Student Commentary
By Barbara Peña Guzman
This article refers to acts of gender violence that may be distressing or triggering.
Mexico is a country which despite all its natural wonders, archeological sites and top-tier cuisine faces an under-reported and astonishing pandemic of gender violence specifically at the hands of men directed to women. Women in Mexico are highly targeted, ranging from systematic gender microaggressions to sexual abuse and murder. As a response to this appalling treatment to women, the modern feminist movement in Mexico exploded in anger and indignation in the beginning of 2020 over the never-ending rising cases of femicide and disappearance of women, most of them, having been murdered in brutal ways.
A few weeks before the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, the women of Mexico protested against a government that disregards women’s lives by the lack of police investigation and the tendency of “sweeping under the rug” these deaths, or by placing blame onto the victims.
Maya Averbuch, a reporter for The Guardian, reported on the protests that occurred in this period.
“Many marchers on Sunday expressed frustration with the country’s federal and state authorities,” writes Averbuch. “Most murder cases go unsolved, and families often search for the missing on their own.”
Law student and coffee shop employee, Arísta González, 40, is the founder of a Facebook group that reports disappearances and abuse in the Mexican municipality of Nezahualcóyotl, and told Averbuch that “people [are] fed up with the impunity.”
“We used to be able to walk home from school alone and leave open the door to your house. Not anymore,” says González. “We’ve become used to living in fear.”
Defined by the UN as a “gender-motivated homicide,” femicides in Mexico reached a peak the first semester of 2020, the most violent one in over 30 years, with the number accumulating to 10 women killed per day.
A Harvard study breaks down how violence against women is even more threatening and alarming for women partly or entirely indigenous. The unfortunate phenomenon dates to colonial times, when Spaniards held the power to abuse indigenous women without any flicker of a consequence. Nowadays, about 20 percent of Mexico’s population is partly or entirely indigenous. Read: Femicide in Mexico: the war on women.
The Mexican Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System confirms the northern Mexican state, Nuevo León, my home state, to be the second most violent entity in the country regarding femicide. In 2017, Nuevo León established criteria to explain what femicides are and how to identify them—this to be able to name the problem and grasp the gravity of the murderous epidemic.
The first criterion is the body of the deceased woman having indications of sexual violence. The second is finding in the body signs of degrading acts such as mutilation. The third criterion is one of the most important and it’s about previous records of violence from the aggressor and murderer. This last criterion is pertinent to mention since in some cases it’s incorrectly assumed the victim sustained a romantic relationship with the aggressor. To clarify, any type of relationship involving trust might facilitate the circumstances for the aggression to happen, but this is not exclusively the case.
Data from Nuevo León reported by Griselda Nuñez, a prosecutor specializing in femicides and crimes against women in Nuevo León, indicates that the modus operandi is exposing and or disposing of the victim’s body on public roads.
In Mexico City, for example, two of the femicides that took place in 2020 were highly addressed nationwide and caused extreme outrage. The first was the case of 7-year-old Fátima, who was kidnapped from outside of her elementary school and brutally killed, showing signs of sexual abuse. Her body was found in a trash bag that was disposed of in a vacant lot. A few days before the disappearance of Fátima, a 25-year-old woman, Ingrid Escamilla, was also brutally killed by her partner. The remains of the body were found dismembered, mutilated and skinned, disposed of down the toilet and a nearby sewer. Photos allegedly leaked by authorities circulated on social media and were republished by various newspapers.
Protests in Mexico City and other Mexican cities exploded in rage, protesting the government’s incapability of preventing this murder when the aggressor already had a history of violence against women. This unfortunately is a common scenario. The case, however, pushed for a new law against publishing certain kind of images in the media.
The international movement Ni Una Menos, “not one (woman) less” in Mexico has led a series of protests in the streets every March 8 in addition to sparking many online movements in each state and region of the county with the viral hashtag #niunamenos, pressuring the government and inciting authorities to decrease the occurrence of these violent acts. These social media platforms are known for attracting attention to the cause and raising awareness, doing exactly what social media should do: spread information on a social issue that would otherwise be unknown due to the traditional media’s decision to not write about hard-to-discuss and taboo subjects that are not “trendy” or “entertaining” or “sensational” enough.
Another protest that gained traction across Mexico was the national strike or “halt” (in Spanish, paro) called “One Day Without Us,” o #UnDiaSinNosotras, which took action against the unbelievers and the ignorant members of society. On March 9, the feminist movement Observatorio Nacional Ciudadano led a strike where women decided to boycott work, school, usage of services such as Wi-Fi and bank transactions, and making purchases of any kind.
The purpose was for the Mexican society to see what it would be like if all women were killed or had disappeared: how necessary we are, how we are just as important as men but are not being treated like so. Some women took matter in their own hands and protested in additional ways besides the ones already mentioned. My mother, for example, even refused to show any affection such as hugs and kisses to my father and brothers for them to care about the cause, literally raising the questions: “What if it was your mother? What if it was your wife?”
The strike’s official Facebook page wrote: “If we [women] halt, the world halts. Remember: this day is to create awareness about the situation of gender violence that is battering through the country.”
The movement was backed by mostly all major educational entities and professional as well, meaning they excused absences and by law, included no drawbacks.
However, common response emerged from some entities in the country, signaling a backfiring effect from the intended purpose. In some notable high schools and universities in Nuevo León for example, the day without women was used as an excuse for boys to watch a football match, some teachers allowed students to play video games during class time, and male students were allegedly seen entering women’s bathrooms and recording videos. The utter misconstruction of the central idea of the strike or “halt” made the community sad and disappointed of the male students participating in these actions, but most importantly, the male professors and directors allowing wrongdoing to go unchecked.
Ignorance like this is a head-on example on why femicides and gender violence keep prevailing in Mexico. Another theory is that these issues are sensitive subjects and delicate matters that people are simply not thrilled to address. With children, hard topics tend to be avoided to spare kids’ warping of their idea of the perfect world they live in. When doing this though, we condemn the cycle of turning a blind eye to the matter. Additionally, a common trend in Mexican culture is to assume that women talking about these issues are “radical feminists” who suggest all men are responsible or partially responsible for the violence ensuing. This is simply not the case.
One of the protests that has been highly controversial online, spreading like wildfire as a topic of conversation and dispute in academic, social and domestic environments was the vandalization of the public monument: The Angel of Independence. Built in 1910 to commemorate Mexico’s independence from Spain, this monument is a victory statue on a major roundabout in downtown Mexico City, which feminist activists spray painted in early 2020, to have the country take notice of this matter.
Unfortunately, the Mexican government’s response to these movements has not been as satisfactory for the people involved in the protests and people who support the cause in general. It has also appeared to become a highly gender-biased issue, since most parts of the protestors are women who empathize at a certain point with the issue of violence against women. Opinions tend to be very black-and-white on the subject, with men and women being divided on them. People in positions of power such as the government and the police are mostly men. This and the privilege of day-to-day men not going through the injustices and plain fear women go through, drives a wedge between men and women in understanding each other’s experience.
Movements against gender violence in Mexico have been often disregarded and written off as “feminazi.” I want to make something clear about this term: the Nazi party promoted fascism and anti-Semitism, leading to a highly deathly, utterly devastating world war. To compare this with the feminist movement that asks for gender equality and empowerment, ending violence against women and femicides is highly inappropriate and a spit in the face to all alive and dead victims of gender violence.
Femicides in Mexico will persist until women feel equally as safe as their male citizens to live a long and prosperous life. We need to ensure the aggressor’s punishments are suitable for the crime committed.
thematthewrome.com 