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La Violencia Simbólica: Undoing the Myth of Passion Killings
The brutal murder of Chiara Páez by her boyfriend sparked the beginning of the feminist movement of “Ni Una Menos” in Argentina. Her body was found buried outside of her boyfriend’s home; Chiara was just 14, she was pregnant and scared, and she was murder by the father of her would-be child.
That was just the surface; as the trial unfolded, the details of her suffering rapted the country with intrigue. Only twenty hours into the investigation, her 16 year old boyfriend confessed. He told his father everything, how he forced her to take an abortion pill, how he killed her, and how he buried her and misled detectives by tampering with her phone. He confessed to all of it, and he told the police the same thing when his father brought him to the station later that day.
Yet, armed with all of this knowledge, the judge sentenced this boy to just 21 years. The penal code in Argentina would have allowed the judge to pursue a life sentence, to threaten him with the same loss of life, but instead, he gave him another chance. A clear path to freedom. The judge said that he based his ruling on the perpetrator’s demonstrated guilt and remorse.
The murder of Chiara began the movement, which soon spread across the whole continent. “Ni Una Menos” has been one of the most well-known forms of resistance against femicide. While it started in Argentina, it has inspired many other feminists in the region to begin their fight. Her death was a wake-up call for the nation, a big red flag that called into question much more than femicide but the state of women’s rights all over the country.
There was something special about her death, something that shook the core of Argentina. Maybe it was the fear that laid dormant in every mother that their sons could be so cruel or the shock at someone so young following in the footsteps of the hundreds of men that had the same thing. Maybe they realized they had let these sentiments fester for far too long, and this was just the manifestation of that. No one can be sure, but feminists all over Argentina were happy to be supported, and that June, the first march for the “Ni Una Menos” movement was held.
Art by Manu Ka
What the people didn't know - what they couldn’t until now was that they built around their sons, a society that breeds male violence. Moreover, one that entices us to accept it and be complicit in the actions of patriarchal and structural violence. Piere Bordieu first theorized of la violencia simbolica, or symbolic violence, and it describes perfectly the way patriarchal oppression is built into our language, customs, and worldviews.
For this article, I had the chance to talk with Ornela. She works with the NGO FENA in Argentina to combat the narratives that symbolic violence creates. She described symbolic violence as:
“[La violencia simbólica] básicamente son un montón de prácticas sociales, culturales, psicológicas que lo que hacen sentar las bases para que las otras formas de violencia sean posibles. La violencia simbólica es la primera de todas las violencias en tanto es la que permite construir la creencia de que alguien vale menos que las otras personas. ”
“Symbolic violence is a bunch of social, cultural, and psychological practices that lay the groundwork for other forms of violence to be possible. Symbolic violence is the first of all the acts of violence as it allows someone to think that they are worth less than others.”
It is about the small ways we, as a society, not just allow for violence against women but also incite and normalize that violence. It is the understanding that men have unearned ownership over women’s bodies. It is embedded in the very fabric of so many societies globally.
It is the reason that a young man felt he could unilaterally decide that his young girlfriend should have an abortion. It is the reason that he could ever envision murdering her. The same reason the judge’s ruling on this case came years later spat in the face of all of the goodness that sprouted from this tragedy—another notch on the belt of female oppression.
To say so boldly that you know what was done and you understand its wrongfulness has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and yet find it within yourself to give this boy mercy. It makes a mockery of her suffering, and it fuels a global narrative that seeks to normalize and legitimize male violence.
Symbolic violence is vital to understanding the whole iceberg of violence against women, as Ornela said: “El feminicidio es la más terrible de todas las formas de violencia que pueden haber contra una mujer: significa matarla por su condición de mujer”
“Femicide is the most terrible of all the forms of violence against women: killing her just for being a woman.”
A big part of FENA, and by extension, the work of all feminist collectives in the country, is making women aware of this. Symbolic violence is insidious, and it is that embedded nature that makes it so corrosive. It encourages women to internalize and accept their oppression.
Ornela summed this up perfectly, saying;
“Si en un lado tengo a una persona que no creo que sea superior a mí, y yo, al mismo tiempo, no me creo inferior a esa otra persona es bastante difícil que esa persona me oprima”
“If, on one side, I have a person that I don’t think is superior to me, and I don’t think I am inferior to this other person, it is very difficult for that person to oppress me.”
The problem is that there are messages everywhere in the patriarchal system that holds dominion over much of Argentinian society. At every turn, whether it is in your classroom, at home, or on TV, women are encouraged to be complicit in their oppression. Ornela puts this into context, with particular reference to the jokes that are prevalent in Latinx society:
“Todo lo que tiene que ver con la creación de los chistes, de las normas, de los lugares comunes, de las imágenes que nos vemos, de los mensajes que consumimos.”
“Everything that has to do with the creation of jokes, norms, common places, the images that we see, and the messages we consume.”
The implicit message women are seeing is that their bodies are not their own. This creates problems that stretch far beyond the realm of the crimes themselves.
Often femicides are reported as “crimes of passion,” a label that coddles and insulates the men involved from the real horror of their crimes. Initially, Páez’s case was referred to in the same way. A young boy overwhelmed and overcome by anger. This is just another way we are creating distance between men and their socially indoctrinated violence.
Ornela had this to say about the misreporting of these sensitive cases: “Antes hablábamos de crímenes de pasión, ‘La mató por celos’ o ‘No soportó que lo dejara’. Eso también es una manera de violencia simbólica. En los medios por ejemplo, banalizan lo que son los feminicidios, dicen que son crímenes pasionales, que son problemas domésticos, que son temas familiares, que no son problemas estructurales. [...] Tratan de correr la de idea de que te matan por ser mujer, y que te mataron porque tu marido se enojó o ‘es un loco’. Así se normaliza la violencia masculina.”
“Before we talked about crimes of passion, “He killed her because he was jealous” or “He couldn’t stand her leaving him’. That is also a form of symbolic violence. In the media, for example, they trivialize femicides. They say that they are crimes of passion, that they are domestic problems, that these are things you see in a family, and they aren’t structural problems. [...] They try to give you this idea that they didn’t kill her for being a woman; she was murdered because her husband was angry or he was crazy. This normalizes male violence.”
Argentinian society is imploring its women to rationalize and accept male violence. In an eerie way, it asks them to simply sit with the idea that the men they live with and love might one day snap and murder them for whatever profoundly personal reason. It is a despicable thing to ask the women of a nation to do, and more and more of them are waking up to it. “Ni Una Menos” is just one reflection of all the many important and prominent ways women are doing away with the idea that they should; “romanticize a myriad of oppressions.”
As Ornela put it, the country has hit a turning point, or at least a lot of the women have. Women have come to understand that
“No es un loco, no es un enfermo, es un hijo sano del patriarcado.”
“He is not crazy; he is not sick; he is a healthy son of the patriarchy.”
That hasn’t meant as much as many hoped in the way of actual changes. It has been five years since the “Ni Una Menos” movement began and things have yet to pivot. Femicide rates have reached a ten year high since quarantine restrictions were set within the already fraught nation. This year is set to the worst for violence against women since the nation first began to count femicides in 2012.
One of the greatest challenges faced by the movement is trying to change the heart of the nation. These narratives - the ones that encourage to accept this violence or that attempt to diminish it in hopes of ignoring their true origins are seductive. They entice us to see the world with rose coloured glasses that blind us to the realities of the violence we are seeing. But we must do away with those ideas if we hope to make any real meaningful change.
That is what FENA works so hard to do. It is about deconstructing the narratives that surround us, and giving women the power to create new ones. A lot of that is rooted grassroots activism, for and by women, but there needs to be more. Argentina is finally understanding what needs to be done, and after this horrific year there are genuine hopes that real systemic changes are on the horizon.
Art by Manu Ka, Photo by Alejandra Ruiz
In early 2020, the Argentinian government unveiled the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity. The first issue the Ministry is meant to tackle is identifying the root causes of gender based violence, and devising a plan for that the government might use to prevent the issue from growing. What this ministry hopes to do, in truth, is to undo this myth of passion and fervour and identify the true cause of anti-woman violence. Their true mission, however, is to give women the confidence and freedom they need to be “juntxs y sin miedo,” “together and without fear.”
As the ministry begins its work in earnest, feminists across the country are looking on with rapt interest - eager to see what happens.
Thank you for reading! This is the latest article in a series on femicide, but we here at the Whorticulturalist encourage you to get involved in these issues. If you would like to learn more and/or donate to any of the movements mentioned here are their donation and website links:
FENA, the organisation that Ornela works for, originally began as a photography project. It has since expanded and they conduct workshops, develop and produce resources, and do the grassroots organising that helps to liberate women from the toxic notions of masculinity and violence that trap them. You can donate to them here.
NiUnaMenos is much more than just a movement, and the organisation offers lots of resources and opportunities to learn more about the situation in Argentina. They monitor femicide and lobby the government for a host of other women’s rights issues.
Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley
El Feminicidio: Redefining Womanhood and Female Activism in Mexico
Art by Sofia Vargas Aguayo
While millions of women in North America and Europe celebrated their women’s day with marches and fun social media posts, Mexico was learning what it meant to live without them. From Tijuana to Chetumal, the streets, subways, and offices of cities and towns all over the country were operating without women.
#UnDiaSinMujeres was a countrywide sit-in. Abandoned by their government and the international community these women have been left to defend themselves against a country of men that seem hellbent on their extermination. This day was meant to awaken the police, prosecutors, and politicians to the future of their nation. It was meant to help these powerful men (and women) realise the gravity of the situation at hand.
“To understand that a war has been brewing in our voluntary negligence. ”
El feminicidio or femicide has been a growing issue across Latin America, and the past few years have seen these rates skyrocket. In 2018, UN Women put out a report saying that every day 12 women die from femicide in Latin America and just a year later 2019 the numbers topped out at about 10 women per day in Mexico alone. The numbers are staggering, and everyone is looking for a place to pin the blame; a single point source to this corrosive societal pollutant.
All eyes are on Ciudad Juarez and they have been since the early 90s. Amnesty International has been calling out the dire circumstances in Juarez since 2005. They revealed that over 370 young women and girls had been murdered without justice or cause since 1993.
In a study of Ciudad Juarez, done as an analysis of a decades-long history of violence against women from 1993 to 2007, researchers identified that these offenses are primarily either intimate or systemic sexual femicide. Intimate refers to femicide that is perpetrated by someone close to the victim, while systemic sexual has its roots in patterns of violence against women and children like kidnapping and sexual assault. These two accounted for about 62% of all femicides in the city for that time. The pattern has since continued, with the bulk of women dying at the hands of violent men who knew them or men who simply saw them as yet another target. The only significant change is the sheer number of women who have fallen victim to these felonies.
While this city is best known for its reputation as the murder capital of the world or its features in shows like Narcos or El Chapo; it has an unspoken history of violence against women. It expands far beyond murder; it’s the hundreds of women that have gone missing since the 1990s, it’s the thousands of women who experience sexual violence every year, it’s the gross mistreatment of women and girls at home and in the streets.
Moreover, the situation is about more than just Juarez. It is easy to push the blame around, to try and localise the situation to one city or one state. But the reality is that femicide is on the rise all over Mexico, that 1.4 of 100,000 women die each year from these heinous acts of violence, that Mexico doesn’t even chart in the top 5 worldwide for these crimes. And it is the globalised nature of these issues that prompts us to ask the question - why? Why is any of this happening? Why is the situation in Mexico the way it is at all? Why does it continue and how did it start?
Some point towards the cartels and gangs that see women as cannon fodder for their wars. Others to a culture of machismo that has stoked the flames of the male egos in the region for decades. And a few try to point to simple circumstances, that there are thousands of people who die every year in Mexico… of course some women will be caught in the crossfire. But the fact is undeniable that women and girls are being deliberately targeted by vile men who seek them out, violate their bodies, and leave them there to be displayed like a flag, or a warning.
It is the impunity with which these murderers act that sickens me. It is the very fact that there is a system of people who fail every day to give these women the justice they deserve. After dying in such a graphic and brutal manner, the least the powers that be might offer is the meager gift of a sentence passed - a sliver of dignity.
Art by Sofia Vargas Aguayo
There is something eerily commonplace about these crimes. That is a part of their cultural danger. It is easy to get desensitized by these numbers and forget what they truly mean for the lives of millions of women and girls. It is easy to forget that day after day women turn on the news to hear of yet another young woman. One no different from themselves, no different from their sisters or daughters or mothers being slaughtered. But it is even easier to keep searching for an answer with no intent on finding one.
The women of this country know exactly why this is happening. They know how you can fix it, but they also know you refuse to listen. These women have been left to their own devices, to seek justice for themselves. Surely they are victims of a system and a society that sees them as nothing better than warm bodies or lambs to the slaughter but they have refused to trap themselves in their victimhood.
The mothers of the women who have died as a result of femicide have empowered themselves. In early 2020 one of them took it upon herself to confront her country and the murderers who reside there with a poignant question :
“Cual es tu pinche problema?”
“What is your fucking problem?”
In a speech that went viral, she spoke with a fury that I sincerely hope shakes the nation. She spoke from her heart, and she spoke for everyone in the same situation. She knows there is nowhere to turn in her fight for justice other than the public. Saying:
“Yo no soy una colectiva, ni necesito un tambor, ni necesito de un pinche partido político que me represente”
“I am not a collective, and I don’t need a drum, or a fucking political party to represent me”
She can represent herself. This organic, grassroots activism has been the largest, strongest and most public opposition that has been displayed amid this crisis. Movements like Ni Una Mas and #UnDiaSinMujeres have been central in these women’s fight to be represented and heard. But no matter how many protestors pour into the streets, or mothers share their stories, or women stay home, it is impossible to ignore that they first took to their stand in the 90s.
It has been 30 years since this became a national and regional talking point. 18 years since Mexican women first spoke up and said that not one more girl or young woman should share this fate, and yet thousands more bodies have been buried - victims of this savage and unprovoked violence.
The Mexican government only officially began to monitor femicide in 2012. Nonetheless in these 8 years it has offered little in the way of making practical amends. They have made special prosecutor offices and extended sentences, but femicide is still on the rise. After years of willful ignorance, feminists all over the country rejoiced in hope that their newest leftist president would turn the tide. But two years into his administration, next to nothing has been done. Activists and women all over the country are at a loss for what to do.
The world has told them over and over again that they are each other's only allies, in this fight for the basic right to life. And it is the basic right to exist, that is reaffirmed in every human rights agreement, every constitution, and law, that is being affronted in this subtle warfare. This conflict has taken thousands of lives and scarred tens of thousands more. It is ushering a new era of female fear.
For me, it is more terrifying to think that it will not be bringing with it a new era of women’s rights. Protests and riots have been reignited since the start of 2020, and while things have slowed due to the pandemic, these women are no less desperate and no less ready to fight. What happens over the coming months and years will forever reshape the geopolitical landscape in which we, as women, all continue to live in. It will forever change how and if women get to exist.
All over the continent rights are eroding and they are being repackaged and resold to us as privileges. It isn’t a privilege to narrowly escape death. There is no surplus in simply awaking each day. What wealth is found in existence under constant threat? These women are being offered their next breath as a gift from the state. The very same state that fails to uphold these most basic rights day in and day out.
Even so, these women have continued to persevere. Unashamed and unconstrained they stand up for themselves even if there is no one standing with them. There is something unique about Latin America’s revolutionary spirit. There is something special about the ability of these women to unify in their fear and anger. That spark, the fervour and zest with which they seek out a better life for themselves and their children, is invaluable.
Not much is certain for the future of femicide or feminism in the region, but one thing I am certain won’t be abandoned is this burning desire for change. It is impossible to know how many more protests will be held, or how many more days there will be where women disappear from the streets, or if sustainable change will come at all.
It is scary to think of what happens if this continues, or what it means to live in a world that doesn’t care if it does. El feminicidio is about more than just Mexican women, more than Latinx women, it is about the fate of womanhood everywhere. These women are fighting for a system that upholds more than just their rights, they are fighting for women’s rights everywhere.
How can you support them in this fight and get involved?
Check out and support local and regional activist organisations like:
Donate to organisations that support women’s rights and the women fighting for them:
Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley
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