This is a short blog piece written for my MA in Social Research. Over the last 18 months, I’ve visited several Mexican cities, and in every one, I’ve seen abundant feminist iconoclasm (graffiti on public building, alteration of official monuments), wheat paste posters, and objects such as pink crosses. I find this defiant feminist presence fascinating and it’s something I’m keen to explore in my PhD. In this blog I deal specifically with wheat paste posters I saw during a trip to Oaxaca in November 2020.
‘Las Madres Ya No Lloran Ahora Luchan’ (Mothers no longer cry, now they fight). Photograph taken by author, November 2020.
In the streets of Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico, art spills out from open doors of the many community printing studios, drips down public walls in thick acrylic or wheat paste, is stuck at eye-level on lampposts and traffic lights, and peers down at you through paper mache eyes of over-sized carnival-esque sculptures perched on balconies. Few cities so vivaciously and vibrantly express their subaltern sociopolitical histories and identities so consistently and so glaringly as Oaxaca does, and through such signature styles. The art on display is compelling, challenging and consistently imbued with leftist politics (Caplow, 2008; Flores, 2018; Johnson, 2020). So how does feminist public art fit into this picture?
Making public space, feminist space
The relationship between feminist activist art and public space in Mexico is becoming increasingly important as feminist activists and the artistic methods of protest that they use are becoming more visible, and more polemical (Cepeda, 2019; Eulich, 2020). Exploring this relationship helps us understand the gendered complexities of public space, and the priorities of feminist artist activists. For example, Castañeda Salgado (2016: 1061) explains how the presentation of ‘feminicide…in performances, dance, theatre, films, photography, literature and poetry’ in public space in Ciudad Juárez visibilises feminicide, and emphasises the city’s complicity in its preponderance.
Castro Sánchez (2018) argues that when feminist artists use public space to display their art, both the art and the space it is displayed in immediately become politicised in a gendered way. Firstly, this is because women have been (and in many cases, remain) excluded from traditional spaces where art and politics take place, she argues. Furthermore, women are not safe in public space, and are blamed for being there if violence takes place against them when they occupy it. Therefore, when displayed in public spaces, ‘feminist art affects and confronts not only art as a supposedly universal and neutral institution, but also society itself configured from a patriarchal order, questioning the assumptions of the dominant culture’ (Castro Sánchez, 2018: 17).
Appearances deceive: not all street art is political
Street art’s complex and ‘dialectically entangled relationship with power and rule’ (Bogerts, 2017: 6) means it is not always obvious to identify genuinely feminist street art. Bogerts argues it is essential to ‘be aware of the different levels on which an image makes meaning and subsequently assemble relevant context information. While one level indicates a resistant character, another level might reveal the simultaneous entanglement of the image within power structures.’ To help make sense of how visual resistance interacts with hegemonic power structures, Bogerts presents a methodology for visual literacy. With the arguments of Castro Sánchez in mind and with Bogerts’ methodology at hand, let’s have a look at some examples of art pasted to city centre walls in Oaxaca.
Feminists luchando with street art
‘Vivas Nos Queremos’ (We Want Women Alive). Photograph taken by author, November 2020.
According to Bogerts’ seven-step framework (2017: 8), the first element to consider is the legality of the public art. These images are examples of illegal wheat pasting, which adds to their anti-establishment identity. All of these posters were pasted onto walls of centrally located public buildings. This represents an unapologetic ‘symbolic occupation of space’ (Bogerts, 2017: 8) and calls to mind Castro Sánchez’s arguments of the meaning of feminist art when placed in public space. We can infer that the poster in fig.1 was pasted up on or around 9 March given its reference to the national feminist strike which takes place on that date. Being linked to a political event is Bogerts’ third consideration; the fourth is the technique and material. These posters are all lino or woodcut prints and the style is iconic to contemporary Oaxacan printmaking collectives (Caplow, 2008; Avila, 2014; De la Rosa and Gilbert, 2017; Johnson, 2020). This hints at the social position and identity of the creators, the fifth part in Bogerts’ framework. Probably these posters were created by a printing collective such as women’s printing collective Armarte, based in the Taller Artístico Comunitario. The communitarian approach to printmaking in Oaxaca is emblematic of its leftist subaltern political values.
3 ‘Mi Lucha Es Por Vivir’ (My struggle is to stay alive). Photograph taken by author, November 2020.
Next, we must consider the iconological content of the work. The women depicted here are all in an active state of protest and the accompanying text hints at activism, either through directly referencing lucha (political struggle) or in fig.1, a chant from feminist marches. Finally we must consider the ‘social, political, or economic reactions by its audience’. Audience reaction is hard to judge but certainly there is no economic interaction here, and instead the material, technique and iconographical content are clearly imbued with sociopolitical messaging.The existence of these posters is an example of feminist artist activists reclaiming public space and therefore ‘expanding… [and] recognising the diversity of forms of political participation’ (Castro Sanchez, 2018: 13). They are fundamentally important in the struggle to break down gendered barriers to public space and increase the visibility of the feminist movement.
Bibliography
Avila, T. (2014). El Taller de Gráfica Popular and the Chronicles of Mexican History and Nationalism. Third Text, 28 (3) pp. 311-321
Bogerts, L. (2017). Mind the trap: Street art, visual literacy, and visual resistance. Street Art & Urban Creativity Scientific Journal 3 (2) pp 6-10
Caplow, D. (2008). Arte callejero de la Oaxaca contemporánea en el context mexicano. El Alcaraván, 1, pp. 30–41
Castañada Salgado, M.P. (2016). Feminicide in Mexico: An approach through academic, activist and artistic work. Current Sociology, 64 (7) pp. 1054–1070
Castro Sánchez, A.M. (2018). El lugar del arte en las acciones políticas feministas. Configurações 22 pp. 11-30
I wrote this essays part of my recently completed MA in Social Research and it received a grade of 95. As we approach the first anniversary of the event at the centre of the discussion analysed in this essay, I wanted to share it here.
My friends and I at a feminist march in Quintana Roo in 2020.
Flopping onto the sofa, I feel the breeze through the open window and hear the rain beating down onto the balcony. It comes in swathes and obscures the already dark night even more. My mind is full and I’m unconsciously clenching my jaw. I’ve taken to working at night, so even though it’s after 11pm I open my computer, refreshing the Facebook homepage I Ieft open, to allow myself a little procrastination time first. Immediately I see concerned, short, frantic posts from feminist friends here in Mexico. They contain just enough detail that I know something serious has happened but I can’t tell what. I imagine it is related to the marches that were organised in response to the murder of a young woman named Alexis. Two days earlier, on 7 November, 20-year-old Alexis was reported missing in Cancun. Her dismembered body was found in a black bin bag the following day, and by 9 November, feminist collectives in Quintana Roo had organised protests in Cancun, Playa del Carmen (where I live, just an hour away from Cancun) and elsewhere in the state to demand justice for Alexis.
I wasn’t prepared to see the news that police had opened fire with live ammunition on unarmed feminist protestors in Cancun. My heart races – this is too much, too close to home. I’m in disbelief. I have participated in several feminist protests in Playa del Carmen. What has always struck me is the joy, adrenaline and unique energy that sizzles as you find yourself immersed in a group of women who feel the same fury and love as you. The women who make up the batucada[1] beat drums, blow whistles, and set the rhythm of each march. Goosebumps tingle your skin as you chant together at the top of your lungs. Passers-by cheer us on, film us with mobile phones, some raise their fists along with us. I think back to the last march I joined, how I laughed with joy when a DJ played feminist reggaeton music and marchers moved their hips, squatted and twerked, feeling the thrill of moving their bodies without fear of harassment or leering eyes.
I think about this and wonder how it must have felt in Cancun tonight. I worry suddenly about how the feminist movement will be affected: 2020 has seen a surge in feminist protest in Mexico and on the 25th of this same month, rallies are planned across the country to mark the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Will tonight’s events create anger, motivating women to march, or will fear force them to stay indoors?
It is not unusual to find out about feminist activities on Facebook. I saw the information about the shooting conveyed in a graphic (fig.1), shared along with its original description by a Facebook user to a popular group, Soy Playense. The group isa local platform for information sharing among residents of Playa del Carmen. It has approximately 128,700 members and is not aligned to any political cause or political party.The graphic that the user shared was originally published by left wing news site Tercera Vía, along with the simple description: ‘The police shoot at unarmed protestors in #Cancun. Their crime: demanding #JusticeforAlexis.’ [2]
Graphic shared to Facebook group Soy Playense
At first glance, the graphic appears to be a perfectly innocuous, neutral, informational post. However, the swiftly increasing number of comments and emoji reactions suggests that there is something triggering about this graphic for many people. It was posted at 11.19pm, and by the time I add my comment 27 minutes later, the post already has 38 comments and over 200 emoji reactions, with more being quickly added. Already I can see familiar arguments being made, and familiar feelings surge in me in response. When a feminist Facebook user, who I do not know personally, responds to the stream of comments now spiralling off from my comment, that ‘each person just sees and hears what they want’, I am inspired to reach for my pen and notebook and start to make notes about how the interaction unfolds. What do people see and hear when they are confronted with feminist protest? Why? How do they respond, and what can we learn from this?
Myself and the other people commenting and reacting to this post are co-creating a story (Atay, 2020), the practice of which is precisely what Postill and Pink (2012) argue should be central to social media ethnography. This story ostensibly begins with an image, although it is obvious that this, like countless other stories which deal with activism and digital spaces, is only one small part of a much larger context that traverses digital and physical places (Postill and Pink, 2012; Bonilla and Rosa, 2015; Barassi, 2017; Lin, 2017; Atay, 2020).
Even though the image which provokes our responses seems innocuous to me, Pink (2007: 22) has argued that images ‘are inextricably interwoven with our personal identities, narratives, lifestyles, cultures and societies, as well as with definitions of history, space and truth’. Indeed this appears to be the case here, as the idea of truth is the first thing to be contested in response to the image. A male commentator implies that the whole ‘truth’ is not stated in the graphic, and it strikes me that the image seems harmless to me because I do agree with its narrative and its representation of events. The first comment sets the tone for the majority of the rest of the discussion:
‘But you don’t say that they [committed] vandalism. You can’t cover up the violence that [the protestors] generated before [the police shot at them]’.[1]
The commentator is referring to the fact that some protestors smashed glass windows at the city hall, which is the justification used by police to open fire. I jot down a note, a fundamental part of the ethnographic process which helps us find ways of verbalising the implicit meanings we instinctively identify in ‘(mostly) “silent” social phenomena’ (Schindler and Schäfer, 2020: 9). This comment is not ‘silent’, but I know there is more to it than what is being overtly said (Geertz, 1973). Sounds familiar – I write – vandalism/violence incorrect definitions, victim blaming: same arguments. Check themes. The commenter may only be saying a few brief words, but he has already touched on some important concepts in the context of contemporary response to feminist protest in Mexico – vandalism, violence and victim blaming.
An analysis of the themes which emerge in the comments on this thread (see appendix 1), and how commentators interact with each other, betray ritualised practices which reinforce the identities of feminist or anti-feminist which they are performing. It appears that the story that we are co-creating is one which has repeated since at least August 2019 when feminist protestors graffitied monuments and broke windows in Mexico City in response to two cases of rape and sexual violence committed by police against young women. Since then, major marches protesting violence against women and demanding sexual and reproductive rights have taken place across the country. In the stories they tell about these protests, the mainstream media and anti-feminist commentators foreground the methods of protest used by feminists and debate the integrity of the victims of gender-based violence[2], while feminists centre the violence committed against female bodies and the impunity surrounding it (Cerva Cerna, 2020; Heinrich, 2020). Neither side invents the phenomena which undergird their stories, but they choose what to name and how to name them, which is exactly what is taking place in this comment thread; as Geertz (1973: 5) has observed, ‘man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun’.
New comments pop up every couple of minutes. I scroll through them, carefully reading and deciphering each one, deciding if they are feminist or anti-feminist and how I can tell. Some are more difficult than others to understand, especially those which are heavily peppered with slang, insults or sarcasm. I start to become conscious of my position as insider/outsider (Stack, 1993; Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007), that through participating in this thread I have chosen to perform dual identities as feminist activist and as ethnographical observer, and more than that, I cannot hide my ‘outsiderness’ of being an English person in Mexico. The difference in language ability and use is one of the clearest indicators that I am an outsider in this particular situation, which calls to mind observations made by Stack (1993:80), who was continuously reminded of her difference or outsider status through the practices, customs and words which were unfamiliar to her but used regularly by the community that she was studying. Despite this, my sense of feeling simultaneously like an ‘insider’ – as a feminist activist – drove me to write one comment in the thread anyway. In it, I foreground the reason why feminists protested, highlight the misuse of the term ‘vandalism’, and criticise the narrative of victim blaming. It does not become clear to me until I am in the process of analysing the comments in their entirety that my comment perfectly aligns with the feminist themes and ways of speaking that I identify in the thread.
I look at my notes to see how I felt in the moment I decided to write the comment. They reveal that my emotional response to the comment thread was manifesting physically: these comments are so frustrating. I’m rolling my eyes, tutting, shaking my head, my neck hurts, I am even chuckling (or scoffing?), and now I am talking to the screen. As Postill and Pink (2012: 128) have emphasised, doing social media ethnography ‘is a sensorily embodied, rather than ‘virtual’ experience’, and Bonilla and Rosa (2015: 9) agree that social media is not ‘a space of disembodied engagement.’ I am engaging emotionally and emotively throughout the exchange that I am analysing, and I am not the only one. Anger is the most consistently overtly displayed emotion here. Commentators on both sides show their anger through the frequent use of insults, although more anger and insulting speech comes from anti-feminists than from feminists. Anti-feminists’ attempts to encourage feminists to see their perspective are couched in insulting and patronising language. Although at times feminists attempt to elicit empathy from anti-feminists by encouraging them to think about how they would feel if one of their female family members was murdered, more frequently feminists choose not to waste time engaging in debate and instead write short, insulting comments. For example, an interaction between two Facebook users, who have tagged each other in their posts meaning that their comments are directly meant for each other, is translated below:
User 1: These women [victims] aren’t well-behaved. They do what they do knowing the dangers. A girl with values, believe me, isn’t in any situation [where she is] disappeared or vandalising.
User 2: What a disgusting comment, but whatever, I’m not going to fight with an idiot.[1]
The frustration felt by User 2 is palpable. Certainly, it may feel futile for two strangers with such polarised viewpoints to argue in the comments section of a Facebook group. There is little overt recognition of the validity of the opposition’s argument in this comment thread, though it is impossible to say whether such pondering is taking place behind closed doors. There is only one example of two users from opposite sides respectfully engaging with each other. They exchange a few comments, before the anti-feminist user says good night and that she hopes ‘tomorrow everything is better and the whole world looks different, since right now everything is muddled up’.[2] I smile to myself as I imagine the feminist commentator rolling her eyes as she loses patience with such a twee observation from her co-conversationalist. ‘Sleep well’, she types, adding sarcastically:
‘I also hope that tomorrow no woman is murdered so we can stop writing on walls, asking people to please stop killing women or that the government does justice and to thank people for being such good sports for respecting our rights…heck, I might even ask God for it’.[3]
Ethnographers have argued that acknowledging the emotional and sensorial nature of doing ethnography can be epistemologically productive (Stack, 1993; Fields, 2013; Bonilla and Rosa, 2015; Feldman and Mandache, 2019; Atay, 2020). Feldman and Mandache (2019: 229) have argued that because ethnography is intimate, relational and affective, doing it can lead to moments of ‘emotional overlap’, when ‘the emotions of both the informant and the ethnographer converge in intimate episodes of confession, understanding, and empathy’. Analysing these moments, they argue, can help ethnographers ‘understand and interpret informants’ experiences without objectifying or reifying them; and [call] researchers to utilize these emotional experiences to produce timely, outward-facing constructive work’ (Feldman and Mandache, 2019: 236). I seem to be feeling similar emotions to the other feminists commenting in this interaction, and it certainly helps me understand that the experience of commenting and engaging with anti-feminists online is much more than simply typing a few words and turning off the computer. While observing the encounter, I note that for feminist commentators, there was a: recurring sense of anger and exasperation stemming from anti-feminists’ refusal to accept severity of real-life event that sparked 9 Nov protest in Cancun, murder and dismemberment of Alexis!!. Feminists are well aware that in Mexico an average of ten women a day are murdered (Xantomila, 2020), 97% of cases end in impunity for perpetrators (Las Tres Muertes de Marisela Escobeda, 2020), and women and girls are revictimised in print and digital media (Heinrich, 2020). It is in this lived, everyday context that feminists were commenting.
Ethnographers have shown that it is becoming increasingly clear that physical and digital spaces, places and practices of activism are inextricably interwoven. As Pink (2012: 6) explains, ‘everyday life and activism [are both] always part of and co-constitutive of specific environmental configurations’. Postill and Pink (2012: 124) explain that their decision to carry out social media ethnography in the same city that they were studying, rather than simply engaging online from their hometown, was motivated because: ‘it enabled us to follow ethnographically the (dis)continuities between the experienced realities of face-to-face and social media movement and socialities. This is part of the process of making an ‘ethnographic place’ (Pink, 2009). Bonilla and Rosa (2015) also demonstrated this well in their analysis of the 2014 Ferguson riots, when they identified at least two separate elements to the ethnographic place they studied: there was #Ferguson (on Twitter), and the town of Ferguson, Missouri. They argue that these two ‘contexts are interrelated and build on each other’, and that ‘the ways these activists shift seamlessly across spaces and modes of engagement underscore the slippery boundary between analog [sic] and digital forms of activism’ (Bonilla and Rosa, 2015: 10-11).
When feminist commentators used phrases like ‘do you see the wave of violence against women in this state or haven’t you noticed’[1], ‘Alexis was one of the many, many straws that broke the camel’s back…let’s stop having more empathy for a sheet of glass than we have for women’[2] and ‘we’ll keep burning, destroying the whole city if need be, so that they protect us. We live in fear, in panic, they’re killing all of us women and people care more about a fucking fire’[3], the connection between everyday life as lived by feminists in Quintana Roo and their comments in this encounter were evident. This is underscored because feminists’ comments tended to be much broader than simply commenting on the case of Alexis or the 9 November protest; often they made reference to the wider context of recent trends in feminist protest in Mexico and how these have been reported and responded to.
Bonilla and Rosa (2015: 6) have unpacked the assumption that social media sites are ‘unproblematized “public spheres”’. They challenge us to consider who actually participates in public conversation on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Analysing who was included and excluded in the encounter I observed was interesting. Firstly, gender as a standalone category played little role in whether comments were supported or challenged by others, rather the feminist or anti-feminist nature of the comments was deemed the most important element in defining interaction. This is not surprising, as Pink (2007: 25) argues of gender and ethnography:
‘A stress on…multiple femininities and masculinities…has meant that differences among as well as between men and women are accounted for. Moreover, the fixity of both gender and identity have been questioned…it has been argued that the gendered self is never fully defined in any absolute way, but that it is only in specific social interactions that the gender identity of any individual comes into being in relation to the negotiations that it undertakes with other individuals.’
Reflecting on gender and feminism in the context of this interaction, I note: reinforces complex and intersectional nature of gender and feminism, how entrenched patriarchy and machismo are, and the need to always deepen our analyses beyond binary and reductionist conceptions of gender (which feminists, of course, already know).
There were some examples of social class biases which may have caused exclusion. There is a particular way of phonetic spelling and lack of punctuation in Spanish which seems to be understood as representing a lack of formal education and thus, implicitly, lower social class. Two commenters speak in this way during the occasion I observe. Both are anti-feminist and make comments that provoke angry responses from some feminist commentators. For example, one woman writes:
‘[feminists] can say whatever they want but this is vandalism what if a police officer was killed or hurt they also have family and not for some people that don’t know how to march peacefully are they going to risk their life’[1]
It appears as though the feminist commentators who respond to this woman’s comment equate the poor spelling and lack of punctuation with the ignorance that they identify in the content of the comments. One commentator responds:
‘I’ll tell you what I told the other idiot, and what about the young woman they murdered?…it’s disgusting talking to someone like you, first go and learn to write and then talk my love’[2]
The exchange continues, with the original commentator blaming women for being murdered if they are not humble or modest enough, and another feminist commentator, angered by this, responding that the original commentator’s opinions show that people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are ignorant. I cringe as I read these insults and note that insulting way of speaking from could certainly exclude others from wanting to comment and perhaps deepen the perceived class divide between feminists and non-feminists.
At about 1.30am, I close my laptop, ‘leaving the field’, and take a moment to digest this experience. Engaging with Facebook posts about feminism in Mexico is ‘part of my own digital everyday normality’ (Pink, 2012:124), however, there are two particular elements which distinguish this event as ethnographic practice: the immersion while carrying out the research, and the specific way of writing up the findings (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007; Pink, 2012; Postill and Pink, 2012; Barassi, 2015).
Part of what defines ethnography is the collection of data through sustained immersion in the field, and making richly detailed notes (Geertz, 1973; Willis and Trondman, 2000; Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007; Pink, 2007; Postill and Pink, 2012; Barassi, 2015). Since I only analysed one encounter, it would be misleading to say I have spent a sufficiently extensive period ‘in the field’ carrying out focussed ethnographic practice. However, I have spent a number of years in this part of Mexico and have always been involved in feminist social activism here, which has provided me with an understanding of the context in which the encounter I analysed took place. Throughout my observation I made detailed notes, which meant I was more consciously aware of the sensorial and corporal experience of being in field and was therefore able to gain a more critically rich understanding of the experience in which I participated.
Ethnography’s ‘superordinance’ (Tyler, 1986) lies in the unique way of writing, and thus way of knowing, that is employed in order to evoke the intangible. This is achieved through providing ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) or ‘very personally written’ (Cushman and Marcus, 1982: 26) accounts which get to the ‘nitty gritty’ (Willis and Trondman, 2000) of the social occasions being analysed. In this essay I have discussed the ‘complex specificness’ and ‘circumstantiality’ (Geertz, 1973: 23) of the particular encounter I have analysed. I also experienced the ‘feminist ethnographer’s dilemma’ (Fields, 2013) of being confronted with problematic conversation from women who are not feminists, or comments from some feminists which insult other women’s socioeconomic status. While it is uncomfortable to acknowledge and share these encounters in this essay, the commitment to ‘evoke a social and cultural totality’ (Marcus and Cushman, 1982: 29) is central to ethnography.
Geertz (1973:9) highlighted the fundamental and unapologetic commitment to constructionism in ethnography when he observed that ‘what we call our data are really our constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to’.
This way of writing, which rejects a positivist understanding of the nature of objective truth, has been criticised (Stack, 1993; Hammersely and Atkinson, 2007; Schindler and Schäfer, 2020). However, ethnographers argue that the value of ethnographic writing is partly in offering ‘versions of ethnographers’ experiences of reality that are as loyal as possible to the context, negotiations and intersubjectivities through which the knowledge was produced’ (Pink, 2007: 23). Throughout this essay I have represented my understanding of the occasion which took place, from my position as a feminist ethnographer and feminist activist; this ‘self’ of mine was inextricably involved in the research process (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007; Pink, 2012; Postill and Pink, 2012: Bonilla, 2015).
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[1] digan lo q digan eso es bandalismo q tal si uviera un policia muerto o erido eyos tanbien tienen familia y no x unas personas q nosaben marchar pasificamente eyos ban arrisgar su vida
[2] Te diré lo mismo que le dije al otro pendejo, y la chava que mataron que…que asco hablar con alguien así cómo tú, primero ve a aprender a escribir y ya luego hablas mi amor
[1] Ves la ola de violencia hacia las mujeres que hay en el estado o no te enteras
[2] Alexis es una de las tantas gotas que ha derramado el vaso…Dejemos de ser más empaticaos con un vidrio y seamos más con una mujer
[3] Seguiremos quemando, destruyendo la ciudad entera si es necesario, para que nos protejen. Vivimos con miedo, con pánico, nos están matando a todas y se asustan por un pinche incendio
[1] User 1: no tienen educación las mujeres. Andan por ahí sabiendo los peligros. Una chica con valores créeme no está en ninguna situación ni desaprecida ni vandalizando. User 2: Que asco de comentario, pero bueno no voy a andar peleando con un pendejo
[2] Deseo que mañana todo esté mejor y que el mundo entero cambie de pinta, ya que ahora todo está de cabeza.
[3] Descansa yo también espero que mañana ninguna mujer sea asesinada para que dejemos de pintar paredes, pidiéndoles que por favor ya no las asesinen o que les haga justicia el gobierno y darles las gracias por ser buena onda respetando sus derechos…igual y hasta se lo pido a diosito.
[1] Pero no dices que vandalizaron. No puedes encubrir a la violencia que generaron previamente
[2] Gender-based violence includes intimate partner violence, however, I also use the term in a broader sense which includes the systematic and structural violence exercised against women and girls through patriarchal and misogynistic systems. See: Jacqui True (2012) The Political Economy of Violence Against Women.
I wrote this blog piece to bring together some of our early reflections on the experience of using Photovoice methodology with displaced women and girls in Brazil. The project is a component of ReGHID and is being carried out between the very wonderful and talented photographer Bruna Curcio in Brazil, and me via Zoom from here in Mexico. There’ll be another article soon about how these practical challenges affect the research experience! The piece was originally published here.
Introduction
Arts-based methodologies are becoming increasingly popular within migration research, valued for their potential to traverse and transcend cultural, linguistic and academic borders; to facilitate more egalitarian research; and to provide richer and multi-layered data regarding the lived experiences of people on the move (O’Neill, 2011; Oliveira, 2019; Jeffery et al, 2019). Keen to involve migrant women and adolescent girls in Brazil and Mexico in co-producing research carried out within ReGHID in a meaningful and appropriate way, we have chosen to use the arts-based methodology of photovoice as part of our study. Photovoice was developed as a way to promote a social justice perspective within health research, especially with marginalised groups (Wang & Burris, 1997; Hergenrather et al, 2009; Evans-Agnew and Rosemberg, 2016). In the context of ReGHID, participants will take photographs in response to the theme of sexual and reproductive health, then share and discuss them in a focus group; the photographs taken by participants will be collated in a photobook to be shared with NGOs, policymakers and other interested parties.
In May 2021, we began working on Photovoice with women from the Warao indigenous community sheltered in Tarumã Açu II, in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Here, we share some very early reflections on conceptualising sexual and reproductive health, and some theoretical considerations on Photovoice as a methodology with the Warao women.
Researching sexual and reproductive health: challenges and motivations
Discussing sexual and reproductive health can be challenging. Sexual and reproductive health is so deeply personal. Our experiences of periods, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and abortion, violence and so on are things which we have learned are ‘private’ matters and, because of societal taboos or indeed legal context, there can be shame or unwillingness around talking about these issues. They might also trigger traumatic memories, which we do not want or are not able to talk about freely. Furthermore, across cultures and communities, there are vastly different understandings of what sexual and reproductive health comprises, leading to differences in identifying issues and challenges related to sexual and reproductive health. This was particularly the case of Warao women in Manaus, as will be better described below.
Despite the difficulties in talking about and conceptualising sexual and reproductive health, receiving information, access and attention relating to all elements of sexual and reproductive health is a human right, including during the migration journey. Having dignity and autonomy over our bodies is the starting point to living empowered lives and reaching our full potential. Even if lip service is paid to this by governments and policymakers, unfortunately, in practice, girls’ and women’s sexual and reproductive health needs are repeatedly ignored, denied, and in the worst cases, policies are created which actively disadvantage particular groups of girls and women. This is amplified in the case of women and girls experiencing axes of discrimination because of their intersectional characteristics including migrant status, race or ethnicity, age, dis/ability and poverty.
Photovoice as a decolonising methodology
For many indigenous peoples, ‘research’ is probably one of the dirtiest words’ in their vocabulary (Smith, 1999: 1). The term conjures up centuries of invasive, dangerous, racist and colonialist practices, ‘in which knowledge about indigenous peoples was collected, classified and then represented in various ways back to the West, through the eyes of the West’ (ibid). For years, research has had negative impact within indigenous communities – both when it informs policy, or when it resoundingly fails to:
‘The greater danger, however, was in the creeping policies that intruded into every aspect of our lives, legitimated by research, informed more often by ideology….Taking apart the story, revealing underlying texts,and giving voice to things that are often known intuitively does not help people to improve their current conditions. It provides words, perhaps, an insight that explains certain experiences – but it does not prevent someone from dying.’ (Smith, 1999: 3).
We can see, then, that research is powerful, especially research with implications for health or medical policy with indigenous communities. Using participatory or emancipatory methodologies is seen as a way of decolonising research because it creates more equal power relations within the research process, aiming to empower rather than exploit research participants. Photovoice is one such methodology and indeed, arguably, given that the relationship between photography and indigenous peoples is also fraught with racist and colonialist history and practices, it is potentially a particularly powerful method when working with indigenous peoples. Photography has been used historically as a form of framing, telling a story about the ‘Other’, and constructing a narrative through the violence of imperialism, which takes agency away from the photographed and gives it only to the photographer (Sealy, 2018. See also Halba, 2009). In photovoice, the agency is returned to the (indigenous) research participant and photographer.
Early reflections
So far, our early work in Tarumã Açu II has provided several points for reflection. First, the fundamental differences in conceptions of health, medicine and healthcare held between the Warao women and us as researcher and photographer are crucial to keep in mind. Understandings of health and illness are informed by beliefs in witchcraft and shamanism among the Warao people (ACNUR, 2021; REGHID interviews). In contrast, we grew up in societies where health and illness are based on Western, scientific medicine. Added to this is different access to – and inclusion within or exclusion from – institutions and resources which inform how we understand sexual and reproductive health, and the language we use to discuss it. These institutions include formal education, public health services, and organisations which use rights-based terminology to describe sexual and reproductive health.
To address these differences, we have taken more time and care in a way that would allow a deeper, more intimate connection with the Warao women. More technical concepts involving photography, as well as sexual and reproductive health needed a different approach and more time, both for the Warao women involved – some of which who had never even seen a professional camera before – and the researchers. In order to discuss this with Warao women, we spoke more generally about women’s health, rather than sexual and reproductive health as a pre-defined notion. Furthermore, the parameters for discussion on women’s health are led at this early stage by the Warao women. For instance, the challenges to mothering that some have experienced as a result of poverty do not necessarily align with our preconceived ideas of sexual and reproductive health, and for this reason, it is crucial to allow ample space and time for discussion, as both Warao women are able to better understand the methodology and communicate through photography, as well as researchers can better understand the Warao women’s own cosmology.
Secondly, we are motivated by the emancipatory potential of photovoice, but we must be cognisant about some of the unavoidable limitations of its decolonising potential. While the participants will take photographs that reflect their own interpretations of challenges to sexual and reproductive health, and in this sense they are using their voice and expressing their own priorities, the need to adhere to the overall theme could be seen as limiting. The core output of the photovoice project will be the photobook to be shared with policymakers and other interested parties; to ensure impact in influencing policymaking, it will be necessary to align it with the concepts, language and parameters of health policymaking.
It is too early to reach conclusions about how to mitigate practices which could be seen as colonialist, albeit obviously unintentional. However, it is something we must continue to be aware of as the project develops and when we come to write up the results of the research. So far, in her sessions with the Warao women, Bruna has encouraged participants to get used to the cameras and the potential for creative expression through photography – for many of the women, it is the first time they have used cameras. While taking pictures of their grandchildren or the nature around them is not necessarily related to the theme of sexual and reproductive health, it is an important part of the process of developing confidence and therefore finding a voice as a photographer. Again, we feel it is important to allow the space and time for this, if we are to be able to lock into the decolonising potential of the methodology.
We continue to work on Photovoice with the Warao and other groups of Venezuelan women and adolescents on the move, and are looking forward to seeing the results of all the group projects together.
Evans-Agnew, R.A. and Rosemberg, M.S. (2016). Questioning Photovoice Research: Whose Voice?Qualitative Health Research26 (8) pp. 1019–1030
Halba, H. (2009). Creating image and telling stories: decolonising performing arts and image-based research in Aotearoa/New Zealand. About Performance9 pp. 193-211.
Hergenrather, K.C. et al (2009). Photovoice as Community-Based Participatory Research: A Qualitative Review American Journal of Health Behaviour 33 (6) pp.686-698
Jeffery, L et al (2019). Creative engagement with migration. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture10 (1) pp. 3-17.
Oliveira, E. (2019) The personal is political: a feminist reflection on a journey into participatory arts-based research with sex worker migrants in South Africa. Gender & Development 27 (3) pp. 523-540
O’Neill, M. (2011). Participatory methods and critical models: Arts, migration and diaspora. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture2 (1), pp. 13–37.
Sealy, M. (2018). Decolonising the Camera: photography in racial time. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
This article about my experience in carrying out my Feminist Review Trust funded mural project was first published on a website that was an incredibly important source of information for me when I began my journey in feminism as an 18-year-old undergraduate (well, my ‘official’ journey into feminism, when I realised that there was a theory that explained all the things that had never made sense to me about how gender stereotypes constrain and harm us!). I’m really pleased to now be a published author on The F-Word. I’m also really thankful to the arts editor Alice Parkin for dedicating so much time to working through this piece with me. Enjoy!
In the summer of 2020 I spent ten long, hot, tiring and incredibly satisfying days painting a mural unlike any other I had ever painted before. Situated in a bright and lively neighbourhood in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, the mural is the result of three years of meticulous research and planning. Measuring 18 metres across and 2 metres high, it is a mural about domestic workers’ sense of identity and self-perception, based on the findings from my Masters Research in Women’s Studies. It has a social, cultural, political and, above all, feminist aim: to provide an alternative and empowering portrayal of domestic workers in a context where they are often concealed and exploited. The mural fits into an increasingly visual, and increasingly visible, feminist movement in Mexico.
The mural was motivated by two main principles. The first is academic; feminist research aims to uncover and scrutinize gender expression in the social world, intending to create positive change in society for people of all genders but especially for women. In many ways, doing feminist research is itself a method of political activism; but its real-world impact is limited when research findings are confined to academic theses, articles and books which most people struggle to access due to elitist language, cost and a perception of detachment from everyday life can all exclude those outside of academia from reading these texts. For years, researchers who follow traditionally alternative methodologies like feminism have sought accessible ways to share their research with a wider audience, driven by their commitment to influence social change. Art is one important way to communicate academic findings and engage a wider audience.
The second motivation came from Mexico itself. Mexico is an incredibly creative and defiantly revolutionary place with a rich history of sociopolitical art, and such a strong feminist movement that it has been called the country’s ‘principle opposition movement’. Mexican feminist activists have become increasingly creative, experimental and bold with their forms of protest in the last two years, and there has been a surge in feminists’ use of visual protest. Feminists in Mexico have made headlines for ‘intervening’ in national monuments and public art with colourful graffiti; for bathing public officials in pink glitter; for mass song and dance performances; and for painting over portraits of revered historical (male) figures during their occupation of the National Human Rights Commission headquarters in Mexico City. The streets of major cities like San Cristobal de Las Casas, Oaxaca de Juárez, and Guadalajara are filled with feminist graffiti, paste-ups and murals.
These are just a few of the most recent artistic actions taken by feminists, part of a trajectory that has lasted decades. The methods are powerful; they have become polemical. Pink glitter had never been especially offensive until it was doused over Mexico City’s chief of police, and thus dubbed a ‘serious aggression’. Debate is rife in the Mexican press and social media about the ‘correct’ ways to protest, about vandalism and destruction, about the level of respect that national monuments deserve and, crucially, whether protecting them is more important than protecting women’s lives.
Murals are also becoming a major part of contemporary feminist protest in the state of Quintana Roo, and I have had the honour to be involved in that. Since January 2021 we have painted murals during the feminist occupation of the state congress, to honour Victoria Salazar who was brutally killed by the police in March, and to honour other victims of femicide in Holbox and Cancun. Most of these have been vandalised by anti-rights or opposition groups; this just gives us the chance to repaint them and continue to make visible and affirm the feminist presence in the state. Certainly it has become clear that using artistic methods of protest creates visual prompts from which to spark discussion on what for many people appear to be conceptual or abstract ideas.
This was the political context that I arrived into when I returned to Mexico in spring 2020. I have been living between Mexico and the UK since 2017; I was drawn here because I wanted to see, feel and experience the country’s fascinating and powerful arts and creative culture, the style of which has always appealed to me. I have been able to combine my passions for art and feminist activism the entire time I have been here, working on projects and research on social movements, human rights, gender and feminism and now, the role of art in feminist activism.
Even though I have deep ties with Mexico and have spent several years here, I am always aware of my physical and cultural distance from the country itself. When feminist research is international in scope, particularly when it deals with poorer countries and is carried out by a researcher from richer countries, further political and ethical issues arise. These intensify the importance of ensuring that findings reach the audience who truly need and deserve to see them.
In 2013, reflecting on her experiences about conducting sociological research in Mexico, Mexican sociologist Gloria González López wrote that she ‘would have to work hard to convince [a Mexican colleague] that [she] was not just another knowledge invader who was visiting Mexico to interview people, extract their histories and collect a wealth of rich data, all for [her] own professional benefit, and that of a small intellectual elite’. She was describing what she called a Maquiladora Syndrome, likening this sort of one-way data extraction to a form of exploitation, which benefits researchers in richer countries at the expense of research participants in poorer countries. Before I painted the mural, my research findings were not accessible to the research participants who so candidly shared their stories with me, telling me how their experiences of poverty, child labour, sexual abuse, violence and journeys of self-help impacted upon their sense of identity and self-perception. Neither were they accessible to other domestic workers, employers, and the public in general.
The purpose of my project was therefore to precisely communicate the findings of my research. The key for me was to find a method which would allow me to tell the stories located within my findings in a way which was political, yet also accessible and inclusive to the widest audience. Although the forms of protest used by many in Mexico recently are impressive and powerful, there are limitations to them which influenced the shaping of my own project.
Firstly, some standalone acts or works of art (such as throwing glitter or painting over artworks) do not in themselves tell a story. While their value is infinite in that they are part of a story (of feminist activism) and can be used to spark discussion about stories (of femicides, of impunity for perpetrators of violence), the methods used do not in and of themselves provide lasting narratives about particular issues. Similarly, if stories are told through song lyrics or graffiti, the attention is often deflected away from the stories that activists are trying to tell: that the focus becomes disproportionately on the supposed impropriety of these manners of protest, and not on the issues which feminists are raising.
Murals, however, hold a special place in the sociopolitical, historical and visual discourse of Mexico. In the 1920s, the government began employing muralists such as the three men now known as the ‘greats’ – Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros – to paint very large scale and very public murals that conveyed the new, empowering, revolutionary image of the Mexican Republic. Beginning in the 1960s, Chicano and Chicana artists (people of Mexican origin born in the United States), especially those living in Los Angeles, also adopted murals for a similar purpose, to reaffirm an empowered identity for Mexican Americans and Chican@s in a very public manner. Today, murals exist across the Republic, and continue to be recognised as a political story-telling tool in Mexican culture – contemporary Zapatista villages, for example, are filled with murals detailing that movement’s political convictions. They are also now becoming increasingly important in the feminist movement -– a feminist street art school has even opened in San Luis Potosí.
The core long-term objective of my project was to add another layer to the conversation on domestic workers and workers’ rights in Mexico, so a crucial part of my learning was choosing a creative method which would tell the clearest story and have the most positive and long-lasting impact. I wanted to emphasise that subversive behaviours, even though apparently small and isolated, can lead to the development of resistance in our everyday selves. Labour rights in Mexico are among the worst in the world, and those who stand up for those rights are at high risk of violent repression from State and non-State actors; as such it is easy to feel powerless to create change. I wanted to encourage the message of daily changes and personal empowerment, to take control of what one can to improve their situation. Given the message I wanted to convey with my mural and the historical and contemporary context of public, political art in Mexico, a mural seemed the perfect choice as an artistic method.
Painting a mural is no mean feat, nor is it cheap, especially one so large! Finding funding was an essential part of being able to carry out this project. It was funded principally by the Feminist Review Trust (FRT), an organisation which supports ‘hard to fund’ feminist projects. It fit with my aims perfectly because of its overlapping identities as an academic, artistic and feminist project. Receiving funding from the FRT allowed me to pay an assistant to help me paint the mural, to support the development of further communication methods to deepen the impact of the work, and to buy materials.
Originally I planned to travel within Mexico and give a series of talks; because of Covid-19, I opted to pay an independent filmmaker to make a short video detailing the process and intention of the project instead. This turned out to be something I would certainly consider for future projects, particularly given the extreme and rapid digitalisation of the world in our current Covid-19 reality.
Actually painting the mural was the most challenging and exciting part of the project. I wanted to tell a story, and it needed to be a very specific one, since my intention is to communicate rigorous academic research. Because of this, getting the style and content just right was of fundamental importance. Murals as an art form may be an important means of communication in Mexico, but to be effective individual murals must be easily understandable and relatable. Research suggests that using easily recognisable and culturally relevant symbolism and themes can support the impact of murals, since people can more easily relate to content that they recognise from their daily lives.
I chose to use a realistic as opposed to abstract style. Each vignette features a typical, daily scene, starring women who are clearly domestic workers, recognisable by their clothing. The exception to this is a scene where a child domestic worker interacts with her male employer. However, those familiar with Mexican culture will recognise that the characters in this scene are inspired by the popular Mexican game Lotería. Other examples of everyday cultural symbols include the piñata, the aprons worn by the domestic workers, the coffee pot and traditional sweet bread, and finally – less easy to recognise for an outside audience – the reading child is a reference to a label on a popular Mexican detergent. The realistic style, use of images from popular culture, and the inclusion of direct quotes from participants in banners above each scene help to make the mural more accessible and understandable.
Many viewers will approach the mural within a context of preconceived ideas, especially about paid domestic work. In Mexico, it is at once invisible and omnipresent. Representations of paid domestic workers in popular culture such as soap operas and films are very different to those presented within feminist academic research and political activism, which focuses on labour and human rights. Many people also have personal experience such as being or being related to a domestic worker, or coming from a family which has employed one. Clearly, while there is no single ‘reality’ about the nature of paid domestic work in Mexico, some conclusions are more grounded in fact than others (hint: it’s not what you find in soap operas).
This context of viewers approaching the mural with different knowledge bases complicated the task of communicating my findings, which are complex within themselves. I needed to transmit the intricacies of what I’d learnt in a way which empowered the research participants and reflected the realities of their particular experiences. I wanted to communicate a message of strength, power and pride, but without giving the impression that the situation for paid domestic workers is perfect.
There is a long way to go in the fight for domestic workers’ labour rights, to eradicate child labour, to change the classism, racism and misogyny found in this profession, in order to make it truly a dignified profession. But equally, the participants in my research were not helpless victims, and consistently found ways to take control of their situations and exert agency and choice in their daily lives. By showing domestic workers in a range of situations, at different stages in their lives, and by including quotes from participants above each vignette, I hope I have achieved this aim.
Painting the mural was a huge learning curve for me. It was an emotional experience, just like the rest of my research. There were moments of frustration and tiredness, but also moments full of joy and satisfaction. To me, the conviction of feminist scholars that we must recognise and value the role of emotions and the ‘messiness’ of the research process is one of the most important practical observations. Undertaking this project during a global pandemic added to the challenges, naturally, but challenges would have existed no matter when I did it.
One of the most important pieces of learning is that it is fundamental to be flexible, and to be confident enough about your artwork to adapt it on the go, committing to the value of seeing it through. Art is a powerful political tool, especially within feminist protest in Mexico. Choosing the right art form to express your findings, taking into account your motivations, the content of your message, and the cultural context in which you are situating your artwork is crucial to ensuring your message has the greatest impact. It’s also crucial that visual language should be readable to the broadest audience.
This mural is a tiny part in the unofficial project of making public space feminist space, a project I hope to continue working on for many years to come! One of the next steps is to support other feminist artists to be able to create public art. So, Las Iluministas – a collective that I co-founded – and UK online gallery Pink-Collar Gallery are coming together to invite artists and activists who identify as women and as feminists to re:imagine, re:name, re:create, re:think, and re:tell the real stories of the women whose lives have been taken by femicide. We want to support feminist artists and activists to help disrupt, change and gain control of the narrative on femicide. We want to support artists create art that honours and visibilises the victims of femicide, art that places blame where it truly needs to be.
The call is open to artists and activists who identify as women and as feminists, and who live in the UK or Mexico, from 30 May to 11 June. The work produced by artists and activists will be displayed in two parallel online exhibitions at Pink-Collar Gallery and Las Iluministas. We will commission five Mexico-based artists and five UK-based artists to develop their online work into public art (poster bombing, murals, graffiti, performance, etc – anything goes!), which will be displayed in Mexico and the UK respectively. These are paid opportunities (£500 / 13800 MXN per commission). UK-based artists can find more information and apply at www.pink-collargallery.com, and Mexico-based artists at www.lasiluministas.art
We (Las Iluministas) are delighted to have launched our open call along with Pink Collar Gallery, inviting feminist artists and activists who identify as women to create art that changes the narrative on femicide. The call is open to women living in the UK and Mexico. More info in English here: http://www.pink-collargallery.com and in Spanish here: http://www.lasiluministas.art
Gender-based violence committed by men is the biggest killer of women aged 19-44 in the world, leading to more deaths ‘than malaria and car accidents combined, and causing as many deaths and disabilities for women as cancer’ (Jacqui True, 2012, The Political Economy of Violence against Women, p.8). When a woman’s life is taken, so much more is taken from her: her name, her story, her passions, her identity, her hopes and dreams. This happens not just at the moment when she is killed, but when her murder is represented in mass media, if it is represented at all. Yet, nowhere in the world is femicide taken as seriously as it needs to be, and everywhere, misogynistic systems, societies and practices continue to cause and perpetuate the circumstances that create violence against women.
On 3rd March 2021, Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend’s house when she was kidnapped and murdered by a Metropolitan police officer. This sparked outrage in the UK. Women took to social media to talk about their experiences of harassment when walking home, and Reclaim the Night marches took place throughout the country. Sarah’s murder was devastating, but hers is not the only tragic story: in the UK one woman is killed by a partner or ex-partner every three days. When these women are older, living in poverty, disabled, or women of colour, their murders rarely receive the same media attention or outrage. When the media does talk about femicide, women are repeatedly blamed for their own murders, with people focussing on women’s lifestyle choices instead of blaming the men who commit violence against them.
In many ways the situation in Mexico is similar, but there are even bigger social and structural challenges that aggravate the problem. Eleven women per day are murdered in Mexico, usually by partners or ex-partners, and 97% of femicides end in impunity for perpetrators. The families of women and girls living in poverty or marginalised communities are less likely to have the resources to force authorities to pursue justice. These rates do not include those thousands of women who are disappeared, where it is not known if they are killed, trafficked or otherwise. Criminal gangs, the police and the military are all implicated in these disappearances. Reporting on femicide is problematic in Mexico. The country is ‘one of the world’s most dangerous and deadliest countries for the media’, especially for journalists who report on crime, so meaningful investigative journalism is a high-risk endeavour. When the tabloid press and social media news sites report on femicide, they continue to commit violence against women and girls even after they are killed, by reproducing explicit and gory images of their bodies, by victim-blaming, and by failing to properly acknowledge the violence committed by men against women.
Violence against women is often characterised as a hidden problem, because it takes place behind closed doors, and because it is notoriously underreported. This, combined with the exponential rise of gender-based violence and femicide around the world since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to gender-based violence being named the shadow pandemic or the silent pandemic. We cannot keep turning a blind eye to gender-based violence and femicide. So, how can we expose the reality of femicide and gain control of the narrative, in a way which honours and empowers women?
Art is a powerful way to visibilise the invisibilised, and to challenge taken-for-granted norms and beliefs. Art can be polemical, and helps spark conversations on controversial or challenging topics. In Mexico, art is becoming an evermore important and frequently used part of growing feminist activism, which has been called the country’s ‘principle opposition movement’.In the last two years, Mexican feminist activists have made national headlines for ‘intervening’ in national monuments and public art with colourful graffiti; for bathing public officials in pink glitter; for mass song and dance performances; and for painting over portraits of revered historical (male) figures during their occupation of the National Human Rights Commission headquarters in Mexico City.The streets of major cities like San Cristobal de Las Casas, Oaxaca de Juarez, and Guadalajara are filled with feminist graffiti, paste-ups and murals. Since January 2017, feminist collectives in Quintana Roo painted murals as part of their occupation of the state congress building, to honour Victoria Salazar who was brutally killed by the police in March, and to honour other victims of femicide in Holbox, Isla Mujeres and more.
Building on these innovative methods of protest and feeling compelled to do something in response to rising rates of femicide and media violence, Mexican feminist art collective Las Iluministas and UK online gallery Pink-Collar Gallery are coming together to invite artists and activists who identify as women and as feminists to re:imagine, re:name, re:create, re:think, and re:tell the real stories of the women whose lives have been taken by femicide.
The work produced by artists and activists will be displayed in two parallel online exhibitions at Pink-Collar Gallery and Las Iluministas. We will commission five Mexico-based artists and five UK-based artists to develop their online work into public art (poster bombing, murals, graffiti, performance, etc – anything goes!), which will be displayed in Mexico and the UK respectively. This means that the general public, who may not seek out digital feminist spaces, or those who do not have easy access to the internet, will be able to engage with the art too. Finally, the process of creating and displaying these ten pieces of public art will be filmed by the artists themselves, and turned into ten short documentary videos.
We want to support feminist artists and activists to help disrupt, change and gain control of the narrative on femicide. We want to display art that honours and visibilises the victims of femicide, art that places blame where it truly needs to be. It is not acceptable to see gender-based violence and femicide as a silent pandemic anymore; public art can make a real difference to how we understand femicide in our societies, and ultimately, what we choose to do about it.
The call is open to artists and activists who identify as women and as feminists, and who live in the UK or Mexico, from 30 May to 11 June. UK-based artists can find more information and apply at www.pink-collargallery.com, and Mexico-based artists at www.lasiluministas.art
Funding
This project is funded by: Arts Council England, The University of York, Durham University, Tees Valley Arts and generous contributions to our GoFundMe, which remains open.
Who are we?
Las Iluministas is a feminist art collective whose purpose is to exhibit Mexican feminist art, connect networks of feminist artists, and invite the public to get to know and interact with feminist art.
Pink Collar Gallery is an online gallery that is dedicated to the promotion of underrepresented groups and using art to promote equality; the Gallery was created by Sunderland-based curator Michaela Wetherell whose particular passions are highlighting women within the arts and the relevance of working-class identity.
We painted a mural of Victoria Salazar as part of protests organised by feminist collectives in response to her killing by police officers in Tulum on 27 March. It was the first of a series of murals we are painting as a collective, to remember victims of femicide in a dignified way as part of protests. This article was originally published here and was republished here.
Painting the mural of Victoria during the protests in Tulum. Photo by Denisse Perdomo
The police killed Victoria Salazar in Tulum, Mexico, on 27 March 2021, in a very brutal and very public way. Victoria, like many other Central American migrant and refugee women, fled her home country El Salvador precisely because of violence. This just adds to the tragic nature of her killing. The case has made headlines across the world, although these headlines are not always accurate: many claim that Victoria died, implying passivity or accident, rather than explicitly state the truth that she was killed by excessive use of police force. Her killing was emblematic in a country which minimises and invisibilises the killing of women, and which is at best complicit in, and at worst encouraging of, police brutality, especially against the most marginalised members of society. The way we represent the deaths of women – especially marginalised women – reveals a lot about our perspective and our intentions. So how should we best honour and remember Victoria, in a way which respects her humanity and dignity, but does not shy away from telling the truth about the violence she experienced? Visual methods are a powerful and important way of doing this, though they are often also controversial, even among artists and activists themselves.
Gender-based violence is a major reason why Central American women leave their homes
Victoria was a single mother to two daughters, who came from an impoverished and marginalised community in El Salvador. Determined to provide a better and safer future for her daughters, she made the difficult decision to leave El Salvador and travel with them to Mexico, where she sought asylum, and worked as a cleaner in a hotel in the hipster town of Tulum in the Riviera Maya.
According to her application for asylum, Victoria left El Salvador because the violence there caused her to fear for her life. This is an all too commonstory among Central American women on the move. El Salvador in particular has occupied the toporclose to topspots for femicide in the world in recent years; it also consistenly ranks highly for gang violence and murder. Added to this is structural and economic violence which leaves women like Victoria from marginalised communities with few opportunities to find dignified work – this was another reasonwhy Victoria left El Salvador.
Women on the move experience persistent violence – especially in Mexico
Unfortunately, when people on the move leave their home countries and begin their journeys north, they remain at great risk of violence, especially as they pass through Mexico. This violence comes from many sources, and the lethal violence Victoria suffered at the hands of police is not an isolated incident. For years, Mexico has become increasingly hostile towards migrants; in 2019, the threat of trade-related sanctions from the USA was the impetus for increased militarisation of the Mexican border and growing state-endorsed hostility towards migrants. That year, of the 599 complaints of abuses against migrants received by Mexico’s Commission for Human Rights, the majority were against the federal police. This violence committed against people on the move in Mexico continues today: they are consistently ‘exposed to rape, kidnapping, extortion, assault, and psychological trauma’, perpetuated by state actors like the police and immigration officials, as well as by non-state criminal groups, though migrants have commentedthat the violence they experience is so ubiquitous it is hard to tell the difference between law enforcement and criminal groups.
Women are at risk of all of the violence above, as well as facing particular threats because of their gender. Between 60% and 80%of girls and women are raped or experience sexual assault while migrating north from Central America. In fact, the risks are so high that many are told by their coyotes (people smugglers) to take contraceptives before migrating to avoid pregnancy; obviously, this does not reduce their risk of rape, assault, or contracting STIs. They are also at high risk of being trafficked into prostitution.
The risks for people on the move – especially women – have increased exponentially during the pandemic. For example, rates of people trafficking in Quintana Roo – the state where Tulum is, incidentally – increased by 265%in 2020. Migrant women were already known to be at high risk of xenophobia, often invisibilised, discriminated against or stigmatised in the countries they migrate to: in the context of Covid-19, this has increased. Many migrant women in Mexico have also found themselves in even more vulnerable positions becauseCovid-19 policy responses have restricted movement, stopped them being allowed to enter shelters, and cut off already limited access to sexual and reproductive health services and supplies.
For Victoria’s daughters, both minors and now left alone in Tulum, the violence they have experienced and the threat of violence they continue to experience has not ended with the killing of their mother: days after Victoria was killed, her partner was arrested on charges on sexually abusing one of Victoria’s daughters, and Victoria’s other daughter went missing, apparently in hiding for fear she would be deported.
How can feminist activists and artists truthfully honour Victoria’s memory?
When the news of Victoria’s killing broke, feminist artists were enraged, frustrated, upset and deeply sad. They immediately began to create artwork and upload it to social media – an important site for contemporary feminist activism in Mexico. Many feminist illustrators based their artwork on a widely circulated image of Victoria’s last moments, in which she is, effectively, being killed. The image is certainly shocking: Victoria is on the ground being brutally restrained by a police officer. It perfectly captures the violence and repression of the police, which is so often invisibilised or normalised. The image evokes anger, shock, horror and elicits a deep empathy for Victoria. It is in many ways a very important image. However, almost as soon as feminist illustrators circulated their interpretations of this image, they began to question themselves: was sharing this image continuing to enact violence on Victoria, and continuing to degrade and humiliate her, even after her death? Several artists removed the illustrations they had created, though some continue to believe it is an important image to share, and it was painted onto the wall of Cancun’s town hall during protests there.
The range of visual methods used by local feminist collectives in Tulum during the protests immediately following Victoria’s killing strikes a good balance between exposing the violence and anger of the case, and honouring the humanity of Victoria. Thanks to these methods now, two weeks later, Tulum looks very different, and there is no hope of invisibilising what happened to Victoria.
The town’s main street, monuments and town hall are completely covered with feminist and anti-police graffitti. The sheer quantity of graffiti is very impressive. This serves to expose both the reality of Victoria’s death, and the definitive presence of the feminist movement, embodying the much-repeated feminist slogan ‘nunca jamás tendrán la comodidad de nuestro silencio’ (never again will you have the comfort of our silence).
The spot where Victoria was killed is an eerie and ominous place now. The words ‘aquí mataron a Victoria’ (they killed Victoria here) are painted in blood-red on the concrete, framed by red hand prints, and flanked by more graffiti demanding justice and asserting that the police killed Victoria. Activists have placed flowers and candles at the spot.
Finally, on the wall of the town hall, which faces the main street, is a 2x3m painting of Victoria. Victoria looks glamorous, in large silver earrings and pale pink glossy lipstick. She engages the viewer, with large dark eyes, lightly smiling. The image is adapted from an illustration by Tijuana-based artist @sirakiry, though the colours are warmer, and Victoria is framed by marigolds and candles, staple elements of Mexican day of the dead shrines. The words ‘Justicia para Victoria Salazar’ (justice for Victoria Salazar), and ‘Los derechos humanos NO tienen fronteras’ (human rights don’t have borders), are written on either side of the portrait. We originally painted this mural in an hour and a half during the 29 March protests, protected by other activists who formed a crowd around us to shield us from police. Painting the mural created an impact during the protest, and continues to have longer term impact. The mural was vandalised with political graffitti just days after we painted it, like other feminist murals in Quintana Roo. We returned to repaint and improve it, committed to keeping the case of Victoria in the public eye.
The graffiti in Tulum’s town centre and at the spot where Victoria was killed highlight the violence and brutality of Victoria’s killing, which is deeply important, since violence in many forms is an inescapable reality in the lives of Central American women forced to flee their homes and migrate through Mexico, and it should not be invisibilised or normalised. We chose to combine this with a bright, vibrant and warm mural, using an image which showed Victoria in a way we imagine she would like to be remembered. We hope that this combination represents Victoria’s life and her death with the respect and dignity she deserves.
Being able to be a tiny part of this historic event has been one of the most important experiences of my life. This blog was originally published here, and has been republished here and here .
Me painting one of the murals during the sit-in. Photo by Pamela Berlanga.
In November 2020, members of the Red Feminista Quintanarooense (Quintana Roo Feminist Network, hereafter RFQ) walked into the state congress building in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, and began what would become a peaceful 94-day sit-in to demand that the state legislature vote on the legalisation of abortion (in Mexico, abortion laws are decided at state rather than national level). For 93 nights, they slept in tents or on thin mattresses on the hard, tiled floor, with the building doors padlocked shut, everyone aware of the safety protocols should the very real possibility of intrusion from state or non-state actors take place. They spent the majority of those nights and days without electricity or running water after the state illegally cut the utilities. They juggled working remotely with homeschooling and childcare and activism. They faced smear campaigns, defamation, provocation from anti-rights groups and worse; in December, the home of a prominent RFQ member was vandalised and a firebomb thrown at it.
Despite these challenges, the RFQ sustained their protest at congress through legal, digital and artistic activism until 2 March 2021, when it culminated first in a debate by members of congress on whether to put the motion to legalise abortion to the vote of the plenary and then, somewhat surprisingly, the very vote was held just hours later. Members of congress voted 13 to 7 against legalisation. Despite this defeat in the plenary, the act of getting to the vote was a victory. The RFQ has emerged stronger and more organised for the battle ahead as they join feminists from across Latin America in fighting for abortion rights.
Guaranteeing sexual and reproductive rights is a matter of urgency in Quintana Roo
Deciding how, when and we want children is a human right, that should be guaranteed for all women and adolescents. Yet the majority of girls and women in Latin America do not have access to safe, legal and free abortion. They also do not have equal access to contraceptives or comprehensive sexual education. In the most extreme cases in Mexico (and elsewhere in the continent), women face imprisonment for experiencing miscarriages, and girls as young as 9 are forced to give birth, even though abortion is legal in most states in the country in cases of rape.
In Quintana Roo, the situation is particularly concerning. The state has had the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the country for the last eleven years, and in fact the rates have increased. In 2020, more rape cases and more cases of human trafficking were reported in Quintana Roo than in any other state in the country; during the first six months of 2020, cases of human trafficking in the state increased by 265.3%, causing its ranking to jump from seventh to first place.
As feminists gain rights for women, conservatives are determined to cut them back
The RFQ’s protest took place in the context of a feminist movement that is going from strength to strength in Mexico, to the extent that it has been described as the country’s principal opposition movement. Within this movement, important gains are being made for women’s reproductive rights. Crucially, in 2019, abortion was decriminalised in Oaxaca, making it the second state (after Mexico City in 2007) to allow abortion under any circumstance within the first trimester. Elsewhere in Latin America, in Argentina, abortion was finally legalised in December 2020, although this is only the beginning of guaranteeing women’s reproductive rights in that country.
But as feminist movements gain rights for women, anti-rights actors are determined to cut them back. For example, in August 2020, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by feminist collectives and human rights organisations in Veracruz which would have forced that state’s legislature to legalise abortion, and would have had important repercussions for the rest of the country. In 2016, then-governor of Veracruz Javier Duarte ordered that the state’s constitution be changed to protect life from the moment of conception.
In Puebla, feminist collectives Siempre Viva and Coordinadora Feminista were forced to abandon their sit-in (which they began three days before the RFQ) after 25 days, following threats and intimidation against a member of the collective. The legislature of that state has promised to vote on decriminalising abortion in April 2021 following the feminists’ action, although whether they do vote remains to be seen.
There are indications that attempts will be made to restrict, rather than grant, women’s reproductive rights in Quintana Roo too. Congress originally agreed to debate the motion for legalisation on 24 February, but this was abandoned following hours of repeated attempts from congress members to stall the discussion. Congress members even tried to edit the proposal to include elements which would take women’s rights even further back, such as the suggestion that if the man responsible for impregnating a woman or girl wanted to continue the pregnancy, she would be legally obligated to do so. Fortunately this suggestion was rejected.
The RFQ will submit an appeal with the Supreme Court
By around 9pm on 2 March, following a frenzied dash to remove the RFQ’s belongings from inside the congress building – they had agreed to terminate their sit-in as soon as the motion to legalise abortion had been debated – dozens of feminists were gathered on mattresses and blankets outside the congress building watching the livestream of the vote projected onto the congress walls.
Despite the negative outcome of the vote, RFQ members addressed the crowd jubilantly. They reminded them that for five years, Congress had refused to even debate the motion of legalising abortion. The goal of the sit-in was primarily to ensure that this debate happened because with it, in the case of a negative vote in the plenary session, the RFQ would be able to file an appeal arguing that Congress acted unconstitutionally by denying women’s rights, and as such the motion would reach Mexico’s supreme court. On 3 March, the RFQ confirmed that filing this appeal was their next step. Their campaign to guarantee women and girls’ rights through free, safe and legal abortion continues.
By Tallulah Lines
Photos:
One of the murals painted on the congress building during the sit-in. Photo credit – me
Feminist graffiti on the congress building during the sit-in. Photo credit – Denisse Perdomo
Protestors respond to anti-rights groups as the motion is discussed. Photo credit – Pamela Berlanga
Feminist graffiti and murals on the congress building during the sit-in. Photo credit – me
Feminist activist paints mural on the congress building during the sit-in. Photo credit – me
Feminist activists gathered to watch the vote on 2 March. Photo credit – Denisse Perdomo
‘Cleaning’ by Alina Sanchez. For more of this artist’s work, see: Instagram: @alina_sanchez_lopez
A more detailed analysis of care, policy and Covid-19 in Latin America – with a focus on paid domestic work – written by myself and Prof Jean Grugel can be found at the link below. The illustrations included in the article are reproduced with the permission of the artists who participated in https://www.lasiluministas.art
This article was co-written by myself and Professor Jean Grugel as part of our research into gender, policy and Covid-19 in Latin America.
I drew this early on during the pandemic, when it was just starting to become clear how profoundly social distancing measures were going to affect women and girls.
Millions of Latin American women and girls work outside the home in caring jobs, yet they have been largely ignored by governments during lockdown. Unions and activists have made some difference, but there is scant recognition of the extra risks they face.
In an effort to counter the devastating impact of social distancing policies, Latin American governments have introduced packages of emergency social policies, labour market support for those working in the formal economy and cash transfer relief for those in the informal sector. Yet, support for many groups of people, especially women, falls short.
Regional organisations in Latin America are making the case for recognising the high burden of care that women are facing – with important differences between women – within the wider context of differential gendered impacts of the pandemic. They include the Organisation of American States(OAS), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean(ECLAC) and the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO). But government responses lag behind, and by the end of September 2020, six months after social distancing measures began, only ten Latin American states had between them implemented just 30 policies explicitly related to the care economy. Argentina tops the list with 12 policies; the most common number is two. Several countries, including Brazil and most of Central America, do not seem to have implemented any at all.
Care policies fall into four core categories:
• Nine offer short-term, time-limited remuneration for those unable to work because of childcare responsibilities; extra remuneration for healthcare workers; and support for community-based responses. • Eight provide some minimum legal protection of domestic workers. • Seven allow exemptions from lockdown / confinement measures for caregivers. • Five provide information or promotional campaigns that promote co-responsibility of caring between men and women.
Most are short-term, time-limited emergency responses. Six months on from their introduction, many women who provide care, including migrant women, domestic workers, impoverished women and healthcare workers, do so without protection at exactly the moment when their need is greatest.
‘One survived, the other did not’
The pandemic does not impact on all women equally. Moreover, women and girls who are vulnerable in socioeconomic or policy-making contexts are not inherently vulnerable individuals, and many are active agents for change, including during the pandemic.
Despite paid domestic work ‘mak[ing] all other jobs possible, and guarantee[ing] the care and wellbeing of the most precious things we have: our loved ones and families’ (UN Women) paid domestic work is hugely undervalued. Domestic workers across Latin America face multi-layered discrimination and lack basic legal and social protection, particularly in countries which have still not ratified ILO Convention 189on domestic work. Over three-quarters of domestic workers in Latin America are informal workers, without contracts and social security provision. COVID-19 exacerbates risks to jobs and health, leaving domestic workers exceptionally vulnerable to exploitation. Many have been fired without pay or redundancy packages.
Two examples in Brazil illustrate the risks they face. Cleonice Gonçalves was one of the first people to die from COVID-19 in Brazil. This was ‘not by coincidence’, argues Louisa Acciari, but the result of inequality, racism and structural discrimination. Cleonice was ‘a black woman, aged 63, diabetic, leaving [sic] in the city of Miguel Pereira in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Her employer, a resident of the upper-class area of Leblon, had just returned from a trip to Italy and did not inform her employee that she had been contaminated. ‘One survived, the other did not’. Another early casualty was five-year-old Miguel Otávio Santana da Silva, a black boy who was accompanying his mother to work due to national school closures. He died after being left alone by his mother’s employer, incidentally the wife of a politician, who has since been released on bail. Miguel’s mother has commented: ‘If it was the other way round, I wouldn’t be [bailed], because I’m poor’.
The progress made so far is a testament to domestic workers’ activism
Domestic workers’ unions and activist organisations in Latin America were thriving long before the pandemic, and during the pandemic they are continuing to promote domestic workers’ rights through campaigning and direct action supporting other domestic workers.
In Mexico, national and local unions are supportingthose domestic workers who have been fired without salary or the redundancy pay to which they are legally entitled, and those who have been forced to continue working, doing extra hours without pay or working without adequate safety protection. Marcelina Bautista, the founder of the country’s first national domestic workers’ union, has demanded better protectionfor domestic workers during the pandemic. And feminist collectiveshave provided food and other necessities to women in need, including domestic workers.
In Brazil, the national domestic workers union FENATRAD launched a campaign demanding adequate protection for domestic workers who had to continue to work, and paid leave for those who could not. It received parliamentary backing. The union also supports domestic workers with practical supportsuch as guidelines on protecting themselves from the virus and negotiating with employers on COVID-19 related pay and conditions, supporting them claim emergency state benefits to which they are entitled and distributing food baskets to unemployed domestic workers.
Elsewhere, in Guatemala, union ATRAHDOM has led effortsto support domestic workers and other low-income women in situations of risk, by providing them with basic food and hygiene supplies, PPE, and even organising digital cash transfers. They are also supporting their members to gain access to basic health coverage. . It is domestic workers’ activism, along with that of their allies in academic and policy-making circles, which has ensured paid domestic work remains on the agenda at national and regional level. They have used their organisational strength to fight for fairer working conditions and state protection during the crisis. The existence of the eight policies we identified above which offer some protection to domestic workers is testament to their efforts. But much more is needed.
The example of domestic work is one of the clearest ways that we can see the difference of experience between women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Differences in social class, ethnicity, race, dis/ability, migrant status, rurality, and age all feature in relationships between who cares and who is cared for. While regional organisations are beginning to recognise the importance of these differences, it is not always so clear in national level discussions about women and COVID-19, and much less so in policy. Instead, we still find women treated as a homogeneously vulnerable group. Much stronger, intersectional and intercultural policies are essential in order to best empower and support the most vulnerable women.
Better policies are also needed to address the needs of girl domestic workers. We still do not know even how many girls work as domestic workers in Latin America and as such, we know little about their experiences, before and during the pandemic. Furthermore, in most literature on care and COVID-19, the focus is on the extra burden of care for those who are caring. This is important. But policies are also needed designed to empower those who are cared for as well.
Finally, the burden of care for domestic workers does not stop when they go home from their jobs. They also have caring responsibilities in their own homes, and, as domestic worker unions and other women’s organisations show, often it is domestic workers who take on the responsibility of caring for their co-workers in the absence of structural, state support. We need to acknowledge how multi-faceted care is, and why it is essential that it is valued as a fundamental part of the productive economy, with responsibilities shared between families, individuals, the state and community.
I don’t like to write such negative things about Mexico, a place I adore and return to again and again. But I am here in a privileged position: I am not part of the workforce, I don’t need to worry about how I would cope if I got sick or pregnant here, basically I can dip in and out of the good and the bad here and I don’t forget it. I don’t enjoy adding to a negative narrative of Mexico as some exploitative, violent and machista place, but it would be disingenuous of me not to highlight many of the things that go on here. Because alongside the beautiful art, the rich history, the fighting spirit of activists, the fun music and the bright colours, there is a dangerous underbelly that the average person here cannot choose or not to participate in.
International Workers’ Day
This year, May 1st was very different to what many people would have expected, especially here in Playa del Carmen where employment is linked inextricably to the tourism industry. When the COVID-19 pandemic became truly international in its scale in mid-March 2020, businesses in Playa del Carmen began slowly closing their doors. The absence of tourists was notable, but with beaches and bars still open and the president taking a decidedly nonchalant approach to the matter, the sense was that things would be back to normal in a few weeks, once other countries had lifted their two-week lockdowns and tourists began flocking back for spring break and early summer holidays. There was a push to encourage national tourism, especially during Semana Santa (Easter), to try to plug the gap that international tourism was leaving.
By the end of March, however, the tourism industry had ground to a halt. Just like in other parts of the world, beaches, hotels, bars, restaurants, cafes, shops and so on were – and remain – closed down. Workers have returned to their home towns in droves, leaving behind scores of empty rooms and apartments, eerily empty streets, and boarded up businesses. With no welfare state, many people now literally have no money to keep them afloat, and no choice but to leave Playa and seek refuge with their parents and other family members.
With tourist-dependent businesses, particularly hotels, closed until further notice, there is now mass unemployment in Playa. Thousands of workers have been fired, with varying degrees of ‘altruism’ from their employers – perhaps receiving two weeks of salary or a box of food when being sent home until further notice. Approximately 80,000 workers in the state of Quintana Roo generate all of their income from commission or tips (that is, selling food, drinks, tours, or timeshares to tourists), meaning that for them, there is no offer of a salary to help them out. There are some attempts to protect workers. In neighbouring Cancun, some gains have been made thanks to the workers’ union Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos, which has managed to guarantee that certain hotel workers will continue to receive a basic salary despite mass closures.
A glimmer of hope comes in the form of the federal food parcels, containing around 80 essential items, which are supposed to be delivered to all households in Playa. However, these have not arrived everywhere – for example, they have not been received in our neighbourhood* – and many who have received them state that the boxes arrive opened and in some cases with over a third of items missing. Some community comedores had been set up by local charitable organisations, such as vegan community centre Casa Animal, offering free food to those most in need. However, these have been ordered to shut by the government of Quintana Roo, despite following hygiene protocols and being, well, totally necessary.
I believed that construction was still permitted as I have seen builders continue to work over the last few weeks, and this is what I published on my original Instagram post when I shared the above illustration for the first time. Apparently I was wrong and construction is considered non-essential; as such building projects are also supposed to be closed down temporarily. The desperation and anger felt by construction workers was palpable a couple of weeks ago, when builders attacked representatives of the Protección Civil who shut down their building site.
There has been a lot of discussion about what normality is, and just what exactly our societies will return to once this pandemic passes. Once tourism picks up again, it is not as if workers will return to perfect companies with excellent rights and benefits. Before the pandemic, staff laboured on precarious contracts – if they were lucky enough to have contracts – which were consistently manipulated to ensure the least possible rights to workers. They would work 6-day, 60-hour weeks, with shifts changed consistently and at the last minute to ensure minimal to no work-life balance. Sick pay, protective clothing, holidays, overtime pay – these don’t exist for the majority. Children work in homes, on building sites, selling crafts and food in the street. I won’t even start on women’s unpaid work at home. Fighting for rights isn’t easy here: you face being fired, being threatened, even being killed and let’s face it, after your 60 hour week would you really want to spend your one day off or your precious few evening hours fighting an uphill battle against such a threatening force?
This image is a celebration of the workers who keep Playa alive.
*To clarify, in our household of four, two are unemployed and one has had his hours significantly reduced as a result of COVID. Our unemployed housemates have repeatedly called to request the food that has been promised to them, with no results. I am not suggesting that I personally need to receive one of these boxes of supplies, my circumstances are different.
Toque de Queda and the rise in gender-based violence
This image is a reminder that the home is not a safe place for everyone.
On 7 May, a curfew was introduced here in Playa, meaning that between 7pm and 5am everyone is expected to stay at home unless absolutely necessary. This is to keep us safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s essential to repeat, again and again and again, that home is not a safe place for everyone. Women and children are at risk in homes across the world – at risk of violence, coercion, control, rape, sexual assault, child abuse – above all, at the hands of men. This violence is regularly downplayed, ignored or normalised. Victims are blamed for living with violent men, for allowing their children to live with violent men, for asking for it, for provoking it: yes, as women we need to take responsibility for ourselves and empower ourselves. But continuously blaming women for living in violent homes not only woefully misunderstands the situations these women are dealing with, but it also allows the perpetrators of violence to escape judgement and blame, and continues to normalise and legitimise cycles of male violence.
Gender-based violence is not the only violence taking place behind closed doors and men are not the only perpetrators. All victims of abuse deserve our care, support and attention. The issue with gender-based violence, though, is that it is normalised, legitimised and bolstered by a patriarchal society and authorities which protect perpetrators and not the victims.
To give an idea of what is currently going on for women here in Playa, have a read of the the text below. It is taken from Siempre Unidas’ Facebook page, and was published on 9 May 2020 (English below):
En una encuesta realizada hace unos días a través de esta página, casi el 22% de las mujeres que contestaron se sentían inseguras en su casa. 😢
Nos dimos cuenta que el #PeligroEnCasa se volvió más evidente durante éste confinamiento, porque empezamos a recibir muchos más mensajes de auxilio solicitando ayuda, algunos casos que hemos recibido durante esta cuarentena son:
Varias mujeres fueron desalojaron a golpes de sus casas por sus parejas, quedando en la calle, hasta con niños en brazos y sin un peso en la bolsa.
Algunas otras nos piden asesoría jurídica por amenazas de muerte de parejas y ex parejas.
Otras apoyo psicológico, ya que están desesperadas por la violencia que están viviendo en casa, creen que no tienen otra opción, más que ser sumisas hasta que esto pase.
Muchas mujeres que están viviendo violencia que viven en Quintana Roo sus familiares no viven aquí, algunas son migrantes y no tienen papeles en regla. La mayoría no tienen dinero para regresarse a sus países o estados donde son originarias.
Tenemos casos de mujeres que fueron violadas recientemente, no denunciaron, no recibieron la atención médica oportuna, así que a raíz de la violación están teniendo problemas de salud.
Mujeres que ya no quieren ser madres, pero durante el confinamiento las obligan a tener relaciones sexuales sus parejas (las violan) sin ninguna protección.
Minimizar la violencia que están viviendo estás mujeres durante en confinamiento, es ser cómplice.
In a survey carried out a few days ago through this page, almost 22% of the women who answered felt unsafe at home. 😢
We realised that #DangerAtHome became more evident during this confinement, because we began to receive many more messages asking for help. Some cases that we have received during this quarantine are:
Several women were run out of their homes by their violent partners, leaving them on the street, even with children in their arms and without a penny in their pocket.
Some others asked us for legal advice for death threats from partners and ex-partners.
Others asked for psychological support, they are desperate because of the violence they are experiencing at home, but believe that they have no other option but to be submissive until this happens.
Many women living in Quintana Roo experiencing violence do not have family members here, some are migrants and do not have proper papers. Most do not have money to return to their countries or states where they originate.
We have cases of women who were recently raped, they did not report, they did not receive timely medical attention, so as a result of the rape they are having health problems.
Women who don’t want to be mothers, but during confinement are forced to have sexual relations by their partners (they are raped) without any protection.
To minimise the violence that these women are experiencing during confinement, is to be complicit.
Tallulah Lines: Feminist Art + Research 