March 8th - International Women’s Day - Dissonant Realities

By Orly Perez Frid

Last year on March 8th a friend came up to me in Mather and said “Happy Women’s Day!” - I turned and replied “Today is not a day to celebrate, but thanks” before leaving. I’ve been thinking about that interaction a lot lately, about the different realities we both group up in and how that has shaped how we approach this day.

For most of you, International Women’s Day is a day in which you celebrate the women of your life, maybe make an Instagram post, text the groupchats, or even get them some flowers. But for some of us, it is a day to march, scream, protest, and educate. When you grow up in a country where gender violence is the norm, where women are murdered just for being women, where girls and teenagers are sexually abused and raped every single day, and where a woman can disappear from one day to the other and the government won’t do anything about it, there is not a lot to celebrate.

Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, the list goes on and on. How is it possible that no one seems to know what is happening right next door? How is there so much lack of knowledge on such an important topic? Why does nobody know what the term femicide is, while back home it carries so much weight? I know the answer to these questions, different realities prioritize different topics and focus their education on their own problems, but I’m taking this opportunity to share a little bit of my, and so many other women’s, reality.

A femicide is an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation, it may be driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls, unequal power relations between women and men, or harmful social norms (UN Women, 2023). In 2022, Mexico had 4,000 femicides, which is around 11 daily; Brazil had 1,341; Guatemala had 652; Colombia had 525; Ecuador 345; Argentina 322; Peru 147; Chile 120. How many women need to be murdered in order for this to be perceived as the problem it really is?

In Argentina, around 50% of all women have been victims of one or more types of violence (physical, psychological, economic, or sexual) from their partners. In Colombia, around 18.4% of women between 15 and 49 years old have been victims of physical or sexual violence from their partners or ex-partners. In Mexico, around 88,000 women are raped every year, that is 241 women raped every single day. In Peru, around 34 cases of sexual violence against girls and teenagers are reported dail. In Ecuador 8 out of 10 women have experienced some type of violence perpetrated against them. In Brazil every 7 minutes a girl is raped, most of them minors. In Guatemala around 50,000 women report some type of violence against them because of their gender every year. Should I go on?

It’s exhausting to be a woman in a country that doesn’t care about you. A country that has normalized this type of violence. A country where misogyny is so engraved in our every day that we don’t even notice it anymore. International Women’s Day is the perfect catalyst for change, so let's take this opportunity to keep educating ourselves on what is happening right next door and do something about it, because this cannot keep happening. If you’re interested in learning more about this topic or would like more information on how you can help, feel free to reach out and I’d be more than happy to talk with you or guide you to the appropriate resources.