Region - Women’s movements mobilize for 8-M
In commemoration of International Women’s Day last week, protesters took to the streets to call attention to the precarious conditions many women face throughout the hemisphere.
Mexican women’s movement leads anti-AMLO opposition
Some of the largest demonstrations were held in Mexico, and Mexico’s feminist movement has come to parallel the Southern Cone feminist movements in size and force. In Mexico, protesters gathered to condemn the government’s inaction on femicide. Although homicides fell slightly in Mexico in 2021, the number of femicides rose relative to 2020. In 2021 alone, there were 1,005 reported femicides, more than twice the amount reported in 2015. With Mexico’s staggering number of disappearances, the actual number of femicides is likely much higher, and estimates suggest that about 10 women are killed each day in Mexico.
The sustained nature of women’s rights movements in Mexico in recent years is notable, and activists have co-opted cultural sites in Mexico City to promote their cause. Yet government responses to protests have involved often excessive force, arbitrary detention, and even sexual violence, abuses for which few people have been held accountable. The National Human Rights Commission opened an investigation into allegations of excessive force and arbitrary detentions during protests last week in Michoacán.
Mexico’s feminist movement is a key driving force in the opposition against López Obrador. López Obrador has frequently displayed paranoia and antagonism towards the feminist movement, attempting to discredit the movement as directed by journalists and (confusingly) conservatives. López Obrador alleges that the country’s feminist movement is a conspiracy against his government who seek to provoke violence and disorder, rather than an authentic and response to pervasive violence and discrimination against women in Mexico.
López Obrador’s disdain for the feminist movement in Mexico symbolizes an important distinction between the so-called old and new left in Latin America. While López Obrador scorns Mexican feminists, Chile’s Gabriel Boric has embraced feminist causes, much to his own political gain. Boric’s support for women’s movements had a significant impact in the election: the women’s vote was a key contributor to his victory over José Antonio Kast in the December 2021 runoff.
The political salience of the women’s movement in Mexico, and elsewhere, is likely to continue. Popular discontent driven by women’s demands for greater security, the elimination of discrimination, and broader economic opportunities will have sizeable impacts on national politics.
Support for López Obrador among women (especially those under 50) has fallen dramatically since the beginning of his term. Pandemic economic downturn in Mexico disproportionately hurt women, and this is likely to repeat as inflation and commodity prices spike in response to global economic distortions caused by the war in Ukraine. That said, López Obrador will have to continue reckoning with intensifying opposition from the country’s women’s movements, and tolerance for government deflections and inaction will continue to diminish.
Women’s movements across the region mobilize against violence
Large demonstrations were held throughout the region’s major cities, with the dominant tone of the protests centering on endemic gender-based violence.
Although Argentina’s decision to legalize abortion in December 2020 marked a key achievement for the reproductive rights movement in the country, this year’s International Women’s Day demonstrations were marked by outrage rather than optimism. Tragically, women’s movements in much of Latin America have no shortage of martyrs, and Argentina is no exception. The recent and horrific gang rape in broad daylight in the upscale Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires of a 20 year-old woman by six men has sparked tremendous shock and anger. For many women, the heinous assault represents the severe dangers women still face.
Demonstrations were held in practically every country in the hemisphere last week —including in the region’s authoritarian states— underscoring the international outcry against gender based violence and the continued demands for basic rights. There has been varying progress incorporating transgender women into certain movements, who are often even more vulnerable to violence and harassment.
At the same time, women and sexual and gender minorities are watching their rights under the law diminish. Legislators in Guatemala passed a bill on March 8 mandating prison sentences of up to 10 years for anyone who obtains an abortion. Doctors who perform abortions can face up to 12 years in prison. The bill also banned same-sex marriages and teaching about sexual diversity in schools. This is the second strict anti-abortion law to be passed in Central America in the past year, with Honduras passing a total ban in early 2021. Giammattei is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming weeks.
When considering the enormity of this issue, statistics can often sterilize and desensitize the severity of the situation across the region. This account of demonstrations in El Salvador published in El Faro provides important and powerful perspectives from protesters that emphasize the personal impacts of gender based violence. One protestor told the article’s author, “It's no use being born with love,” referring to the name of the government’s maternity health program, “if I'm going to end up in a clandestine grave.”