Women from North to South of the country mobilize on the feminist front to say that a bloody war against Brazilian women is underway.
Although the crime of feminicide has been in the Penal Code since 2015, the murder of women – just because they are women – grows daily in Brazil. In the first half of 2020, the year in which the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the world, imposing the need for social isolation, there was a 1.9% increase in this hate crime . In those first six months, 648 Brazilian women were killed, most of them black and living in social inequality.
Data like these and the lack of public policies are aggravated in a country that already ranked 5th among the nations that most kill their women (UN) . With the aim of denouncing the State's omission and demanding the protection of their lives, the Feminist Levant against Feminicide was born, a non-partisan front that will launch on the 25th the campaign "Nem Pensa em Matar" , based on this idea: "Quem Matar a woman kills mankind!”
The articulation was initiated by Vilma Reis, sociologist, reference of the black movements in the country, member of the Black Coalition for Rights , Marcia Tiburi, philosopher, writer and artist, and Tania Palma, researcher and social worker. Levante, which quickly took shape, is made up of around 200 people who work remotely to build a joint action for the lives of women. Among them are black, indigenous, quilombola, riverside, water, forest, anti-prohibitionist, parliamentary, LBTQIA+ movements and other segments of popular organizations and civil society.
In a manifesto constructed collectively and made public on March 12, the front forcefully points out that the existence of a “culture of hate” directed at Brazilian women needs to come to an end , and that the practice of the crime of femicide “has never been as ostensible and extremist” as it is now, in the government of Jair Bolsonaro and especially in the context of the new coronavirus pandemic. In three days, the document obtained more than 11 thousand signatures.
Among the complaints, the Manifesto states that “misogynistic ideas and attitudes have become behavior accepted and legitimized by society, contaminating the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary capable of sexist sentences and resurrecting archaic arguments of the 'legitimate defense of honor' and of 'passionality' as a kind of 'merit' to absolve criminals. This confirms the negligence and ineffectiveness of the Brazilian State in confronting violence against women”.
He also outlines the profile of the killers: “they are men who do not accept the autonomy, equality and freedom of women . They are sexist, violent who want the redomestication and removal of women from public life…”; “they use physical, psychological, moral, sexual and property violence against women and their children to the extreme, which is the act of feminicide”.
A Rising for Women's Lives and the End of Femicide
Marcia Tiburi says that the idea of joining other women against this hate crime came about precisely because of the urgency to fight abandonment and neglect. “ Patriarchy is a death oath against women for the most diverse reasons, always vile ”, she says.
The philosopher hopes to create, with her companions, conditions to overcome the old femicide culture. “This is a bloody war that needs to stop. What we want with our campaign is to stop this bloodbath that has been promoted by machismo and the spectacularization of violence that is part of it.”
The campaign, which is in full swing on social networks, will have specific actions in each state, organized by women who live and know the specific reality of femicide in each place. For this, communication materials are being created, exalting the image of yellow sunflowers, a symbol of the Levant, which appears as a sign of hope and celebration of life. With the hashtag #NãoPenseEmMeMatar , the front seeks to reach a wide audience and disseminate the idea that violence against women is a problem that affects not only families, but society as a whole.
“We're doing grassroots work and we want to bring together as many women as we can, even those who don't see themselves as feminists”, explains Tania Palma. “We are talking to nuns, fisherwomen, unemployed, quilombolas, riverside dwellers”, points out she, who is also a member of GTFem, from the Federal University of Bahia, which conducts the first research on cases of femicide in Salvador. “You don't have to be a feminist to want an end to femicide. We have to understand this politically”, says the researcher, believing that all should be effectively conquered for the campaign.
In addition to making the grassroots effort, Levante is guided by the feminist agenda, which, from the organizers' point of view, is non-negotiable. This means fighting the government's policy of militarization, which has freed access to weapons and ammunition, with the aim of arming the population - a platform publicized by Jair Bolsonaro. In addition to seeking an end to femicide, Levante wants to strengthen democracy.
“We organized the feminist uprising to stop the killing of women in the country. It is our way of disagreeing with the decrees of weapons and with all this misogynistic patriarchal wave that we are experiencing”, contextualizes Vilma Reis. “People say 'don't even think about killing me' and bring up the idea of 'whoever kills a woman kills humanity' to materialize that, without women, without feminist power, Brazil will not move forward.”
Campaign launch on March 25.
#NemPenseEmMeMatar #QuemMataUmaMulherMataAHumanidade
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