Protestors in Valladolid, Spain, have launched a "bra protest" in front of their city's town hall as part of a demonstration demanding the mayor to resign in light of his controversial remarks about rape.
During a recent interview with national radio station Onda Cero, Mayor Francisco Javier León de la Riva, a former gynecologist, cautioned men about women's sexual assault allegations, The Guardian reports.
"Sometimes it's the other way around. Imagine you get into an elevator and there is a girl who is out to get you. She enters with you, tears off her bra or skirt and flees, shouting that you have tried to assault her," he told the radio station. "Beware of this kind of thing."
According to The Local, León de la Riva's comments were in reference to two recent rape-related stories: one in which rape charges against five men were dropped because it was determined the victim may have fabricated her story; and the Spanish Interior Ministry's new anti-rape guide, which, among other things, cautions women from "getting into the [elevator] if there’s a stranger.”
Following online backlash and a social media campaign with the hashtag #escrachedesujetadores (or "bra protest"), León de la Riva apologized for his comments, but demonstrators say that isn't sufficient.
"We can't just sit back and take these comments," Marisol Morais, the representative for La Coordinadora de Mujeres, an umbrella group made up of different women's and advocacy groups in Valladolid, told The Guardian. "This is the man who's charged with looking after citizen security in our city."
Ada Colau, the woman who launched the bra protest and its hashtag, which has been used over 10,000 times since Monday, told the BBC: "It was a good way to sum up the indignation of women and of decent men in this country, but also it's a way of showing machistas like this mayor that they're not going to take away our dignity or our sense of humor."