Mexican National Heroes Get A Feminist Make Over
If you follow international news, you’ve probably come across the feminist protests in Mexico that have surged as a desperate movement in response to the femicide state that has permeated the country’s history and has taken thousands of women’s lives for decades. Several feminist groups have developed as leaders of …
If you follow international news, you’ve probably come across the feminist protests in Mexico that have surged as a desperate movement in response to the femicide state that has permeated the country’s history and has taken thousands of women’s lives for decades.
Several feminist groups have developed as leaders of the movements throughout the country and they have performed protest and symbolic acts through the past recent years intensifying through this year.
Last week several groups around the country occupied some of the offices of The National Commission for Human Rights to protest against the institution, which has barely done anything in regards to the femicide crisis. In one of the buildings hanged some replicas of old portrait paintings of Mexican national heroes. In an act of symbolic rebellion, the protesters intervened the paintings with feminist and anti-government messages. These paintings have become symbols of this new chapter in the fight for justice. The protesters are planning on auctioning the paintings in order to collect fund to keep the movements going.
On the other side, a few days after the occupation, the artist in charge of painting these replicas commented to the media that he was a supporter of the feminist movement, but that vandalizing his work wouldn’t change anything for the movement. Yes intervening a painting won’t bring back to life the thousands of women that have died but if he would stop and analyze History he would realize that it’s symbolic acts like these that energize social movements. Symbolic acts of protest bring awareness to the movement and make people gather around symbols that empower ideas of progress.
You can take a look at some photos of the occupation below.