Protesters against gender violence have left their imprint on Mexico City's streets and monuments.
On #InternationalWomensDay, they are expected to do it again.
@riostlorena reports: trib.al/9GobLCW
Last September, in the middle of a roundabout along Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, feminist activists installed a wooden carving of a woman raising her fist to the sky.
Around it are the names of victims of Mexico's epidemic of violence against women
La Glorieta de las Mujeres que Luchan, or the Roundabout of the Women who Fight, is what activists now call this prized location.
It has become a flashpoint in the ongoing feminist uprising that has transformed the Mexican capital
For Mexico City's feminist activists, physical marks on public spaces are a direct confrontation with the city about what it considers more worthy of defending: city landmarks or a woman's life
For the past three years, Mexico City has been rocked by massive marches, roadblocks and building sit-ins by activists who say they are desperately seeking an end to gender violence and justice from a system that allows such crimes to go mostly unpunished
As countries around the world reassess the values embodied in monuments and other forms of patrimony, Mexico's feminist protesters say they are reclaiming public spaces as evidence of the threat to their bodies and the failure of the state to meaningfully respond
In Mexico, most gender-related violence is not reported to police, and less than 25% of murders of women are investigated as femicide.
Against this backdrop, the feminist takeover began with what become known as the "Glitter Revolution" of August 2019
The government has also responded with force.
The city has encircled monuments and buildings like Palacio de Bellas Artes with metal barriers to keep protesters out, where they demonstrated last year on International Women's Day
Meanwhile, President President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has largely dismissed the feminist movement, further enraging its supporters.
Many have concluded that disruption is more effective than dialogue with authorities who often do nothing
At the event on March 8, 2022, organizers are expecting a large turnout.
Whether or not La Glorieta de las Mujeres Que Luchan lasts as long as demonstrators hope, the anti-monument has turned one corner of Mexico City into a place to come together: trib.al/9GobLCW
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