Stolen Glory

Or, why men's toxic sense of entitlement to women's bodies remains a depressing problem well over five years into the #MeToo era

A stolen kiss was once something to take on the chin—or the lips, in the case of Jennifer (Jenni) Hermoso, the Spanish forward grabbed and kissed non-consensually by Luis Rubiales, president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, following Spain’s world cup victory. “Hey, I didn’t like it,” Hermoso said in an Instagram live from the locker room. “At no moment did I consent to the kiss,” she added later—contrary to the Spanish soccer federation’s press release that initially tried to silence her testimony. “Simply put, I wasn’t respected,” concluded Hermoso on Friday.

Now such a kiss is widely understood to be what it is: sexual assault. And it is rendered yet more problematic both by the power dynamics in play—Rubiales is Hermoso’s boss’s boss, effectively—but also by its clearly gendered dimension. As others have noted, when the Spanish football team won the 2010 World Cup, Rubiales did not kiss the goalkeeper or any other male player. Nor do women in power in the soccer world tend to go around kissing male players non-consensually or otherwise manhandling them—whereas Rubiales’ behavior is only, as US star player Megan Rapinoe pointed out, the tip of a veritable iceberg of misogyny faced by female athletes. The case is also a powerful illustration of an even wider social phenomenon: men’s sense of entitlement with respect to women’s bodies. The kiss was a crude and brazen expression of male dominance. 

Some may try to offer excuses for Rubiales, or hold that a comprehensive—and comprehending—apology would have been sufficient to redeem him. (His original response was neither of these things: he initially refused to apologize and called his critics “idiots.” He then offered a half-hearted quasi-apology, stressing his lack of bad intentions. “Probably I made a mistake,” Rubiales further offered, limply, in a broadcast giving dubious hostage video vibes.) To my mind, however, we’ll never get the structural reform that is needed here without sending a clear message to the worldwide audience that is watching. And this can be achieved only by adopting a zero tolerance policy with respect to such violations. 

That Rubiales assaulted Hermoso in the limelight exposes a dynamic that unfolds all too often behind closed doors: despite a powerful man’s inappropriate and harmful behavior, he expects to receive impunity. And if she dares to try to hold him accountable, he is made out to be her victim. Such was the response of Spain’s soccer federation, which accused Hermoso of lying about the non-consensual nature of the kiss, and has moved to pursue legal action against her on this basis. 

Hermoso has also endured intense pressure to forgive and defend Rubiales. This is due partly to the operation of what I call “himpathy,” wherein powerful and privileged men garner sympathy and support over their female victims. In this case, Rubiales reportedly added insult to injury by urging Hermoso to stand by him for the sake of his daughters. Many a man has defended himself against fair accusations of misogyny by claiming to love his mother, sisters, and daughters. (Which, even if true, is manifestly cold comfort for the girls and women who, whatever his intentions, have actually been harmed by him.) The idea that his female victim should support a man in order to keep a daughter’s father in his job is a minor variant on this absurd argument—as if holding a man responsible for assault is actually an assault on the sisterhood.

True, in this case, Rubiales was provisionally suspended by FIFA, for 90 days, on Saturday. But if history is any guide, he will soon make a triumphant return to a position of power and authority. Probably over women. Who will again be pressured to offer the forgiveness and sympathy that is regarded as our duty to give, and as such a man’s right to receive from us in perpetuity.

Rubiales effectively rescinded his original apology on Friday, before an overwhelmingly male audience. “I will not resign,” he chanted over and over, to much cheering. He labelled the criticisms of him “fake feminism,” and calls for consequences for his behavior “social murder.” He described the “little kiss” as “spontaneous,” “consensual”—and “euphoric.” “When you become world champion, you are emotional. And what he did there is—sorry, with all due respect—absolutely OK,” Bayern Munich chief Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said in Rubiales’s defense. (Neither Rummenigge or Rubiales have themselves ever been crowned world champion.)

Meanwhile, if a woman were to blame her bad behavior on her emotions, she would likely be dismissed as hysterical.

All in all, the incident is a depressing illustration of how things tend to play out in the #MeToo era. The same group of us keeps getting outraged by men’s bad behavior. And the same group of men keeps perpetrating. Notably, Rubiales stood trial for assaulting another woman in 2017—he was accused of grabbing, shaking, and injuring an architect who had worked on his house—although, ultimately, he was found not guilty. In 2018, Rubiales was elected president of Spain’s soccer federation. He was accused last year of using Federation money to host private parties with numerous young girls in attendance. The Spanish soccer federation continues to stand by him, in addition to vilifying Hermoso as a liar. This despite the fact that we all saw what happened, live on video. The term can be overused, but there’s no other word for it in this instance: this is gaslighting.

News has emerged today that Rubiales’s mother is, predictably but depressingly, on his side too: she’s gone so far as to go on a hunger strike on his behalf, until Hermoso recants and withdraws her testimony.

The fact that women still face such mistreatment, and that many—including female himpaths—fail to recognize it as such, bespeaks how far we have to go within the #MeToo era. More than five years since Tarana Burke’s movement was popularized by celebrities, it is fair to wonder: when will time truly be up for men’s violation of women’s bodies and our basic right to autonomy?  

Centering Hermoso as a victim in this story, as some have done, is a welcome corrective to the himpathy often enjoyed by men like Rubiales. But, in this case and many others, it still doesn’t cut it. This should be a time of celebrating the brilliance of Hermoso and her teammates. In a collective statement, they recorded their dismay that their victory had been overshadowed by this incident. In the end, it was not just a kiss that was stolen: it was their joy and sense of accomplishment. Women’s glory is stolen thus all too often. 

For no matter how accomplished and powerful a woman may be, no matter how high she is riding in the moment, she can still be brought down by sexualization, objectification, infantilization, and the proprietary way men commonly treat our bodies. Women who are vulnerable in further ways, on account of their race, class, disabilities, fatness, sexuality, or gender expression, face these issues yet more acutely. This is a world in which girls and women are all too often grabbed, groped, gagged, raped, and then increasingly forced to give birth—bred, frankly—without regard to our entitlement to bodily and sexual freedom. And our moral freedom is violated too when we are not allowed to speak out or protest this wrongdoing. 

The moral fact remains that, for any person, her body is for her and no one else. And the world fails to recognize this for well over half the population.