Today was our second workshop at USAC and there were just as many people here today as there were last week, something that surprised me. Since the certificate program does not provide school credits, I thought people might check out what we were doing and then not come back. Anyway, today was fun because it started with an exercise on sexism in the media and most of the class (including Carlos, Simon and I) got up to dance to the two songs Carlos put on.

Us dancing

One was faster, and one sounded more slow and romantic. After dancing the students discussed the lyrics of the songs and analyzed their content, since both songs were incredibly sexist.

Next, the students broke up into small groups and read a recent article from El Diario La Hora, and had to make conclusions based on the article and present them in front of the class.

One group discussing the article

Presenting conclusions

The woman talking is from Caja Lúdica! Good thing she came, she was brilliant.

Lucia said her goodbye’s to the class since she is today to symbolize that I am continuing the campaign leaving this weekend and won’t be here for the last two classes.

This is the baton/paintbrush Lucia gave me at the USAC

After the presentations there was lively discussion about feminism and gendered violence, and Lucia and Carlos passed out the white ribbons which symbolized taking a pledge to join the fight against gender violence.

After class today, everyone swarmed

Lucia and me to make sure they had our correct contact information and to turn in anything they hadn’t turned in, and we reassured them that though Lucia was leaving, MIA was staying here. The baton is now mine; I hope I can do MIA justice!

Lucia and the women from IUMUSAC

IUMUSAC and MIA

This morning Lucia, Simon and I began our day by going to Caja Lúdica so we could re-create the first workshop for them as a kind of make-up since no one was able to make it to USAC on Thursday and some members expressed that they would like to come to all 4 sessions. The Lúdicos were sharp as ever, and many had poignant remarks and ideas related to gender. We are hopeful that some of them will make it to our workshops at USAC since we want to maintain a relationship with them, and if some are trained in our program, then hopefully one day we could do workshops together. For this session I acted as a participant as Simón and Lucia co-facilitated for the group.

Lucia introducing the campaign

Working in partners

Right after the workshop, we rushed off to our meeting with the director of Instituto Universitario de la Mujer (IUMUSAC), Miriam Maldonado. We discussed how well the first session went and planned for the next one. After the meeting Lucia, Carlos and I were relieved and were able to have a nice dinner prepared by Simón to celebrate.

Lucia, Carlos and Simón

Tonight was me and Simon’s first time going to the night school alone and as we walked down the broken sidewalk as the sun was setting, I was lost in thought about our lesson plan for the night. When we got there, we were told that it was Shenny’s (one of the two teachers who welcomed us into their classes) birthday so she won’t be in class, but we could go ahead and talk to the students for 20 minutes (instead of our usual 40). So we introduced ourselves and MIA, and “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” and we ended up just doing a quick exercise about safety on the streets and how there are clear gendered differences in how each gender is expected to and advised to behave. It was a short start, but the students were happy to participate and I was happy that we had broken the ice with this group. On the way home, which is about a 20 minute walk, I looked around at the homelessness, the cockroaches, the litter, the public urination and human defecation on the sidewalks and the leering men and thought: this isn’t so different from the US. One big difference is I have a car there and can breeze by these things with my windows up and music on.

Today was our first day of the 4 week certificate program at the “U,” which is what everyone calls the University of San Carlos (USAC).  Lucia and Carlos Ibañez, a fantastically brilliant professional facilitator who specializes in HIV, immigration, human trafficking, gay and women’s issues, co-facilitated this first session for approximately 50 college students and community members who wanted to attend.  Everyone was able to contribute and there was a great male turnout.  The session was four hours long, so there was ample time for the pupils to think below the surface about why things are the way they are and how there are very different social expectations of women and men.  The students were very bright and the session was interactive, lively, and passionate.

Carlos Ibañez

A lively student

After this workshop we were invited to speak in for the class of Dr. Carlos Aldana Mendoza who is a big name in the Guatemala’s human rights movement of the 70’s/80’s and even eventually became the Vice Minister of Education at one point but ended up resigning.  Now he is the Jefe Division de Educacion at USAC and is teaching there as well.  Because Dr. Aldana Mendoza asked us to come to his class, we respectfully obliged and Lucia and Carlos facilitated an abridged workshop.

Lucia and Dr. Carlos Aldana Mendoza

The students

The gender dichotomy the class created

– Marina Wood is a recent graduate of the Women’s Studies program at Cal State University Long Beach. She has been volunteering with MIA since 2007 and is interning in Guatemala as a facilitator for the “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” campaign for 10 weeks. Marina has been involved in the struggle to end oppressions since her first protest in 2002 against the Afghanistan War and plans to continue learning, educating, and fighting for human rights until the violence stops. The issues closest to her heart are sexual assault and femicide prevention and amnesty for migrant persons in the U.S.

08.19.09. Wednesday

We began today by visiting la Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta Santa Barbara in Zone 18, a private school in the Colonia Santa Barbara which has been the pilot school for “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” since May 2008. We were happy to begin in Zone 18 because it is the “red zone.” Though it is named red to signify blood, for me it was hard not to make a mental connection to the red river that flowed right beneath the hill we stood on.

Polluted river

Lucia met Zully Soberalis, the director of the school in a march in Guatemala City for International Women’s Day in March 2008. When Zully heard about the campaign that MIA was launching, she said she wanted her school to be the first for “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” because she has personally experienced gender violence and knows that it is not uncommon in the households of her students. So MIA brought in seasoned activist and good friend Julio Revolorio to facilitate the campaign just two months later, and since May 2008 there have been weekly gender workshops. I was able to see Julio in action last July 2008 during a delegation with MIA and the kids just adored him. They had organized little skits to perform for us and their sense of gender inequality was developed for their ages.

The female students on “strike” last July 2008 during a skit

Now, a year later, there is a different male facilitator, Edgar Avalos, and Simon and I got to watch Edgar and Lucia co-facilitate 5 periods of classes.

It was a strange experience because the classes were full to capacity (about 30 per class, but the room was small) and there were no ceilings, just the four walls and the roof.

Lucia and Edgar co-facilitating

We could hear everything that was happening in the rooms around us and it was incredibly easy for the students to tune out or talk amongst themselves because of all the noise/chaos. Also, I noticed that on the walls there were some projects about values. They were poster boards which said what people should not do and had newspaper clippings as examples of murder, theft and even “the risks of oral sex.” Keep in mind, this is an elementary school. Under the article about oral sex the student wrote the “definition” of adultery: “married women don’t have to go off with various men.” This poster received 100%.

Adulterio "definition"

This is what we’re up against. Here we are trying to transform students in a school that gives an A-plus to woman-blaming, incorrect information in a town where violence is normalized. Add to that that we are in a country where the front page of every paper is plastered with a murder scene and every centerfold boasts a female model in a bikini. It reminds me of the idea of how horror films show a scantily clad woman doing something sexy, thus arousing the male audience, right before slashing her to bits, thus sexualizing the violence. However, in this case, the newspaper desensitizes the reader with horrific murder scenes and then shows scantily clad women, thus creating a correlation between the two-and desensitization to the women as well. And the papers say that the women who were killed somehow asked for it based on what they were doing, where they were going, or what they were wearing. This shameless victim-blaming and lack of respect for female life is feminicide.

Today’s Paper

In the classroom Lucia and Edgar were able to deal with these ingrained ideas about women-as-victims, and the public/private gender binary in an age-appropriate manner. The students were asked what safety precautions girls needed to take when walking on the street and there were several that were automatic: don’t dress “indecently”, don’t walk alone, don’t walk at night, don’t talk to strangers, ask God for safekeeping before leaving, and on and on. Next it was the boys turn. “We don’t need to take precautions” they proudly stated. This brought up a lively conversation about socially constructed gender roles, the fallacy of the idea of men-as-indestructible, and the inevitable “which gender is really stronger” debate, which all ended with expanded minds and hopefully, further thought on these matters.

Lucia Muñoz facilitating

Lucia Muñoz facilitating

It felt good to see the children learn and interact and I am hopeful that they will grow up thinking differently about gender and violence, but it was also sad to see how unprepared these same students will most likely be for future academics based on their chaotic learning environment and the impoverished colonia that they are currently in.

– Marina Wood is a recent graduate of the Women’s Studies program at Cal State University Long Beach. She has been volunteering with MIA since 2007 and is interning in Guatemala as a facilitator for the “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” campaign for 10 weeks. Marina has been involved in the struggle to end oppressions since her first protest in 2002 against the Afghanistan War and plans to continue learning, educating, and fighting for human rights until the violence stops. The issues closest to her heart are sexual assault and femicide prevention and amnesty for migrant persons in the U.S.