“We are not alone, the murdered are missing,” was one of the slogans, which, like every year, were shouted at the top of their lungs as soon as the demonstration held this year began. November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Thousands of women and men of all ages and nationalities crowded the streets of Madrid on the same day that Spain woke up shaken by a new sexist crime, which brings to 41 the number of women murdered so far this year; to 1,286 since records began in 2003.
The gender, the sexual, the digital, the economic, the vicarious, the institutional… the feminists uncovered each and every one of the violence that women suffer for the fact of being women and denounced the impunity that still prevails in many areas of society. society. They did it in two divided marches, as has been customary for four years due to the movement’s disagreements around issues such as trans law or prostitution. One, that of the 8M Commission which, according to data from the Government Delegation, brought together 3,000 people; and another, convened by the Madrid Forum, with 3,500 attendees.
The march called by the 8M Commission began to advance at 7:30 p.m. from Atocha, at the pace of It’s overby María Jiménez, to vindicate that guilt and shame “change sides”: from the victim to the aggressor. In parallel, at the same time, the other demonstration was advancing along Gran Vía, where shouting “‘Murdered!'” the protesters listed the names and surnames of all the women murdered this year at the hands of their partners or ex-partners. This is the one that the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, went to, who behind the PSOE banner and together with the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, has urged to address “violence through social networks” and “pornography on the Internet”.
Despite there being two different demonstrations, the atmosphere did breathe the unity demonstrated in recent months in that flood of reports of sexual assaults spread on social networks pointing to several public figures. “Some of us are touched, we all respond,” the attendees shouted from time to time with the rumble of the batucada in the background. Even Gisèle Pelicot, the woman drugged by her husband and raped by at least 50 men over a decade, was present on the banners of this Monday’s mobilizations, which thanked the French woman for having had the courage to publicly denounce her case to, As she says, “let the shame change its side” and inspire other women to denounce their attackers.
“Merci, Gisèle,” read the insignia on Patricia López’s poster, along with an illustration of her face, now a symbol of the fight against sexist violence. López, 38, wanted to pay tribute to two women on his banner: to Pelicot, on the one hand, but also to Ana Orantes, whose murder at the hands of her husband marked a before and after in Spain in 1997. “Thanks to her, gender violence began to be taken into account and to be present in the laws,” recalls Patricia.
Miriam Giménez, 27, came out to defend the need to denounce that “all women suffer sexist violence, not only today, but every day.” She herself suffered it a few years ago from her ex-partner, whom her environment protected. “I have felt very alone, very unprotected and his entire environment has made me forget and there was total impunity towards him,” she tells this newspaper while holding a banner with the message of “There is no abuser without an environment to protect him.”
During the march, the usual insignia were heard and read, such as “Alone, drunk, I want to get home”, “Enough of patriarchal violence” or “It was not my fault where I was or how I was dressed.” Although new slogans were also claimed, such as “Being women is costing us our lives”, “We are not exaggerating, they are murdering us”, “OnlyFans is prostitution” and “Be careful, be careful, you can have Errejón by your side.”
Girls, adolescents, young people, students, elderly women. Once again, the streets of Madrid were filled with feminist rage that arises from the powerlessness of witnessing how machismo continues to permeate the lives of women. Once again, feminists made noise to remember that there is still much to do to end the silence, impunity and, ultimately, the structural nature of all sexist violence.
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