A Culture of Discrimination
How wider societal attitudes of discrimination set the stage for violence against women.
Femicide is one element of a broad culture of sexism and discrimination against women in Latin America. The murder of women is a "culmination of a series of violent acts," with catcalling at its most harmless and femicide at its most destructive. To understand and be able to eradicate femicide, it is imperative to focus on the phenomena that lead up to it.
"...femicide is an extreme form of the gender-based violence that many women suffer at home, in the workplace, in the community and in their relations with the state, violence that is intrinsically linked to deeply entrenched gender inequality and discrimination, economic disempowerment, and aggressive or machismo masculinity. Femicide represents a backlash against women who are empowered, for instance by wage employment, and have moved away from traditional female roles. These are deaths that cause no political stir and no stutter in the rhythm of the region’s neo-liberal economy because, overwhelmingly, state authorities fail to investigate them, and the perpetrators go unpunished."
Machista Culture
Sexism in Latin America is powered by "machista" or male chauvinist culture. Referred to as "a strong or exaggerated sense of the right to dominate," this culture emphasizes manliness and establishes a power balance between men and women. It is an expression of traditional gender roles; males are supposed to be dominant and are allowed free reign while women should be subservient and take care of the home. Female sexuality is seen as something to be controlled by men, while male sexuality is viewed as "uncontrollable" and unrestrained. Machista culture normalizes jealousy and possessiveness in relationships, and machista sexual behavior is a way for men to prove their manliness and feel pride. This fuels frighteningly high rates of domestic and sexual violence.
A main focus of the protests has been to reduce tolerance for machista culture and inspire men and women to question it. This culture holds women back; it has the power to "either smother women in domesticity or degrade them."
A main focus of the protests has been to reduce tolerance for machista culture and inspire men and women to question it. This culture holds women back; it has the power to "either smother women in domesticity or degrade them."
A Continuum of Violence and Discrimination
The violence normalized by machista culture sets the stage for femicide, as men who commit femicide typically have a history of assaulting women. As we see clearly in the below statistics, there is a disturbingly high tolerance in Latin America for these sorts of crimes.
- Polls show that Latin American women do not feel like they are treated with respect or dignity; when asked, only 35% of respondents stated that women were respected in their countries while 61% responded negatively.
- of 22 countries surveyed, only 5 had more than 50% of participants respond affirmatively. Ecuador had the highest percentage with 63% while Peru had the lowest with 20%.
- The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean found that around 40% of Latin American women have been the victims of violence during their lifetime.
- A study in Brazil found that 65% of respondents--both men and women--believe that women deserve sexual violence if they dress provocatively.
- Almost 50% of men in a Brazilian survey said that men have greater sexual needs than women and that women should be subservient to men.
- Nearly 80% said it is unacceptable for a woman not to keep her house clean.
- 80% of Brazilian women who had experienced violence knew their attackers-they were either family members or partners.
- 52% of married women in Bolivia say that they have been abused by their spouses.
- 60% of Mexican women murdered by their partners had already reported domestic violence to authorities but were ignored.
- In Mexico over 120,000 women are raped each year. That means that one woman is raped every four minutes.
A sister to the #NiUnaMenos movement, #MiPrimerAcoso (my first harassment) seeks to demonstrate how common assault is in the daily lives of Latin American women. The above graphic charts out 78,000 tweets shared by Latin American women that detail their first experiences of sexual harassment. It shows that the majority of women experienced their first assault before the age of 14. An analysis of the data in Brazil found that the average age of a woman's first harassment was 9.7. Common among these tweets was a description of the regularity of the presence of harassment in these women's lives. Many of their stories detail fear of what was happening to them and knowledge that they could not speak up. Many who did speak up were not taken seriously or blamed for what happened to them. In addition, many stated that their first assault was perpetrated by a family member.