Arianna studied International Relations and Italian at the University of Southern California. During her senior year, she completed a research project titled “Experiences and Perceptions with Immigrants in Italy,” which won the European Union Best Paper award at the Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference. His article was published in the 2019 edition of the Journal of the European Union.
He has also published several articles in The National Democratic Institute, Human Rights Pulse, and The New Global Order. He is interested in extremism, minority rights, and the intersection of politics and psychology.
Violence against women unfortunately plays a pervasive role in many cultures. In fact, physical safety for women remains an exception to the norm worldwide.
In Mexico, the recent protests on Women’s Day 2021 may seem like a sudden and unprecedented surge of activism against femicide, but the momentum behind this movement has been building for years.
A recent Netflix documentary called “Las Tres Muertes de Marisela Escobedo” sheds light on what started as a small, local protest and contributed to the growth of a movement that now includes tens of thousands of women across Mexico.
“Las Tres Muertes”, Pandemic and Feminist Movement
Maria Escobedo’s three deaths are the death of her daughter Rubi, who was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend, the symbolic death Rubi suffered when the court acquitted her killer, and Maria’s own death, when she was shot on the orders of her daughter’s killer outside the Chihuahua Government Palace, where she was protesting . Between 2008 and 2010, her daily marches to protest the acquittal of her daughter’s killer took her from Ciudad Juarez, near the U.S. border, to Mexico City in central Mexico.
Corruption and Silence
On top of all this, the government has done almost nothing to address the violence. In fact, President Obrador has previously claimed that 90% of domestic violence calls are illegitimate ; This is an unfounded and damaging claim that helps perpetuate the belief that the feminist movement is used solely for political purposes.
The country hit an all-time record of 26,000 reports in the month of March 2020, but the Women’s Statistics Project estimates that the already high rate of violence against women is vastly underreported and suggests the real number may be much higher. As seen in the map above, femicide is spreading across the country, affecting nearly every community.
Privilege and Security
After speaking with two young Mexican women named Nicole and Erika, it became clear that although violence against women is prevalent throughout Mexico, there are different socioeconomic factors to consider. They were both based in Mexico City and expressed that they were initially hesitant but later changed their minds about supporting the feminist movement in Mexico. These two interviews, while unique, provided many similar observations.
Both women grew up in relatively safe, affluent areas and said they still felt unsafe every time they left their homes. Nicole stated that her family did not let her out of the house alone until she was 18. Both Nicole and Erika described numerous incidents of catcalling, harassment, and generally feeling unsafe in public spaces. They both stated that these feelings disappeared when they were around a man, such as their father or boyfriend.
While they thought violent crimes such as rape were less likely to occur in the areas they lived in, Nicole described an experience she had at her private high school. When a girl at her school was raped by a classmate, she filed a formal complaint in the presence of both parents (perpetrator and victim), which went through the Principal, HR Board and Disciplinary Committee. The maximum punishment the perpetrator could receive was one day suspension from school. As Nicole points out, this process, which aims to protect students, ultimately serves no purpose other than causing more harm to the victim.
Ugly Femi-Nazis
Both Nicole and Erika stated that they previously did not care about the feminist movement and actively distanced themselves from it. Terms such as ‘femi-nazi’ were commonly used to describe feminists, and many aspects of their culture made them feel as if things happening to women were normal. For example, Nicole recalled that her primary experience with sex education was watching porn at school in second grade, while Erika noted that almost every man she knew, including her father and brother, had group chats with other men in which pornographic images were shared.
Deadly Machismo
Both women attributed the femicide rate at least in part to macho culture. Nicole noted a disturbing frequency of incestuous rape between older male family figures and underage female members. Erika has said that she previously believed that only “bad girls” were raped, and that women who were raped somehow “wanted it”, as is commonly done in a patriarchal society, but she has since changed her mind on the matter. Now, they feel like it is slowly but surely becoming easier to openly discuss the issues women face, especially as more women come forward and each realize how much closer these issues are than they had previously imagined.
Erika noted that since joining the movement, people have accused her of supporting feminism just because it’s trending, but lately she feels like her eyes have been opened to everything that’s going on around her regarding women’s rights. When asked about men’s place within the movement, both women stated that men’s involvement was crucial to implementing change, but that some aspects of the feminist movement excluded men from active participation. They stated that for machismo to change, men must support feminism and actively fight against historical gender norms.
Politics and Feminism
Finally, both girls noted that the degree of corruption in the country is glaring. Both stated that everything begins and ends with education. While Nicole detailed the public school system’s failure to properly educate people even at the most basic levels of math and science, Erika focused on the fact that no one was informed because no one trusted the media due to its close ties to the government and the large funding it received from the government; He saw this firsthand while working at a media company.
Neither Nicole nor Erika thought change could come from a top-down government approach. In fact, Nicole stated that this is not a matter of legislation, because Mexico has comprehensive femicide legislation, but rather a matter of a functioning system and cultural change. Both acknowledged that changes began at home, with men helping and women taking on more important roles in society.
A Path Forward
In terms of the government’s response, it is unlikely there will be any change until new leadership is in place. Despite appointing women to important positions, President Obrador has empowered men like Felix Salgado, who openly describes himself as a “womanizer, party-goer, gambler, drunkard” and has been accused of violent rape by multiple women, but has silenced them with his power and influence. Salgado, the latest in a long line of politicians in Mexico who have been accused of rape to no avail, was appointed by Obrador to run in Guerrero’s gubernatorial election but was recently removed from the ballot; Not because of the rape accusations, but because he didn’t properly report his campaign finances. In other words, while it may have been removed from the ballot, it’s certainly not a victory for the feminist movement.
However, the movement’s recent growth and increased international attention has the potential to affect change. As a result, many cultural norms will need to change, starting at home and extending to the government. Finally, while the Mexican case is serious, women globally, even in countries that are “physically safe” for women, are still fighting hard for their rights, and this solidarity that extends beyond borders helps build empathy, community, and ultimately the change that all feminists want to see it could be.
1- How can global citizens best support Mexican women’s struggle for survival?
2- Is it possible to completely eliminate the harmful aspects of a culture, namely machismo?
3 – How likely is it that there will be a radical change in Mexican culture in the near future?