Women’s Voices. New Approaches to Mexico’s Human Rights Crisis

As violence and gender violence have increased in Mexico in the context of continuous militarization, young women, writers, journalists and filmmakers have made their voices heard through social protest, journalism, fiction and documentaries. Whereas street harassment and femicide have been the main concerns of many, serious human rights violations, such a forced disappearances, have mobilized older women to participate in the public sphere as mothers of the victims, while writers and filmmakers expose the dynamics and effects of violence. This talk centers on women’s social protests and artistic approaches in the last decade and argues that female representations and protest actions bring a different perspective on the human rights crisis and point at new ways of conceiving public space and the place of women in it.