The Mexican filmmakers holding a mirror up to Feminicide

The solemn profile of a young woman, her expression detached and almost numb as she slowly washes pots and pans. The opening image of Lorena Valencia’s debut film ‘Dandelion’ paints a domestic scene so mundane that it could almost go unnoticed. However, the camera is transfixed by the poignant mix of fury and longing awash in the eyes of our protagonist. Her expression introduces the viewer to the hope of her eventual emancipation from an abusive husband, whose presence lingers in every scene. As she attempts to wash herself of her entrapment, Valencia’s film crafts a loving female friendship which serves as an important source of hope. 

Lorena Valencia is a Mexican filmmaker who was motivated to enter the industry to address issues such as reproductive rights, identity, and belonging. Her debut film ‘Dandelion’ or ‘Cuanacaquitl’ won the top prize at the ‘16 Days, 16 Films’ competition as well as the National Board of Review Student Award, winning selection in several international film festivals. The film holds pertinent messages for Mexican society today and the treatment of women.

Dandelion follows the story of a young teenage girl whose father arranges her marriage to an older man. Her husband is verbally and physically abusive and she frequently relies on her close friend for support as she navigates attempts to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. The young teenager, Ingrid, is expertly portrayed by Abril G Monteil, who subtly conveys the emotional intricacies of a young teenage girl trapped in a loveless marriage. 

The industry’s output is partly explained by the absence of women on film sets. Valencia notes how rare it was for her to come across a woman behind the camera or writing scripts even a few years ago. However, Valencia is determined to not let that be the case. Directors such as Valencia are poised to challenge the dominance of male narratives in film, seeing the camera as a tool for conveying the complexity of womens’ experiences in modern day Mexico. 

Valencia notes that her intention with Dandelion was to bring to light the experience of women ‘who lack resources to decide over their own bodies’, whilst also honouring ‘the power of hope, resilience and sisterhood.’ 

Indeed, male violence towards women is an everyday reality in Mexico. At present, some 10 women and girls are killed every day by intimate partners or other family members. Human Rights Watch estimates these numbers are far higher as many instances of feminicide, the systematic killing of women, girls, or females because of their gender and/or sex, go unreported. These cases, classified as feminicide by UNHCR, are rarely investigated by police; a stark, 90% of feminicide cases go unsolved. 

Perpetrators of feminicide rarely go to trial and even fewer wind up in jail. Institutional judicial immunity is a widely acknowledged fact of Mexican society despite the frequent and sensationalised news reels depicting womens’ dead bodies strewn on roads, fished out of rivers, and uncovered in bins. 

In early August 2019, a particularly horrific account flooded the news; a case which implicated the police directly, as four police officers accused of raping a seventeen year old girl failed to be apprehended by the authorities. This sparked national outrage throughout Mexico and women mobilised to march on the prosecutor’s office in Azcapotzalco to the north of Mexico City, chanting the slogans ‘they don’t protect me they rape me’ and ‘if you violate women, we will violate your laws.’ 

The backlash against misogyny and feminicide had emerged in Mexico before #MeToo erupted in America in 2016. In July 2015, the Mexican poet, Maricela Guerrero alongside Paula Abramo and Xitlálitl Rodríguez Mendoza, launched the hashtag #RopaSucia. This hashtag was inspired by the coined phrase ‘la ropa suci se lava en casa’ which encouraged women to air the ‘dirty secrets’ of their everyday experiences of misogyny. 

Guerrero kick-started the online protest with a tweet quoting one of her male publishers: “Lo Siento, la poesía femenina en España no está a la altura de la masculina.” #Ropasucia Thousands of women responded by quoting their own experiences of academic and intellectual misogyny in industries such as film, television, journalism, and academia. Slowly these tweets painted a tired picture of age-old misogyny in industries which had prided themselves on their so-called progressive outlook. In fact, the tweets were a stark reminder that the testimonies were not extraordinary but a normality that disguised a pervasive culture which subordinated and reduced women’s voices in these industries. 

A year later, the hashtag #MiPrimerAcoso (My First Harassment) went viral in Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of accounts of sexual abuse from family members, friends, boyfriends, and strangers flooded the internet. The number of retweets highlighted that instances of feminicide were not exceptional but part of an endemic cutlure whereby women were targets of sexual abuse. 

In August 2017, protesters organised pink glitter bombing to publicly shame men complicit in crimes against women. Labelled ‘revolución diamantina’ (glitter revolution) thousands of women took to the streets to march against feminicide, misogyny, and sexual abuse. However, Aguilar-Gomez noted the tone shift from previous protests; the protestors had become angrier and impatient with the governments’ slow progress. 

The inauguration of leftist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office on 20 December, 2016, brought about a hope of social reform on violence against women. He elected the first female mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum and promised a new era of social justice. However, the government presided over high budget cuts which defunded women’s shelters and broached a slate of alliances with hardline evangelical politicians who have pushed against supporting violence against women activists. 

In August 2017, the protest turned violent and protestors scrawled one of Mexico’s most renowned landmarks- The Angel of Independence- with graffiti denouncing violence against women. Rather than cover police clashes with peaceful protestors, the media villainized the female activists who vandalised the monument and suggested they posed a symbolic threat to Mexican identity.

To challenge the dominance of these political narratives in the media, women such as Lorena Valencia have seized art forms such as film and literature to force audiences to recognise female experiences. The upsurge of female artists in recent years has gone against the institutional concentration and dominance of male storytelling, bringing to light women-centred issues of feminicide and gendered oppression in Mexico. 

Mexican authors such as Fernanda Melchor have delved into the psyche of men who commit these atrocities. Her novels ‘Temporada de Hurricanes’ and ‘Paradais’ explore how a pervasive culture of machismo encourages her male characters to dehumanise and objectify the women they encounter. These male protagonists rape and kill women, implicating the reader in the disturbing yet familiar psyche which justifies the violence in the heads of the perpetrators. Authors like Melchor seek to disavow harmful stereotypes and conceptions of feminicide as rooting from female sexual deviance. Feminicide, to her male characters, is the logical and inevitable conclusion of a psychology which dehumanises and sexualises women’s bodies.

Indeed, Valencia’s ‘Cuanacaquitl’ comes from the Nahuatl word for ‘Dandelion’ reflecting Valencia’s indigenous roots and ancestry. Valencia dedicates her film to her grandmothers, an ode to their strength and resilience in challenging not only endemic sexism but also racial ostracisation. The focus on indigenous experience of misogyny sets Valencia’s film apart, capturing how this form of arranged marriage and domestic entrapment disproportionately impacts indigenous women. Yásnaya Aguilar and Gladys Tzul, indigenous activists and scholars have worked to unpack the racial layers of gender oppression, unveiling that feminicide needs to be addressed as an intersectional issue since it disproportionately impacts women of colour. 

Whereas Melchor strips her female characters of their voice, solely using the narrative voice of her male characters, Valencia opts to use the camera as a vehicle to explore the interior perspective of her female protagonists. The camera’s unwavering focus on her protagonists’ face captures the complex emotional weight of entrapment. Valencia’s masterful direction thereby astutely forces her audience to recognise the deep internal agony of women’s domestic entrapment.

Both artists demonstrate the importance of their artistic mediums to serve as a steady and powerful counterpoint to a toxic and polarised political debate in Mexico. Both artists also implicitly navigate dominant sexist narratives wherein women are often reduced to victims of the crimes committed against them or, worse still, painted as complicit in their fates. 

Valencia’s work challenges the structural marginalisation of women’s voices in the film industry. Her representation of women's experience of gender-based violence challenges a culture of ambivalence towards feminicide in Mexico. It also serves as a counterpoint to an endemic culture of machismo, where sexual objectification and violence towards women is the norm.

By Sofia Aujla-Jones