It looks like violence; what is violence?

I don't know if it's a global phenomenon, but it seems to me that the trend of hanging padlocks on bridge railings and similar places is widespread. In fact, in some tourist areas, the authorities have had to take measures to prevent damage to the street furniture. A few weeks ago, while strolling with my wife along the seafront promenade of a town on the Costa Daurada, we discussed the rather unpleasant feelings these rusty, salt-covered objects evoked in us. They seem to display a morbid possessiveness: "You're mine, and that's how things will stay, held together with a steel cylinder." The heart drawn on a tree was perhaps gentler and more forgiving... The padlock, locked forever, suggests to me an invasive display of symbolic violence, not an expression of love. However, it's quite likely that many people think the opposite and interpret it as a symbol of loyalty, for example. When harassment occurs on social media, or when messages and calls are abused, the aggressive, invasive, or threatening nature of the act is evident. "Sexist cyberviolence – as explained in the website of the Department of Equality and Feminism The Generalitat's actions can manifest in many ways: from constant location tracking to mass insults on social media or the dissemination of intimate images without consent. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly common and can have fatal consequences; anyone who is informed knows this. This institutional campaign is, in short, timely and necessary. –"If it looks like gender-based violence, it is gender-based violence"—is unfortunate. The issue, as we will see, goes beyond the semantic gap that exists between the verbs. seem and be.

We considered the possibility (hopefully remote) of the Interior Ministry launching a campaign with the slogan "If he looks like a thief, he is a thief"; or the Catalan Health Institute printing posters with the phrase "If he looks like cancer, he is cancer." The reader can add any examples they deem appropriate; it's not very complicated. Perhaps I'm way off base, but I think a campaign that said something like, "If you suspect your neighbor is being robbed, call the police immediately," would be more appropriate and effective. Or, "If you notice any abnormality in your body, go to the doctor as soon as possible," and so on. The advertising people, who know a thing or two about that, would take care of refining the concept. But the objective should be this, not the previous one, because arresting a person simply because... it seems A thief, for example, is not a good idea.

There is still a second issue. Although the expression "If it looks like gender-based violence, it is gender-based violence" is not equivalent to the statement "If it doesn't look like gender-based violence, it isn't gender-based violence"—this isn't a double negative but rather a confusion between a contrapositive and a propositional conversion; please excuse the technicality—it could be interpreted in that direction. And this would bring us back to the sinister, rusty padlocks on the railings of many bridges: the fact that they don't look A coercive act in symbolic terms does not mean that perhaps it will not be Seriously. There is a margin of uncertainty, and it's not always easy to discern.

Are we talking about a completely new phenomenon? The Sorrows of Young Werther In Goethe's *The Sorrows of Young Werther* (1774), for example, is there harassment? Although Werther writes passionate letters, his persistence toward Charlotte, who doesn't reciprocate his love, can be read as a form of extreme emotional pressure that we would probably find intolerable today, and rightly so. The emotions of people at the end of the 18th century and those of people at the beginning of the 21st century haven't changed much, but the way they are communicated has: technology has changed the rules of the game. It's unlikely—or at least it seems so to me—that an institutional campaign can modify the deepest layers of human behavior, because evolutionarily they are what they are. At least I don't know of any successful examples. On the other hand, I think it wouldn't be too difficult to communicate to teenagers that they carry a potential monster in their pocket: "That seemingly innocent photo taken in the bathroom could have catastrophic consequences for your life." Unfortunately, some behaviors seem immune to institutional appeals, while the effects of the screen are easier to understand. If seems a tool of control and domination, don't rule that out.