They are killing us
I always thought I was feminist, in fact I thought that at birth I was conceived that way. And it is because at birth I became, without questions, a woman, and without questioning, I dressed and acted like one.
Although from an early age, I questioned my gendered role (a lot) and I didn’t understand why my high school classmates humiliated me because I didn't cross my legs. I questioned (maybe less now) why they talked to me about marriage and having children when I was barely 20 years old. I was always offended when someone told me that I said too many bad words for “being a girl” or that I should not interrupt their boyfriend or brother at any time. Boys also managed to remind me how different I was, especially the ones who liked me, and most specially the ones that wanted to change me. Experiences fluctuated throughout my life's journey, between more and less, but overall machista experiences. Based on a system that forces us to go through life accommodated in fear and in constant longing for transformation.
My soul, sometimes whispered at me, other times it shouted bluntly at me, but without fail, it constantly pointed out to me that some spaces, attitudes, behaviors, and ways to which we had been forced to live and resist being "women" were not adapting to my body, much less to my soul and my way of life. Now, I understand that one is not born a feminist, one is made a feminist. Through a precariousness of alternatives, one is constructed a feminist and among alarming and constantly rising statistics of rapes and femicides, one must survive and look for comfort on our sisters who are the only ones that understand and have also suffered it all.
They said we were exaggerating when we began to understand that street harassment is not any form of compliment. They ignored us when we got upset because our physical appearance and the way we dressed should never be something to comment upon. They laughed when we told them that we are afraid to go through a police checkpoint. They questioned my honesty, my dignity, and my truth when I decided to report sexual harassment at work. They mocked my friends when they danced peacefully in the center of the city, awakening a movement of women outraged by harassment. They continue to call us intense and even MURDERERS, because we are outraged that the state has decided for me and my sisters' reproductive rights. They legislate over and through our bodies!
Today my soul does not stop screaming at me, because in Honduras, it seems that we are all invisible until we are dead.
To be born a woman in this country means to address the intersection of oppression both at home and in Congress. It is a constant battle over the right to our own bodies, and the creativity and resilience to navigate the violence in the streets, the constant threat of sexual violence, death, impunity, and hatred, all while looking a certain way. I am alive today, because I am lucky, probably because of my privilege or because I do not live in Honduras anymore. Perhaps I am alive by destiny. However, I can also easily be dead, because every 38 hours a woman dies in Honduras at the hand of a man that with hatred and cruelty deprives them from the most elemental right.
I write today because I am angry, indignant and above all inconsolable with the news of Keyla Patricia Martínez, a 26-year year old nursing student who was murdered in the hands of the National Police this past Sunday. They are not just killing us, but they are also blaming us for our deaths. This is a national pandemic and there is no vaccine for this one.
Like Keyla, Alda Flores, Leonor Calix, Keylin Castañeda, Maiden Nicolle Amador, Lidia Majano, are the names of the women who have died in the last 72 hours in Honduras. Laudy Lorena Castellanos, Joselyn Yadira Sierra, Delfina Ramirez Sanchez, Angie Estefania Sanchez, Maria Fausitno Portillo, are the names of some of the 27 women who have died so far in 2021. Honduras accumulates over 300 femicides in 2020 and 281 the year before that. 5,219 femicides since 2010 and 96% of impunity for these gender-based hate crimes
We don’t want to be brave, we want to be free and most importantly we want to live.
#NiUnaMenos #VivasNosQueremos