The women of Latin America are on fire right now with their activism and protest as they fight not only for their rights, but for their very lives. In Argentina, a feminist arts collective demanded that the lives of women be taken seriously. **Warning: Nudity, and if you speak Spanish, there are some harsh statistics about violence against women.**
We’ve written before about the femicide epidemic in Latin America. In response, Argentina’s Fuerza Artística de Choque Comunicativo (F.A.C.C) staged an intense, fierce protest this week in which women threw their naked bodies to the street, highlighting how disregarded women are in their country, and all over Latin America. You can watch the entire performance piece in the video above. There is female nudity, and lots of harsh, violent statistics screamed in Spanish. I’ll let you determine how SFW it is.
As reported by The Daily Dot, “The 120 women who participated in the flash mob represented the 133 victims of violence against women and girls in 2016. In April, there was a femicide almost every day, according to the Argentinian newspaper La Nacion.”
At the top of the video, a title reads “This action was performed in front of the three largest powers in the country: the Presidential Palace, Argentina’s highest court, and Parliament.” Then, after a moment of stillness accompanied by an all-female orchestra, the gathered women completely undress. At first they stand tall and straight, defiant. Then they collapse onto each other into an eerie image of a pile of anonymous bodies.
A woman on a megaphone shouts for justice. Some of the highlights:
- They speak for all women, no matter what their station or fate: murdered or missing, poor or rich, working or unemployed, alive or dead, sick or healthy, etc.
- She lists the many ways in which women have been killed, as well as how long it takes for someone to die that way: Slitting throat: instant, trapped without water 3-7 days, trapped with water but no food: 15-40 days, strangled 1-15 mins, burned 8 mins, etc.
- She screams that women don’t have agency over their own bodies under the law, so they are now making their cases with their own bodies. They insist on agency over their own bodies and that their lives matter.
- She makes the point that women are often called “crazy,” but what alternative do we have when we’re treated this way?
Then they scream, demanding what’s theirs, screaming in frustration and in anger and in defiance. It’s an amazing, primal moment.
What’s even more powerful to me is the ending, where the women slowly, almost timidly, put their clothes back on, a sign that all of that rage is something they carry with them all the time. Rage and pain are things that women carry around all the time, even on good days. Even on “normal” days.
Beneath the surface, there is screaming, and an insistence that women matter.
(featured image: screencap)
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