A graduate of the patriarchate

The photo of a student at Siglo 21 University celebrating his graduation  went viral . Representing  a murdered woman , she was wrapped in film wrap and a rope around her neck. This is Tomás Vidal, a graduate of Private University. He held a poster using inclusive language to name his degree “ Licenade ,” and above it said, “Guilt wasn't mine.” On his neck, he wore the  green scarf . The photo is completed with their fellow  rugby club  and university, who support and encourage, with every significant element they carried. This ritual ridicules feminist struggle, but, above all, it  celebrates femicides . It welcomes transfemicides, clandestine abortion deaths, rape, abuse and  patriarchal complicities in times of the green tide.

The mass repudiation  mobilized the University to manifest itself, implementing an institutional sanction. The sanction: the graduate must  redo his/her thesis and take a subject on  gender   in the institution. The rugby club to which it belongs expressed its repudiation in a statement. A prosecutor started an assessment to analyze whether it may be in contravention of the  Coexistence Code . Complicities and support, minimization or naturalization of what happened are also viral.

 Not just a photo 

It hits us to learn that new  women are murdered , beaten, raped, in a chain of daily and permanent violence. The figures for femicides and transfemicides  do not decrease . Reports of sexual abuse do not diminish, nor are   patriarchal impunity  . Violence towards women and feminized identities is in homes, in the streets, in the workspaces, in bonds, in institutions, in educational spaces.

How can we resist this photo that celebrates our murders? How to accommodate any sense about the disqualifying use of our symbols of struggle as feminists and dissidents? Understand that these masculinities still mock, ridicule and celebrate  femicides , transfemicides and rapes?  How to think about any possible link between holding a graduation of a graduate with killing and raping?  

Historically, mockery and joke have been an  effective way to reproduce gender oppressions   and inequalities . Setting up spaces, realities, looks, words and acts to sustain this sexist society.

In Mexico, a group of footballers parodied “Un rapador en tu camino” in the locker rooms, after a match. On social networks, celebratory expressions of the mockery of the performance of Chilean women Las Teses  circulated . Comments that support the idea that feminists will be left alone with these types of messages or that we carry a flag of exaggeration.

Who celebrates these comments in the networks and in life? Who  megusteered  the pictures of this young man? What fraternal covenants still hold these  expressions ? And we're not just talking about the graduate student. It would be a partial reading only to stay in that individuality of the graduate that is  a symptom , the tip of a thread that encourages us to expand and complexize the gaze.

 The tip of the Iceberg 

 It is an environment that created the idea , which thought each of the elements to carry, that explored the ridicule of each of the symbols. It is the people who did not say anything, who held the “joke”, who applauded, laughed, remained silent. What do you want to show with that message that engages a string of  hateful and disqualifying expressions  ?

 It is one and many institutions  that do not prioritize the implementation  of gender policies  in their curriculum content and coexistence codes. Even today, the gender perspective is partial and voluntary in many educational spaces. What education are we promoting and which society do we pay with it? What becomes urgent in educational institutions, to warn and work on these sexist expressions? How can an institution generate a basic transformation and not rest on the sobering gesture of an isolated student? How much can schools and universities promote clues for these  masculinity mandates ?

 Debt outstanding 

Integral Sex Education in all educational spaces. Cross-cutting gender policies, protocols for action against gender-based violence. Specific budgets and effective compliance with the Micaela Law. All these measures are an outstanding debt that institutions have to  society .

 And now?   What do we do with the debates that this episode triggered, when it stops being news? What do we do after social and institutional convictions?  How do we run from the individuality of this student, from this fact that he enunciates hateful expressions, to take a real dimension of what is at the bottom?  

SOURCE:  La Tinta