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Mexican machos resort to fists against strong women
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 08 - 03 - 2007


Many Mexican women continue to experience
domestic violence from a very early age, even as the world celebrated
the 30th anniversary of International Women's Day on Thursday, according to dpa.
The mistreatment of women and the over-blown importance of men
starts very early on in Mexico. Many children see their mothers
beaten up by their fathers, and replicate the pattern as adults -
boys grow up to hit, girls grow up to be hit. That is how
psychiatrists explain it in marriage counselling.
Strong and independent women are particularly vulnerable to being
beaten by their boyfriends. A study reported Wednesday in the
newspaper El Universal said that 31.5 per cent of girls between age
13 and 18 reported abuse, and noted that self-confident teenage girls
were especially singled out for physical, sexual and psychological
violence.
According to the study, many teenagers hit their 13-year-old
girlfriends because they feel inferior, or simply because they feel
entitled to use violence.
"Violence against women is the human rights violation which is
most widespread in Latin America," the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said in its most recent report.
These problems are not new to the public in Mexico, and the
fight against them is on the political agenda. Conservative President
Felipe Calderon who was inaugurated in December appointed several
women to join his government, and four of his 19 ministers are
female.
Even the old though debilitated Party of the Institutional
Revolution (PRI) - which held power continuously for over 70 years
until 2000 - has now chosen as its chairman a strong woman, Beatriz
Paredes. And the number of women presidents and defence ministers
across Latin America has been rising.
But the financial daily El Financiero reported on Wednesday that
only around 400,000 women hold posts of leadership in Mexico, a
country with 104 million people. The absolute majority of Mexican
women continue to live in the shadow and the service of men.
The slogan "there is no development without equality between
women and men" - omnipresent to mark International Women's Day -
falls flat on its face in many sectors of Mexican society.
In Mexico and also in Central America, violence against women
knows no barriers of wealth or social status. The machos do not hit
their women because they are poor or desperate.
In Mexico City - a metropolis with 20 million people - violence
against women is evenly spread across rich and poor neighbourhoods.
Women can temporarily seek protection and a lawyer through shelters
devoted to the cause.
In its posters, the National Women's Institute calls on battered
women to change their lives.
"One day I decided ... not one more blow! And I reported him," the
woman pictured in the poster says.
This has had consequences - the percentage of divorced couples is
currently at 10 per cent, compared to 3 per cent in the 1970s. The
number of divorces have doubled in the past ten years - there were
around 36,000 divorces granted by the courts in 1995 and over 70,000
in 2005.
Along with the male's refusal to contribute to the family income,
violence is the main cause cited in petitions for divorce, and most
sentences favour women.
-- SPA


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