to send her lewd propositions through a co-worker a year ago.

"I took it as normal because I know how men are in this country. It's typical," she says. But her silence seemed to goad him and one evening, when she was leaving work, he backed her against a wall, forced a kiss on her and touched her breasts.

"He attacked me in a grotesque, undignified way," she says.

She fended her boss off but did not tell anyone about the attack because he threatened to have his friends in management fire her. Then she found out that he was going to punish her for her rejection, anyway, by demoting her to a messenger's post. She decided to fight back.

"I'm not going to allow that any man of this society believes women are at his disposal just because they are women," de la Paz says.

The frustration and dead ends she has encountered seeking justice through the normal channels suggest that Guatemala is still not ready to deal with such cases.

De la Paz took her complaint to the Woman's Defence Office, which forced the institute to keep her in her post, but she says managers assigned a co-worker to watch her and look for any excuse to fire her.

She filed a complaint with the labour ministry and an inspector asked a labour court judge to fine institute management and the harasser. When the judge wouldn't issuing a ruling, de la Paz went to the public prosecutor's office - and ran into another dead end because there's no law making sexual harassment a crime.

De la Paz hired a private lawyer and went public with a civil suit asking for a judicial reprimand of the harasser and unspecified damages for psychological harm. A judge is waiting for a higher court to agree to let him hear her complaint that her rights were violated under an international women's rights convention.

Institute managers have branded de la Paz a troublemaker and demoted her, fired a co-worker who witnessed the boss' sexual propositions, and promoted the alleged harasser.

"They are scared of me and this shows their weakness," she says. "When a person is innocent, they don't have to retaliate like this."

De la Paz hopes her case will set a precedent and encourage legislators to pass a law against sexual harassment, but she admits most Guatemalan women are not behind her struggle.

"They believe what happened to me was a savage act," she says, pausing for effect, "…against a poor man."