Feminicide at UWCCR

#EVASEMILLA

           Feminicide, is a word I didn’t know the definition until I came to UWC.

UWC is not only about the International Baccalaureate and having the best grades. UWC also means getting involved in issues that are meaningful to us, raise awareness around us and take actions for a change. During this semester, we faced discussions in the campus about what is feminicide and what were the causes of it. So what is feminicide?

 Femicide is a word that refers to the act of murdering a woman because of her female gender. Basically, it's killing a woman because she was born woman.

Feminicide can take many forms, such as the murder of a woman by her partner or ex-partner, or infanticide. However, the most common feminicide in the world, is the one committed by a man on his current or ex-partner. Femicide can be linked to rape, sexual assault, harassment and especially patriarchy. 

 

This practice is becoming more and more common in the world. Every month, 52 women are killed by their partner or ex-partner. 

 

You should have maybe observed this movement on social media of women singing, to raise awareness about feminicide and sexual assaults all around the world. But what is the link with UWC?

 

 An unfortunate event happened on November 1^st 2019, a young woman named Eva Morera was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. This woman was like a relative of one of our teachers. Then, obviously this event impacted the whole UWCCR community. 

We had meaningful discussions in the campus, and we even made a fresco in memory of her case (the photo at the top of the page). We have also  writen on this fresco, the name and the cases of several women in our countries who have been victims of feminicide. You can see more closely, that it is written justice in different languages.

Each one of us was affected and tried to contribute. 

 

 A part of the students participated to a pacific protest for Eva and the school were supporting  the movement of his father named #EVASEMILLA. The goal of this movement was raising awareness about the case of Eva and denounce feminicide. In addition, the boys' residences had meetings to talk about toxic masculinity and their experiences in their own countries.

However, one things that kept my attention the most, was the discussions that we had during the TOK lessons(Theory of Knowledge).

TOK is a subject that is part of the IB curriculum. In this subject, we are supposed to reflect about knowledge, religion as a way of knowing and  the reasons for knowledge. The teacher took 3 lessons sessions to talk about Feminicide and even linked Feminicide to TOK. These sessions were very interesting and helped me understand more deeply feminicide, its history and the reasons why it happens. The things that came up the most were: Toxic masculinity, toxic relationships, patriarchy and many other social concepts.

What I learned is that the society is promoting social expectations for each gender (male and female). These social expectations lead people to live under pressure of society.

First, we have the case of toxic masculinity. Society puts a lot pressure on men. In fact, men are obliged to act manly and be the strongest all the time. For example, men cannot show their emotions. And, at the same time society promotes aggressive behavior and machism from men and it can even lead to mental health issues. But, all of this is due to the patriarchy. Patriachy promote men power, agressivity and machism to better control women. 

 

Maybe, you remember these sentences that you may have hear or said like: " you’re a man you have to fight...", "A man have to be strong...", ‘’’The man is the Sacsoba ( the master of the house) he has to command and control everything in the house... "," Men don’t cry"," If you cry like a little girl, your dick will fall ... ". 

All these sentences are toxic masculinity, this reminds the fact that men, because they are born male, have to behave in a certain way (aggressive, macho ...). 

 

Men behavior is influenced by the social norms and toxic mascunility. Then, they are trained by the machismo environment and in the long run is more likely to be a macho and oppress women. Worse, the society is going to say that it is normal… Boys will be boys. However, boys are human, they have emotions and the amount of pressure on them don’t allow any change. Boys are not free, they are under the pressure of patriarchy to act violently. They suffer from a system that does not allow them to be want they want to be, to be free and act in a more respectful way toward women. Because of this toxic masculinity.

 I didn’t know all these concepts about men and masculinity. I thought that some sexist behaviors were due to the patriarchy and not anything else…. However, there were more than that.

Obviously, women suffer from all this social construct, they are oppressed by men who are trained to be macho. Women are killed, beaten because they are women and because they are women, they have no right to choose for themselves and be free. Society wants that women remains under control and always blame women in every cases, even when they are raped. Women are always expected to be respectful, also family and men take all the decisions for her without sometimes her consent. For example, women are always expected to be surrounded by a man for her security and to take the good decisions for her. At birth, it's the father, growing up, it's the brother, and women are pressured to find a husband at a young age. When women can be free without risking to be blamed or assaulted or worse killed?

 

Perhaps you remember this sentence: "if her husband have beaten her it was for a good reason ...". What good reason is there to beat up your wife? They say: she didn’t cook, she didn’t take care of the children, she refuses to have sex ... All of this, is just SEXISM. 

 Feminicide starts with these small acts, these words, that kill human relationships and make them toxic. Feminicide, also starts when you catcall a girl in the street, when you only blame girls for wearing clothes that distract boys from focusing at school, when you force girls to have sex when they don't want or when you try to take advantage of girls… After, we will hear somewhere that a girl was killed because she refused a man advances or she defended herself when a man tried to sexually assault her. Feminicide starts through all of these mini aggressions that become later a crime scene.

I stop myself here, I am not going to go further then it is going to be boring (I'm not going to write a whole essay about it, or maybe so…). I leave here some of  the art project of my co-year and mine about feminicide. Basically, all of these were for the TOK class, but I found it important to share it, to inspire you. Just appreciate the talent of UWCCR students.

Merveille de Smet from Belgium IB1:

 Ines Beljelloun from Moroco IB1:

 Basiclly this poem is not my original project but this poem floow the same idea:

Remember: when you see a girl being harassed in the street or in any public place, or when, you hear the screams of a woman begging for help because her husband is beating her. Remember my article, the students from UWCCR and Eva, and then remember that this is not normal.  Call the police, act for the best of society. Praise the rights of women and remember that even men can be feminist.

Peace!