A feminist criticized me for saying that women even under conditions of out and out femicide as in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia are not self-harming (because women don’t do that in those places) and in fact, seem happier than women in the West who have much more rights and are self-harming at a dramatic rate. She suggested that I was saying that women down there were happy to be living under conditions of femicide, but that’s not what I said.
I don’t think the women in those places should be happy due to conditions down there, but perhaps they think this woman-killing is more or less normal.
Women in those places don’t self-harm.
I’m not sure how they feel. The women in those places are pretty beaten down, submissive, etc. and are not used to standing up for themselves. They’re pretty much resigned to living under patriarchy, and they think it’s just normal. I doubt if any women are happy to be living in a femicidal country. But the main reaction of women in these places seems to be fear more than anything else. I know they are frightened. And they definitely don’t go out at night. I have heard that in Guatemala nowadays, as soon as the sun goes down, all of the women vanish from the streets. Perhaps it is better than when my mother visited a long time ago during the Civil War. She said that back then, when night fell, everyone left the streets and the streets were empty save for soldiers who literally stood on every corner.
I recall a recent article about a young Mexican woman who was an illegal immigrant but who had lived in the US for some time. She was deported back to Mexico, but only to Tijuana! I’ve been there more than once. They interviewed her and she said that after dark it was not safe for women to go outside due to the all of the violence against women. She said that it was so much safer in the US and that she could go out at night there.
In my mostly Hispanic town, I see Hispanic recent immigrant women (possibly illegal) around my neighborhood walking after dark from dusk to 10 PM. They look so happy to be doing that. It’s as if they are finally free! Compared to the femicidal Hell they come from, they probably feel like they are living in paradise of women’s rights.
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