The World Cup is in full swing at the moment, meaning that fans celebrating the tournament in Russia are busy cheering on their respective nations, drinking a bit too much beer during the games, and - apparently - harassing reporters who are trying to cover the sports event.
This weekend, one Brazilian sports correspondent named Julia Guimarães was sexually harassed by a male soccer fan as she presented a piece to camera. The incident happened shortly before the Senegal vs. Japan match on Sunday, while Guimarães was live on air, and viewers were shocked to see the man so brazenly approach the reporter as she was trying to do her job.
Thankfully, Guimarães saw the man's intentions before he could touch her, and recoiled from him as he tried to kiss her face.
"Don't do this. Never do this again," Guimarães says during the clip. "Don't do this. I don't allow you to do this, never, OK? This is not polite. This is not right. Never do this. Never do this to a woman, OK? Respect."
But this isn't the only time she's been approached like this during her stint at the 2018 World Cup. During the opening match between Russia and Egypt in Moscow, the reporter was harassed in a similar manner.
"It's hard to find the words," the reporter wrote on Twitter. "Luckily, I have never experienced this in Brazil. Over here it has happened twice. Sad! Shameful!"
And, understandably, the inappropriate behaviour from fans is really affecting Guimarães' ability to do her job.
"It's horrible. I feel helpless and vulnerable," she told Globo Esporte. "This time I responded but it's sad people don't understand why people feel they have the right to do that."
Other journalists and sports fans have been expressing their solidarity with Guimarães on Twitter, with one sports commentator saying, "The guy is a total jerk. An idiot with the mind of a 13 year old boy, but Júlia Guimarães was great in her reaction."
"All my solidarity with reporter Júlia Guimarães, harassed live on SportTV, while she was covering the World Cup," said another. "After dodging the kiss, Julia warned: 'I don't allow you to do that to me. Never do that to a woman. Respect!' The fight against harassment is of all of us!"
However, not everyone has been so supportive of female reporters during the sporting event. In fact, after another reporter was groped and kissed on air last week (see the clip below), some people took to social media in order to defend the harasser.
"This poor guy is getting slated for kissing her on the cheek. Total over reaction again from the internet," wrote one person.
"Really tho? All he did was go up to her and grab her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek, obviously yelling out something for the team he's rooting for. U guys need to stop making something out of nothing fr. Ridiculous," said another.
However, these people seem to be missing the point. Female reporters get interrupted and harassed by men all the time while trying to do their jobs and - even if people don't consider their actions to be "serious" - nobody should be expected to put up with strangers kissing and touching them without consent.
Hopefully, Guimarães' reaction will show more people that this sort of behavior is absolutely unacceptable - regardless of how innocent it is made out to be.
