Hu Yuqian： Women’s Day detonated protests. When will violence against women in Mexico stop？
[Text/Observer Network columnist Hu Yuxi]
First, Women’s Day is not happy! Mexican women took to the streets to demonstrate.
On March 8, 2021, Mexico’s "International Women’s Day" was quite unusual.
There were no lively and joyful celebrations, and there was no grand commemorative ceremony. Instead, protests broke out in many parts of the country.With the opportunity of the March to commemorate Women’s Day, Mexican women issued their condemnation and protest against the long-standing gender violence against women and the crime of killing women in the country. Protests in Mexico City, the capital, were particularly fierce: a large number of female protesters broke through the shields of riot police and rushed into Constitution Square, approaching the National Palace, where the federal government is located, and attracted public attention by shouting, doodling and even setting fire to objects.
The conflict escalated when the protesters broke through the barriers set by the Mexican government. The police used shields, tear gas, pepper spray and batons to disperse the demonstrators, and some protesters even set fire to the police shields. According to marcela figueroa, an official of the Mexican police department, at least 62 police officers and 19 civilians have been injured in the conflict escalated by protests. Among the protests in various parts of Mexico, Mexico City has attracted global attention with its huge momentum, fierce actions and bloody conflicts caused by it.On this festival, which belongs to women all over the world, the whole country of Mexico is filled with anger and anxiety.
A fierce conflict broke out between Mexican police and protesters. Source: Pedro Pardo/AFP.
In fact, many countries will have spontaneous women’s marches on International Women’s Day (according to the British "Independent" report, there have been large-scale street marches in India, France, Spain, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines and other countries this year) to appeal to the public to pay attention to and protect women’s rights and freedoms;In Mexico, in recent years, it is by no means the only time to hold a loud street protest on the International Women’s Day. Therefore, the Mexican government has already made preparations, and on March 5, it built a wall 3 meters high outside the National Palace.(The Mexican government calls it "The Wall for Peace") to prevent "protesting the impact and sabotage of the people".
However, "The Wall for Peace" could not stop the particularly angry protesters this year. The latter not only broke through this wall and condemned it as a "wall of male shame" by graffiti, but also placed flowers, crosses and candles in front of the wall, turning this barrier to protest into a memorial wall for female victims and a landmark for protests. In this case, Mexican President lopez Obrador, whether explaining the fence-building by protecting landmark buildings or accusing the protest movement of "being manipulated and planned by conservative opponents", not only failed to alleviate the protesters’ grievances, but also further aroused the anger of many female protesters like adding fuel to the fire.
Mexican protesters scribbled and projected protest slogans on the barrier in front of the National Palace, turning the barrier into a protest landmark. Source: Mexico News Daily.
As Barbara Gonzalez, a political analyst in Monterrey, Mexico, pointed out: "For many feminists, it seems that the government will step in and put women’s issues on the work agenda, but AMLO (President Lopez’s full name abbreviation) is not only hostile to this movement … He always regards this movement as a manipulated and illegitimate conspiracy."
Obviously, Mexican women are "unhappy" on this Women’s Day. The root cause of their anger is a trite but increasingly serious problem: large-scale gender discrimination, gender violence and even murder against women.
Compared with other countries, Mexican women’s sense of security is undoubtedly the lowest in the past 20 years.As early as 2010, the United Nations listed Mexico as "one of the countries with the most violence against women" in its report on violence against women: between 2002 and 2006, 44% of Mexican women suffered at least one-time violence in their lives and in the past 12 months, the highest proportion in the world.
In 2017, the data of Mexico National Bureau of Geography and Statistics was even more alarming: two-thirds (66.1%) of women over the age of 15 had experienced different degrees of violence, of which 41.3% had experienced sexual violence and 34% had experienced physical violence. It is no exaggeration to say that almost no woman in Mexico is safe.
From 2002 to 2006, the proportion of female sexual violence in Mexico was the highest in the world. Source: United Nations Statistics Division.
Among all kinds of violence against women, the phenomenon of killing women is particularly prominent in Mexico, and in recent years it can be described as "shocking".According to the estimate of Amnesty International, from 1986 to 2009, there were about 34,000 murders of women in Mexico. In 2020, under the epidemic situation, Mexican official data showed that at least 939 women died of gender-related killings in the country, and the statistics of female activist Maria Salguero showed that the situation was even worse: last year, an average of 10 to 11 women were killed every day, nearly doubling the 6 women killed every day in 2016. In 2012, the special report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out that the number of femicide in Mexico ranked 16th in the world, and it is increasing year by year.
From Ciudad Juá rez, a northern border city where women have been killed frequently in the past 30 years, to two tragedies that triggered public anger in February last year (ingrid Escamira, brutally stabbed, skinned and dismembered by her boyfriend, and Fatima Aldrigate, a 7-year-old girl who was kidnapped, raped and tortured to death),Femicide in Mexico is no longer a specific case or an individual phenomenon, but a social problem that the whole country cannot avoid.Mexican women and activists from all walks of life have been running around and shouting for a long time, hoping to attract the attention of the government and solve it.
The murders of ingrid Escamira (I) and Fatima Aldrigate once set off a wave of protests in Mexico. Source: BBC/AFP/Reuters.
However, it is obvious that the Mexican government’s response has made them even more disappointed: according to the statistics of the Mexican National Observatory for Femicide, in the first half of 2017, 800 women were killed in 13 States of Mexico, but less than half of the deaths were identified by the police as killing women and investigated; In the same year, a report by Mexican activist Natalia Reyes pointed out that only 8% of female killers were brought to justice. In recent years, the increasingly tense relationship between President Lopez and feminist groups and several "confrontation from a distance" are even moreMore and more Mexican women deeply feel that the government is just ignoring and avoiding female killings and other gender violence issues.
Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that International Women’s Day can’t make Mexican women happy, but only stimulate their emotions.As Vanya palacios, a 19-year-old girl holding the slogan "Today’s struggle is to not die tomorrow", told the British "Guardian" reporter in the street: "We hope that he (President Lopez) can protect us as much as he protects these buildings."
Second, "injury-protest" keeps repeating itself. When did Mexico find the key to the solution?
In the face of repeated incidents of gender-based violence, the Mexican government’s repeated statements and determination to rectify it seem to have no effect, and international organizations and public opinion have been trying to find the root of the problem for many years: why has this North American country become a paradise for violence against women and even crime?
It is undeniable that the long-term high incidence of gender violence in Mexico is closely related to Mexico’s deep-rooted cultural background.In 2006, the Mexican Institute of Family and Population specially explored the correlation between Mexican male chauvinism culture and modern violence against women. As early as during the Spanish conquest of America in the Middle Ages, the culture that emphasized dealing with Spanish conquerors with male masculinity came into being, and later it developed intoThe inherent psychological and social characteristics of the Mexican state: emotionally indestructible, the absolute dominance of patriarchy, and responding to women in an aggressive or controlling way.
From the initial emphasis on men’s control over the body, this alienated Machismo has shaped Mexican men’s sense of superiority and entitlement; In traditional culture, however, women are in a subordinate position and lack access to knowledge and power, so it is difficult for them to participate in the discussion and change the current social rules.What is even more frightening is that, after this male chauvinism goes to extremes, violence against women is regarded as the embodiment of male pride and the display and maintenance of male power, which has become the default legitimate behavior in Mexican society.
As Marisol Reyes, a psychologist at the Mexican Women’s Commission, said, "Violence is acceptable in our society. People are told that violence is the way to maintain power … Male chauvinism has become the dominant model of Mexican men. "
On the other hand, with the introduction of neo-liberal economic policies in Mexico, the social pattern dominated by men is gradually undergoing subtle changes, which further aggravates gender conflicts and violence.With the increase of poverty rate and unemployment rate in Mexico in recent years, social insecurity has been sharply strengthened, and more women have begun to enter the labor market, seeking improvement of economic challenges and escaping from the original dominant position.
The increase in the number of women in the workplace is bound to impact and threaten the traditional social division of labor between men and women (men work outside the home and women bear family responsibilities). According to Mercedes Oliveira, a research institute of Mexican Family and Population Research Institute, this change has affected men’s self-image cognition and "hurt" their chauvinism and sense of self-superiority.
Since 2000, the unemployment rate in Mexico has shown an unstable rise. Source: World Bank/Macrotrends.
In the past 30 years, the proportion of women employed in Mexico has increased significantly. Source: World Bank.
In 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic led to another increase in violence against women in Mexico.Affected by the epidemic, many countries have taken long-term blockade measures to suspend social and economic activities, and people in various countries have been forced to stay at home.Under the multiple influences of employment pressure, income reduction and mental stress caused by being unable to go out, residents’ psychological problems and domestic violence emerge one after another, which is significantly higher than before the epidemic, and has become a global "shadow pandemic" described by the United Nations.
Among them, women are particularly hurt: in Britain, women are more likely to be fired and suspended without pay because of economic stagnation, need to take on more housework and child care responsibilities, and are more likely to feel anxious, depressed and lonely; On a global scale, family members are more likely to cause fierce conflicts because of the above pressure, and domestic violence against women is more frequent.
This is still the case in developed countries, especially Mexico, where the epidemic situation is extremely serious and the economic recession is obvious (GDP will decrease by 8.5% in 2020, which is the worst contraction since 1932 and the second consecutive year of negative growth). According to the report of Thomson Reuters Foundation, in 2020, Mexico made more than 260,000 emergency calls for help because of violence against women, an increase of more than 30% compared with 198,000 in 2019.
In the same year, the official data of the Mexican government showed that two-thirds of Mexican women suffered from different forms of violence, and the proportion of women who suffered from spousal/domestic violence was as high as 44%, reaching a new high. Mexican Interior Minister Olga Sá nchez Cordero also admitted: "The scope of violence suffered by women is increasing every day."
In a word, it is not only a cultural problem, but also a legal and economic problem for Mexican women to survive so hard.To eradicate Mexican women’s insecurity in society, the government needs more sincerity and efforts to effectively protect women’s basic rights and improve the economy and people’s livelihood; In particular, the legislative and judicial institutions need to be practical and promising to truly ensure the fulfillment of their commitments; It is a long way to go to change the traditional prejudice against women in Mexican society, which is far from a temporary achievement. In Mexico, which is still facing a serious epidemic and the economy has not recovered, it is still "a long way to go" for women to live in their own homes without fear and truly spend a happy Women’s Day.
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