Are Mexican Women worth less than Mexican Men?
Juáres 20 years later
For the
ignorant passer-by, it looked like a sea of red shoes, 200 in total, dumped in
front of the Mexican consulate in El Paso. There have been dozens of
shoe-throwing incidents over the years, most famously in 2008, when an Arab
journalist tried to shoe the former United States President George W. Bush.
Apparently, getting hit by a shoe in the Arab world is a horrible insult, but
then again there were shoeings all over the world.
What made
the 2012 Mexican shoe incident stand out, was the context. It was not a tribute
to the female obsession with shoes, this particular fetish was staged as an act
of protest against the escalating violence in Ciudad Juárez – a town in
Chihuahua that, in the past five years, has become synonymous with female
homicide. So much so, that in Spanish word was created especially for the
murders of females in the boarder town. Feminicido (feminicide) stands
for the violent death of women who died since 1993.
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| Orange Day - UNITE against Violence against Women |
Between
high heels and toddler boots, Elina Chauvet, made her stand and invited
women all over the country to join her protest. The Zapatos Rojos are a
call for solidarity among women in Mexico to end gender based violence. But
where is the government’s solidarity with the non-male half of the Mexican
population?
In a
patriarchal system there are federal bodies tasked with fight for women’s
equality. But violence against women, prevails, as victims don’t see their
perpetrator’s brought to justice. A UN report reads “lack of access to justice
was related to the negative cultural stereotype that gave women less importance
than men, and the male-centred patriarchal system”. [1]
So more
than a decade has gone by and probably every major human rights organisation
made an enquiry into the subject, Amnesty International and the UN had special
reports drawn up that all stated the same: disturbing reports of violence
against women were unearthed and nothing has been done to apprehend and punish
the perpetrators. Is the legal system really
that corrupt, that the women who are trapped in a town, where over 370
women were murdered, at least 137 of them were sexually assaulted, since 1993,
are not taken seriously?
It seems
Ms. Chauvet’s red shoes seem to scream, blame it on the “complex legal
situation”, the drug lords, the poverty, but then do something. Juárez today is a veritable ghost town where women are burried just off the highway in the desert. In the 1960 the town was blooming, then came the drugs, now poverty rules supreme. Not even walls can offer you enough security and the Western media has all but forgotten about the plight of Mexican women.
So they had to go out and help themselves. Women support groupes were formed for those mother's whose children were ripped out of threir lives, psychologists come regularly into schooles to help children overcome the trauma of having lost a loved one.
In an interview in 2012 the artist stated her project was supposed to garner attention “bring visibility to an issue that is no longer receiving the attention it merits”.It’s not about graphic violence in art, it’s about a brutal reality of murders, forced prostitution, sexual assaults, domestic violence and gender-based discrimination. It’s about a government’s ineptitude to “tackle the increased levels of violence” (AI). It’s about 320 women who lost their lives with the police seemingly turning a blind eye. What does it mean to the future of an entire country if an entire generation has grown up in violence?
So they had to go out and help themselves. Women support groupes were formed for those mother's whose children were ripped out of threir lives, psychologists come regularly into schooles to help children overcome the trauma of having lost a loved one.
In an interview in 2012 the artist stated her project was supposed to garner attention “bring visibility to an issue that is no longer receiving the attention it merits”.It’s not about graphic violence in art, it’s about a brutal reality of murders, forced prostitution, sexual assaults, domestic violence and gender-based discrimination. It’s about a government’s ineptitude to “tackle the increased levels of violence” (AI). It’s about 320 women who lost their lives with the police seemingly turning a blind eye. What does it mean to the future of an entire country if an entire generation has grown up in violence?
The Red Shoes
http://thepeoplesrecord.com/post/28160895976/red-shoes-display-protests-violence-against-women
AI
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/mexico-fails-tackle-increased-levels-violence-against-women-2012-07-11
Messmer, Marietta.2012. "Transfrontera Crimes: Representations of the Juárez Femicides in Recent Fictional and Non-Fictional Accounts". Number 57.
http://www.asjournal.org/archive/57/202.html
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