This past March 8, International Women’s Day, an Instagram user launched a “your turn” sticker with the dynamic: Write your name and add the word “found”. In this case, the exercise consists of entering a search engine such as Google, writing your first name, then adding the word “found”, and then taking a photo of the results and sharing it in your story. The basic idea is to participate to generate awareness about the phenomenon of violence against women, particularly in its most extreme form, which is femicide.
When I came across this exercise while surfing the stories, I felt like a knife in my soul, is it really possible that if I do this search with my name, I will find the sad and terrifying story of a girl or a woman like me, with the one I share my name -perhaps the same dreams, illusions- that disappeared, was raped and then murdered? I clicked the sticker and stared at the screen. After a few moments I did and typed into Google: “Lourdes found”. This one threw me five leagues, five stories in which she described with password how the dreams and the future of five women and girls had been truncated.
With deep pain, I shared the image and published my story. This trend, which so far has 1.5 million participants, in addition to adding recognition to the terrible situation of violence against women that exists in our country, allows empathy and closeness to be generated with the victims: she is also me.
On Saxum Media We made a measurement of what happened on networks this past March 8, with the hashtag #NiUnaMenos being the one that received the most recognition and interactions on social networks. In this hashtag, related to the theme of violence and feminicide, we found 166,900 mentions, with a participation of 1.2 million interactions. With a positive sentiment of 40 percent, related to the viralization of posters with messages of unity, strength; 20.5 percent negative, in terms of fear and horror of femicide and violence against women.
Among the most viralized messages, these stand out: “every day in Mexico they kill 10 women”, “I fight for what they did to me and I have never told”, “in memory of all the girls who were never believed”, ” we are already brave, we want to be free”, “you who march, yes you represent me”, “today it is for those who left and never returned, for those who fell in love and were violated. It goes for those who are afraid to say: enough”
The women this March 8, asked, according to the trends we found: Justice, an end to fear, no more death, no more murders. Calls for equality are made. Commemorate the struggles of women to give focus to the problems and make visible the situation that women live, not celebrate. Understanding: “understand him” which is related to a claim against President López Obrador for his lack of understanding and empathy and that echoes his past statements in which he stated that what women were looking for was to affect the government. of the. Of course, the feminism and feminist trend could not be missing, also strongly present as a call to the community and to the unity of the various movements that participated.
As for the digital platforms that generated a greater number of interactions and greater reach for #8m messages, we find TikTok in first place and Twitter in second place.
They say they don’t understand us, what we want is very simple, we don’t want them to kill us, or rape us, or do violence to us. For example, suffice it to say that sadly, on March 8, 11 women were murdered in Mexico, on International Women’s Day. We want there to be no more adolescents hospitalized for family and sexual violence. According to the Network for Children’s Rights, in 2021 alone, “13,114 girls and adolescents were treated for family violence, 7,323 for sexual violence; and 3,784 for physical violence.” We do not want the 32 acid attacks on women that occurred between 2001 and 2021 to go unpunished; or that sexual crimes against women continue to overlap in public places. We want to dismantle the networks of criminals that publish photos of women against their will in chats along with information on how to manipulate them to sexually abuse them. We want good working conditions and better salaries; the recognition of work not shared at home… We want to be free and live.
The worst attitude in the face of all this is that of a man like our president, who plays the victim of our tragedies, of our complaints, who does not listen, and who hides behind his enormous fences, in his palace.
* Lourdes Villanueva González is a professor of the Master’s in Government and Public Policy at the Universidad Panamericana. She has a degree in Communication and a Master’s in Government and Public Policy from the Universidad Panamericana. At the World Youth Alliance Foundation she was director of the Latin America and the Caribbean office and later, Social Media Consultant for HQ in New York. She is a founding partner of Saxum Media and CEO of Wombat Accelerate. Twitter: @yuyisvg
