The mayor of Santiago, Irací Hassler, was in the last hours present in the program Mucho Gusto, where she responded and stopped with height and elegance the sayings of the journalist José Antonio Neme, who considered her “Mamita” thus reducing her work as an official and her political position. Weeks ago, Neme had referred to the communal chief with that term following the claim of the commercial engineer for the construction of Line 7 of the Metro by her commune. “Irací, mamita, that is, really, if you tell me that Line 7 is going to stop at the Torres del Paine, in the North Ice Field, I say ‘good ok’. Huilo-Huilo Station!. I tell the mayor that if Line 7 is going to stop in Huilo-Huilo, I agree with her,” he said at the time. Before his passage through the program, the journalist ironized about it saying “we have to have a coffee because you are angry with me”, a comment that Irací did not miss and took the opportunity to respond by making his position clear, and on behalf of millions of women who suffer daily this kind of harassment and qualifiers.
“I think it is important José Antonio to tell you that the feminist movement has had an important struggle against gender violence, women are occupying more and more spaces of power, spaces of decisions, and with it we deserve respect, and I am not your daughter, I am not your mommy, I am Irací, you can call me by my name or mayor of Santiago, which is my position,” the official said. Neme continued: “There was no personal attack, we were doing … now if you were offended…” It’s not that ‘I felt’. I believe that women are in the decision-making spaces and we are not daughters nor are we moms,” Irací made clear. While the communicator insisted: “In that sense, if you take and embrace that speech, of a generalized offense, I as a man ask you for the apology of the case. If you got upset, you and those you represent.” It’s not just if ‘you got upset’, because there you put the ‘but’, José Antonio, I think there is an offense when you say ‘my daughter’, ‘my mommy’, What is that? I am a public authority and I am a woman, and therefore I believe that I deserve respect like all women,” she reaffirmed.
The firm response of the mayor of Santiago Irací Hassler who located the journalist Neme
Returning, Neme apologized, in her terms: “I find him absolutely right and I do not wrinkle a muscle to ask for forgiveness and apologies when a group of people have been offended by something I have said.” She was offended, not only did she feel, but I accept the apology,” the mayor concluded, and at the time she did not speak only for herself.
