While President Andrés Manuel López Obrador tried to warn citizens of the evils of feminism that is heating up for the 8M march, a huge zeppelin flew over his head and everyone’s this Monday. “10 daily femicides, none in oblivion”, was stamped on the balloon that has circulated early in the capital. Just as last year an anonymous group of women projected messages such as “Feminicidal Mexico” on the facade of the National Palace, this Monday another initiative has made the city look to the sky: “We fly because we are all in the heights,” reads the statement . Violence against women in Mexico continues to be the most immediate claim, which no government has managed to stop. A drama that has claimed almost 30,000 lives in the last decade alone and is oblivious to pandemics, truces and drug wars.
The women of Mexico have nothing more urgent, not wage inequality, not work-life balance, not even legal abortion, than to claim from the current government and those who come: “Stop killing us,” they shout in the streets. The almost 10 murders against them that are committed every day in the country have placed sexist violence in the most primary objective. Impunity for these cases, as for most crimes committed in Mexico, is almost total (95% are not resolved) and killing them is practically free.
The numbers of femicides have not stopped growing, not even during the pandemic and not even in the safest places. They are murdered in their homes, mostly by their husbands, ex-partners or acquaintances. The Government came to recognize last year a “containment” of homicides at the federal level and an increase in death for them. The macabre femicide statistic continues to grow, even for the few —less than 10% of cases are reported— who dared to point out their aggressor.
Faced with this public security crisis against half the population, the Mexican feminist movement is stronger than ever. For three years, the marches of the International Day of Working Women have become the most powerful showcase where the country reflects before the tragedy and they are massive. López Obrador himself came to attack feminists, considering them the only social movement capable of confronting him in the streets. He has considered them enemies of the Fourth Transformation, his political project, and this Monday, while the zeppelin flew over his words, the president tried to confront them again.
“I make a call so that provocations do not fall and there is no violence,” López Obrador demanded during the morning conference, referring to the protest that is expected for this Tuesday, March 8. And he has issued a warning in the same tone as previous ones: “We have information that they are preparing with hammers, with blowtorches, with Molotov cocktails. What is it about? That is not defending women, it is not even feminism, that is a conservative, reactionary position, against us, against the politics of transformation. It is a totally political position”, declared the president.
The 8M marches have become a collective catharsis for years, especially for a minority group of hooded youths who break, burn and paint everything in their path. Because, according to them, no wall, tile or monument is worth more than their lives. The Government and the local authorities do not agree. And since last week they have walled off establishments, roundabouts, historic buildings and practically the entire Zócalo of the capital, where they plan to end the protest this Tuesday. The capital, led by the Morenista (official party) Claudia Sheinbaum, is also preparing, with thousands of female police officers to control the protest.
“We fly in pain in the sky because we are all in the sky,” begins the statement sent anonymously by the organizers of the zeppelin initiative this Monday. “We fly because the sky has no owner or government. We fly because in the sky there are no geographical borders, just as there are no time borders or borders between life and death. We fly because we are all in the heights. From heaven we speak to them and we speak to you, to everyone. Our murdered sisters live in each one of us, they exist in our memory and in our bodies: none of them have been forgotten. As women we have always been told what to do and how to do it. They also told us what not to do and how not to do things. They put up walls, fences and grenadiers for us. They tell us that you can’t make pints, that you can’t break or burn things: then we also go up. We go up to heaven because there are no limits in heaven and because we are all there”, the text ends.
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