Ecuador's president Rafael Correa, who last
October threatened to resign if the National Assembly decriminalized abortion,
is in the news again. In his last public address of 2013 criticized gender
ideology, calling it 'absurd' and 'very dangerous.'
'That natural men and women don't exist, that biological sex
does not determine man or woman, but 'social conditions' do, and that one has a
right to choose if one is a man or a woman. Please! Come on! This won't live up
even to a minor analysis!' exclaimed the president.
'These are not theories,' he continued, 'but pure and simple
ideologies.'
He warned the public that these 'ideologies' exist to
'justify the lifestyle of those who generate them.'
'We respect them as persons,' he explained. 'But we don't
share these barbarities.' He also said he was in favor of the feminist movement
that seeks equal rights for men and women. 'We support it wholeheartedly,' he
said. Nevertheless, he declared himself against 'fundamentalisms that propose
absurd things.'
This, he said, doesn't seek equal rights, but equality in
all aspects: 'That men look like women and women like men. Enough!' he said.
'Don't try to impose this on the rest of us. And don't impose it on the youth,'
he said.
'We are, thank God, men and women, different,' he continued,
'complementary.'
He explained that he wasn't trying to impose any stereotypes
but said it was good that women keep their feminine traits and men keep their
masculine ones. 'I prefer a woman that looks like a woman,' he said to an
applauding public, 'and I think women prefer men that look like men.'
He warned his public that he'll be called a 'retrograde and
a cave man,' for his remarks, but insisted gender ideology was 'very dangerous'
as it destroys natural family, which 'happily, will continue to be the basis of
our society,' he said. 'I won't be considered a leftist any more… If one is not
for abortion one can't be left wing.'
'These are barbarities,' he exclaimed. 'It has nothing to do
with right or left… these are moral issues.'
