López Obrador is not interested in women

The next March 8 and 9 will be historic in Mexico: the march and feminist unemployment are unprecedented. In the face of violence against women, greater union. Before the indifference of López Obrador, greater rage. Basic rights, such as the right to live, to work in fair conditions and to decide on our bodies are the common front of dates. We march in the streets to take the space in which we have been violated, we march before the feminicide emergency - 265 women so far in 2020 -, we march to stop gender violence and we also march for the decriminalization of abortion. Unemployment seeks to make women visible, make domestic work visible, discuss gender parity in work spaces, invite the State, institutions, organizations, schools and companies to reflect on their internal protocols and policies. In a matter of days we have seen what never in Mexico, all kinds of companies, organizations, schools and universities have raised and questioned for the first time how to join the 9M. All kinds of professionals, employers, bosses and bosses have joined: except the president of Mexico. In a matter of days we have seen how women of different generations, from very different contexts and ways of thinking will join to march 8M, many men have also wondered what to do, how to join: less the president of Mexico. López Obrador announced, together with the general director of INDEP (Institute to Return the Stolen People), that at the Los Pinos Cultural Complex, on Sunday, March 8, the first auction will be held with affordable prices, with a moralizing plus , as the name of the institute that manages it, because it is not any, it is "the first auction with social sense, with the principle of buying a good to do a good". And that's how López Obrador decides to join the 8M with a lesson. OK the auction, OK the name of the institute, OK the lesson, but why that day?

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For 9M, the day on which women are called not to buy or consume anything, López Obrador decided to launch the six million lottery tickets of 500 pesos [25 dollars] each for the raffle of the presidential plane . Join 9M with your indifference. Then change the date, but do not touch the subject publicly. These decisions also say: from my Government we ignore 8M and 9M, I move if I want the issue of women to corruption and make a raffle. The raffle of the plane has, on the chosen dates, an aggressive arc. The 9M begins, changing the focus of unemployment, or well, on Tuesday or Wednesday, it does not matter, and ends with the award on September 15, the day of the cry of independence, with that nationalist background. Because if there are winners they must reward themselves on the day of the shout to commemorate, in addition, the independence of Mexico. Because we must also celebrate their decisions: the auction and the raffle. Leaving behind, far behind, the day the tickets went on sale, because "those dates of the women" are not relevant to the president and his Government. The plane is relevant. A plane that does not belong to raffle, which has already been paid with taxes, to be paid twice, a plane that is, above all, a huge distractor for the feminicidal emergency, on the day when women will join against gender violence, which the president is exercising by showing indifference, not positioning himself publicly at these two historical dates. But neither the lottery tickets nor the coverage of the auctioned lots will take away the focus or relevance or the dimensions of these two dates. López Obrador is overwhelmed because he is not at the service of the democracy that brought him to power. He, the first president of the left. Voters who today question him and demand that he attend to femicide as a public servant. Don't you know the temperature in the streets? Those streets that took him to where he is, are the same ones that now require him.

Given their indifference, a few days from March 8 and 9, how can we as women support each other. How can we erase ideological differences to face systemic violence. How can we unite more and better. How not to exclude each other because they are not "enough" feminists or because some is "too" feminist. How can we support each other? Perhaps responding in everyday actions is to make more politics against gender violence than the president does. Simple actions such as greeting a stranger, helping a co-worker, not competing, being empathetic, shaking hands in this country is doing politics. Small initiatives today grow rapidly and reach huge dimensions. Like the initiative of the Las Brujas del Mar collective, in Veracruz, which called for the 9M national strike and soon after the big transnationals discussed how to join.

And what follows those two days? The conversation has already opened, it must be followed in work spaces, in homes, in schools. In the exposure we have every day to femicides, humanizing the victims is essential. There are not 265 feminicides so far this year, they are not 3500 feminicides from 2016 to date, they are names of women and girls, families, friends, many stories about the murder of each one of them. How important it is also to name them when cruelty is increasingly extreme. One day it is a girl and the next a baby who dies torn by rape. We have normalized sexual abuse, how do we denormalize them? How do we denormalize language, advertising and sexist humor in our daily lives? How we return the gravity of feminicide in times when information reaches us horizontally in social networks, that narrative in which we receive the news there is a feminicide next to a note of shows, next to the photo of a Kitty, next to a sports news. How do we give it the importance it deserves in our daily lives and in public policies? How we do as a society so that it does not remain alone in those two days. Lopez Obrador, volatile, can change these days the date of the auction and the sale of tickets, but it is urgent that it is positioned before these two dates and in front of femicides. Otherwise, it will cancel “not to be bad” dates, such as a good number of companies that conditioned women to be without pay because they don't care about the underlying reasons that summon 8M and 9M. On the next two dates, follow the conversation. This is very encouraging to judge by the change we have seen in so few days. Hopefully I will continue this flight in the following days. As a society we have changed the speech in a very short time. Why if López Obrador has the Congress on his side does not decide to legislate in favor of women? Do not forget that Alberto Fernández in Argentina came to power to speak with feminists, the decriminalization of abortion is on his agenda. This discussion arose in the streets, there gained strength, that same force that will be seen 8M and 9M. Let him follow this flight. The plane and the raffle have us without care, we see the 8M in the streets and the 9M will not see me.

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