VCU Students Engage in Civil Act of Disobedience in an Effort to Raise Awareness for Femicide in Guatemala
April 24, 2010 by JSAmitt
On a chilly eve in February a group of VCU MSW students gathered on campus to send a message that violence against women is a global issue. The group of 15 budding social workers joined to call attention to the thousands of women in Guatemala who have lost their lives to femicide. This event was also a prelude to VCU’s hosting of an internationally, highly regarded Guatemalan women’s rights activist, Norma Cruz. These students “chalked” their bodies on the grounds of the common, and “high-traffic” areas in an attempt to get the attention of faculty and students. The students worked in pairs; one student lying on the ground while the other outlined their body in sidewalk chalk and then wrote in the center of each chalking www.stopfemicide.com to direct interested viewers to a website to learn more about femicide in Guatemala.
As a second year Social Work student I had not heard of femicide before signing up for Dr. Rotabi’s macro program planning class. Karen Rotabi, Ph.D, is a macro professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a tireless advocate for Guatemalan women’s rights. I have come to understand that femicide is the murdering of women to send a political message. According to Jane Caputi, Ph.D and Diana E.H. Russell, Ph.D in their article Femicide: Speaking the Unspeakable,”Femicide is the most extreme form of sexist terrorism, motivated by hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of ownership of women. Femicide includes mutilation murder, rape murder, battery that escalates into murder. Calling misogynist killings femicide removes the obscuring veil of non gendered terms such as homicide and murder.”
I have not visited Guatemala. I have not witnessed, first hand, the horror of over 4, 000 women since 2001 having been brutally murdered and often dropped in “group graves” never to be identified by their loved ones. But, I have been profoundly and irrevocably changed at having met and listened to Norma Cruz’s testimony of her experience helping Guatemalan women find a voice in a society where impunity prevents justice.
To learn more about femicide in Guatemala please visit www.stopfemicide.com.
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Comments
Great article Julie...the
April 27, 2010 by magsab, 19 weeks 1 day ago
Comment: 30
Great article Julie...the more consciousness-raising awareness put out there, the more this issue will be bought to the forefront which will hopefully grab the attention of others, like it did you, and cause them to get involved in changing a really harmful cultural norm.
Margaret, so glad you stopped
April 27, 2010 by JSAmitt, 19 weeks 1 day ago
Comment: 31
Margaret, so glad you stopped by! Hey, it turns out the International Violence Against Women Act needs our advocacy effort. This bill has the potential to provide assistance to the women of Guatemala. Read about it when you get some time and help out in your neck of the woods if you can!
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/08/landmark-international-violence-...
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-4594
I hope these links work. If not, just do a search for the bill and see what's going on with it.
-Julie
Sobering, thank you for
April 26, 2010 by nickels1, 19 weeks 2 days ago
Comment: 27
Sobering, thank you for sharing this truth. Wondering how this sexist terrorism can be motivated by pleasure and what political statement is being made. Is this a reaction to a law?
Nickels, Thank you for your
April 26, 2010 by JSAmitt, 19 weeks 2 days ago
Comment: 28
Nickels,
Thank you for your interest in this very important social issue.
To address your first question regarding what motivation the "sexist terrorists" have, as you appropriately referred to them, the answer is fear. To control and to spread fear is their motivation. The following quote from Dr. Rotabi's website www.stopfemicide.com may answer your question a bit further: "These killings manifest a systemic denial of women’s most basic human rights and a culturally embedded misogyny that expresses itself in the brutalization of women. This violence inflicts a generalized sense of fear and intimidation on a society still not healed from the atrocities of the thirty-six-year internal conflict (1960–1996) marked by genocide of civilians, mostly indigenous, by military and clandestine security forces."
The answer to your question, "Is this a reaction to a law"?, is yes, or lack of a law. Impunity reigns in Guatemala which I have come to understand means that the perpetrators of these horrific crimes are never brought to justice, the law does not punish them. This adds a complexity to this deeply disturbing problem. Guatemalan women who have been raped but, not killed to send a political message or murdered women's loved ones, have attempted to seek the help of their judicial system only to have their lives threatened by professionals within a corrupt legal system. The only solution Guatemalan women have found that offers a modicum of safety is not to come out of their homes at night.
I hope this answers your questions, or better yet incites more questions!! Julie Samitt
Wow, thanks for bringing this
April 25, 2010 by jodim, 19 weeks 3 days ago
Comment: 26
Wow, thanks for bringing this horror to my attention! What a tragedy that so many lives are lost to this mysogynist terror. What kind of political message does this send?
Jodim, Thank you for your
April 26, 2010 by JSAmitt, 19 weeks 2 days ago
Comment: 29
Jodim,
Thank you for your interest and your question!
The political message being sent by these killings is often one of power and control borne on the bodies of Guatemalan women. Guatemala is a culture where male dominance is supreme and women are devalued. Further, Guatemala is still recovering from a 36 year conflict in which war rape was a common tool used to terrorize Guatemalans at the community level. According to Dr. Karen Rotabi, the manner in which fear was spread and chaos was maintained during this recent time of conflict has "implications for the current reality of femicide."
I hope this helps answer your question! -Julie Samitt