Diario de un Kamikaze en Recuperación

Thank God I have friends that can give me a point of view that is different than my own. My good friend Michelle Otero sent me this reply to "Juarez is not that violent".

She is coming out with a book in a couple of weeks, Malinche's Daughter, on Momotombo Press. It should be a very good read.

i just read your article. i see your point, but i think you're oversimplifying.
the women aren't numbers. they're people. they're somebody's daughters. they matter to women like esther chavez cano and me because we hear the stories behind the numbers, from women who, like you, were raised by their mothers and grew up with many sisters and tias and primas, and still received the messages from the patriarchal society surrounding them: te ves mas bonita cuando te quedas callada; mujeres juntas, mejor difuntas. puta means whore. puto means faggot, a man who acts like a woman by having sex with other men. (i am not saying that the u.s. is any less sexist or patriarchal than mexico; it simply manifests itself in different ways.) all receiving the message, often unspoken, that as women, they were less than, and if they were raped or sexually abused, it was somehow their fault.
though you don't want to be "sexist" in the way you value victims of crime, it's important to recognize that their gender does matter, particularly if you take into account how many were raped and sexually tortured before they were killed. murder isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person.
i've never heard esther chavez cano or cynthia bejarano or any of the committed activists refer to ciudad juarez as a hell hole. what i have heard them say is that juarez's women, and in turn, its men and children, deserve better, and if the local and state and federal police can't protect its people, then indeed, it is vicente fox's responsibility to hold the authorities accountable (rather than throwing up his hands and saying it's not his jurisdiction) and replace them with people who will fulfill their civic duty to create a just society.

escrito por Carlos Rubalcava a las 9:10 AM |
archivado en: así pienso ¿y qué?, in englich