It is disturbing —not to say indecent— that in the year 2025 we still have to unmask discourses that, under the guise of the technical, reproduce and whitewash the most rotten root of machismo: blaming women for their own death.
In a report by the Xunta de Galicia on sexist murders, the general director of the Fight Against Gender Violence has stated, without any embarrassment, that “one of the reasons or triggers that led the aggressor to end the woman's life was her decision to leave him and end the relationship they had.” He said it as if that were a legitimate explanation. As if the word "reason" could be introduced and at the same time retain some ethics.
How long are we going to tolerate aggressors being treated as emotional victims? Since when does ending a relationship —something that should be guaranteed as a basic human right— become a risk factor that seems to justify extreme violence?
It is unacceptable that a public administration, the same one that should be shielding women, points to the victims as the "trigger" for their own murder. It is a perverse twist of the story: the aggressor does not kill because he is a murderer, but because she had the audacity to regain her freedom.
This type of statement is not merely unfortunate: it is ideology. It is the institutional voice of recycled machismo, the one that no longer shouts or hits in the square, but that writes reports with neat words and cold reasoning to continue protecting the same order as always. The one that says: “she asked for it.”
Talking about “reasons” without clearly pointing out that there is no possible justification for murdering a woman is an act of political cowardice. It is a lack of gender perspective. It is betraying the most basic duty of any democratic institution: to protect life.
What really “triggers” a sexist murder is not that a woman leaves a man. What triggers it is that there are men convinced that a woman cannot leave them. What triggers it is a culture of possession, punishment, and control. And if institutions are not capable of understanding that, all they are doing is propping up the executioner with an official seal.
Enough of lukewarm reports. Enough of hiding behind statistics to hide ideology. And enough of general directors who do not understand, or do not want to understand, what it means to fight against gender violence. If this is the level, the real danger is not only in the houses. It is also in the offices.