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Is Less Better? Women’s Day in Mexico City 2025

Posted on March 15, 2025March 15, 2025 by Karen Moe

Can it be a good thing

when the number of women at an International Women’s Day march decreases by what could very well be half from the year before and many years before that? Usually, organizers are actively recruiting and hoping for more and more protesters every year. However, in a country that has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world, could a decrease be a positive?

Mexico is one of those countries. In an article written in 2024, an estimated 10 women and girls were recorded as being murdered by an intimate partner or family member and, with only 1 in 10 victims daring to report, the real statistic is much higher. Moreover, with a 95% impunity rate, the number of predators convicted is as exceedingly low as the number of women and girls murdered is exceedingly high. Because of the extremity of machismo culture in Mexico, feminism only began to build as an organized and vocal movement in approximately 2014, originating in the Lesbian community. Until then, the majority of women were reluctant (or afraid) to speak out. It wasn’t until 2019, after a series of rapes and femicides that received national attention, that the women of Mexico had finally had enough of male violence and began to rise up en masse.

Besides the thousands of femicides that are reported and ignored by authorities or not reported at all, one femicide that received a lot of publicity—because of the ferocity with which her family fought for justice—was the 2017 murder of twenty-two-year-old university student Lesvy Berlin Rivera Osorio by her boyfriend on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM). Lesvy’s body was found hung in a telephone booth; her boyfriend Jorge Luis Hernández González had hanged her to death with the telephone cord. As is usual in Mexico, her murder was catalogued and filed away as a suicide. The real case was closed. In order to buttress their victim-blaming tradition of suicide, the Public Prosecutors Office took to social media with accusations like “Osorio was an alcoholic and a drug user who was no longer studying at UNAM and had been living out of wedlock with her boyfriend.” Authorities insisted on investigating the victim’s sex life and family relations to build evidence of promiscuousness and mental instability that would back up their fabrication of suicide. More effort was put into making up evidence to discredit her case than investigate her murder.

Wall of unconvicted rapists and murderers, Mexico City Women’s Day march, 2025.

Impunity reached a searing point in Mexico City

in the summer of 2019 when a series of assaults were committed by the police. In July and August, three women were raped by police officers; on July 10th, a 27-year-old homeless woman was raped by two other police officers; on August 3rd, a 17-year-old woman was gang-raped by four policemen in a police car; on August 8th, a minor was assaulted by a police officer in Museo Archivo de la Fotografía in México City. The women had had enough.

In direct response to the sexual violence committed by the police, women rose up on August 12th, 2019. This was the first time they expressed their rage publicly by starting the controversial act of writing on and defacing historical monuments (the first one being The Angel of Independence)—from which the women have since been criticized and their movement, to this day, discredited. Yet, regardless of the ridiculous accusations that the women are just as violent as the men who rape and murder them, what did they write on the base of Mexico City’s iconic Angel of Independence? “You are not going to have the comfort of our silence anymore.” And, with these words, the Feminist movement in Mexico had officially begun.

“You are not going to have the comfort of our silence anymore.” Photo courtesy of Restauradoras Con Glitter. 2020

In a continued response to the impunity of the Mexico City police for the multiple rapes in the summer of 2019,

the women rose up again on November 25th, 2019 for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the protests became increasingly vocal both in voice and act to the point where the city began covering the statues of the conquistadores (male colonizers) with saran wrap and surrounding the large monuments with corrugated metal to keep the women from covering these legacies of colonialism with such words as: Mexico Feminicidia! Basta Ya de Impunidad! (Enough Impunity Already, No Desaparecidas Ni Muertas, #NiUnaMenos (#NotOneLess), and plaster the walls with photos of unconvicted rapists and murderers. Saran wrap was gleefully torn off the monuments, climbed on and spray painted and the barriers torn down. The women were determined to be seen and heard.

On February 14th, 2020, there was a protest outside of President Obrador’s residence in the Zocalo—President Obrador, who did so much for the Mexican people initiating social programs and combating the Cartels from where they start with his Bullets Not Guns program and one of many legislations for justice, made a grave error when his response to women demanding more attention to be paid to the femicide epidemic discredited their cause as an act of the opposition. Then, on February 15th, 2020, seven-year-old girl Fátima Cecilia was found dead, her body wrapped in a plastic bag in a garbage can on a vacant lot. Fury escalated and the attendance of the Mexico City Women’s Day March from the Angel of Independence to the Zocalo began to surge: from 2020 to 2024 the march grew from 90,000 to 180,000.

Women climb on and vandalize monuments as other women cheer. Mexico City Women’s Day march, 2020

Women destroy the barricades, Mexico City Women’s Day march, 2020

I have been attending the Mexico City Women’s Day March (or 8M and it’s called here) since I moved here in 2015 and have watched it grow into one of the largest marches in the world. I was at the protest on November 25th, 2019. I remember tear gas, fires, the barricades kicked and then shoved down and gleefully jumped on to the cheers of onlookers and the hundreds if not a thousand police lining Reforma with their riot shields. I remember more tear gas. I remember when, after the city began to have only women police defending the monuments during women’s day, protesting women having fierce altercations with the women police officers accusing them of being traitors that often resulted in violence. I remember the year when the then mayor of Mexico City, now Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum, gave all the women police officers flowers, and the controversy amongst the women protesters that ensued. I remember in 2020 when protective barricades were first put in place to protect the prioritized colonial monuments from vandalism. I remember the women climbing up and over those barricades and vandalizing the monuments of the conquistadores, nonetheless. I remember every surface along Reforma covered with revolutionary writing, and the irreverent pictures including photos of some of the 95% of rapists and murderers who received impunity plastered in every available space. And I remember on one of the 8M marches between 2020 and 2024 when I was walking back to Insurgentes and from the Zocalo at 5:30 to get my bike, the march we still happening. The women were still coming like a torrent 6 hours after the march had started.

But this year, 2025, was verging on the opposite.

Hundreds of thousands were expected; however, unlike last year when an official count of 180,000 was reported on March 10th, as of March 12th, no official count is available for this year. Maybe that is because it was so comparatively unsensational. My friend and I arrived at Insurgentes and Reforma at 2:30, an intersection where—based on the numbers over the last 5 years—the parade should have been crammed with women at that time. The boulevard was virtually empty. There were only a few women straggling around or sitting on the side as confused as I was. There was little to no writing on the walls; barely any of the buildings had been boarded up. We couldn’t even hear drums and chants. There were definitely no helicopters thumping ominously over head or drones with their swat-deserving buzzing above. Yes, a few of the conquistadors’ statues had been painted green and purple and playfully blasphemed by green scarves with the women’s symbol and purple flowers perched on their heads. But that was about it.“Where is the march? Where is everyone?” I asked a row of women, their placards leaning against a wall on the side of the broad boulevard.
“They’re up there. They passed about half an hour ago.”
“Do you know why?”
“No,” they responded. “We don’t understand either.”

Some playful “vandalism” at the Mexico City Women’s Day march, 2020

My friend and I walked for about 15 minutes and finally reached the march.

There were the usual triumphant chants, and the on-cue jumping that the young women do in time with their chant about snubbing their noses at machos, a cumbia marching band with dancers and hoola-hoops; there was a 2-women feminist punk band blaring irreverence with their electric guitars followed by a feminist ukelele group strumming and the placards with the powerful proclamations for justice that Mexican women pride themselves in. There were a few walls plastered with the faces of rapists. Feminist graffiti became more visible. A few of the infamous militants clad entirely in black, balaclavaed and armed with spray paint climbed on top of bus shelters to write: #creaenella (believe her). A large sign to give justice to Fatima was help up by women who had climbed up onto the sides of a monument. But, after 3 hours, I only saw 3 women police officers. I didn’t have to get through a wall of police with their riot shields when I wanted to run farther up to get photos of the march from different perspectives. There was levity, bereft of the abundance of drawn, traumatized faces. It was different. It was more like a Woman’s Day march in Canada, in a first-world country—albeit with Mexican frivolity and flavour. It was more a celebration of women rather than the funeral marches ignited by guerilla warfare of years past.

Triumphant women at the Mexico City Women’s Day march, 2025

I’m not saying the Mexico City 8M wasn’t powerful this year

and women were not speaking out passionately against the continued reality of extreme gender-based violence in Mexico and the impunity for male perpetrators. I am wondering what it means when a march that was enormous and one of the biggest in the world was so much smaller; I am curious as to why there was less overt anger and retaliatory vandalism and what that means and whether a decrease in the number of women at an International Women’s Day march could be a mark of improvement in the lives of women in a country that has been scourged with gender violence for decades, if not centuries. Yes, there are still some reports that nothing has changed and that the 25% decrease in homicides in Mexico with the new administration of Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum has affected nothing. Yet, with the numbers at an all-time high on 8M 2024 and this year’s march—even held on a Saturday when most people don’t work—so much smaller, how can one explain this very obvious decrease? How can one explain the subdued anger? The tempered ferocity, the lack of police corresponding to the lack for the need for police enforcement? With national day care, assistance for single mothers, abortion now available to women nationally and the other social programs implemented by Obrador that could be decreasing the immasculanization and anger of men—which is so often the cause of violence against women—being continued by Sheinbaum and the decrease in homicides be making a real difference in the lives of women in Mexico? Could it be logic that when a people are better off, violence lessens in general and, thereby, decreases the rates of femicide and rape? It’s hard to say in a country where the conservative opposition will do anything to undermine a socialist government. However, in the meantime, we can only hope that the decrease in numbers at Mexico City’s Women’s Day March 2025 is a sign that violence really has lessened in Mexico—for women and men.

Yours,
The Logical Feminist.

“I come for the girls and boys who are no longer here. The girls and boys are not to be touched.” 8M, 2025.

For a more extensive look at the birth of the Mexican feminist movement, see my 2020 article:
“The Life of a Woman is More Important than an Historical Monument.”

For an analysis of violence perpetrated against Mexican men, see this article on a solution:
“Justice Begins with the One Beside You: The Revolution of Nacidos Para Triunfar.”

For an analysis of the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration’s (2018-2024) strategy to end violence where it starts, see Part One of my article on the Morena Revolution:
“And this is a Good Thing: Contextualizing the 2024 Mexico Election. Part One.”

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Travel Stories: Vancouver BC & the Yucatan, Mexico, December 2024.

Posted on December 27, 2024December 30, 2024 by Karen Moe

Vancouver December 23rd, 2024

He still knows what stop to get off at. Surprising as delusion has set into such a degree that he doesn’t recognize himself in his reflection on the Vancouver SkyTrain even though he is confronting himself.
     “Is that you? Who’s that? Behave yourself.” Spins away from the familiar that has become foreign; hurls a garbage bag of empty bottles and cans into the corner.
     Angry white man. The kind who could commit mass murder with a Walmart semi-automatic if this were happening in the US. Beaten down. Shut down. Lethal. He plunks down next to me. I have politely made room by shuffling my luggage to the side and underneath my legs. Not for him necessarily. Plunk. His clothes aren’t as dirty as he smells, definitely the smell of not having showered … for how long? How long does it take to get that deep musky gag-inducing smell? But, despite that, he’s clean cut. Not clean, as this expression presumes, but no beard, no long shaggy hair. Just a deep-rooted stench and clothes that should be dirtier to match the smell. And the explosive anger of the emasculated man. Two young Chinese women have long-since darted into the next car.
     The muttering starts, the only other decibel level other than shouting.
     “I think I fucked up.” I decipher. “I think I’m on the wrong train.”
     “Do you want to go to Richmond or Waterfront?” I ask the side of his bowed head.
     “Waterfront.”
     “You’re on the right train.” I pull out the book that I hadn’t necessarily planned to read during the train ride and which I still don’t. Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark is a convenient prop at this moment with which I can pretend to not be paying attention while my ears are pricked for every scrap, every gem, of what is going to happen, hungry for this next remembrance of what was once my hometown. He leaps up to confront his reflection again.
      “Is that you?” he questions; he accuses. The mutter has jacked up to the other volume of the shout. Another spin. Swaggers into the middle of the car, a ready stage as all the passengers have backed away to be as far as possible from the ensuing performance and those who have no choice but to be a bit nearby desperately pretend not to notice what is impossible not to, anxiety visible beneath the fallacy of their unperturbed faces. “Please get off the train. Oh, no not this again. Please don’t exist,” the blank faces say. Swagger. Not yet entirely drunkenly. The swagger will devolve into the stagger when he can exchange the garbage bag of rattling bottles in for a full one. But of what? I wonder. What can he buy with that? He doesn’t have enough … It’s even difficult for drunks to fulfill their tragedies in Vancouver now.
     “195 pounds of absolute killer!” He shouts, both thumbs jabbing at his chest. If his eyes were clear, if he were still here, if he hadn’t shut down inwards from so much time alone, so much rejection, so much: “No, you’re not!”, he would have been addressing us, everyone on the train. He checks his fists to make sure they’re still there. Two white thugs marked up with red. Satisfied. Unclenches,
     “Eight years in the Canadian infantry. Is that right?” The train has been silent since he got on. Now, the silence seems to hesitate, his announcement left as a question hanging. The train slows. The stop he remembers. The door opens. He retrieves his garbage bag of cans and bottles. A woman dressed as a Christmas tree gets on, green jacket, pants, scarf, toque, wrapped in flashing lights, plastic snowflakes pasted to her plaid shopping trolly.
     “What’s that!?” he shouts her direction, repulsed, as he lunges off the train.
     “I’m a walking Christmas tree!” Her too-loud laugh cuts through the heavy silence. She starts to dance to the rhythm of the flashing of her lights, spinning in the space he’s left in the center of the car.

Xcambó, Yucatan, Mexico December 13th, 2024

There were two enormous birds who were counting on me being dead. Me, an unwitting corpse as a sacrifice to their intrigue and hunger lying on top of a remote pyramid in the Yucatan. Unfortunately for them, I was only having a nap.
     Napping is a hobby of mine. Any time the inclination strikes and there is a surface where I can stretch out on my back, one arm across my stomach and the other behind my head or flopped to one side, ideally something to cover my eyes, I nap. Power nap. Recharge my computer (re: my brain), or just float, not quite sleeping, riding an arch of REM. The best naps are ones that result in a twitch, like dogs do when they’re dreaming, and then I come back. Too bad for the huge, black birds, I did.
     But what would have happened if I’d napped for longer? If I’d gone past my usual 30 minutes, indulged in an hour. They’d been circling above, I was told by my friend who was watching this small spectacle from the other side of the ancient city, a humble one by Yucatan standards with the epics of Chichenitza and Uxmal both tended to and tourist bound. No one came to this one.
     “¿Tienes muchos visitantes aquí? (Do you have many visitors here?)” I asked the attendant who emerged from a rumpled little apartment behind the sloping ticket counter. He’d roused himself from something and there was a lengthy gap between my call of ‘Hola’ and his arrival.
     “Muy, muy poco, (Very, very few)” he verged on a lifelong yawn while announcing the price of 80 pesos each.
     “¿Tienes alguna información sobre la pirámide? (Do you have any information about the pyramid?)”
     “No,” he responded as the selva rustled and I felt a swishing of wings from above. He stared out towards to the untended structure, trying to remember something, know something about this place that was his vocation that hardly anyone ever came to, tell this rare guest something.
     “Era un lugar donde la gente comerciaba, (It was a commercial center)” he smiled, pleased with this piece of information he had managed to dig up for me, flashing gold capped teeth.
     “¿Puedo escalarlo? (Can I climb it?)” I asked, and now that I think of it, pyramid climbing is another hobby, an exotic one as it requires a pyramid and sadly, you aren’t allowed to climb most of them anymore.
     “Sí.” He smiled again and I grinned back.
     “Gracias!”

The two big black birds landed on the edge of the pyramid. Watching. Waiting with the patience of predators creeping closer as I floated in the warm Yucatan sun and a forest breeze swished across my bare legs, arms, unsandaled feet, vulnerable neck. They moved closer. What would have happened if they had reached me? Would they have gone for my jugular, as cougars do? Would it have mattered that I still have a pulse?
     My eyes opened. Slowly. Coming back from a most luxurious napping arch. I sat up, still oblivious to the eyes that had been locked onto my prone flesh most likely for the duration of my nap.
     “You’ve got visitors!” the small form of my friend called from across the ruins. They didn’t leave right away; they seemed as surprised as I was that they were there and I was alive. Our gazes connected for a few seconds. Their black eyes shone from dull, wrinkly grey heads as dull black feathers almost glinted in the high afternoon sun. But then, lazily, one tipped off the edge of the pyramid and swooped up on an air current and the other swished its broad wings and landed next to a sun-cracked puddle bed to attempt a drink. Were they planning on eating me? I thought as I climbed down the crumbling stairs.
     While were exploring Xcambó, the attendant had called his friend. “Gente esta aqui! (People are here!)” he must have told him. I walked over to say adios, gracias and ask about the birds. The other man had set up a display of hand-made souvenirs for us, row upon row of brightly painted, carved animals and onyx disc necklaces to view eclipses through. I bought a turtle magnet and a turtle necklace both made from the bark of a coconut tree. There wasn’t anything representing the huge, black birds. I told the two men what had happened.
     “Ah! Zopilotes!” the attendant exclaimed. “Tzopīlōtl en Nahuatle.”
     “Creo que estos pájaros estaban pensando sobre comerme. (I think those birds were thinking about eating me)”, I stated. Both men laughed, flashing gold capped teeth.
     At dinner, I told the waiter the story of my nap and the visitors.
     “Those are the birds that eat humans.” He stated and turned to go order our drinks.

On the surface, there may not appear to be much logic involved in these two travel tales and, as I am publishing them in my blog “The Logical Feminist,” one would presume there would be some. But never fear. There’s lots of logic here.

Vancouver is filled with emasculated, angry white men. Yes, I am racializing because it’s true. All of the people who commit mass-shootings in the US are young angry white men (except there was a white woman a couple of years ago). I know PC folk: people aren’t supposed to tell such truths in Canada (the most politically correct country in the world by the way and a hot bed of cancel culture … but that’s a whole essay to delve into the logic of that … and is it logical? Maybe). The two young women who immediately bolted into the other train car, without even thinking or discussing it, just a mutual, instinctual bolt from having done it so many times, were Chinese. This is true. (Again, a corresponding essay could be written to explain why and how). Regardless, once contextualized beneath the surface, it is all logical. What do you think?
Non-human animals and nature are the most logical entities on earth. Wait for awhile to see if a body is dead. Eat it.

Happy New Year everyone!

Yours,
The Logical Feminist.

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Un regalo inesperado.

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Karen Moe

An Unexpected Gift — El único corazón completo es el que está roto porque deja entrar la luz—David Wolpe

Durante mi gira Trauma & Triumph Tour por Canada

para Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor el otoño pasado, tuve un pequeño respiro en Toronto, Ontario, y fui a una lectura de poesía. Estaba en un callejón, en un rincón ruinoso de Queen y Spadina. No sabía que esos lugares todavía existían en el TO brillante y desenfrenado, ya que las torres brillantes se elevan por todas partes y la mayoría de los bordes ásperos se han suavizado. Pero allí estaba. A la vuelta de la esquina y por un callejón lleno de baches: mal vino y poesía densa, el tipo de poesía que te lleva no solo a un lugar, sino a las multiplicidades de la percepción, rompiendo la superficie de hormigón y, en palabras de Donna Haraway: “deshace el pensamiento como de costumbre.”[1]

Para gran emoción de mi serendipia creativa, uno de los poetas citó a David Wolpe:

El único corazón completo es el que está roto porque deja entrar la luz. Acababa de escribir en mi diario la noche anterior: “Para tener un cambio real y duradero, ¿debemos todos saber, estar familiarizados con el trauma? ¿Debemos todos tener corazones rotos para que la luz entre?

Desafortunadamente, existen innumerables realidades sobre por qué esto es así, por qué vivimos en un mundo hecho de trauma y por qué, si queremos que haya alguna transformación y curación, debemos sentirnos, incluso heridos, junto con eso. Sin embargo, por deprimente que esto pueda sonar en la superficie, esto no es algo malo. El desamor no es solo lógico: es esperanza.

The Dzunuk’wa Society—Wild Women of the Woods en COP15 2022. Foto cortesía de Arvinoutside.

Fairy Creek, BC, Canadá,

viene a mi mente a medida que los troncos sagrados de su antiguo crecimiento siguen cayendo junto con todas las especies que vivían allí, algunas sin ser descubiertas antes de su extinción. Mientras escribo, The The Dzunuk’wa Society—Wild Women of the Woods, los Guardianes del bosque[2] fundada por tres mujeres de raíces indígenas (junto con Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones, amigos y aliados) se encuentran actualmente en la COP15 en Montreal, Canadá, con un cedro de 750 años cortado de forma transversal que rescataron de una zona talada mostrando al mundo lo que las Naciones Originarias ancestrales[3] y los defensores del bosque han estado luchando y sacrificándose para salvar desde agosto de 2020. No solo trajeron la pieza de más de 9 metros como evidencia desde la isla de Vancouver, BC hasta Montreal, los activistas indígenas también trajeron sus tambores ceremoniales con el plan de tocarlos frente a la rebanada de lo que alguna vez fue un árbol antiguo, lo que cariñosamente llaman “La Galleta.”

Sin embargo, la seguridad en la COP15 les prohibió tocar sus tambores y tener la ceremonia por la que habían viajado miles de kilómetros para compartir. Como dijo la tía Rainbow-Eyez, una de las fundadoras de Wild Women, en una transmisión en vivo de Instagram el 12 de diciembre con una voz temblorosa pero fuerte: “Nos están manteniendo en pedazos para que no podamos unirnos. Las personas pueden continuar con su día porque no les afecta personalmente. Tenemos que ayudarnos unos a otros a ser completos. Debido a que la voz del pueblo es tan fuerte, no hay nada más fuerte que la voz del pueblo y un tambor ceremonial que viene directamente del espíritu”. Luego agregó, metafórica y literalmente, que los tambores son un arma. Y sí, son un arma de resistencia pacífica ya que la influencia espiritual de los tambores ceremoniales tiene la capacidad de afectar las emociones, llevarnos más allá de nuestro enclaustramiento individual y socavar el atrincheramiento del sistema colonial que, en palabras de Rainbow Eyez, está tratando de mantener es una parte. Me gusta especialmente la forma en que eligió la palabra “tratando”, la forma progresiva del verbo que desaloja la fijeza del tiempo pasado. Es a través de la sabiduría que viene con un sentimiento profundo y la realidad de los corazones rotos que podremos unirnos y ser completos.

Esto no quiere decir que el trauma sistémico no esté fácilmente disponible para reconocer en países como Canadá y los EE. UU. Después de todo, el tercer mundo existe en el primero. En Vancouver BC, Canadá, está el Downtown Eastside, por ejemplo, con violencia sexual, enfermedades mentales, adicción a las drogas, estigmatización, ostraitización del apoyo familiar que crea lo que en muchos sentidos es una especie de cuarto mundo.[4] Y, como la jerarquía del color de la piel y la raza apuntala la supremacía blanca, la mayoría de las mujeres y niñas prostituidas en las calles de Downtown Eastside son indígenas, una continuación del fetiche colonial de explotación, abuso y deshumanización de los colonizados.[5]

Como escribí en mi último post, el feminicidio es una epidemia en México. Pero lo que no dije en ese escrito en particular es que los 10-16 asesinatos diarios de mujeres mexicanas están directamente relacionados con la inmasculinización de los hombres mexicanos. El machismo, como exacerbación de la supremacía masculina violenta, es una respuesta al desempoderamiento masculino.[6] En México, la inmasculinización está garantizada por la explotación económica de la mano de obra del tercer mundo por parte del primero y el cercamiento de los jóvenes por falta de oportunidades.[7] Debido a que hay tan pocas opciones, los hombres jóvenes y sin poder se sienten atraídos por la posibilidad de poder y prestigio que ofrecen los cárteles de la droga. Los asesinatos de jóvenes son a través de la violencia de los cárteles, lo que está directamente relacionado con la feroz competencia por llevar los narcóticos a los mercados de drogadictos del norte. Esto, a su vez, es alimentado por la epidemia de adicción a las drogas en Canadá y los EE. UU. que es el resultado de familias disfuncionales, la colonización de pueblos indígenas en los estados nación del primer mundo y, con mayor frecuencia, el abuso sexual infantil que resulta en enfermedades mentales. y el TEPT y la automedicación con las drogas que son contaminadas por la sangre de los jóvenes mexicanos.[8] Y vueltas y vueltas no tenemos que seguir yendo.

Si has leído hasta aquí, ten paciencia conmigo: aunque la fuente de la angustia a menudo es horrible, la angustia en sí misma es la liberación. Como me dijo la cineasta Jennifer Abbott cuando le pregunté por qué dedica su vida a luchar por la justicia social y ambiental: “Hago lo que hago porque quiero que mi vida tenga integridad y sentido”.

Detalle de la barricada que rodea La Glorieta De Las Mujeres Que Luchan, Ciudad de México. (Consulte la publicación del 7 de diciembre de 2022 para ver el artículo completo).

No podemos olvidarnos de los hombres.

El pasado domingo, andando en bicicleta por Reforma en la Ciudad de México, era imposible no parar si tienes corazón sentimental; las escaleras de la famosa Glorieta del Ángel de la Independencia estaban cubiertas, amortajadas, con redes rojas. Alrededor de los bordes de la Glorieta, como una corona de Navidad que te invita a sentir con tu rostro, había fotografías de hombres jóvenes, cara tras cara tras cara tras cara de jóvenes desaparecidos y, en su mayoría, asesinados. Los carteles de vinilo a gran escala dicen desaparecido, lo has visto, mientras son llevados por todo el país por las madres, hermanas, primas, sobrinas y amigas que nunca dejan de buscar a sus seres queridos perdidos, incluso cuando la búsqueda se convierte más en una búsqueda de concientización que en una esperanza de volver a encontrar a su ser querido individual, una acusación como activismo motivado por el corazón roto.[10]

No supe qué decirles a las mujeres que estaban sentadas en los escalones tejiendo las redes. ¿Qué les dices a las personas que se sientan rodeadas por los rostros de sus hijos, hermanos, sobrinos, primos, amigos desaparecidos y sus eternas súplicas de ayuda? Sin embargo, quería agradecerles, felicitarlos por la potencia de esta instalación, cómo los jóvenes están atrapados en la inevitabilidad de su propio derramamiento de sangre. Sangre de mi Sangre, sangre de mi sangre, sangre de toda nuestra sangre. El nombre de la organización es Colectivo Hilos. Lo siento mucho, dije torpemente y les dije que compartiría su historia con el mundo más allá de México.

¿Por qué están desaparecidos todos estos jóvenes? ¿Por qué tantos hombres en México agreden y asesinan a sus novias y cónyuges? ¿Por qué a menudo no hay otras oportunidades para los jóvenes mexicanos sino ser reclutados por los cárteles de la droga como soldados de infantería y terminar desaparecidos y muertos? ¿Por qué hay tantas personas adictas a las drogas, con enfermedades mentales y abusadas sexualmente en las calles de Canadá y Estados Unidos? ¿Por qué se está destruyendo lo que queda de las selvas tropicales antiguas de todo el mundo y, con ello, el futuro del planeta y de todo lo que vive aquí, no solo de nosotros? Mientras las mujeres mexicanas tejen sus redes rojas, todas estamos atrapadas en el hilo colectivo. Estos no son incidentes separados, cortados por fronteras, raza, clase, olvido y pura buena suerte. Y saber esto, y sentir esto, es un regalo. Si todos los traumas fueran colectivos, si nos volviéramos completos a través de la sabiduría de la conciencia, si aceptamos la necesidad de nuestros corazones rotos, la oscuridad se volverá luz.

La feminista lógica (aka Karen Moe)

#iloveendnotes #contextisrevolution

[1] Citas de Donna Haraway de https://www.e-flux.com/journal/75/67125/tentacular-thinking-anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/; https://www.dukeupress.edu/staying-with-the-trouble

[2] De Dzunuk’wa Society, Wild Women of the Woods Instagram: Únase a nosotros para proteger nuestras irreemplazables selvas tropicales para las generaciones venideras…

Poner fin a la tala de todos los bosques antiguos para las próximas 7 generaciones y más allá.

La Sociedad Dzunuk’wa, fundada por tres mujeres con raíces indígenas (junto con Elder Bill Jones, amigos y aliados), comenzó a trabajar para proteger las antiguas selvas tropicales templadas, el insustituible Bosque Viejo de la Columbia Británica… y no nos detendremos hasta que estén protegidos.

El sistema actual favorece el beneficio de la industria a corto plazo sobre las personas. El sistema actual deshonra la intención de la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas (UNDRIP), no protege la soberanía indígena y la ley natural y está destruyendo nuestros sistemas naturales: nuestras tierras, bosques, aguas, aire y el futuro de los niños. .

Están recaudando dinero para continuar protegiendo y ayudar a salvar lo que queda de los últimos bosques templados del mundo. Haga clic aquí para donar Click here to donate

[3] A diferencia delBand Council, que son los representantes del gobierno colonial en las reservas que fueron establecidas por la Ley India en 1876 y que han oprimido insidiosamente a los primeros pueblos desde entonces.

[4] Ver Gabor Maté El Reino de los Fantasmas Hambrientos: Encuentros Cercanos con la Adicción (The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction)

[5] “La prostitución explota y refuerza las representaciones y desigualdades racistas al transformar los cuerpos de las mujeres en objetos de mercado y deseo: es fruto de imaginarios sexuales coloniales que han moldeado las mentalidades de las sociedades colonizadoras y condicionado las de los dominados. En ese sentido, la compra de un acto sexual está enraizada en estas dinámicas colonialistas e imperialistas y es un acto fundamentalmente racista”. Last Girl First: La prostitución en la intersección de las opresiones basadas en el sexo, la raza y la clase. PAC Internacional, 2022: 106

[6] Véase Gore Capitalism de Sayak Valencia para un análisis en profundidad del tercer mundo, el hombre emasculado. Lo que ella llama, el “sujeto del endriago”.

[7] En 2021, visité la ONG Nacidos Para Triunfar en Monterrey y escribí un artículo sobre los jóvenes de los barrios mexicanos que son reclutados por los cárteles de la droga para ser soldados de infantería (y muchos terminan asesinados) y cómo Nacidos Para Triunfar trabaja en el barrios para hacer tratados de paz entre las clikas (pequeños carteles callejeros) y ofrecer educación y empleo a los hombres predominantemente jóvenes.

https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/justice-begins-with-the-one-beside-you-the-quiet-revolution-of-nacidos-para-triunfar

[8] México tiene una jerarquía manifiesta de color de piel. Significativamente, de todas las fotos que vi de jóvenes desaparecidos y asesinados el domingo, ninguno tenía la piel blanca: todas las víctimas eran indígenas, o al menos en su mayoría porque los conquistadores españoles se mezclaron con los indígenas en comparación con en Canadá, donde los colonizadores europeos y los colonizadores indígenas fueron segregados principalmente en el sistema de reservas.

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Abbott

Escuche a Jennifer hablar sobre su vida y trabajo aquí en un documental de YouTube:

“Empoderando lo invisible”.

[10] Ver The Raw Truth: Francisco Toledo’s Duelo and the Disappeared of Ayotzinapa una entrevista con el difunto artista Francisco Toledo, donde habla sobre su serie de esculturas de cerámica, Duelo, siendo “una acusación, una declaración al gobierno, declarándolo internacionalmente, contándole al mundo entero esta injusticia”. https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/la-cruda-verdad-francisco-toledo-s-duelo-y-los-43-desaparecidos-de-ayotzinapa

https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/la-cruda-realidad-duelo-de-francisco-toledo-y-los-43-desaparecidos-de-ayotzinapa

Soy:

crítica de arte, artista visual y de performance, autora y activista feminista. Mi trabajo se centra en la violencia sistémica del patriarcado: ya sea de género, raza, medio ambiente o especismo. Mi crítica de arte ha sido publicada internacionalmente en revistas, antologías y catálogos de artistas en inglés y español y he expuesto mi obra y actuado en Canadá, Estados Unidos y México. Recibí el “Premio Ellie Liston al Héroe del Año” 2022 por ser fundamental en la sentencia de por vida otorgada a un violador en serie que me secuestró y abusó a mí y a muchas otras mujeres. Desde entonces, como escribo mi libro Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor:

“Y, lo creas o no, lo que sufrí y sobreviví…. todos esos años me dieron el regalo de conocer mi fuerza y lo que puedo sobrevivir. Y ahora, la resistencia, la lucha por la justicia para todos, es por lo que vivo. Mi vida es mucho más grande que yo mismo.”(186)

Mi experiencia personal de sobrevivir y triunfar sobre la violencia sexual y el trauma es el origen del Feminismo Lógico.

Vivo en la Ciudad de México y la Columbia Británica, Canadá. Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor es mi primer libro.

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Triunfo bajo amenaza: la Ciudad de México y las mujeres que luchan.

Posted on March 5, 2023March 5, 2023 by Karen Moe

Triunfo bajo amenaza: la Ciudad de México y las mujeres que luchan.

La Glorieta De Las Mujeres Que Luchan, Mexico City.

Estaba exaltada y sorprendida.

No podía creer que el gobierno federal mexicano y la Ciudad de México hubieran permitido, incluso abrazado, un símbolo de las mujeres que luchan contra la epidemia de feminicidios en México en la gran Avenida Reforma, en el famoso Ángel de la Independencia que deslumbra a turistas y a nacionalistas por igual en medio de la glorieta congestionada de Reforma y Monterrey. Aún mejor, esta celebración de las mujeres que luchan se encuentra en el pedestal donde Cristóbal Colón se había erguido desde 1877 en una glorieta de Reforma igualmente prominente. Erigido el 25 de septiembre de 2021 por el grupo activista feminista Vivas Nos Queremos, Antimonumenta en alianza con la de Red Conexión Nacional (madres de víctimas de feminicidio, defensoras del agua, sobrevivientes de ataques con ácido, triquis, otomíes y mujeres nahuas, y las madres de los estudiantes desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa)[1], La Glorieta De Las Mujeres Que Luchan ahora está amenazada con ser removida. Demasiado bueno para ser cierto.

Como muchos saben,

Cristóbal Colón fue un explorador italiano que realizó cuatro viajes por el Atlántico y fue patrocinado por los Reyes Católicos de España. Su desembarco en las costas de Cuba y luego en la Costa del Golfo de México inició la colonización europea de las Américas y la posterior opresión y explotación de los pueblos indígenas que han vivido aquí durante milenios. Los europeos afirmaron haber “descubierto” lo que llamaron el Nuevo Mundo, dando a entender, por supuesto, que no había nadie aquí, o de condición humana, y que la tierra rica en recursos estaba abierta para ser tomada y, por lo tanto, estaba perfectamente bien “sacar al indio del niño” como dijo el primer primer ministro de Canadá, John A. McDonald, en su declaración de la intención de las escuelas residenciales de Canadá[2] o, como en el caso de Cuba, el exterminio total y, como en México, encantar con la estética impresionante de las Catedrales a través de la historia de Juan Diego, un hombre indígena que contempló el milagro de Guadalupe, la Virgen María de piel oscura. Pero esa es otra historia, aunque relacionada.[3]

Regreso a Reforma 2022:

Como todos los estados naciones que no existirían sin el robo de la tierra y la brutalización de los pueblos indígenas, independientemente de la eliminación de todas las estatuas de Cristóbal Colón, el origen colonial sigue muy vivo en su obsesión. Sin embargo, estamos en una era de despertar a las atrocidades que subyacen a la civilización occidental a medida que las estatuas han estado cayendo en países donde se originó el colonialismo y aquellos donde se llevaron a cabo las operaciones de glotonería: numerosas interpretaciones del primer ministro de Canadá, John A. Macdonald, han sido derribadas o removidas y ha sido salpicada pintura roja-sangre sobre la Reina Victoria; los activistas británicos aventaron al traficante de esclavos Edward Colston al puerto de Bristol; múltiples Colones han caído en los EE. UU. junto con muchos antepasados linchadores (por nombrar algunos). [4] Sin embargo, ¿se están levantando los cimientos del colonialismo a medida que caen los símbolos de los perpetradores glorificados? Es difícil de decir.

Una mujer joven en la protesta del 25 de noviembre recibió el Día Internacional para Eliminar la Violencia contra la Mujer. Se había pintado la camiseta con los nombres de muchas víctimas de feminicidio.

El gobierno de la Ciudad de México había planeado reemplazar a Colón con “La joven de Amajaca”, una réplica de una antigua estatua de una joven indígena. No se puede negar que reemplazar al colonizador clave por una réplica de un monumento prehispánico (e incluso de una mujer) es una mejora.[5] Sin embargo, es significativo que, como en todos los países coloniales, las mujeres indígenas son las más vulnerables a las agresiones sexuales y los feminicidios. ¿No es más crítico en este momento honrar las vidas de ahora -desaparecidas, asesinadas, agredidas, resistiendo, combatiendo-, el destino de esta representación prehispánica de mucho tiempo antes que las necesidades del ahora?

Las feministas y las familias de los niños desaparecidos decidieron: No.

El gesto simbólico del gobierno de honrar un pasado precolonial idealizado no es suficiente. Con su imponente Anti-monumenta triunfante, pintado de glitter y con el humo que usan las feministas mexicanas para demostrar su resistencia a la impunidad masculina y la violencia sexual, los nombres de las mujeres desaparecidas y asesinadas escritos en las paredes, y un tendedero colgado en el jardín circundante.donde las mujeres han escrito relatos personales de agresiones, las activistas han hecho de esta glorieta un sitio de protestas y reuniones que han llamado la atención sobre la epidemia de asesinatos de mujeres y niñas en México. “Este lugar es desde ahora la glorieta de las mujeres que luchan y estará dedicada a aquellas que en todo el país han enfrentado violencia, represión y revictimización para luchar contra la injusticia”, escribió en sus redes sociales Vivas Nos Queremos, Antimonumenta[6].

Fotos de seres queridos desaparecidos y asesinados en el suelo del Zócalo donde terminó el desfile.

En lugar de una exotización simbólica del pasado prehispánico y precolombino de México, la Antimonumenta representa el presente del colonialismo en lugar de exotizar lo que fue. Una representación de la inocencia previa a la explotación está lejos de ser relevante en un país donde se estima que entre 12 y 16 mujeres son asesinadas por día por sus esposos o novios.[7] En lugar de recordar a quienes fueron oprimidos, la Antimonumenta crea conciencia sobre el presente, la valentía de las mujeres que resisten y luchan por una vida presente y futura libre de violencia. Como explica Érica, integrante de la coalición: “No se trata de poner un monumento para adorar el pasado, sino para reconocer la lucha presente, a todas las mujeres que han desaparecido”[8].

Pero, ¿los mexicanos están contentos con eso?

En realidad, parece que esta vez, posiblemente es así.[9] A diferencia del 25 de noviembre de 2019 y el 8 de marzo de 2020, cuando feministas militantes vandalizaron todos los monumentos coloniales a lo largo de Reforma y la opinión popular valoró los monumentos por encima del reconocimiento de la epidemia de feminicidios[10], ha habido un clamor público para que este acto de activismo se quede donde está: en la ubicación estratégica sobre Reforma, para que México y el mundo lo vean.

Sería una decisión lógica del gobierno que las mujeres que luchan y las familias que han perdido a sus seres queridos cuenten con este símbolo de lucha, un lugar de encuentro para recordar y resistir y la oportunidad de generar conciencia de gran alcance desde un lugar destacado y simbólico. Construir “La Joven de Amajaca” costaría $12 millones de pesos y las feministas argumentan que “con esos 12 millones de pesos podrían hacer talleres creativos en escuelas y plazas públicas contra la violencia, equipamiento para buscadores colectivos, apoyo a albergues, etc.”[ 11] Cuando se trata de justicia, a menudo falta esa lógica

Cerca de tantos policías como mujeres marchando el 25 de noviembre de 2022.

Sin siquiera acceso a kits de violación

como parte de la agenda del gobierno para rastrear a los perpetradores a través de su ADN y al menos reconocer la validez de la agresión sexual; una inquietante presencia de policías encapsulando Reforma a la par de las mujeres que marcharon el 25 de noviembre por el Día Internacional de la Eliminación de la Violencia contra la Mujer; fotografías a gran escala de una joven mexicana desaparecida y asesinada tiradas y pegadas en todas las superficies del Zócalo; una conferencia de la UNAM ese mismo día titulada “El derecho a una vida libre de violencia: el duro camino hacia la justicia feminista” donde los cadáveres fueron el tema principal de la agenda, para las mujeres, nosotras humanas que luchamos, está lejos de terminar.

Algunos de los cientos de nombres de mujeres desaparecidas y asesinadas que están escritos en las paredes que rodeaban el pedestal de Cristóbal Colón después de que fuera retirado. Sin embargo, la presencia y la celebración de Colón no se eliminarán de la ciudad: se mudará a Polanco (una colonia rica en la Ciudad de México).

#iloveendnotes

[1] https://www.netflix.com/mx-en/title/81045551

[2] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/here-is-what-sir-john-a-macdonald-did-to-indigenous-people

[3] https://www.mexperience.com/la-virgen-guadalupe-y-juan-diego/

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/confederate-statues-photos.html

[5] La ocupación se dio en un contexto en el que funcionarios de la Ciudad de México anunciaron que retirarían la estatua de Colón, figura colonialista, y que sería reemplazada por una estatua del artista Pedro Reyes. Su estatua se llamaba Tlali y fue motivo de quejas por la forma en que representaba el cuerpo de una mujer indígena. https://piedepagina.mx/ciudad-de-mexico-activistas-defendemos-monumento-a-las-mujeres-en-lucha/

[6] https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/mexico-city-take-down-feminist-anti-monument-1234637007/

[7] Se puede argumentar que una epidemia de machismo debida al varón tercermundista emasculado en el patriarcado es la principal responsable de la tasa de feminicidios en México. Ver Gore Capitalism de Sayak Valencia.

[8] https://piedepagina.mx/ciudad-de-mexico-activistas-defendemos-monumento-a-mujeres-en-lucha/

[9] https://www.animalpolitico.com/2022/10/glorieta-mujeres-luchan-antimonumenta-cdmx/

[10] Consulte mi artículo de marzo de 2021 en la revista Vigilance “La vida de una mujer es más importante que un monumento histórico”. https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/la-vida-de-una-mujer

[11] https://www.sopitas.com/noticias/plan-gobierno-cdmx-antimonumenta-reforma-esconder-circuito/?fbclid=IwAR3Xw5qvSI8asImA4s2uE32mojEA2KW-XK9D_-_WJqk3f_gxe7msBc6-TDI

Sobre la blogger:

Soy crítica de arte, artista visual y de performance, autora y activista feminista. Mi trabajo se centra en la violencia sistémica del patriarcado: ya sea de género, raza, medio ambiente o especismo. Mi crítica de arte ha sido publicada internacionalmente en revistas, antologías y catálogos de artistas en inglés y español y he expuesto mi obra y actuado en Canadá, Estados Unidos y México. Recibí el “Premio Ellie Liston al Héroe del Año” 2022 por ser fundamental en la sentencia de por vida otorgada a un violador en serie que me secuestró y abusó a mí y a muchas otras mujeres. Desde entonces, como escribo mi libro Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor:

Mi experiencia personal de sobrevivir y triunfar sobre la violencia sexual y el trauma es el origen del Feminismo Lógico.

Vivo en la Ciudad de México y la Columbia Británica, Canadá. Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor es mi primer libro.

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Triumph Under Threat: Mexico City and the Women Who Fight.

Posted on December 7, 2022December 14, 2022 by Karen Moe

I was elated and surprised.

I couldn’t believe that the Mexican federal government and the City of Mexico had allowed, even embraced, a symbol of the women who fight against the femicide epidemic in Mexico on the grand Reforma Boulevard, the one with the famous Angel of Independence that bedazzles tourists and nationalists alike in the middle of the traffic-clogged roundabout at Reforma and Monterrey. Even better, this celebration of the women who fight stands on the pedestal where Christopher Columbus had stood since 1877 on a similarly prominent Reforma roundabout. Erected on September 25^th 2021 by the feminist activist group Viva Nos Queremos, Antimonument (We Want Us Alive, Anti-Monument) in partnership with National Connection Network (mothers of victims of femicide, water defenders, survivors of acid attacks, Triqui, Otomí and Nahua women, and the mothers of the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa)[1], La Glorieta De Las Mujeres Que Luchan (Roundabout of the Women Who Fight) is now threatened to be removed. Too good to be truly true.

*“The Roundabout for the Women Who Fight: Stay and Resist! Not One step back!”*

As many know,

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who navigated four voyages across the Atlantic and was sponsored by the Catholic monarchs of Spain. His landing on the shores of Cuba and then the Gulf Coast of Mexico started the European colonization of the Americas and the subsequent oppression and exploitation of the Indigenous peoples who have lived here for Millenia. The Europeans claimed to have ‘discovered’ what they called the New World, implying of course that there was no one here—or of human status anyway— and that the resource-rich land was wide open and for the taking and, therefore, it was perfectly fine to ‘take the Indian out of the child’ as was said by Canada’s first Prime Minister John A. McDonald in his statement of the intention of Canada’s residential schools[2] or, as in the case of Cuba, all out extermination and, as in Mexico, enchant with the awe-inspiring aesthetic of Cathedrals through the story of Juan Diego, an Indigenous man who beheld the miracle of Guadalupe, the dark skinned Virgin Mary. But that’s another, albeit related, story.[3]

Back to Reforma 2022:

Like all nation states that wouldn’t exist without the stealing of the land and the brutalization of Indigenous peoples, regardless of the removal of all of the Christopher Columbuses, the colonial origin is still very much alive in its haunting. However, we are in an era of awakening to the atrocities that underlay Western Civilization as statues have been falling in countries where colonialism originated and those where the greed-glutting operations were carried out: numerous renditions of Canada’s Prime Minister John A. Macdonald have been toppled or removed and blood-red paint has been splattered on Queen Victoria; British activists rolled slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbor; multiple Columbuses have come down in the US along with a lot of lynching forefathers (to name a few).[4] However, is the bedrock of colonialism being upheaved as the symbols of the glorified perpetrators fall? It’s hard to say.

*A young woman at the November 25th prostest got the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women. She had painted her t-shirt with the names of many victims of femicide.*

The Mexico City government had planned to replace Columbus with “The Young Woman of Amajaca,” a replica of an ancient statue of a young Indigenous woman. It cannot be denied that replacing the key colonizer with a replica of a Pre-Hispanic monument (and of a woman even) is an improvement.[5] Significantly, though, as in all colonial countries, Indigenous women are the most vulnerable to sexual assault and femicide. Is it not more critical at this time to honour the lives—disappeared, murdered, assaulted, resisting, fighting—now, the fate of this Pre-Hispanic representation of long before the needs of now?

The feminists and the families of missing children decided: No.

The government’s token gesture of honouring an idealized pre-colonial past is not enough. With their anti-monument towering triumphant, painted the colour of the glitter and smoke Mexican feminists use to demonstrate their resistance to male impunity and sexual violence, the names of disappeared and murdered women written on the walls, and a clothesline hung across the surrounding garden where women have written personal accounts of assaults, the activists have made this roundabout a site for protests and gatherings that have drawn attention to the epidemic of killings of women and girls in Mexico. “This place is from now on the roundabout of women who struggle and will be dedicated to those across the country who have faced violence, repression and re-victimization for fighting injustice,” Viva Nos Queremos, Antimonument wrote on their social networks.[6]

*Photos of disappeared and murdered loved ones on the ground of the Zocalo where the parade ended.*

Rather than a token exoticization of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic, pre-Columbus past, the anti-monument represents the present of colonialism rather than exoticizing what was. A representation of the innocence of pre-exploitation is far from relevant in a country where an estimated 12-16 women are murdered per day by their husbands or boyfriends.[7] Instead of remembering who was oppressed, the anti-monument raises awareness for the present, the bravery of the women who resist and fight for present and future lives free from violence. As coalition member Érica explains: “It’s not about putting up a monument to worship the past, but one to recognize the present fight, all the women who have disappeared.”[8]

But are Mexicans happy about it?

Actually, it appears, this time, possibly so.[9] Unlike on November 25^th, 2019 and March 8^th, 2020 when militant feminists vandalized all of the colonial monuments along Reforma and popular opinion valued the monuments over acknowledging the femicide epidemic,[10] there has been public outcry that this act of activism should stay where it is: in the strategic location on Reforma, for Mexico, and the world, to see.

It would be a logical decision by the government to let the women who fight and the families who have lost their loved ones have this symbol of the struggle, a place to gather to remember and resist and the opportunity to raise far-reaching awareness from a prominent and symbolic location. Building “The Young Woman of Amajaca” would cost $12 million pesos and the feminists argue that “with those 12 million pesos they could do creative workshops in schools and public squares against violence, equipment for collective searchers, support for shelters, etc.”[11] When it comes to justice, such logic is often lacking.

*Close to as many police as women marching on November 25th 2022.*

With not even access to rape kits

as part of the government agenda to trace perpetrators through their DNA and at least acknowledge the validity of sexual assault; an eery presence of police lining Reforma on par with the women who marched November 25^th for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women; large scale photographs of missing and murdered young Mexican woman sprawled and plastered on all surfaces of the Zocalo; an UNAM conference earlier that day entitled “The Right to a Life Free of Violence: the Hard Road to Feminist Justice” where corpses were the main topic on the agenda, for we women, we humans who fight, it is far from finished.

Some of the hundreds of names of disappeared and murdered women that are written on the walls that surrounded the pedastal for Christopher Columbus after it was removed. The presence and celebration of Columbus will not be be removed from the city, though: he is bing moved to Polanco (a wealthy colonia in Mexico City).

#iloveendnotes

[1] https://www.netflix.com/mx-en/title/81045551

[2] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/here-is-what-sir-john-a-macdonald-did-to-indigenous-people

[3] https://www.mexperience.com/the-virgin-guadalupe-and-juan-diego/

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/confederate-statues-photos.html

[5] The occupation took place in a context in which México City officials announced they would remove the statue of Columbus, a colonialist figure, and that it would be replaced by a statue by artist Pedro Reyes. His statue was called Tlali, and it was the subject of complaints due to the way he represented the body of an Indigenous woman. https://piedepagina.mx/mexico-city-activists-defend-monument-to-women-in-struggle/

[6] https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/mexico-city-takes-down-feminist-anti-monument-1234637007/

[7] It can be argued that an epidemic of machismo due to the emasculated third-world male in patriarchy is mainly responsible for the femicide rate in Mexico. See Sayak Valencia’s Gore Capitalism.

[8] https://piedepagina.mx/mexico-city-activists-defend-monument-to-women-in-struggle/

[9] https://www.animalpolitico.com/2022/10/glorieta-mujeres-luchan-antimonumenta-cdmx/

[10] See my March 2021 article in Vigilance Magazine “The Life of a Woman is More Important than an Historical Monument.” https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/life-of-a-woman

[11] https://www.sopitas.com/noticias/plan-gobierno-cdmx-antimonumenta-reforma-esconder-circuito/?fbclid=IwAR3Xw5qvSI8asImA4s2uE32mojEA2KW-XK9D_-_WJqk3f_gxe7msBc6-TDI

About the Blogger:

I am an art critic, visual and performance artist, author and feminist activist. My work focuses on systemic violence in patriarchy: be it gender, race, the environment or speciesism. My art criticism has been published internationally in magazines, anthologies and artist catalogues in English and Spanish and I have exhibited and performed across Canada, in the US and in Mexico. I am the recipient of the “Ellie Liston Hero of the Year Award” 2022 for being instrumental in the life sentence given to a serial rapist who abducted and brutalized me and countless other women. Since that time, as I write in my book, Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor:

“And, believe it or not, what I suffered and survived …. all of those years ago gave me a gift of knowing my strength and what I can survive. And now, resistance, fighting for justice for all, is what I live for. My life is far bigger than myself.”(186)

My personal experience of surviving and triumphing over sexual violence and trauma is the origin of Logical Feminism.

I live in Mexico City and British Columbia, Canada. Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor is my debut book.

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