Today, 8th March, is the day most countries acknowledge and celebrate historical struggles of women all around the globe. The fundamental trade of this date is the attempt to positively look at the trajectories and movements of female workers who, in an organised manner, fought against patriarchy and the oppression suffered on different continents for the past centuries. A day marked on the annual calendar to remember and celebrate the fact that women carry, within themselves, a revolutionary force that opposesconformity and passivity.
In this quest for basic rights, many struggles are materialized and steps are taken forwardrecognisingan indisputable truth: women, in all their expressions and possibilities, have led a path of undeniable achievements, to which we refuse to go any step backward. The demands for equality, freedom, rights to your body and the city, among so many other fights, will not be contained or silenced by the conservative wave seen in Brazil in recent times.
According to the Global Index for Gender Equality 2019, an annually researchcarried out by the World Economic Forum, Brazil occupies the alarming position of number 92, among the 153 nations, when it comes to granting equal opportunities to women. Recent data on gender-based violence scream in our faces that Brazil still is one of the most violentcountries for female citizens: in every two hours, a woman is killed.
It’s important to highlight, when we’re talking about basic rights and oppression, that in no way this conversation ought to happen only as a gender-based discussion, but always considering the vast factors such as race, class and sexualitythat layers and weights in inequality, so that only this way we can honestly face the fact that socially we cannot longer toleratethe naturalization of the increase on numbers of gender-based violence when it comes to black women, LGTBQ+ communities and particularly, women living in territories such as favelas an peripheries.
We from Redes da Maré are active witnesses of the extreme struggles economically vulnerable women - subjected to social, racial and structural prejudice - face on daily basis as residents of the 16 favelas that comprises Maré, and understand that there is an urgent need to expand our actions and political accountability around issues that normalise the processes of violence affecting the majority of this population. We are aware that we need to keep claiming our lives and rights back,against a status quo that oppress us every day, as the only way forward to changethe unequal system in which we are all inserted.
No change of course will happen without our leadership, our mobilisation and, above all, our daily acknowledging and respect for the legacy and trajectory of those who came before us. We’ll keep working on the frontline, shouting loud what we hope for us an all the coming generations: the future is female!
Redes da Maré
