Blog #7: If...

            The video ended and the room was quiet.  Thirty previously chatty college students sat in stony silence, unsure of how to respond to what they had just seen.  Was it the story that had provoked such strong emotions?  Was it the pictures of women struggling to survive in indigenous communities, of young girls, deprived of an education and forced to work for the mothers and, later, for their husbands?  Or, was it the possibility that the tragedy we had just witnessed in the video could have been prevented?  If the young girl had had been afforded educational opportunities, if her father had not arranged for her to marry a significantly older man when she was only twelve years old, if her husband had willingly discussed birth control options, if, during her multiple and complicated pregnancies, she had had access to prenatal care, if she had not been denied medical care at an area health clinic and transported to a faraway hospital in a wooden wagon . . .  If things had been different, the young woman might still be alive. 

 

In Oaxaca, as in every city, many women struggle with domestic violence and lack access to healthcare and mental health services.  Girls growing up in indigenous Mexican communities outside of the country’s urban centers are often forced to leave school at a very young age in order to help their families.  The girls cook, clean and act as mothers for younger siblings as their parents work long hours to support the children.  Some young girls are entered into arranged marriages without their consent and begin having children soon thereafter. Without access to women’s health services or prenatal care, these young women endure pregnancies in unsafe conditions, sometimes suffering domestic abuse.

 

 In Oaxaca, “Casa de La Mujer”, a women’s center that offers support services and education about mental, physical and sexual and reproductive health, recognizes these problems and strives to help women who are facing challenges. This non-profit organization resides in a beautiful multi-floor facility which serves as a headquarters office, presentation space and shelter for young women studying at local universities.  The group offers a number of scholarships each year for young women from indigenous communities.  The scholarships provide the students with money for school materials and transportation and also provide funds to help cover the cost of young women’s absence from their families’ businesses.  With the money, the students have the opportunity to live at home and maintain a strong connection with their communities, while at the same time attending high school and working towards a high school diploma.  After graduation, many of the young women move into Casa de La Mujer’s shelter and attend universities in Oaxaca City. 

 

Prostitution has long been a common and profitable form of work for many Mexican women living in urban centers, yet Casa de la Mujer aims to provide young Oaxacan women with other options.  As Michael Higgins and Tanya Coen explain in their discussion of prostitution in Streets, Bedrooms and Patios, some “single mothers were the primary support of their households.  They provided food, shelter, clothing, health care and education for their children. Although prostitution provides a variable income, they perceived it as bringing in more money for the time invested than other jobs available to women” (180).  With the scholarships provided to young women, Casa de la Mujer endeavors to provide girls with the opportunity to attend school and secure more profitable and less dangerous jobs.

 

After the conclusion of the formal Mexican Revolution in 1920, a women’s rights movement, similar to its counterpart in the United States, began to take hold in Mexican urban centers.  In Mary Kay Vaugn’s chapter, Pancho Villa, the Daughters of Mary and the Modern Woman: Gender in the Long Mexican Revolution, comments that during the revolution, women took on roles of “cooks, nurses, lovers, mothers, spies scavengers, undertakers, soldiers and commanders” (24).  In the years following the conflict, these former “soldaderas” began to campaign for their right to work.  In 1924, many women with bobbed hair and short skirts entered vocational schools and enrolled in medical schools in Mexico City.  This angered many of the male students and Vaugn cites occasions on which, “students pilloried these female students who invaded their private space.  They grabbed two of them, dragged them into the showers and shaved their heads” (26).  The “chica moderna” struggled to integrate herself into formally exclusively male areas of society despite the resistance movements led by some men and aided by the Catholic Church.

 

The Church, an important economic, social and political force in Mexico, spoke out strongly in the post-revolution era about the increase in divorce rates and use of birth control, as well as about what they perceived as the general degradation of modesty among young women. According to Vaugn, the “Damas Catolicas” aided the Church in its fight against these supposed evils and spoke out vehemently against the behavior of the “chicas modernas”.  Today, women’s organizations still face some resistance from the Catholic Church.  Casa de la Mujer organizes presentations and videos to help promote the use of contraception among indigenous women and provides women in situations of domestic abuse with many options, including divorce.  The Church, which discourages the use of contraception and does not recognize divorce, promotes a completely “Pro-Life” approach to pregnancy, while Casa de la Mujer supports a “Pro-Choice” view.  Despite the powerful position of the Church in Mexican society, women’s organizations in cities around the national are becoming more prevalent and more influential.

 

            As we sat in silence, reflecting on the story of the young indigenous woman whose struggles with pregnancy and domestic abuse took her life, the “ifs” seemed to swirl around the quiet room.  What if circumstances had been different for the young woman in the video?  What if she had been given the opportunity to go to school?  What if she had been granted access to health care?  What if?  Casa de la Mujer recognizes that these “ifs” are often the difference between life and death.  As a women’s support organization, “La Casa” hopes to make these “ifs” reality. 

- Sarah -