Master Thesis: "What Makes Public Space Unsafe for Women in Mexico City?"

What makes public space unsafe for women in Mexico City?

Master Thesis Reflective Urbanism

Master Thesis Reflective Urbanism

What makes public space unsafe for women in Mexico City?

Bauhaus Universität-Weimar Integrated Urban Development and Design Author: B.Arch Alicia Evangelina Sánchez Fonseca Examiners: 1st examiner: Prof.Dr. Frank Eckardt 2nd examiner: Dr. Paula Soto Villagrán 3rd examiner: M.Sc. Jinia Sharmeen

Weimar, Germany 24th of September of 2021

Acknowledgments

To my family; but above all to my sister Paty and my father Leobardo, whose love and support have guided me not only these two years, but my entire life.

Thanks to Arijit Bhattacharyya, Marieliz Morales, Jean Ocampo, Parva Zahedbanis, Rukaiya Karim, and Gabrielly de Souza for following this research closely and without whose advice this thesis would have gone a very different way. To my friends in Monterrey, especially Brenda Fernández, whose help connected me directly with sources that helped the surveys succeed. Also, major thanks to Gisel, Masai, Gina, and those who also helped me in various ways throughout this thesis.

Special thanks to the participants that decided to take the survey and interviewees whose responses built up this work.

Thanks to my first supervisor Prof.Dr. Frank Eckardt, my second supervisor Dr. Paula Soto Villagrán, and M.Sc. Jinia Sharmeen for their contribution, advice, and guidance.

Last but not least, thanks to the Frauenförderfonds for financing part of this work. iv

To those who are no longer here, to those who seek justice, to those who are still here and fighting.

And to my mother, whose presence is missed everyday.

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Abstract

Concern over the constant rising violence against women in Mexico over three decades is a defining factor over their perception of safety in public space. This thesis seeks to find the correlation between the perception of danger between genders and their behavior in public space and finding what factors make women restrain from claiming public space in Mexico City. In order to find such answers, a survey with 460 participants in Mexico City and ten in-depth interviews were done through the internet. The findings suggest that, at a national scale, women share similar fears in public space to men, although they add fears and anxieties that men provoke. Women also tend to use less public space, not go out when it is dark, change the way they dress, and try not to be unaccompanied to feel safe. This inherently invisibilizes them in public space, and their absence accentuates the gender inequalities that the built environment enhances. For instance, one of the significant elements of the built environment that enhanced fear to the participants was the lack of light, lack of vigilance, and abandoned buildings/areas. These findings are a potential source of gender-based alignments to design better public spaces.

In addition, women in this research responded that the anxiety they feel in public space infringes their freedom as citizens and that such inequalities are promoted by cultural aspects such as machismo and the lack of acknowledgment from the Government. This research concludes that women perceive public space differently and restrict their access to public space, which enhances the restriction of health services, education, and job opportunities depending on the area they reside. In short words, the self-imposed restrictions of women to public space may come from different factors and directly impacts their quality of life negatively.

Keywords: violence against women, public space, femicides, perception of safety, gender inequalities, gender violence.

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Figure 1: 8M Protests (Alameda).

Arau, 2020.

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List of Figures Figure 1

8M Protests (Alameda).

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Figure 2

Organization of the thesis

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Figure 3

Diagram of main question

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Figure 4 Daisy Dugdale leading a suffragette demonstration in London on December 19, 1908. 18 Figure 5

Street in Venice

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Figure 6

National Palace on 8M 2021

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Figure 7

Depict of machos in “lotería”

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Figure 8

Geographical points of femicides in Ciudad Juárez.

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Figure 9

Cross with pink sign “Ni Una Más” (Not One More) in the Paso del Norte International Bridge.

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Figure 10 Protests 8M

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Figure 11 Alameda Central, Mexico City

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Figure 12 Mexico City’s location and general information

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Figure 13 Public space in Mexico City

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Figure 14 Age group

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Figure 15 Occupation

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Figure 16 Gender Identity

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Figure 17 Municipality of residence

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Figure 18 Have you experienced any type of harassment or violence in Mexico City?

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Figure 19 If you answered “yes” to the previous question, what type of harassment have you experienced*?

68 Figure 20 In what type of public space have you experienced any type of violence?*

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Figure 21 Have you reported to the corresponding authorities any type of gender violence in public space that has happened to you?

69 Figure 22 Do you consider Mexico City a safe territory for women?

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Figure 23 Tangible areas of Mexico City perceived as dangerous for the participants

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Figure 24 Perceived and experienced gender violence in Gustavo A. Madero

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Figure 25 Please describe in one word how you feel when you are in public space:

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Figure 26 Risk factors (Interviewees)

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Figure 27 At what time of day do you feel most insecure?

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Figure 28 What public spaces do you consider dangerous?

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Figure 29 Relation use-avoid in public spaces of GAM

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Figure 30 Do you feel that gender-based violence in public spaces infringes on the full freedom of women?

87 Figure 31 If you felt safe in public space, what would you like to do?

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88

List of Tables Table 1

Percentage of women that have lived, at least one, a violent act.

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Table 2

Interviewees’ profiles

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Table 3

Intangible areas of Mexico City perceived as dangerous for the participants

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Table 4

Risk factors

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Table 5

Physical elements that enhance fear in the built environment

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Table 6

How do you know what space is safe or not?

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Table 7

Measures to feel safer in public space

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Table 8

Measures to eradicate gender violence in public space

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments iv Abstract vi List of Figures viii List of Tables ix

1. Introduction

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2. The Research

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3. Literature Review

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4. Case Study: Mexico City

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5. Analysis

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6. Results

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7. Conclusions

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1.1 Research Question

2.1 Relevance and motivation 2.2 Limitations 2.3 Organization of the thesis 3.1 Gender 3.2 Oppression of women through time 3.3 Public spaces 3.4 Embodiment of women in public space 3.5 Perception of women in public space 3.6 Perception of safety in public space

4.1 Gender violence general data 4.2 The gender wage gap in Mexico 4.3 Gender violence 4.4 Potential causes 4.5 Protests

5.1 Methodology framework 5.2 Assumptions

6.1 Profile of the participants 6.2 Experiences of gender violence in public space in Mexico City 6.3 Perception of gender violence in public space in Mexico City 6.4 Action towards gender violence in public space in Mexico City 6.5 Desires

7.1 Findings 7.2 Outlook

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16 16 16 20 21 22 24 26 30

34 34 36 40 49

56 56 61

64 67 70 84 87

92 94

8. End matter

8.1 Bibliography 8.2 Figure References 8.3 Table References 8.4 Appendix 8.5 Statuory of Declaration

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98 103 104 105 120

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1. Introduction

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) defines gender violence as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (p.03). In addition, the Convention of Belém do Pará, adds that “physical, sexual and psychological violence against women may take place: 1) within the family, domestic unit or in any other interpersonal relationship, 2) in the community, in the workplace and educational institutions or health establishments, and 3) be perpetrated or tolerated by the State and its agents, wherever violence against women occurs (Cardenas, 2011, pp. 23-24).

Having stated that gender violence is taken internationally as the physical, sexual, or psychological harm that may occur in diverse spheres in their lives and that is perpetrated or tolerated by the State, the growing violence against women in Mexico needs to be taken into account as a crisis. According to Sandin (2020), the rate of femicides has grown an astonishing 145% since 2005, meaning that ten women are killed every day. Moreover, over 66% of women have suffered at least one incident of emotional, economic, physical, or sexual violence throughout their lives in at least one sphere (INEGI, 2016; as cited in Yáñez, Cymorek, Kruspel & Del Villar, 2020).

Even though most violence against women happens in the private sphere and by men they know, the spectrum of public space is very much demonized and feared by women for several reasons. For instance, 96.3% of women users of public transportation and public spaces in Mexico City have experienced, at least once, acts of sexual violence (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.21). The National Survey on Urban Public Security (2021) revealed that 71,3% of women said to feel unsafe in Mexico, differing almost 10 points from the perception of men’s safety (60,9%).

Within these statistics, one of these research aims is to correlate the perception of danger between genders and their behavior and use of public space. According to Valentine (1989), “women develop individual mental maps of places where they fear assault as a product of their experience of space and secondary information. Additionally, these metal maps are elaborated by images gained from hearing the frightening experiences and advice of others and from media reporting” (p.386).

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Such differences in behaviors in public space represent one of the many inequalities among genders. In addition, the discrimination of women is also correlated with their ethnicity, geographical location, citizenship status, class and racial features. Ertürk (2006) describes that indigenous women generally “suffer four levels of discrimination, because of their sex, their ethnic origin, because they are poor and because of their rural origin” (Ertürk, 2006, as cited in Cárdenas, 2011, p.21). This hierarchy of discrimination lead vulnerable women into dispropotionate levels of sexual violence, high levels of maternal mortality (Cárdenas, 2011) and low levels of education (García, 2019).

The appropriation and embodiment of women outside the private realm of their home have become a fight against the still male-dominated public space, and despite the growing protests among the whole country such as #8M, the “glitter revolution,” and #NiUnaMenos, public space remains male-dominated.

In short words, the still male dominating public space keeps restraining women from their occupation, thus women are restrained from access towards academic and labor opportunities, citizen participation and their right of free movement. As Valentine writes (1989): “Women’s inhibited use and occupation of public space is, therefore, a spatial expression of patriarchy” (p.389).

1.1 Research Question Throughout this thesis, the discussion of how and why women use public space differently will be seen through a global, national and local scale. While the focus will be in Mexico City, the following questions need to be responded: 1) Is there an existing physical, and/ or cultural pattern that enhances assaults on women in public space in Mexico City?

2) How do women perceive public space in Mexico City?

3) What elements do women perceive as unsafe in public spaces of Mexico City?

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2. The Research

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2.1 Relevance and motivation As previously stated, the crisis of gender violence in Mexico has been scaling up for decades. When planning this research, it was vital to point out how gender inequalities are a multidimensional spectrum enhanced and rooted in urban planning. From the design of streets and parks to the existing urban plans in general, urbanism plays a vital role in eradicating gender inequalities. Historical examples will be set within this thesis to understand the differences in perception of public space between genders and how this directly manipulates the way men and women use it. At the same time, the case study of Mexico and its visible gender violence crisis will be described and analyzed.

The relevance of gender studies, in general, has helped throughout the years understand the oppression that women have faced throughout different disciplines. This research aims to cooperate towards understanding why women still do not claim fully public space in Mexico.

Lastly, as a woman and urban researcher, my intentions within this thesis work are to understand better the scope of gender violence in the country where I was born and raised within my field. The curiosity that enhanced this work started from my perspective of fear since I have also had encounters with the violence described. As a result, it is now my duty to keep researching and hopefully help eradicate gender violence in Mexico.

2.2 Limitations When this thesis was written, the pandemic of COVID-19 was still firmly global health, economic and social issue. This thesis was written in its entirety in Weimar, Germany, so the researcher faced, majorly, a limitation in the methodology. Fortunately, the quantitative and qualitative analysis could be achieved through the internet. However, spatial analysis or face-to-face interviews were, unfortunately, not possible.

2.3 Organization of the thesis This thesis is divided into five main chapters: chapter 3) literature review, chapter 4) case study: Mexico City, chapter 5) Analysis, chapter 6) Results, and chapter 7) Conclusions.

In chapter 3) the Literature review, the reader will encounter theory and historical examples about women’s lack and little use of public space and some of the reasons for it. The topics 16

discussed in this chapter come after disintegrating the question: “What makes public space unsafe for women in Mexico City?”.

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3

What makes public space unsafe for women in Mexico City?

1

Case Study

Figure 2: Diagram of main question

The first discussion will define what it means to be a woman, enhancing the discussion of gender and their definitions, then defining what public space is and discussing the different perspectives of danger in public space between genders. It needs to be acknowledged that the thesis was initially titled “What makes public space unsafe for people who identify as women in Mexico City?”. What changed is that this title inherently acknowledges gender identification, and the implication of such terminology has its complexities and adversities in the territory of Mexico. The necessity of discussing gender is enhanced; nevertheless, the data gathered and the participants that took place in this research primarily identified as cisgender, and it would be inconsiderate to appropriate gender identification in the main title, when in fact, this work did not gather enough information to give justice to this specific community.

In chapter 4) the focus on Mexico City will be done. It will be discussed the crisis of femicides and sexual violence of not only the country but of the capital.

The analysis then describes how the methodology was planned and used, the parameters that the researcher used, and finalizes with the assumptions that the researcher has to land in chapter 6) Results. In this chapter, the results of the surveys and interviews will be published and compared with national data on gender violence. The thesis ends with the conclusion and some possible outlooks, and potent further research that could be enhanced in the future.

theorize

Literature Review

Case Study: Mexico City

write

follow

follow Analysis

Results

Conclusion

compare

Figure 3: Organization of the thesis

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Figure 4:Daisy Dugdale leading a suffragette demonstration in London on December 19, 1908.

3. Literature Review This chapter will discuss gender and the impact of gender roles in the oppression of women in general. As well as public space and its importance towards the emancipation of women, and the perception of public space between gender.

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3.1 Gender For centuries, the assumption of individuals’ identities to whether ‘males’ and ‘females,’ like the toss of a coin with only two sides (Kessler & McKenna, 1978), has led to uncountable ways of oppression, marginalization, and segregation towards different persons and communities in the cities. Disciplines such as biologism1 or essentialism2 have defended the argument that only two genders exist, deriving the construction and defense of the ‘correct’ behavior of gender as sex-based. This argument suggested that gender and sexual identities are biologically derived, have been historically stable, are ‘essentially’ about our ‘private’ lives, are ‘basically’ the same across different cultures, and are normative (Srivastava, 2012, p.12). So, for instance, the ‘female-ness and ‘male-ness is something we learn, something that is taught to us (Srivastava, 2012, p.16); and therefore, when discussing what a woman is, one may refer to it as “one is not born, but rather, becomes a woman” (De Beauvoir, 1949/1993, p.281).

The defense of gender as a social construct (WHO, 2011) to discriminate has been strongly and long followed by several feminist authors (for example Aphteker, 2019; Crenshaw, 1989; Butler, 1990). According to WHO, the formulation of gender as a social construct varies from society to society, the time frame, and includes norms, behaviors, and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl, or boy, as well as relationships with each other (WHO, 2011).

Therefore, men benefit from the under-acknowledgment that gender is a social construct.

We can refer to patriarchy as the systemic relationship between men and women, where men are seen as superior to women (Srivastava, 2012).

Authors like Simone de Beauvoir (1949) stated that: “the term ‘female’ is derogatory not because it emphasizes woman’s animality, but because it imprisons her in her sex” (p.03).

Moreover, this argument can be followed with the thought that, while patriarchy benefits men, the imaginary of masculinity is the process of producing superior men (Srivastava, 2012). Therefore, patriarchy excludes those who do not approximate the male ideal, such as homosexual men or transgender people (ibid, p.15).

And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity. (De Beauvoir, 1949, p.xli).

1 A viewpoint which focuses on biological principles as a means of interpreting much of human and social behavior (Pam, 2013).

2 The view that certain categories (e.g., women, racial groups, dinosaurs, original Picasso artwork) have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly. Furthermore, this underlying reality (or “essence”) is thought to give objects their identity, and to be responsible for similarities that category members share (Gelman, 2005).

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Such approximations lead to think that ‘gender’ is an exploration into the naturalisation of the category ‘man’ through which men have come to be regarded as un-gendered and as the ‘universal subject of human history’ (O’Hanlon, 1997, p.0; as cited in Srivastava, 2012, p.13). In addition to that, it is incorrect to contemplate ‘men’ as the ‘universal subject of human history’ when it is, in fact, the white-heterosexual-able-bodied-cisgender male3 the ‘universal subject of human history’. Furthermore, with this concept in mind, one can begin to comprehend the current patriarchal hierarchical exercise of power in most contemporary societies: the idea of being the dominant man directly impacts on the universality of existent bodies.

“Bodies are not just physical in the sense of flesh and blood beings, but as a constellation of culturally constructed ideas about what is appropriately mediated by discourse” (Ranade, 2007, p.1524).

However, it is very fair to point out that there is the existence of intersectional discrimination inside gender itself. While white women were positioned as the universal female subject, women of color were left out of both narratives, rendered invisible as racial and gendered subjects (Glenn, 2000).

It is essential to state that gender is continuously being remade at different scales through national legislation and changing life circumstances (Beebeejaun, 2017, p.323). Indeed, the differentiation between terminologies regarding sex, gender, and its identities are of utter importance and demands to be continuously redefined, but this paper will not focus on defining said terms. Instead, this research aims to comprehend the spatial inequalities that women4, over history, have faced in public spaces in urban areas.

3.2 Oppression of women through time There are many examples of the differently gendered uses of space and how urban forms within cities actively construct gender and other social relations (Burgess, 2008). As Mackenzie (1988) argues, the gender category ‘women’ has been changing over time as women’s activity patterns have changed. While women hold higher positions nowadays, access to higher education for women has been hard-won and is still partial and divided by class and race, meaning that equality of education for women is a myth (Bondi & Peake, 1988 p.25). In fact, Segovia (2017) discusses that in 2010, the labor participation rate of women in the case study5 reached 46.3%, while the male rate was 70.7%; which meant that women’s lives are (still) primarily spent in the neighborhood, where- at least those from lower socioeconomic sectors - feel insecure (p.108).

Women, over time, have been attributed to be the primary caretakers in the private realm.

Many women can aptly be described as having ‘dual roles’, wage earners, and unpaid 3 The identification of cisgender denotes or relates to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex (Oxford Languages). Thus, identifying someone as “white-heterosexual-able-bodied-cisgender male” means to describe a white man who has identified with his birth sex, that is heterosexual and has no physical or mental impairments.

4 As described previously in “2.5 Organization of the thesis”, the implications of the specific discrimination towards gender identification will not be touched on within this research. “Women,” in this case, are then cisgender women, although the people that identify as women that took part in the surveys are, of course, taken into account.

5 Study made in Chile

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domestic workers (hence the prevalence of part-time working among women) (Bondi & Peake, 1988, p.25). The same authors describe that typical ‘women’s’ jobs involve tasks requiring supposedly female attributes such as dexterity (for component assembly in the electronics industry), docility (for routine clerical and cleaning work), and caring skills (for nursing and nursery teaching) (p.27).

Howbeit, such jobs held the dichotomy of job segregation previously mentioned: aside from gender comes racial and class segregation, homophobia, and ethnic discrimination. Bondi & Peake (1988) mention that in London, while white women were concentrated in non-manual occupations, black women were concentrated in manual work; Asians, particularly in the clothing trade, and West Indian women in engineering and the health service (Mama, 1984; as cited in Bondi & Peake, 1988, p.28). In addition, the combination of oppression based on both gender and race has resulted in ethnic women being at the bottom of the pile, whether in terms of access to jobs, wage levels, working conditions, welfare, health care, housing, education, transport (Little, Peake & Richardson, 1988, p.13), and access to public space.

Due to the ramifications of job offers and activities of women, they often make more complex journeys than men (Blumenberg, 2004; Burgess, 2008). These ranges refer to traveling to childcare, school, work, or shops in journeys often referred to as ‘trip chains’ (McGuckin and Murakami, 1999; Greed, 2005; as cited in Burgess, 2008, p.114). These typical patterns undoubtedly change directly the way women experience public space, it is in fact, a key deterrent (Rasoulpour, 2019). For instance, Pickup (1988) mentions that there are three types of low mobility that occur among women as a result of their gender role: 1. The impact family-role playing exerts on patterns of women’s car availability, 2. The impact of gender-related tasks (both home-based and non-home based) on women’s access to opportunities.

3. Low mobility which derives specifically from the conditions under which women travel, the problems of coping with children while traveling and women’s fear of sexual assault which deters many from travelling particulary by public transport (p.102).

Moreover, there is a long way to go towards a more inclusive city. However, recognition of people that identify as women and their needs while using the space can be the first step towards safer (Bajwa, Khan & Nadeem, 2019) more congruent public places for them.

3.3 Public spaces UNESCO defines public space as “an area or place that is open and accessible to all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level (n.d).” Public spaces are a component of the public sphere (Habermas, 1989; as cited in Hampton, Goulet & Albanesius, 2015). Public spaces include a city’s streets, sidewalks, parks, and plazas to which all persons have legal access (Lofland, 1973; as cited in Hampton, Goulet & Albanesius, 2015). They are the areas of the city that enhance acquaintances of all kinds. However, they also have physical, social, cultural, and political dimensions (Segovia, 2017, p.94). As the same author describes: it is a place of relationship and identification, of political manifestations, of contact between people, of urban animation, and sometimes of community expression (p.94).

Hence, public space is any area or place open to any person to enhance acquaintances with physical, social, cultural, and political dimensions. It is then not only a place for leisure or transit but a place to claim rights and injustices. Public spaces shall not claim any monetary 22

compensation or transaction to people since the mere existence of a being is enough for the occupation of public space. Thus, places such as streets, sidewalks, parks, schools, squares, beaches, sports facilities, and gardens are considered as public; others that promote the gathering of people in general but that ask for monetary compensations, such as cafes, cinemas, public transportation, bars or restaurants, as semi-public.

Essentially, the distinction between the public and the private, is that the aim of public space is to minimise the segregation of people based on lifestyles, such as their opinions, income, gender and race (Strauss, 1961; as cited in Hampton, Goulet & Albanesius, 2015). Public space aims to welcome, to mix and diversify activities and people. For instance, UNESCO states that public spaces can play a key role in improving migrants’ inclusion by acting as places for intercultural dialogue and exchange.

However, its quality may play exactly the opposite role; whether it can enhance cultural integration (Segovia, 2017) or segregation. Public spaces are primarily a forum for interacting with friends rather than strangers (Demerath and Levinger, 2003). Authors Hampton, Goulet, & Albanesius, (2015) stated that serendipitous6 encounters are the minority of all public interactions, because the recognition of local and historical factors, such as changes in neighbourhood characteristics, were likely to influence activity in any public place (p.1494). And, a study made by Little, Peake & Richardson (1988) suggests that women are restricted to the private sphere and that access to the public world is largely limited to men (p.19), because unlike men, women find that when, in public space, their personal space is frequently invaded by whistles, comments, or actual physical assault from strange men (Valentine, 1989). Furthermore, the importance of women claiming public space can go as far as promoting their rights as citizens, developing their own autonomy and empowering them (Segovia, 2017).

Spaces, therefore, are not ‘natural’ in their attributes, and, following from the above, have a social character. Hence, when thinking about relationships among human beings- that, after all, unfold in specific spaces- we must consider the characters of spaces in terms of social categories such as class, caste, ethnicity, and, of course, gender. The freedoms and constraints that confront us as human beings are crucially determined by our social attributes, of which gender is a significant aspect (Srivastava, 2012, p.26).

Although the connection between gender and space has been long explored (McDowell, 1983; Massey, 1994; cited in Burgess, 2008), the relationship between the gendered patterns in the use of the city is usually ignored by planning policies (Beebeejaun, 2017).

According to Srivastava (2012): the study of feminine, masculine, transgender and more identities concerns exploring power relationships within the contemporary gender landscape (p.13). Men and women use (Beebeejaun, 2017), perceive (Little, Peake & Richardson, 1988) and experience (Mazey and Lee 1983; Tuan 1974; Valentine, 1989) public space differently. This consequence is anything but coincidental and it has to do with the Genderification7 of the space.

Multiple authors have argued that the city has been planned and it is benefitted for only cisheterosexual males (Burgess, 2008; Kern, 2019; Fainstein and Servon, 2005; Pumarino &

6 The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for (Merriam Webster, n.d).

7 Here, I refer to the action of gendering the space; on how gender plays a key role in defining the use of a space.

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Muñoz, 2021), stating that the city is androcentric8, or in other words: a “city of men” (Kern, 2019). For example, the scarce amount (or lack) of public toilets that are accessible to women play a huge factor on the gender approach in public space; for instance, there are very few changing tables in men toilets, and women tend to make longer lines for toilets and pay for it. Another example is the disproportionately less number of streets, monuments or stops named after women; in Paris only 2.6% of street names in Paris are named after a woman, and these are often the wife or daughter of a well-known man (Franssen, 2018).

Furthermore, the contemplation of gender identities has constantly shaped how we understand our interaction with the built environment. For example, Fainstein and Servon argue that urban and suburban spaces support stereotypically male activities and planning methodologies reflect a male-dominated society (2005). Therefore, gender and its relationship within the built environment should be looked at as an active process; the places in which we live are not just the scenery for the playing out of gender (Garber & Turner, 1995; as cited in Burgess, 2008), but it is a constant shaping environment of ourselves as well. So to speak, the built environment plays a role in shaping gendered identities, practices and power relations (Burgess, 2008, p.113) and likewise.

3.4 Embodiment of women in public space From the Greek Agora, the Roman Forum, to the Medieval marketplace (Rasoulpour, 2019), the presence of women in public space has been denied or significantly less acknowledged.

Hence the different embodiment and approach of women in said places. While men could have the liberty of owning public space (and were expected to), women were primarily responsible for caring and domestic duties (Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021, p.03). These expectations result in women having more complex daily movement patterns in public space (Levy, 2013; Garcia-Ramon et al., 2004; Whitzman, 2013; as cited in Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021, p.03), but without meaning that women could claim or own public space. As Rasoulpour (2019) states, even ‘noble’ women’s presence was not expected in the Agora (p.01).

Countless research and studies have been made to reinforce and acclaim the privileges white-heterosexual-fully-abled-cisgender men ‘should’ have in cities in Europe. Even mundane, essential activities, such as wandering around, made by white men were praised and studied. The terminology of said ‘masculine’ activity is known as ‘flanerie’ but is there a version for women? If so, how did women manage to embody cities?

Flaneur vs Flaneuse The concept of ‘flâneaur’ is commonly known and stereotyped as French bourgeois men from the 19th century that observe daily urban spectacles and interpret the signs and images of the city. As Lauren Elkin (2016) observes: the flâneur, or ‘one who wanders aimlessly’, is a figure of masculine privilege and leisure, with time and money and no immediate responsibilities to claim his attention, the flaneur understands the city as few of its inhabitants do, for he has memorised it with his feet (p.11). Though, the difference between flâneurs with tourists, photographers and sociologists, may be that the flâneur did not have a specific reason to walk, he did not stroll to click a picture, or to visit a particular site, or even to study the city. The spirit of a flâneur was merely guided by curiosity and passion for observation. In Freudian terms, he was a scopophilic deriving aesthetic pleasure from looking at something or someone.

8 Dominated by or emphasizing masculine interests or a masculine point of view (Merriam Webster, n.d)

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Flâneurs reappeared shortly after the First World War throughout Europe, and post-war cities became for them an exterior landscape to be explored. They became icons of pictures in magazines, and protagonists in cinema portraying them as a detective-like pedestrian, always looking and moving. Although, it is important to mention that the earliest mention of a flaneur is in 1585, possibly borrowed from the Scandinavian noun flana, ‘a person who wanders’: a person, not necessarily a male one (Elkin, 2016, p. 18). Which brings the question: could the flaneur be female? (Kern, 2020, p. 24).

The word known as Flâneuse appears in seldom french dictionaries as the femenine form of flâneur, as the idler and an observer found in cities (Elkin, 2016). Although sometimes this term is implied to be made-up a counter definition against flaneurs, it is undoubtedly a highly controversial figure. The flaneuse has been an icon of both reclamation and denial (Kern, 2020). For those who reject the idea, women can never fully escape into invisibility because their gender marks them as objects of the male gaze (Wolff, 1985, p. 37-46, cited in Kern, 2020, p. 24), for others, flaneuses have always existed, only with different names. Virginia Wolf would call it “street hunting” (Elkin, 2016 July 29). Nevertheless, it is argued that women have been simultaneously hyper-visible and invisible in the streets (Kern, 2020).

However, the sight of women in public spaces, at least in the 19th Century, was a shared concern in society, while men, by contrast, were completely free to explore, to stroll around, and to reflect upon their observations of their city. Elizabeth Wilson (2001) implies that in Victorian England, the presence of women on the streets caused enormous anxiety as the ideology of the women’s place was the domestic realm, and women seen in public unattended were categorized as unowned and therefore, as prostitutes. Which, in fact, did not have freedom in public neither; Elkin (2016) points out that a prostitute’s movements were strictly controlled: by the mid-nineteenth century there were all sorts of laws dictating where and between which hours she could pick up men. Her clothing was strictly policed; she had to register with the city and visit the sanitary police at regular intervals (p. 17).

Figure 5: Street in Venice Sargent, 1882.

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As for women who were not prostitutes: In British society it was the young marriageable woman under thirty years of age who was most rigorously chaperoned; married women, governesses, and old maids had a little more freedom (Wilson, 2001, p.76). Women also tend to be judged through the urban location they were spotted at, and they were positioned as objects of the gaze of the flâneur (Acosta, 2016). Hence, the inability of women to be invisible in public and therefore, have the freedom to roam, walk alone and enjoy the city.

Though, women had a lot of reasons to be out in the streets, whether because they worked as shop girls, charity workers, maids, seamstresses, laundresses, among others (Elkin, 2016, p.22).

“At the Parisian markets they ran most of the stalls, and even at home they would sit out in the street together, practising what two hundred years later Jane Jacobs would call ‘eyes on the street’. [...] Their commentary on the dress and behavior of the passers-by was itself a form of social control. They knew more about what was going on in the neighbourhood than anyone” (Garrioch, 2002, p. 39, cited in Elkin, 2016, p.22).

It was not until the end of the century that women began to appear in public more often. By the 1870s some guidebooks to London were already beginning to feature ‘places in London where ladies can conveniently lunch when in town for a day’s shopping and unattended by a gentleman’ (Wilson, 2001, p.81). However, even if women held more freedom to be in public, harassment did not lessen. Places where women used to visit more often like cafés, tea rooms, and ladie’s lavatories did not only offer leisure, but some time alone, and the opportunity to be unharassed (Elkin, 2016). The same author describes that the key to women’s urban independence were respectable, affordable boarding houses for the unmarried. Quite often, it was difficult to find both of those qualities in the same establishment (p.24).

The pleasures of the city and the mastering of walking were specifically reserved for men.

Women did not have the same freedom as men had in public space, and the risk of being shamed or harassed were greater. However, women still explored, walked and wandered their cities. As Elkin (2016) emphasises: “To suggest that there couldn’t be a female version of the flâneur is to limit the ways women have interacted with the city to the ways men have interacted with the city. [...] Perhaps the answer is not to attempt to make a woman fit a masculine concept, but to redefine the concept itself” (p.19). Perhaps we should construct the idea of Flaneuse not from the eye of distance, but as Elena Poniatowska refers, as a construction of solidarity (Guerrero, 2007).

From Baudelaire to Edgar Allan Poe, several authors have praised the flâneur as an icon of modernity, and they were right. The flâneur was a reflective “critic” of his city, a close “analyst” of its architecture, a “collector” of scenes and images (Gleber, 1999, p. 130). But it is also fair to say that this concept encapsulated a sexist icon that described a male-only city, and that held back the inclusion of women in modernity.

3.5 Perception of women in public space As previously mentioned, more women are seen in public spaces with time. This, because women are staying in school longer, an increase in the average age of marriage and child bearing (Golding and Katz, 2002), and the movement away from the segregation of women’s activities into private spaces and men’s activities into public spaces (Bott, 1955; as cited in Hampton, Goulet & Albanesius, 2015, p.1493). At least in Western Europe and the United 26

States, women are having better access to public spaces (ibid, p.1494), and it suggests that women’s participation in the workforce is associated with an increase in other forms of participation, such as time spent with others in public space (ibid, p. 1501).

However, the exclusion of women in public space still happens since they are still perceived through their sexuality or ‘potential seduction’ (Franck & Paxson, 1989; as cited in Rasoulpour, 2019). Therefore, their activities in public spaces are still highly sex or gendersegregated (ibid, 2019). Women’s experience in territories that were not planned for them, forces them to solve the uncertainty of their presence in public space on their own, often transgressing the expected or normed uses in the city into uncertainty (Pumarino & Muñoz, 2021).

Since it has been stated that men’s ‘natural’ claim towards public space is appropriation (Srivastava, 2012) one can state that women negotiate their presence (Pumarino & Muñoz, 2021) in public space. While it is generally understood that men’s access to public spaces need not be tied to a ‘purpose’, the idea of women loitering in such spaces become both incomprehensible and condemnable (Srivastava, 2012, p. 25). In effect then, women can access public space legitimately only when they can manufacture a sense of purpose for being there (Ranade, 2007, p.1521). And, in case a woman is seen out alone after a certain time of night- or on the ‘wrong’ street, she is seen as a ‘social outcast’ (Bondi & Domosh, 1998, p. 270).

A study made by Shilpa Ranade9 in Mumbai, showed that women occupy public space essentially as a transit between one private space and another, and they tend to cross the road between one to four times to avoid situations in which they might find themselves uncomfortable or unsafe. This study also sustains that women felt like they had to appear to be doing something (i.e. waiting for a bus, or for someone). Furthermore, what is astonishing about this research is the intangible outcome of it. It appeared that women protected themselves in public space not seeking respect, but respectability10, towards being seen as ‘good women’. With ‘respectability’, women’s access to public space is discrete, marked, and strongly limited (Ranade, 2007), because they manufacture a sense of purpose in public space; hence, they do not claim the space, they negotiate it. [...] The insistence on respectability actively contributes to not just reducing women’s access to public space, but also compromises their interests when they do access…

The inextricable connection of safety to respectability, then does not keep women safe in the public; it effectively bars them from it.” (Phadke & Ranade, 2011; as cited in Mishra, 2021).

Women in public spaces not conforming to masculine rules of ‘modesty’ are frequently the source of a great deal of masculine (and patriarchal) anxiety regarding the ‘decline of society’. The ‘decline’ perspective appears to have been particularly salient in an era of globalisation, where women are seen to be affected by the cultural and social

9 Shilpa is an animation filmmaker, book illustrator, and Professor at IDC School Of Design, IIT Bombay, where she teaches Animation and Image Making (Fundameticsnet).

10 The main difference between respect and respectability is that, for the latest one, women learn to restrain their access to public space to feel safe. Seeking respectability aims to be looked at as a ‘good woman’; this inflicts directly on the behavior or garnishment a woman uses in public space.

Respectability is similar then, to be invisible, not provoke men or be under their gaze. Hence, respectability is a patriarchal intangible form of men claiming the space into women; and not acknowledging their presence, and seeking empathy towards the other, as respect would do.

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changes in a manner not ‘befitting’ models of ‘feminine honour’ and respectability.

(Srivastava, 2012, p.27).

It is precisely ‘respectability’, a way of gender oppression, and it deals with different meanings on its own. According to Ranade (2007), access to space is mainly restricted when a woman is biologically reproductive and sexually active. As stated previously, an unchaperoned young woman is more likely to experience harassment (in its various ways) than older women. Thus, a young woman’s respectability (and therefore, invisibility) depends mainly upon her companionship. Nevertheless, respectability is also one of the many shields that people who identify as women use to protect themselves against harassment when entering or using public spaces. In addition, gender violence in public space tends to be normalized; so to say, ‘girls must learn to live with a certain degree of harassment’ (Srivastava, 2012, p.27).

Women over fifty years of age, says the relationship with fear and insecurity in the face of criminal acts such as robberies and assaults, but mainly fear for the physical or psychological integrity of their children or young grandchildren in their care.

However, young women, in contrast to the above, present a time that escapes the daily experience that is directly related to their most intimate space “the body”, which in most of the stories is crystallized in the fear of sexual aggression and in particular in the “fear of rape” (Soto, 2012, pp.160-161).

On one hand, it is true that not only women suffer from violence in public space, and that fear of crime is “individually experienced, socially constructed and culturally shared experience” (Reguillo, 2000; as cited in Soto, 2012, p. 154); and it is correlated with individuals’ education level, income level, race, age, duration of residence or sense of belonging to the place of residence (Jackson & Farrall, 2011; as cited in Tandogan & Simsek, 2016). So to say, fear has a sociocultural variability and therefore is not necessarily considered as a uniform process (Soto, 2012, p.160); and as far it has concern for personal safety, it does not only have a detrimental psychological effect but also limits a person’s freedom and choice to move in a public space, thus reducing its use. (Ratnayake, 2013; as cited in Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021, p.02).

On the other hand, it is also true that gender is one of the most salient individual characteristics that impacts fear of crime (Ferraro, 1995; Reid, & Konrad, 2004, as cited in Tandogan & Simsek, 2016). As stated by Ranade (2017) different bodies experience space differently depending on, amongst other things, their gender, class, age, sexuality and physical ability, because access to space is socio-culturally determined by these differences (p.1520). And, when the space is generally claimed by one specific kind of user, other bodies adapt to it, mostly becoming invisibilized. One example of this, is the mentioned study made

by Renade (2017): A man said that he would choose to walk a path which was most interesting, or in other words, where he could see the most -engage most with the street and the city.

Women on the other hand, were choosing to walk a route where they could either become invisible (by pretending to be purposeful) or a route where they could be seen by multiple “domestic” (and therefore female?) eyes on the street (Ranade, 2007, p.1524).

Women are the gender more fearful of crime, and this is mostly related to women’s sense of physical vulnerability to men (Valentine, 1989, p. 385). Research done by Tandogan &

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Simsek11 in Turkey concluded that women often report fear of crime two to three times higher than men, and this fear increases after dark or when they are alone. Women’s rape and sexual assault (see Valentine, 1989; Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021) rates are ten times higher than men’s, elevating the risk of victimization. They fear rape and sexual assault more than any other crime, including murder (2016); and, as consequence of women’s concerns of personal safety, it can result in their exclusion from outdoor sport and leisure activities (Blöbaum and Hunecke, 2005; as cited in Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021, p.02). This fear also tends to restrict their behaviors, clothing, schedules, and even their independence in the use of public space (Pain, 1997; as cited in Pumarino & Muñoz, 2021).

It is of utter importance to state that violence against women in cities (Segovia, 2017) do not refer only to ‘daily-life crimes’, such as theft, robbery, assault, rape or harassment; it also refers to phenomena linked to the way in which urban development is conceived, the lack of citizen participation, the difficulty of access to services, among others (pp. 90-91). Thus, the lack of presence and occupation of women in public spaces can be interpreted as a spatial expression of patriarchy (Valentine, 1989, p.389).

Women’s fear of crime in urban space constraints their lives and affects their behaviours. In this respect, women take several precautions in urban spaces due to their fear of crime. Consequently, women limit their way of dressing because of their fear of crime. In short, women are not free in urban space (Tandogan & Simsek, 2016, p. 2017).

Crime, street harassment and fear of crime remain one of the most crucial aspects of women’s use and public space today which get continuously reinforced through cultural biases, male dominated spaces, inefficient design and objectification of female bodies through media, graffiti and advertising (Rasoulpour, 2019, p.03).

And, while men also experience fear and violence in public space, women report feeling less safe in public than men, regardless of reported crime rates (Pain, 1997; Warr, 1984, as cited in Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021, p.03). Compared to men, women’s physical and social vulnerability results in a greater perception of risk in the built environment (Skogan & Maxfield, 1981; as cited in Segovia, 2017).

Due to the seriousness and collective panic towards particular crimes such as rape and sexual murder, it creates an extreme awareness on women(Baumer 1978; Riger et al. 1978; Balkin 1979; Gordon et al. 1980; Todeland 1982; Warr 1985; and Stank 1987; as cited in Valentine, 1989, p. 385). While women aim for respectability and invisibility to feel safe, the avoidance of the silent-isolated streets, dark subways, poorly-lit streets, empty parks and dense woodland, desolated urban spaces, subway station and other public transits during late night hours (Tandogan & Simsek, 2016, pp. 2016-2017) is key towards their perception of safety. Most of the time, women refrain from stepping out of their homes in order to avoid perceived ‘dangerous places’ at ‘dangerous times’ (Valentine, 1989, p.386). In terms of socioeconomic level, women in the lowest income bracket are more fearful of becoming victims of crime. (Segovia, 2017, p. 107).

Thus, through gender roles, women learn through experience what is inappropriate and potentially unsafe (Valentine, 1989) while being in public space. These abilities to choose her strategies to feel safer in public space is largely determined by her age, income and lifestyle.

11 Oksan Tandogan works as Urban Planner, Landscape Architect in Namık Kemal University.

Bige Simsek Ilhan works as a researcher in Amasya University. The paper relates to “fear of crime” in public open spaces from the point of view of women living in cities.

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(ibid, 1989, p.386). Nevertheless, this perception of safety, and actions taken to reinforce them, tend to be false. For instance, Valentine (1990) states that women feel safer in the actual or potential presence of others because they assume that offenders will be deterred by the possibility of bystander intervention. However, evidence shows that witnesses frequently fail to intervene in crimes taking place (p.294).

Admittedly, most of these safety perceptions are produced on a daily basis through the media, crime news, sensationalist use of images, which contribute not only to exaggerate the situation of insecurity but also tend to blame women and victimize their fate (Koskela 1999; as cited in Soto, 2012, p. 162). Authors (Valentine, 1989; Soto, 2012) state that such perceptions influence women’s mobility directly. Women develop individual ‘mental maps’ of places where they fear assault as a product of their own experience, advice of others, and media reporting (Valentine, 1989, p. 386). These maps react to how women react in public spaces, and how they choose their commuting route.

It is mostly the fear of being attacked, and the public blame of victims for being ‘in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong clothes’ (Valentine, 1989) that reinforces the twisted, wrong and patriarchal perception that women should not be in public spaces. In addition, public blame is also enhanced by the way the media portrays such cases. For example, Srivastava (2012) states that “the media quite often provides accounts of public women by describing what they wear or how many children they have” (p.24).

Within the last few years, the term “slut-shaming” has gained strength among the media and colloquial use. It is the practice of disparaging mostly women for acting in a manner that violates “norms” regarding sexually appropriate behavior (Dictionary, n.d). This term is derogatory, not due to the comparison of prostitutes whose labor is often degraded and dangerous, but because it reinforces that women depend upon their “respectability” to gain their dignity as beings.

3.6 Perception of safety in public space As described before, it is clear that gender plays a key role in the perception of violence in public spaces. Such spatial inequalities summarize the fear of being at a specific location, but at the same time from a relational point of view as a position (Bourdieu, 2000; as cited in Soto, 2012, p. 154). A study made by Gill Valentine (1989) in Reading, showed that when women are in places they perceive as dangerous, they are constantly alert to their physical surroundings, listening for every rustle in the bushes or approach of footsteps. As a result, most women, especifically at night, have a heightened consciousness of the micro design features of their environment, and adjust their pace and path accordingly (p. 386).

The places that are mentioned to provoke more fear are the ones with difficult access, physical degradation, lack of surveillance, dirtiness and darkness (Soto, 2012, p.155).

Likewise, the behavior of others can reinforce the sense of vulnerability (ibid, p. 157), mainly when the space is being dominated in the evening by the group women have most to fear, men. (Valentine, 1989, p.388).

While the imaginary of the ‘other’ is known as a way of discrimination, the otherness in a masculine public space are the universe of other corporalities and identities. In short words, the one that is not masculine and behaves like it, becomes the other in public space. Valentine (1990) found that men do not only dominate public space in number, but through their violent behavior. Men appropriate public space by using socially inappropriate physical contact and body language to intimidate women; also by mocking the ability of 30

women engaged in sporting or leisure activities and using sexual innuendo to harass verbally, or force physically their attentions upon women unaccompanied by other males.

(Valentine, 1990, pp. 300-301). Men use threats, ranging from whistles, compliments, sexual approaches, and hostile looks (Soto, 2012, p.158).

In our research we found that the relationship between people and environments is expressed in the construction of otherness with an “other”, which in its representation is mostly masculine. This makes sense for the hegemonic gender discourse, femininity is perceived as passive, non-aggressive and therefore non-violent. (Soto, 2012, pp.157-158).

Finally, in this context, it is male notions of what constitutes ‘violence’ that frequently guide women’s recognition of it. So, a woman who has faced harassment may choose to overlook it if, say, her father suggests that it is too ‘trivial’ a matter, or that ‘girls must learn to live with a certain degree of harassment’ (Srivastava, 2012, p.27).

Even though statistics show that gender violence like rape or attacks are greater quantitavely at home, by a known person, women learn to perceive danger from strange men in public space (Valentine, 1989, p. 386). While women do not always feel threatened by men in public space, it is when the space is numerically appropriated by men at night when they feel at risk. Therefore, since they cannot identify attackers from their external appearance, women feel threatened by all strange men (Valentine, 1990, p. 301).

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Figure 6: National Palace on 8M 2021

4. Case Study: Mexico City

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4.1 Gender violence general data UNICEF (2019) described Latin America and the Caribbean as “the region with the most inequality, discrimination, and violence on the planet,” their proposal for gender equality in this region dramatically emphasizes the most significant issues regarding gender inequalities. They state that to work on said inequalities, policies, and guarantees regarding women’s economic, physical and political autonomy would ensure their rights to fulfill equal gender conditions. Inherently, these inequalities follow the Mexican case. Gurría (2020) reports for the OECD1 that women in Mexico continue to be treated less fairly than men, facing mainly fewer career opportunities, more obstacles to gainful employment, and suffering from high levels of harassment.

Along with Latin America, Mexico shows very high percentages of sexual violence (UNDP, 2017) and missing data on VAWG2 (Yu-Chieh Hsu et al., 2017; as cited in Yáñez, Cymorek, Kruspel & Del Villar, 2020). For example, Mexico has 57 measures3 available, which are much lower than Canada with 146, or Australia with 152. Despite this data, Mexican politics against gender violence4 serve various kinds of dichotomies. On the one hand, Mexico stands out as a leader in the participation of women in public life. By 2017, women already held more than 40 percent of seats in Congress, highly under the OECD average of 30 percent (Gurría, 2020; De la Morena, 2021). On the other hand, Mexico is one of the OECD countries with the highest levels of violence against women (Ibid, 2020).

4.2 The gender wage gap in Mexico The irony of being a leader in gender representation of Congress while being a country highly hostile towards women has opened the debate on what measurements Mexico needs to take towards women’s safety. Nevertheless, Congress appears to be the only sphere where women stand out in representation. A report made by INMUJERES (2016) stated that

1 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

2 Violence against Women and Girls.

3 These measures are based on the UN Women’s project “Global Database on Violence Against Women,” which accounts for all measures undertaken by countries to address all forms of violence against women.

4 According to the UNHCR (n.d): “Gender-Based violence refers to harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms. Gender-based violence can include sexual, physical, mental and economic harm inflicted in public or in private. It also includes threats of violence, coercion and manipulation. This can take many forms such as intimate partner violence, sexual violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation and so-called ‘honour crimes’.”

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men’s economic participation rate recorded was 77.6% and for women 43.4%, below the average of 52.7% in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Only last year (2020), Gurría informed the OECD that less than half of working-age Mexican women participate in the labor market. Moreover, from that percentage, almost 60% of the women have informal jobs, with low social protection, high insecurity, and low pay. Some reports argue that this low participation of women in the labor market is due to the excessive unpaid work burden, such as childcare and domestic chores (INMUJERES, 2016), and the constant promotion of gender stereotypes in the media (Gurría, 2020). INMUJERES (2016) also states that women tend to look for more flexible jobs to maintain their unpaid work. It is more frequent that they interrupt their professional careers to attend these activities.

Gurría (2020) also argues that, for women with formal jobs, only about 7.5% of the management boards of Mexico’s most prominent companies are led by women, far below the OECD average of 20%. In addition, there are 30 percent more men in corporate roles than women; women spend an average of 40 hours a week in domestic duties while men only spend around ten; and 75 percent of men report being the head of the household (De la Morena, 2020). A study made by the AMMJE5 stated that Mexican working women devote 70% of their salaries to their community and their household, while men only inject between 30% and 40% of their resources (Lira, 2018). This result makes Mexico one of the countries with the most significant gender wage gap, ranking 83 of 135 in the World Economic Forum (Ibid, 2018).

In the report made by INMUJERES (2016), the increase in the wage gap is proportional to the reduction in the size of the locality; in other words, the larger population, the less gap, and likewise. These gaps are observed in the following categories: agricultural, livestock, forestry, hunting, and fishing activities (-66.0%); domestic, care, laundry, ironing, chauffeur, and kitchen activities (-63.0%); and in artisan activities (-62.5%). These categories also show the lowest earnings, particularly for women.

Inherently, wage gaps are directly related to education access. While it is inevitable that a prominent wage gap exists within informal jobs (ca. -15%), it duplicates in formal jobs (INMUJERES, 2016). Nevertheless, this gap varies within the years of education the individuals had. With less than six years of education, the wage gap varied from 40 to almost 50% difference between genders. Astonishingly, the gender gap is also huge when reaching a Master’s degree or a Doctoral degree (-33.7%) (Ibid, 2016).

Indeed, the discussion of women’s participation (and absence) in the labor market is inherent to its participation in public spaces. As Soto (2012) argues, not considering women as salaried workers or domestic work has visible effects on the spatial inequalities they are subjected to. This, due to what the territorial separation between workplaces and the home implies, for women, double and even triple commutes to fulfill their tasks in the public and private space (Massolo, 2004; Falú, Morley & Raneiro, 2002, p.149; as cited in Soto, 2012, p.149).

5 Asociación Mexicana de Mujeres Jefas de Empresa, or Mexican Association of Women Heads of Businesses.

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4.3 Gender violence 4.3.1 Femicides6 Another great inequality is, of course, the violence against women. As stated previously, even though statistics show that gender violence like rape or attacks is greater quantitatively at home, women learn to perceive danger from strange men in public space (Valentine, 1989, p. 386). Moreover, in Mexico, gender violence in public space is of great concern, mainly due to increasing femicides. While in 2017, statistics showed that seven women were killed per day, the number increased to nine two years later (Malkin, 2019) and to 11 in 2021 (Ríos, 2021). Of these 11 daily femicides, the ages of 20 and 24 made up most victims, and more than 50% of femicides were committed in public spaces (Ibid, 2021).

The head of the Attorney General’s Office, Alejandro Gertz Manero, informed that femicides in Mexico had increased 137 percent in the last five years, four times more than homicide, which increased 35 percent (Méndez & Jiménez, 2020). Following these statistics, with the current pandemic7, the rate of femicides and gender violence has increased. According to the government, 367 women were killed between mid-March and mid-April 2020, while last spring of 2021, there were about 300 femicides a month (Marquez, 2020). Although it is acknowledged that both men and women experience violence every day in Mexico, these numbers show that many of the violent deaths of women are femicides, killings in which victims were targeted because of their gender (Villegas & Malkin, 2019).

Soto (2012) remarks that in Mexico City, gender-based violence is one of the most prevalent problems in women’s daily lives. Femicide has been highlighted as one of the most radical forms of violence against the female gender (p.154). Such crime is undoubtedly a violation of women’s fundamental right to security and affects their ability to participate in the public and economic life of the country (Gurría, 2020). Moreover, despite the massive number of potential cases, few women seek help from the legal system, with 98 percent of all genderrelated killings, mostly femicides, going completely unprosecuted (De la Morena, 2020).

Tragically, there are a thousand stories like this one. Through the years, Mexico has seen everything: women stabbed, skinned, disemboweled, raped, and murdered.

Little girls have been kidnapped from their preschools in broad daylight, corpses have often been discarded in canals, and at times reporting a disappearance is where the investigation ends. Girls as young as three and women as old as 74 are frequently abused and killed by men close to them. In the next ten minutes, approximately three women in Mexico will have been a victim of abuse. Ten femicides will occur by the end of the day. (De la Morena, 2020) For years, in various places in Mexico, this crime has existed and terrorized women for decades; perhaps, one of the most known cases of femicides in Mexico is Ciudad Juárez.

6 Firstly defined in 1976 by feminist author Diana E. H. Russell, femicide is generally understood to involve intentional murder of women because of their gender. Femicide is usually perpetrated by men, and it differs from male homicide in specific ways. For example, most cases of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners, and involve ongoing abuse in the home, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations where women have less power or fewer resources than their partner (WHO, 2012).

7 While this thesis is written (September 2021), the pandemic of COVID-19 has not yet been eradicated or controlled. After more than one year, the world is dealing with more virus variants, even though vaccination started eight months ago. In some parts of Mexico, social distancing, lockdowns, and other measures are still being taken, forcing everyone to stay home as much as possible.

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Since 1993, around 3,000 women have gone missing, 913 women have been reported murdered since 2010; in 2017, 86 femicides were reported, increasing 34% from 2016 (López, 2018). Such crimes created a scheme of corruption within the juridic system in the city, creating ‘scapegoats’ and leaving such crimes 98% (Ibid, 2018) of cases unpunished.

Ciudad Juárez was known as “the city that kills women.”

The case of Ciudad Juárez has led to extenuating research8 and investigations towards its causes. Some authors and authorities link said gender-based crimes in Juárez to the growing power of organized crime, narcotraffic, and the corrupt judicial system. Belén Sanz, Mexico’s representative for UN Women, points to increased sex trafficking and disappearances tied to gangs (Villegas & Malkin, 2019). Nevertheless, this specific case involves its own cultural, social, and geographical aspects that may not link to the reason for femicides in other parts of the country.

However, anthropologist Rita Segato insists that femicides cannot be seen as the act of lone, sick individuals; instead as the result of a more extensive system of oppression and control over women’s bodies (Marquez, 2020). The same author states that in Mexico, 93 percent of all criminal defendants in cases of gender violence are men. Furthermore, while in Mexico, two in three women have been victims of gender violence in their lifetimes, the level of impunity is so high that perpetrators feel they can get away with their crimes. Following the patriarchal cycle of claiming power not only in public space but in any realm (Ibid, 2020).

4.3.2 Gender violence in public space Globally, it is estimated that 35% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by someone at some point (WHO, 2013). In Mexico, 66% of women age 15 years and over report having suffered at least one incident of emotional, economic, physical, or sexual violence throughout their lives in at least one sphere (INEGI9, 2016; as cited in Yáñez, Cymorek, Kruspel & Del Villar, 2020). In addition, a survey about the perception of women’s safety showed that throughout their lives, 96.3% of women users of public transportation and public spaces in Mexico City have experienced, at least once, acts of sexual violence. In addition, this had happened to 88.5% of them during the last year10 when they were using public transportation or public spaces (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.21).

It is worth mentioning that the National Survey on the Dynamics of Household Relationships, ENDIREH 2006, concerning the community level, shows that 39.7% of women aged 15 and over have suffered some public aggression of a sexual nature at the national level, which can range from insults to rape. Of these women, 92.4% suffered intimidation, and 41.9% suffered sexual abuse and aggression in some community space or even their own home. In Mexico City, 60 out of every 100 women aged 15 and over reported being assaulted in the community environment (streets, movie theaters, sports venues, other people’s homes, and even their own) (Soto, 2012, p.158).

According to the same survey, 54.4% of women reported feeling highly insecure on public transportation, while 69.1% feel very insecure or insecure in the streets and public spaces.

This survey also showed that the fear of being a victim of sexual assault is more significant 8 Books, artworks, films, and podcasts have been done to explain, advocate and portray the crimes against women done in Ciudad Juárez. If the reader is interested in learning more about this city, the author recommends “The Red Note” miniseries by journalist Lydia Cacho (2020).

9 Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, or National Institute of Statistics and Geography.

10 From 2017 until 2018

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among younger users and shows that the older they are, the less fear they perceive (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.21). Another interesting discovery is that far from the belief that women have become accustomed to sexual violence against them, for most women who have been victims of at least one of the violent acts considered in the survey, all violent acts are considered severe (p.22).

Table 1: Percentage of women that have lived, at least one, a violent act.

ONU Mujeres (2018)

In summary, the results of the survey (table 1) reported that the main violent acts that more than half of the women who transit through public spaces and public transportation in the city throughout their lives live were: leanings on their bodies with sexual intentions, offensive or derogatory words about them or women, made them feel afraid of suffering a sexual attack or abuse, touched or grabbed their body without your consent, men looked morbidly at their body, and said obscene or offensive compliments of a sexual nature; from which the latter two were faced by more than 8 out of 10 women interviewed.

ONU Mujeres (2018) also stated that most of the said crimes in public space were perpetrated by men (9 out of 1). Nevertheless, what is striking is the familiarity with them.

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However, the perpetrators continue to be primarily unknown men (59.8%); a significant percentage of women identify that their aggressors were men they knew11 in the public space. The survey also inferred that, for crimes like rape, there is a possibility that men premeditate the aggression. Women said to spot men prowling certain areas and locating women in advance; this is the reason why women indicate that they had previously seen their aggressor in these spaces (p.27).

Though it is stated in this survey that more than half of aggressions were perpetrated by unknown men, 7.1% of the women also pointed to police officers, and 10.3% identified the public transport operators themselves for ‘saying obscene compliments’ (p.27). This may explain the lack of trust women feel towards authorities when aggression occurs; out of all the women surveyed, only 14.6% had filed a complaint or had gone to a competent authority to ask for support (p.32). Not only because they do not trust the authorities (20.3%), but because they did not know they could report (15.6%), did not consider it necessary (15.2%), or they did not have time to do so (15%). A frequent response is related to women’s lack of knowledge about where they can report or seek support (13% of them said they did not know where to go or how to do so) (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.32).

Equally important is to state where women feel unsafe. Rios (2021) describes that most attacks occurring on the street are mainly sexual (66.8%) and include whistling and inappropriate compliments, harassment, sexual abuse, rape, and attempted rape. The places most frequently mentioned by women in the survey of ONU Mujeres (2018) are the subway, the street, the bus, bus stops, micro-buses, cabs, combis12, and bridges or overpasses (p.29).

“It is unthinkable to fall asleep on the bus, no matter how long the commute is,” said Lucía Camacho, another member of the women’s group. “That is a man’s privilege.”

(Villegas & Malkin, 2019, for The New York Times).

Moreover, women were also asked when was the time where they felt more at risk.

Although the most frequent response was “at any time,” the time between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. contained a significant percentage of responses; however, the differences are not very large compared to other times (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.30). Women responding that they felt unsafe “at any time,” stated the ONU survey, only reinforces the notion that the problem of sexual violence in public spaces and public transportation is complex and multifactorial (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.30).

At last, when asked what were their safety measures when using public space, four stood out: a) try to be accompanied on transportation, b) do not go out at night or very early in the morning, c) try not to walk alone in the street, and d) wear loose or very covered clothing (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.34). Aside from whether these measures help women feel safer or effectively prevent aggressions, they undoubtedly restrain women’s freedom and their right to claim public space.

Most women defend themselves alone. They keep quiet, assume the costs in time and money involved in guaranteeing their safety, give up their autonomy by being accompanied by other people, not going out at certain times, or not dressing as 11 The survey remarks that by ‘known men’, women referred to men they usually encounter or that regularly see in those spaces, not that they were acquaintances, coworkers, partners, friends, family, or had any sort of relationship with.

12 “Combis” or “peseros” are small-sized concessioned collective public transports that transport people on a more local scale, or between neighborhoods, in Mexico City.

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they please for fear of provoking sexual harassment. All of the above represents an obstacle to exercising their rights (ONU Mujeres, 2018, p.39).

In general, Mexico City is among the states with the highest rates of community violence against women in the country (61.1%) (Ríos, 2021). These perceptions of fear and experiences are considered relevant since they do not only limit their freedom of movement and right to the city; but also their access to work and education opportunities, access to essential services, their participation in cultural and leisure activities, full participation in public life (Ibid, 2021), mobility, enjoyment of the city and autonomy (ONU Mujeres, 2018).

In other words, Segovia (2017) states that when women feel fear, they abandon public space, use the city’s offerings less frequently, and change their routes. Adding to the notion previously discussed, women tend to develop mental maps (Valentine, 1989; Ranade, 2007; Soto, 2012) and plans when occupying public space and streets to feel safer. Segovia (2017) also argues that women’s sense of insecurity is significantly linked to violence in the private sphere. Their subordinate status in patriarchal culture has influenced the way women relate to space (especially public space) and time.

Finally, while it is fair to state that Mexico City is highly unequal13 for all genders, ages, sexual orientation, social class, religions, and disabilities, the female gender tends to be more discriminated against in all its shapes and forms of corporalities. While fear is not a gendered sentiment, both men’s and women’s violence and fear are distinguishable (Sabaté, Rodríguez & Díaz, 1995: McDowell, 2000; as cited in Soto, 2012, p. 149) in a city like Mexico City.

4.4 Potential causes In her report on Mexico, Yakin Ertürk details the situation in the country as a complicated phenomenon of diffuse magnitude. In her study, she describes violence against women in the country as “the tip of an iceberg that hides more complex systemic problems under the surface”. Thus, Ertürk asserts that what is happening around this phenomenon can only be understood as part of a tangled social and political context, which combines entrenched gender inequality with a legal and governmental system, whose different levels (federal, state and municipal) do not demonstrate an effective response capacity around crimes of violence, including gender-based violence. (Ertürk, 2006, as cited in Cárdenas, 2011, p.20).

4.4.1 Cultural aspects

4.4.1.1 Machismo

The term ‘macho’ was firstly used in Mexican academia in 1934; it described macho as a being who is “violent, rude, irritable, dangerous, impulsive, boastful, superficial, distrustful, unstable and false” (Ramos, 1934, p.48; as cited in Rodríguez, 2013, p. 255). Nevertheless, academia was fundamentally European-based that sought to scientifically explain the differences of ‘race’ and class in Mexican society. Rodriguez (2013) argues that while 13 The Municipal Human Development Report illustrates this: the municipality with the highest Human Development Index (HDI) in Mexico City is very similar to that of Switzerland, while the lowest municipality is closer to the HDI of Colombia. Even within the same municipality there are strong contrasts, for example, in some areas, it is common to find high-income subdivisions next to low-income neighborhoods (Ríos, 2021). For further examples, the author recommends the work done by Jimeno, Tornabene & Jones (2020): An exploration into the creation and spatialization of urban inequality.

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Figure 7: Depict of machos in “lotería” Two cards of the traditional Mexican board game, one the left side the “brave”, and and the “drunk” on the right.

classifying Mexicans into three main classes (indigenous, criollos, and mestizos14), it enhanced and emphasized the differences between Europeans and Mexicans, as ‘whites vs. mestizos,’ ‘purity vs. dirt,’ ‘goodness vs. evil,’ ‘order vs. conflict,’ ‘peace vs. violence,’ ‘city vs. countryside,’ and so on (p. 255).

Though ‘machos’ was firstly used in academia in the ‘30s, it was already used during the 1910s during the Mexican Revolution. Rodríguez (2013) also argues that, during these years, the presence of corridos15, novels, and tales created a sense of pride for the surging National heroes. In short, for Mexicans, the ‘dirty’ and ‘vulgar’ mestizos were heroes (Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa); they encapsulated what men should be: brave, fearless, rough, protective, and nationalistic machos.

The term macho arises during the revolutionary events, more precisely between 1910 and 1915. However, its popularity is somewhat later. Since it will come with literature and, above all, with a nationalist-inspired cinema, which will stage an idyllic region, Jalisco, inhabited by horsemen, macho at the same time, brave and seductive: the charros (Machillot, 2013, p. 12; as cited in Rodríguez, 2013, p.252).

As already discussed, masculinized public space has created spatial distinctions and hierarchies in a space that should enhance activities to unite people. Knapp, Quiros & Muller16 (2009) point out that the spatial distinctions of ‘la Calle (the street) and ‘la casa’ (the home) are purely enhanced by strict gender roles. They argue that while men can leave home freely, whether for work or leisure, they are not required to ask for permission to be in the street (p.02). While women, on the other hand, are expected to be the homemakers and can be chastised if seen outside the home (“en la calle”) without a man. They also add that ‘la Calle represents men’s space: it implies freedom to work and even reprehensible behavior such as drinking and infidelity (Knapp, Quiros & Muller, 2009, p.02). In short, 14 The term ‘Indigineous’ was used to describe people that had native descent and lived in Mexico; ‘Criollos’ were attributed to people with Spanish descent that were born in Mexico, while ‘Mestizos’ were the mix between Spanish descent with indigenous people.

15 A ballad in a traditional Mexican style, typically having lyrics that narrate a historical event (Oxford Languages).

16 Although this research specifies the behavioral aspects of Mexican immigrants in the United States, these specific definitions of ‘la calle’ and ‘la casa’ are described through traditional roles in Mexico.

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they are expected to own ‘la Calle, most of the time with ultra-masculinized behavior: to be machos to claim their superiority.

Hence, machismo is the set of attitudes and collective assumptions that men are the breadwinners and protectors of the home, be it family or the nation. Machismo promotes and enhances behaviors to constantly prove men’s masculinity, even if this promotes violent and reckless actions towards oneself or someone else. Although machismo is perpetrated mainly by men, many women allow this behavior by promoting the gender roles in their daily lives; from mothers giving specific household chores to their daughters and sons to staying silent or allowing violent behaviors from men in their lives due to the normalcy of machismo in Mexican culture.

According to De la Morena (2020), machismo is similar to toxic masculinity, and it is the set of ideas and beliefs that support the notion that men are superior to women. It is different from sexism and misogyny, although such concepts align to oppress women. Machismo is when men assume a dominant role in society where they may show slight weakness and must protect the vulnerable, usually by exercising control over women (Ibid, 2020), and at the same time, claiming their ownership of women. Although some people have tried to enhance and promote this behavior with the rhetoric that ‘to be macho is to protect women’ (Lira, 2018), some men excuse themselves by saying: “I am a product of a macho culture, and that is why I hit my wife.” (Whittaker, 2019).

It is clear to state that in no way machismo serves as protection towards women. It is the complete opposite: it reinforces the idea of women as second-class citizens whose rights and opportunities are undermined in their households, in the streets, at school, or work (Lira, 2018). The same author implies that machismo also perpetuates relations based on power and reflects the inequalities in the social, political, and economic realm; thus, it imposes specific ways of acting and thinking, limiting female agency over their lives and bodies (Lira, 2018). Hence, it has directly paved the way for gender-based discrimination (IMIFAP, 2018; as cited in De la Morena, 2020).

Although macho culture allows men to justify their physical, psychological, and emotional abuse towards women (Whittaker, 2019), it also affects and stigmatizes men. The same author argues that stereotyping Mexican men as violent machos limits their ability to embody other, more empathetic, and caring kinds of masculinity. This particularly applies to poor, indigenous, and rural Mexican men, who are stereotyped as machos by other Mexicans (Ibid, 2019). Therefore, just as machismo restrains women from public space and many other opportunities and accessibility in the city, it also pressures and teaches men to behave aggressively while shaming them if they pursue any other activities or behavior seen as ‘feminine.’

4.4.1.2 Media

Films and telenovelas Along with the portrayal of mestizos17 as heroes in important novels18 of Mexican literature came the so-called ‘Golden Age’ for Mexican Cinema. During the 1940’s and the 1960’s, Mexico was a world power in the film industry, and the exacerbation of national heroes prevailed (Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Fernando Soler, Mauricio Garcés, Vicente 17 Refer to footnote 14 18 Rodríguez (2013) remarks important authors such as José Vasconcelos with his ‘La Raza Cósmica’, or Octavio Paz with his ‘El Laberinto de la Soledad’

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Fernández, etc.). The cinema portrayed what Machillot (2013) interprets as three kinds of machos: the noble and courageous, even sympathetic; the problematic, jealous, alcoholic and violent; and the party-goer and conqueror (Machillot, 2013; as cited in Rodríguez, 2013).

While also portraying women as homemakers, fragile, helpless, and ‘hard-to-get.’

Furthermore, the discussion of how ‘machos’ appeared in Mexican culture may lead to other approximations, but the media portrayal definitely promoted gender stereotypes and still has. Mexican telenovelas19 have depicted women in passive roles, victims of discrimination, violence, sexuality, and objectification (Pérez & Leal, 2017). While, in contrast, men are depicted as the protectors, independent and in public settings (Ganahl et al., 2003; as cited in Ibid, 2017). In addition, telenovelas tend to depict poverty and wealthiness in extreme ways, creating unrealistic, classist, misogynist, and racist scripts.

While the central concept of the telenovela is always ‘love,’ the woman’s role is generally related to being “rescued” from her reality (poverty) by a successful man (Pérez & Leal, 2017, p.172). Women protagonists are often portrayed with unrealistic and European body images, incapable of making mistakes, subordinate and passive, willing to risk everything for the sake of ‘love.’ It is for this reason that marriage is depicted at the end of the story in affluent sectors of the city (Ibid, p. 172). Leaving marriage as the only way for women to be happy.

Press coverage Another aspect to discuss is press coverage, mainly about crimes like femicides.

Commonly, the press utilizes these crimes not in a sensible or empathetic way but rather as sensationalist isolated events (Salazar & De la Garza, 2019). In addition, the specific coverage of femicides predominantly blames the victim and justifies the aggressor. At the same time, victims from more favorable socioeconomic backgrounds receive more coverage and fewer revictimization frames. In contrast, the femicides of African-American or less favored women were framed in narratives that justified the aggressor or alluded to broader contexts of criminality and violence (Ibid, 2019, p. 114).

I think everyone that reported Juarez in the ‘90s and early 2000s had to cover femicides. I remember my first body [...] It was at the back of the car that looked like it was from the 1970s, but it was from the ‘Judicial,’ the police. The photographers came before the police put the yellow tape around the body. I saw this girl, she had her face covered, and she was in her uniform. She was around 13. And they had her in the car because back in the day, the system or the police… did not work as they work today. They were not, I do not want to say professional, but like, they did not know how to cover a body. I was shocked at how young she was. (Lorena Figueroa, 2020, for The Red Note).

For instance, the femicide of Ingrid Escamilla in 2020 alluded to the approval of the “Ingrid Law,” which aims to: a) autonomously criminalize the conduct of persons or public servants who improperly disclose or disseminate images, videos, or recordings, as well as files or information from the investigation file; b) strengthen the protection of victims’ rights, and c) to combat gender violence in the media (Orden Jurídico, 2020).

19 Soap operas; in order to give an example of telenovelas, please refer to “María la del Barrio”, “Rubí” or “Destilando Amor”, which follow the typical scheme of portrayal of women in unrealistic scenarios described in this research.

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The “Ingrid Law” does not refer to the law as such but to a set of legislative reforms that protect people’s intimacy and privacy without media exposure. To protect the privacy and dignity of victims, their families, and their families, combat gender-based media violence and its normalization, sanctioning persons, public servants, and public servants who engage in such conduct (Orden Jurídico, 2020, on Ley Ingrid).

4.4.2 Narcotraffic and the involvement of the competent authorities While the link between narcotraffic and gender violence may not be directly comprehended, it undoubtedly has had and continues having an impact on the femicide crisis in Mexico. As De la Morena (2020) states, even though gender violence was already a problem in Mexico, the escalation of violence due to the Mexican Drug War increased gender violence to 236 percent in the past four years alone. Mexico’s societal structure demands that women seek protection from the people who perpetrate violence against them, such as their police force and the State (Ibid, 2020).

It is important to disclaim that though narcotraffic development is not a generic process, it does follow an order and scheme of violence similar in various states in Mexico. However, several efforts to reduce cartel-related violence happen; though they usually fail due to the involvement of local governments and authorities with narcotraffic (De la Morena, 2020) and high levels of impunity. As a way of explaining these lines of corruption, Ciudad Juarez has been, for years, a very well internationally studied case that links the relationship between narcotraffic and gender violence.

Ciudad Juárez case As previously discussed, countless women have been found dead and are claimed to be gone in Ciudad Juarez. Most of the women found dead had clear signs of rape and torture, whose characteristics are reminiscent of previous events carried out by military personnel who, in some cases, worked for the drug traffickers (Gallur, 2010, p. 606). Nevertheless, to comprehend why Ciudad Juárez has spiked and led with gender violence in Mexico, one must understand its context, mainly guided by two factors: The Juarez Cartel20 and NAFTA21.

Until the 1980s, after the DEA tried to close Colombian cartels’ most significant smuggling routes in the Caribbean and the South-eastern United States, said cartels made a deal with their counterparts in Mexico to move their product to the US to border cities like Tijuana and Juárez (Cacho, 2020). With this deal, Amado Carrillo Fuentes22 and his Colombian associates brought many dangerous people to the city. According to Diana Washington Valdez: “Juárez was an ideal spot to move narcotics to the US, because of its proximity to the city of El Paso,” making Juárez a vital drug trafficking center (Ibid, 2020).

According to Gallur (2010): The change of leader meant a new form of drug trafficking, as Carrillo Fuentes would buy everyone: politicians, police officers, street gang bosses (p.610), judges, and officials (Cacho, 2020). This deal meant blind loyalty to the cartel, as any attempt of abandonment or betrayal would be punished (Gallur, 2010, p.610).

20 ​​Cártel de Juárez, also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez.

21 North American Free Trade Agreement.

22 After leading the murder his former boss (Rafael Aguilar Guajardo) in 1993, Amado Carrillo Fuentes became the leader of the Juárez Cartel (Gallur, 2010; Cacho, 2020).

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“The practice of paying off the government or buying the authorities precedes Carrillo Fuentes; it is traditional in Mexico, except that with Carrillo Fuentes, it happened on a national level. And we saw that with the Federal Agents, with the Municipal Police.

Corruption predates Carrillo Fuentes; it is not exclusive to his time. He just gave it a specific dimension”. (Julián Cardona, for The Red Note, 2020) Thus, in the center of the cartel itself, another organization was created, another kind of cartel: La Línea, a group formed by municipal police, judicial police agents, assassins, and petty criminals (Gallur, 2010, p. 610). The same author stated that this group consisted of former federal police officers, former judicial police agents, and military personnel who were eliminating Carrillo Fuentes’ adversaries at any cost (i.e., illegal detentions, torture, executions) (Ibid, 2010).

In another entry, since the 1960s, hundreds of factories known as ‘Maquiladoras’23 were built in Juárez due to its proximity to El Paso. However, after the United States, Canada and Mexico ratified the NAFTA agreement in 1994, the construction of new factories in Juárez reached a fever pitch (Cacho, 2020). Juárez is home to 326 maquiladoras, which employ 300,000 people, according to Index Juárez, Asociación de Maquiladoras, A.C. (Chin & Schultz, 2020); it is believed that, until recently, women comprised about 80% of the Maquiladora workforce (Cacho, 2020).

By the time NAFTA was implemented, the structures that targeted women for violence were already well-established: For years, maquiladoras preferred to hire women since they were seen as more punctual and less problematic than men (Chin & Schultz, 2020). The target women for hire were single and young. Most of them were immigrants who had moved to Juárez in waves to become wage earners, sometimes facing long and dangerous commutes (Ibid, 2020), while also enduring a highly sexualized environment in many ‘Maquilas’ due to their male managers in charge (Cacho, 2020).

Due to the loose regulations, availability, and cheap force24, even girls of only 12 years were seen working in Maquiladoras (Cacho, 2020). In addition, Maquiladoras attracted a big wave of immigration; Juárez grew so quickly with the influx of workers that dense informal settlements sprang up on hillsides along the edges of the city; some of which still lack infrastructure today (Chin & Schultz, 2020).

“The economic model favored the exploitation of thousands of women,” Payan says. “Economic exploitation, weak government institutions and organized crime — trafficking corridors run through the border city — have created ‘a perfect storm’ in Juárez” (Chin & Schultz, 2020).

By 1993, when the murders of women began to be recorded periodically, and Amado Carrillo Fuentes had managed to take control of the organization, the disappearances and murders in masses began (Gallur, 2010). Early research found that many victims were young and economically disadvantaged; many worked for low wages in the city’s maquiladoras (Chin & Schultz, 2020). According to the Asociación de Amigos de Familiares y Desaparecidos,

23 Or ‘twin factories’ because they had a sister factory on the other side of the border, where parts were manufactured and assembled cheaply in Juárez, and shipped back to the US for distribution (Cacho, 2020).

24 Maquiladora jobs often pay minimum wage, which was just $4.50 per day as recently as 2017. (In January, it increased to $9.75 per day in border states.) To earn enough to get by, workers rely on bonuses given at the discretion of supervisors (Chin & Schultz, 2020).

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Figure 8: Geographical points of femicides in Ciudad Juárez.

The initiative “Ellas tienen nombre” (They have a name) sets this project, on which each red point represents a feminicide in the place it happened. When clicked, information of the victim appears.

Figure 9: Cross with pink sign “Ni Una Más” (Not One More) in the Paso del Norte International Bridge.

Erika Schultz, 2020

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between 1993 and 2003, the Juarez Cartel kidnapped some seven hundred people (Washington, 2005, pp.83-86; as cited in Gallur, 2010, p. 627).

Gallur (2010) implies that it is essential to: understand that the Juarez Cartel is the greatest economic power that exists in the border city, and therefore the greatest force of influence and political corruption, which means that any action that harms this organization, in whatever context, will be prevented by an extensive network of very powerful people who are within the economic and political sphere of the city, the state of Chihuahua and even the country itself (p.623).

In 1995, femicides were already perceived as a problem in society. Nevertheless, the victims’ families were denied any help from the correspondent authorities (Gallur, 2010). The direct involvement of the Juarez Cartel was covered by the sub-group “La Linea,” which was also in charge of debt collection, kidnappings, murders, and even covering up crimes committed by the drug traffickers (Gallur, 2010, p. 610).

“I know that if a police officer catches me with my gun, I’d give him the money and I’d be freed. There is a lot of corruption here” (A hitman of Tepito, interviewed by Isobel Yeung, 2020, for Vice News).

When national and international attention towards the lack of investigations began to pressure the authorities, they would fabricate culprits that perfectly fit the profile25 they had to give a sense of justice to civil society while preventing people from knowing who had committed the crimes (Gallur, 2010). The same author argues that there was a hierarchical pattern of all these officials working together to hinder and neglect the investigations, with the seriousness of the negligence being inversely proportional to the position held (p.613).

Everything was ideally studied to delay and, if necessary, paralyze the investigations into the murders, with all these officials acting as a chain, perfectly synchronized among themselves (Washington, 2005, pp. 295-296; as cited in Gallur, 2010, p. 613).

“Corruption reaches all law enforcement, including certain federal agents [...] The killers (of women) have even been identified by the state judicial police: several drug distributors. But since they were linked to the Juarez Cartel, the local police have stopped the investigation in its tracks.” (José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos; as cited in Gallur, 2010, p. 610).

Until this day, gender violence, femicides, and disappearances still happen in Ciudad Juárez; as in the national scale. It is no accident that the incidence of female homicides, in particular, is significantly higher in states with a more significant narco presence. (Garcia, 2021). According to SESNSP figures, the rate of violent deaths of women in Colima is double the national rate: 20.3 women are murdered daily. Chihuahua (14.1), Baja California (13.6), Guanajuato (12.3), and Guerrero (9.9) also have higher rates of violence caused by organized crime and confrontations with security forces (Ibid, 2021).

As Gallur (2020) concludes: corruption, negligence, drug trafficking, police, prostitution networks, sacrificial rites, mass rapes, multimillionaire business people and politicians, and an all-powerful cartel gives; as a result, a single and forceful word that summarizes what is happening in Ciudad Juarez: impunity (p. 630). It is worth remarking that even though the case of Juarez is unique in its context, one may infer that similar dynamics are sheltered by other states that lead to numbers in femicides and gender violence.

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of “problematic” and violent men, normally from vulnerable communities and foreigners.

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4.4.3 Indifference from the State While indifference from the government towards inequalities in general predates generations back, the current government is no different. President Andres Manuel López Obrador has obsessively blamed violence against women (and many other current issues) on the neoliberal policies of his right-wing predecessors while also diminishing the current numbers on gender violence because ‘he has another data.’ Under his presidency, the CONAVIM26 was notified of a 37.5 million cut affecting gender violence alert program in Jalisco, Mexico State, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Veracruz, Zacatecas and Puebla (Yeung, 2020).

“Women in Mexico have never been as protected as they are now. In Mexico, human rights are not violated. There are no massacres in Mexico. [...] There’s no budget cut.

In Mexico, as never before, there’s a permanent fight against corruption and impunity.

We don’t protect criminals” (Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 2020)27.

In 2018, Mexico’s systemic impunity rate reached an astounding 93 percent of unreported nor investigated crimes, and investigation and prosecution of femicides follow that trend (Sandin, 2020). The same author argues that given the underreporting of femicides and some states still do not distinguish them as separate crimes from homicide, the number of femicides in Mexico may be significantly higher.

By large, authorities blamed the victims for their own abduction and murder: “they were out late wearing god knows what, probably up to no good. What did they expect to happen to them?”. Female reporters began to talk not only about the lack of empathy among the police chiefs, but how they clearly despised the life and dignity of these women and girls. (Cacho, 2020, for The Red Note).

For instance, in the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Safety (2019), mexicans, in general, trust in the Marine (57,3%) and the Army (51,8%) the most, while mistrusting Ministerial or Juridical Police (14,3%), Preventive or Municipal Police (9,7%) and Transit Police (8,8%) the most.

Among the most controversial claims that downplay the problem of violence against women made by the president are: that “90% of calls to domestic abuse hotlines are fake”, and a campaign that advised men who feel angry to breathe deep and ‘count to 10’ (Marquez, 2020). Nevertheless, in March, his administration unveiled a comprehensive plan to protect Mexican women, promised to fund domestic violence shelters and daycare facilities that were shuttered due to budget cuts last year, and launched a smartphone app to report street harassment (Ibid, 2020).

The analysis of the causes of violence in Mexico reported by the Rapporteur, reveals that “high levels of violence against women are both a consequence and symptom of gender-based generalization and inequality. Added to this is discrimination based on national origin, ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status, which is evidence of the different levels of protection provided to the population by the State. In this context, migrant women, those in poverty and belonging to indigenous groups, are those who are in a situation of greater vulnerability to violence. (Ertürk, 2006, as cited in Cárdenas, 2011, p.20).

26 Comisión Nacional para Prevenir y Erradicar la Violencia, or National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence 27 Abstract taken from his daily morning conferences, the 14th of July of 2020.

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Although, García (2020) argues that policies implemented to eradicate gender violence have been, and still are, insufficient due to the emergence of generalized violence and the incessant wave of these aggressions against women and girls in Mexico. However, some women say that rather than new policies, the government should implement existent protections and pressure the media to re-examine their coverage of these issues (Cheatham, 2020).

4.5 Protests The history of women protests in Mexico for their rights can be dated back to the agitated end of the 1910s with the mobilization for women’s suffrage in Yucatan; following this was the Frente Único Pro Derechos de la Mujer28 (Soto, 2021), for which famous figures like Frida Kahlo were members. In its beginnings, it prioritized the rights of peasant women workers. However, its primary orientation was the struggle for suffrage, which managed to establish itself in Mexico until 1953, late concerning other countries in the region (Cano, 2018; as cited in Soto, 2021).

In the ‘60s, frustration with machismo was reflected in La Revuelta, the first female-run feminist newspaper in Mexico: “The issue of women’s oppression is considered a secondary, subordinate problem that ‘will be resolved after the social change. [Our] movement arose from the disenchantment, the dissatisfaction, the frustration that we, as women, experience in the isolation of everyday life. [From this] emerges the need to unite with other women, at first perhaps as pure instinct” (De la Morena, 2020).

Furthermore, within and after the student movements of 1968 came more waves of feminist protests that elonged for women’s rights and the eradication of gender violence; these movements extended until the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995 (Cano, 2020; as cited in Soto, 2021).

Regarding the contemporary feminist protests that have gathered thousands of women to condemn the lack of security, investigations and human rights violations in Mexico can be traced and match on a continental scale. In 2015 the massive mobilizations of #NiUnaMenos in Argentina, the Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the creation of the #Metoo movement that same year, and the massive demonstrations of March 8, 2018, in different countries (Soto, 2021), evoked the sentiment of Mexican women to take to the streets.

After the reported rape of a teenage girl by a group of police officers north of Mexico City, protesters rallied in Mexico City in the so-called “glitter revolution”29 (Sandin, 2020); after that, several protests began to happen, gathering hundreds and then thousands of women extending until August 16 of 2019. A significant protest of around 3,000 women took place in Mexico City’s busiest streets and squares; many important monuments and infrastructure were graffitied with phrases that remain iconic and recurrent (Figure 8). Meanwhile, some media and social networks condemned the “vandalism” of the Metrobus station, the police station, and the graffiti on the Ángel de la Independencia (Lozano, 2020).

28 United Front for Women’s Rights 29 The movement earned its name after protesters showered Mexico City’s security chief with pink glitter during their inaugural demonstration on 12 August of 2019 (Phillips, 2019, for The Guardian).

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Figure 10:Protests 8M Top image is the upview of the women’s protest 8M in the Plaza de la República, the 8th of March of 2020 (Santiago Arau, 2020).

Down image is the Ángel of Independencia after the protest of August 2019 (Santiago Arau, 2019).

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Months later, the brutal femicides of Ingrid Escamilla and Fatima Aldrighetti catalyzed major demonstrations in Mexico (Sandin, 2020). These cases prompted dozens of protesters to go to the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, where they splashed red paint and graffiti on the main door (Ibid, 2020). Then, a national demonstration on March 8 in honor of International Women’s Day drew thousands of protesters, while tens of thousands of women took part in a nationwide walkout, disappearing for 24 hours from their schools and jobs as part of the movement known as #UnDíaSinNosotras (“a day without us”) (Ibid, 2020).

The national demonstration is now known as 8M (March 8). It has occurred throughout the whole country during these past two years, demanding the prioritization of the femicide crisis in Mexico, while other issues regarding gender violence. Although this movement has been highly criticized not only by authorities but also by society due to the ‘vandalized’ monuments, it has helped recognize such issues. Eventually, Claudia Sheinbaum’s30 office and the AMLO administration agreed to prioritize femicide and gender-based crimes, and Mexico City and 19 Mexican states declared a gender violence alert (Sandin, 2020).

Finally, it is also important to remark that although this movement is relatively new, it has been highly centralized in the biggest and most important squares of Mexico City. Within the periphery of Mexico City, in other words, the nearby Municipalities of the State of Mexico come from municipalities with numbers of femicides and gender violence as big as Ciudad Juárez.

It always happens when there is a mobilization or a demonstration; the photos of the following day, the videos we see on television, are of the Paseo de la Reforma, the Zócalo, Juárez Avenue as if it were the only place where protests take place. It seems to indicate that only in Mexico City are women violated. (Guerrero, 2021, for Así Como Suena).

In the periphery, security conditions change; for instance, from 2005 to 2010, 922 cases of homicides with feminicidal characteristics were registered in the State of Mexico (CMDPDH31, n.d). Ecatepec32, one of the neighboring municipalities and part of the periphery, has one of the highest femicide rates in the country (Bautista, 2019). It was once considered the femicide capital of Mexico (Ibid, 2019).

“Here [Ixtapaluca] violence is still normalized, and all the mobilizations take place in Mexico City, and it seems that only in Mexico City is where women fight, where they can protest. [...] They forget the peripheries and most women have to move to Mexico City to study, to work and everywhere is unsafe for us”. (Luna, member of the feminist collective “Libertad Morada”).

The CMDPDH also reported that in 2015 the National System for the Prevention, Attention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women finally decided to Declare a Gender Alert for 11 of the 125 municipalities in the State of Mexico: Ecatepec de Morelos, Nezahualcóyotl, Tlalnepantla de Baz, Toluca, Chimalhuacán, Naucalpan de Juárez, Tultitlán, Ixtapaluca, Valle de Chalco Solidaridad, Cuautitlán Izcalli and Chalco of the State of Mexico.

30 Mexico City’s mayor 31 Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, or Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights 32 Ecatepec is located at the northeast of Mexico City, it is one of the Municipalities of the State of Mexico, and it is a city of sprawling slums that’s the ninth largest in North America (Bautista, 2019)

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In conclusion, it is necessary to understand that today’s public space in Mexico is highly hostile towards women. This issue does not seem to be recognized; in fact, it seems to be undermined by the correspondent authorities. According to Marquez (2020), domestic violence spiked in Mexico during coronavirus-related lockdown; the national network of women’s shelter calls for help were up 60% in April. The pandemic has highlighted economic and social inequalities, pointing, in many cases, to the lack of health infrastructure or communication campaigns in some regions (Yáñez, Cymorek, Kruspel & Del Villar, 2020).

Some authors may find the cause of gender violence in Mexico as far as ‘La Conquista’ (De la Morena, 2020) or during the Spanish colonization. Some others argue it may come from the customary norms, lack of protection from the State, lack of social and political recognition of women, the relationship between poverty, crime rates and impunity, as factors that increase the possibility that indigenous women are exposed to violence. (Ertürk, 2006, as cited in Cárdenas, 2011, pp.21-22).

Finally, there is no particular reason or explanation. In fact, as De la Morena (2020) argues: a diversity of factors have built upon one another. Moreover, while indeed the cultural aspects, such as machismo and media portrayal, play a significant role in gender inequalities, the high rates of impunity in crimes, narcotraffic presence, corrupted authorities, poverty, wage gaps, and lack of gender-based policies are vital aspects for women’s oppression.

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Figure 11:Alameda Central, Mexico City

5. Analysis The methodologies used for this research are a quantitative, qualitative, and spatial analysis while enhancing two major scales, a state analysis (Mexico City) and a municipal analysis (Gustavo A. Madero).

In short words, the quantitative methodology seeks to cover the perception of public space safety in Mexico City via surveys. The qualitative methodology seeks to deepen and collect more specific information in one-to-one interviews in a more enclosed area, such as the Municipality of Gustavo A. Madero.

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5.1 Methodology framework

World Map

5.1.1 Quantitative methodology 5.1.1.1 General Data Surface: 1,494.3 km²; it represents 0.1% of the country’s surface (INEGI, 2020).

Density: 6,163.3 hab/km² Location: South-central Mexico.

Estados Unidos Mexicanos (México)

Borderline: It limits to the north, east, and west with the State of Mexico; and to the south with the state of Morelos.

Divisions: Mexico City is divided into 16 territorial demarcations (Figure 9).

Population1 in Mexico City: 9,209,944

Mexico City

Gustavo A. Madero 1,173,351

Azcapotzalco

Females: 4,805,017

432,305 Miguel Hidalgo

Males: 4,404,927

434,153

414,470 Benito Juárez Coyoacán 614,447 Álvaro Obregón 759,137

Cuauhtémoc 545,884 Venustiano Carranza 443,704 Iztacalco 404,695 Iztapalapa 1,835,486 Tláhuac

Cuajimalpa 217,686 Magdalena Contreras 247,622

1 Data collected from the National Census done in 2020

by INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, or National Institute of Statistics and Geography).

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Tlalpan 699,928

Source: INEGI, Population and Housing Census, 2020

Figure 12: Mexico City’s location and general information

392,313 Xochimilco 442,178

Milpa Alta 152,685 <500,000 >=500,0001,000,000 >=1,000,0001,500,000 >=1,500,000

5.1.1.2 Sampling Technique: Surveys The chosen method was a simple random sampling technique of surveys with 20 designed questions for the quantitative analysis. The survey was implemented via the Internet (Google Forms) in the Spanish language. The aim was to identify the aspects and places that bring fear to people that identify as women in public spaces in Mexico City.

In the first part of the survey, some personal data is asked: age, gender identification, occupation, and location of the city where they live.

In the second part of the survey, questions were asked to determine where spatially women felt more unsafe within the city. These questions were then categorized as “tangible” and “intangible.” For example, question no. 6 is: “What area (or areas) of the city do you consider dangerous, even if you have not experienced any harassment?” responses such as “I feel unsafe everywhere,” or “mostly in transportation” are thus categorized as intangible, whereas responses that specify a neighborhood, street or place are categorized as tangible.

Then, women were asked how safe they felt within the city, what kind of violence they had experienced in public space, and its frequency. Some of these questions were left open for a better understanding of their perception.

In the fourth part, questions regarding precautionary measures, risk factors, and what physical elements in public space bring fear were made. Such questions were designed to know any behavioral differences between genders and the differences between them.

Finally, women were asked their opinions on what they feel could eradicate gender violence in public space and what they would like to do if they felt safe.

5.1.1.3 Sample Size2 The following equation calculated the survey: n = N / (1 + Ne²) Here, “n” is equal to the number of needed samples; “N” is the total population which is being researched, which in this case is the total number of females in Mexico City (4,805,017); and “e” is tolerance (level).

Bajwa, Khan & Nadeem (2019) state that researchers have used a confidence interval of 95 % for better accuracy, which will give a margin error of 0.05:

So, for instance “e”= 100 % − 95 % = 5 % = 0.05 n = 4,805,017/ 1 + 4,805,017 (0.05)² n = 4,805,017/ 12,013.54 n = 399.96 ≈ 400 Hence, the sample size reduces to 400 participants, which aims to get responses from people who identify as women residing in the 16 municipalities, from different ages, occupations, and gender identities. The responses were evaluated by percentages, tag clouds, and mappings.

2 This design of the implementation of the surveys was influenced by the study made by Bajwa, Khan & Nadeem in Lahore in 2019; for further information see reference in bibliography.

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5.2.1 Qualitative methodology

Mexico City

5.2.1.1 General Data Surface: 88.169 km²; it occupies 5.9% of the state’s surface.

Density: 13,307.97 hab/km² Location: North Borderline: It is bordered to the north and east by the State of Mexico (Tlalnepantla and Ecatepec); to the south by the Venustiano Carranza and Cuauhtémoc Municipalities; to the west by the Azcapotzalco Municipality and the State of Mexico (Tlalnepantla and Ecatepec); to the south by the Azcapotzalco municipality and the State of Mexico (Tlalnepantla).

05

10 2.5

KM

Gustavo A. Madero

Gustavo A. Madero has 225 neighborhoods.

Total Population3: 1,173,351 Females 609,477

State of Mexico

Males 563,874

3 Data collected from the National Census done in 2020

by INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, or National Institute of Statistics and Geography).

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Legend

Territorial limit with the State of Mexico Territorial limit with other Municipalities within Mexico City

00

.501

1.50 KM

Gustavo A. Madero is one of the 16 Municipalities of Mexico City. This Municipality has been historically known for the pilgrimages that have taken place since pre-colonial times. Its name comes in honor of the brother of the former president Francisco I. Madero, however, this territory was formerly known as “Villa de Guadalupe” and “Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo.”

With 20 million visitors each year (Carey, 2017), GAM’s4 most famous landmark is undoubtedly the Basilica De Guadalupe. This territory, known as “Villa de Guadalupe5”, has long been a sacred place for Mexicans since it is believed that the appearance6 of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Juan Diego took place here. Another landmark is the Zoo and Forest of San Juan de Aragón and the Tianguis of San Felipe, the largest market in Latin America (MXCity, n.d). Though the International Airport of Mexico City is not in this Municipality, it borders some neighborhoods of GAM. Therefore, this Municipality’s influx of tourists and people, in general, has to be noticed.

In another entry, Gustavo A. Madero’s index of delinquency has significantly arisen within ten years. In 2016, the Municipality ranked 17th place among the 100 most violent municipalities in the country (Legislative Assembly of the Federal District, 2016), while also ranking among the twenty municipalities with the highest number of alleged murders of women in 2010 (Ibid, 2016). Other severe crimes with high rankings in the Municipality include kidnapping, retail drug trafficking, homicide, extortion, and vehicular theft (Ibid, 2016).

5.1.2.2 Sampling Technique: Interviews For the qualitative analysis, the chosen method was one-to-one interviews with 31 designed questions. The interviews were implemented through zoom in the Spanish language. The aim was to have a more sensitive environment while asking in-depth questions regarding safety in public spaces. Each interview had a time frame of 40 minutes to one hour to gather experiences and more specific information from people who were willing to share their opinions, experiences, and perception.

The questions asked were similar to the ones asked in the survey. Nevertheless, this interview was parted into three sections: personal information, perception of safety in the Municipality of Gustavo A. Madero, and perception of safety in Mexico City.

In the first part of the interview, the age, gender identification, occupation, and location of the Municipality where they live (or have lived) were asked. Then, in the second part of the interview, questions regarding their perception of safety were asked, for example, if they feel safe in the Municipality and neighborhood, which public spaces within GAM they use more and feel more dangerous and the safest, what experiences on harassment they have had and what factors of risk they feel are crucial to being harassed. Also, they were asked if they knew about any programs of prevention and action that the Municipality has taken against gender violence in general.

4 “GAM” is an acronym used for Gustavo A. Madero 5 Today “Villa de Guadalupe” is the entire complex where all the Cathedrals, churches and places dedicated towards the Virgin of Guadalupe are.

6 The importance of the Virgin of Guadalupe for catholic Mexicans needs to be understood from its context. When this was believed to happen, Mexico was under Spanish conquest, and therefore, any other religion other than Catholicism was highly punished. The appearance of an indigenous dark-skinned virgin, talking the language of Juan Diego (an indigenous man), is taken as the first step towards Catholicism in colonial Mexico.

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Finally, they were asked similar questions but, this time, within Mexico City. They were also asked if they felt time, gender identification, or age were factors for getting harassed. Also, if they have denounced any sort of violence to the competent authorities, and what measures they take to feel safer in public space. The interview ended with their opinion of whether gender violence threatens women’s freedom and what they would like to do if they felt safe in public space.

The decision of interviewing people from Gustavo A. Madero was taken for mainly two reasons: high rates of gender violence and the availability of participants. At first hand, the factors of violence in this Municipality were one of the reasons why it was decided to focus qualitatively on the perception of gender violence for this research. Even though this Municipality is not categorized as the most dangerous or with the highest rates of violence, it is part of the list. Another important reason is its proximity to the municipalities of the State of Mexico, like Ecatepec and Nezahualcóyotl, which lead the list of the most dangerous places for women in Mexico.

5.1.2.3 Sampling Size For instance, the availability and resources of participants were inherently vital for this research. In order to conduct in-depth interviews, the number of participants was determined by the following factors.

The participant shall: 1) have time to be interviewed for at least 40 minutes, 2) have the infrastructure to connect via zoom, 3) have been harassed in public space, 4) have a willingness to share their experiences within the Municipality of Gustavo A. Madero.

Other circumstances that determined the number of participants were: choosing participants who match the audience specifications and background relevance (Shetty, n.d) expressed in the research goals, the diversity of the group and representation of corporalities from the surveys, the complexity of the questions asked and answers, and the resources7 to do the interviews.

Said this, 10 participants8 met said specifications: all of the participants have lived or currently live in the Municipality of Gustavo A. Madero. All of them differentiate from age, occupation, background, and identified as women9.

7 Refer to the limitations of this research.

8 The identities of the participants are anonymous. To read one of the interviews refer to the appendix of this thesis.

9 All interviewees identified themselves as cisgender.

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5.2 Assumptions

Within the framework constructed in the narrative that Mexico, as a country, has failed and continues diminishing the crisis of gender violence, my assumption of what makes public space unsafe for women in Mexico City are several factors: 1. Law enforcement and gender-based policies: One of the factors of high gender violence (in general) are the impunity rates of crimes like femicide, harassment, physical and mental aggression, and domestic violence. Another factor is not the lack of policies, laws, and bills to protect women but their poor enhancement.

2. Lack of gender-designed urban spaces: While it is true that public spaces may enhance fear to any gender or person, it is also true that the use of certain materials, vegetation, lack of infrastructure, and other physical factors are perceived as factors of risk for crimes like rape, sexual and physical assault and femicides. Crimes, most feared by people that identify as women.

3. Cultural and social aspects: as explained before, several cultural and social factors enhance gender violence. Such as machismo, lack of representation of women in the media as independent beings, religious and conservative views on what is morally and behavioral correct, and the scarce monuments and streets named upon women play a somehow “invisible”, abstract but vital role in how people behave in public spaces.

4. Mistrust in the government and authorities: Government authorities have often discarded or pronounced concrete plans to fight or eradicate gender violence, creating mistrust towards the State. At the same time, cases where police are the perpetrators of crimes like rape or harassment, have reached the public eye within the past years.

Misinformation on what gender violence is: although many women now may be informed and empowered to denounce gender violence, many others do not know they can do it or how to do it.

5. Involvement of the State with narcotraffic: While this particular factor may be the central issue in other states, it has been discussed how the involvement of the State with crimes perpetrated by narcotraffic directly involves the impunity of femicides, human trafficking, and disappearances.

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Figure 13:Public space in Mexico City

6. Results The following chapter describes the survey results of 460 participants, collected from the 26th of July to the 6th of August. And the compilation of the interviews of 10 women in Gustavo A. Madero from the 25th of July until the 31st of July.

The results will be shown in the following categories: - Profile of the participants - Gender violence experiences in public space - Perception of violence of public space actions towards gender violence - Desires of the participants

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6.1 Profile of the participants 6.1.1 Age group Almost 75% of the survey participants responded to be between 20-29 (41,3%) and 30-39 (31,4%). The left quarter of the participants responded to be between 40-49 (10,3%), 50-59 (8,5%), 10-19 (7,2%) and more than 60 years old (1,3%) (Figure 14). In the interviews, 40% were between 20-29 years old, two (20%) women were between 30-39, the other two were between 40-49, and the last two were 50-59 years old (Table 2).

Figure 14: Age group 50-59 8,5% 60+ 1,3% 10-19 7,2% 40-49 10,3%

20-29 41,3%

Table 2: Interviewees’ profiles

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30-39 31,4%

6.1.2 Gender Identity When asked in the survey: “Do you identify as cisgender or transgender?” 96,6% of responses responded as cisgender, 1,3% as transgender (6 responses) and 0,9% as nonbinary (4 responses) , while 5 persons (1,1%) decided to not answer (Figure 15).

Such answers were gathered due to an open option below the two options. It was also necessary to explain both terms, and some responses that expressed unease, confusion, and discomfort were also gathered (for example: “I hate to be labeled,” “I have never heard of these terms, I am a woman, and I am happy,” or “There should be more options, not only these two”). At the same time, all the interviewees claimed to be cisgender regarding their sexual orientation. Just as in the surveys, most of them did not know the terminologies.

Figure 15: Gender Identity Transgender 1,3% No Answer 1,1%

Non-binary 0,9%

Cis-gender 96,6%

6.1.3 Occupation Most of the survey participants claimed to be professionals (38,8%); in other words, they have finished some degree and work within their fields. The second occupation most chosen was students (26,6%), then employees (18,6%) and independent workers (8,5%). 7% of respondents claimed to be housewives or homemakers, while 0,9% are unemployed (Figure 16). Whereas in the interviews, their occupations were better explained. Half of them claim to be housewives or homemakers at this moment, but three of them have finished university or have a technical degree. Two of them are bachelor students, and the other three are currently employed. One of them is a psychologist, another a swimming trainee, and the last did not specify but rectified that she is employed (Table 2).

Figure 16: Occupation Independent worker 8,5% Unemployed 0,9%

Employee (with degree) 38,8%

Student 26,2%

Employee (without degree) 18,6% Homemaker 7,0%

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6.1.4 Municipality of residence This survey was applied via the Internet (Google Forms); the author shared the survey with various sources, specifying that the case study was Mexico City. Nevertheless (and fortunately), the link reached the State of Mexico (7,0%), which comprises substantial importance to the Region. Most of the participants stated to live in Gustavo A. Madero (15,9%), then Benito Juárez (10,1%), Iztapalapa (8,7%), Álvaro Obregón (7,8%), Cuauhtémoc (7,6%), Coyoacán (5,8%), Azcapotzalco (5,6%), Miguel Hidalgo (5,4%), Tlalpan (5,4%), Iztacalco (4,5%), Venustiano Carranza (4,3%), Xochimilco (3,4%), Magdalena Contreras (2,5%), Tláhuac (2,0%), and Cuajimalpa (1,1%). There were no responses for Milpa Alta.

As for State of Mexico (7.0%), many people only stated to live in the state (29,0%), following Nezahualcóyotl (22,6%), Naucalpan de Juárez (9,7%), Ixtapaluca (6,5%), Huixquilucan de Degollado (6,5%), and Tultitlán de Mariano Escobedo, Tlalnepantla de Baz, Texcoco, Tecámac, Atizapán de Zaragoza, Chimalhuacán, Coacalco de Berriozábal and Ecatepec de Morelos with 3.2% each. People from other states of the country (2,9%) claimed to be from Xalapa (Veracruz), Monterrey (Nuevo León), Morelia (Michoacán), Pachuca de Soto (Hidalgo), Jiutepec (Morelos) and Oaxaca (Figure 17).

In another entry, the interviewees claimed to live in Gustavo A. Madero, except for two, who have lived in the Municipality but currently reside in Nezahualcóyotl (State of Mexico).

Three of the interviewees live in the south-east side of the Municipality, in the neighborhood “Cuchilla del Tesoro,” other three live in “Los Olivos” in the center-east; one interviewee lives in “Héroes de Chapultepec,” near “Los Olivos,” and the last interviewee claimed to live in “Gertrudis Sánchez,” also in the center-east of the Municipality (Figure 24).

Figure 17: Municipality of residence Gustavo A. Madero 15.9% Azcapotzalco 5.6% Miguel Hidalgo 5.4% Benito Juárez 10.1% Coyoacán 5.8% Álvaro Obregón 7.8%

Cuauhtémoc 7.6% Venustiano Carranza 4.3% Iztacalco 4.5% Iztapalapa 8.7%

Atizapán, Chimalhuacán, Coacalco, Ecatepec, Huixquilucan, Tecámac, Texcoco, 3.2% each Huixquilucan 6.5% Ixtapaluca 6.5% Naucalpan 9.7%

Tláhuac Cuajimalpa 1.1% Magdalena Contreras 2.5% Tlalpan 5.4% Other states 2.9%

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2.0% Xochimilco 3.4%

Nezahualcóyotl 22.6%

Milpa Alta N/A State of Mexico 7.0%

Without specific answer 29.0%

6.2 Experiences of gender violence in public space in Mexico City 6.2.1 Have you experienced any sort of aggression in public space in Mexico City?

When asking if the participants have experienced any gender violence in Mexico City, 96,6% responded they had, while 3,4% of respondents said they had not (Figure 18).

On the other hand, nine of the interviewees claimed to have experienced harassment in Mexico City, and six of them within the Municipality of Gustavo A. Madero.

6.2.2 What sorts of aggressions have you experienced in public space?

Out of these 96,6% responses, the main experienced aggressions were: morbid or threatening stares (82.8%) and uncalled compliments (82,5%), and inappropriate physical contact (72,8%).

In public transportation there have been several occasions when they grab my buttock and I don’t have time to react because that’s when I’m getting off. Or I’m walking and they whisper vulgar words to me. Or I’m walking and they yell at me about things in the street (C.S, Student).

Other aggressions documented “masturbation in front of me” (39,9%) and genitalia exhibition (37,1%). These aggressions were more bound to happen in public transportation. Women also said that they were followed (35,9%), that photographs of them were taken without consent (26,6%), had experienced physical violence (6,4%), been raped (2,5%), kidnapped (1,1%), and attempted to be raped (0,4%) (Figure 19).

Yes, on some occasions. Just when I was coming from high school. This one, it occured me on the bus I was taking from there to the school in my neighborhood. A boy or a man, I don’t know what he was, he touched me... I was very close to the side of the aisle and I felt that he was sticking and sticking to me and I felt, like, wet. Then, it occurred to me... I was already close to the lady, and I turned to look and the guy had his penis out and it was rubbing my shoulder (A.R, Employee).

Well, once when I was coming from my social service and I was walking down the avenue to get here to my house, a man on a bicycle passed by and spanked me, he harassed me. And well, also before, when we went out to play or something like that, a man would pass by and he would get naked and show us everything (I.N, Employee).

6.2.3 In what sort of public space have you experienced any sort of aggression?

Women were asked where they have experienced such kinds of harassment and violence, and the most answered place was in the streets or sidewalks (86,7%), followed by public transportation (77,4%) and parks (41,9%). The participants have also experienced gender violence in markets (28%), plazas1 (22,9%), private leisure spaces (2,5%) such as the cinema, restaurants or concerts, work (1,8%), and school (1,8%) (Figure 20).

6.2.4 Have you denounced to the correspondent authorities any aggression that has happened to you?

Despite the high percentage of women that have experienced aggressions in public space, only 13,7% have stated that they have denounced the aggression to the correspondent authority (Figure 21). Nine interviewees also stated that they have not reported any 1

Plazas are known as “squares”, although sometimes they are used to refer to shopping malls.

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Figure 18: Have you experienced any type of harassment or violence in Mexico City?

School 1,8% (8 responses)

No 3,4%

Work 1,8% (8 responses) Private leisure spaces 2,5% (11 responses) Plazas 22,9% (99 responses)

Markets 28,0% (121 responses)

Yes 96,6%

Parks 41,9% (181 responses)

Figure 19: If you answered “yes” to the previous question, what type of harassment have you experienced*?

Morbid / threatening stares 82,8% (376 responses)

Public transportation stations

Uncalled compliments 82,5% (356 responses)

Inappropriate physical contact 72,8% (314 responses) Masturbation in front of you 39,6% (171 responses) Genitalia exhibition 37,1% (160 responses) Being followed 35,9% (155 responses) Fotographies without consent 26,6% (115 responses)

Physical violence 6,4% (28 responses)

Rape 2,5% (11 responses)

* Percentages do not show a 100% sum since participants could choose multiple options.

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Kidnapping 1,1% (5 responses) Attempt of rape 0,4% (2 responses)

Figure 20: In what type of public space have you experienced any type of violence?*

77,4% (334 responses)

Public transportation 83,0% (358 responses)

Streets / Sidewalks 86,7% (374 responses)

aggression but would if they experience violence again. Most of them stated that they had changed their minds regarding denunciation since “today this issue is more known and talked about”; nevertheless, some interviewees also seemed skeptical and distrusted the correspondent authorities.

Yes, I think that a very important situation has to happen for me to receive harassment and identify the person, and not report it. I mean, I think I would try to find a way to make time to go to the Ministry, because, for the same reason they are very long procedures that involve being there all day long, so, it is like having to cancel everything I have to do, because if I am in the subway it is because I am going somewhere to do something. So, it has to be something very important so that I don’t go to file a complaint (C.S, Student).

Yes, I would, but I would honestly analyze who would listen to me. Because, the reality is that, then they [authorities] say that you are the guilty party, so, I would have to first talk to a friend who is a lawyer, or who is in that field, to say what or how I have to do it; because I feel that there is a lot of corruption and too much... eh, how do you say this? That they don’t believe you, and that apart from that they blame you (A.T, Housewife).

Yes, I would now. Not before because before I was afraid, in my case, I didn’t know what to do. But now that the issue is more open, yes, I would (I.N, Employee).

Although most women interviewed agreed that they would report any crime, none of them were completely aware of what precautionary and action plan the Municipality had taken.

Many of them said that they were aware of panic buttons near their homes or surveillance cameras. Nevertheless, they also stated that none of these made them feel safer since they did not work correctly.

Figure 21: Have you reported to the corresponding authorities any type of gender violence in public space that has happened to you?

Yes 13,7%

No 86,3%

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6.3 Perception of gender violence in public space in Mexico City 6.3.1 How safe is Mexico City?

Participants were asked whether they felt Mexico City is a safe space for people that identify as women, and while 52% answered that they disagree, 39,9% strongly disagreed. Only 6,7% agreed, and 1,3% strongly agreed. These numbers make up to almost 9 out of 10 women feeling unsafe or very unsafe in Mexico City (Figure 22). At the same time, amongst the ten interviewees, nine responded to feel unsafe or very unsafe in the Municipality of Gustavo A. Madero.

Figure 22: Do you consider Mexico City a safe territory for women?

Agree 6,7% Strongly agree 1,3%

Strongly disagree 39.9%

Disagree 52.0%

At least around here [Gustavo A. Madero] there are a lot of vandals, homeless people who just go around seeing what they do or don’t do and just do nothing. And, the fact of just being there is a matter of being afraid, because it is fear. But no, I don’t consider the municipality safe at all (L.M, Housewife).

I think the level of education is, like, very important. And in that Municipality there are almost no people, I mean, that study up to a university degree, so to speak. So, they are people who are dedicated to harassing, like, not respecting women. So, nowhere in that place do I feel safe, no, I don’t think I can go out with the confidence that nothing will happen to me. Both in terms of harassment and safety (C.S, Student).

Well, I think that, hmm, the lack of security, the complicity of the authorities in the sense that it is there, there are people who commit crimes and they do nothing.

The spaces are also unsafe; I do not know what the Municipality should do for the neighborhoods, I am referring to maintaining public illumination, enhance security.

There are modules for security but they are not taken care of, so I think that, well, this contributes to a great insecurity (G.G, Housewife).

6.3.2 Where in the city do you feel unsafe?

For question six, participants were asked, as an open question, which place they felt unsafe, and responses varied greatly from municipalities, vague areas, and specific neighborhoods, and perception of places that inspired fear to them. For instance, a way of dividing the answers was to put them as ‘tangible’ answers and ‘intangible’. The tangible places are more specific physical places and points that women avoid or are more afraid of, whereas intangible places do not have a specific geographical point or limitation.

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Tangible places Two hundred sixteen participants pointed out the municipalities and the specific neighborhoods, streets, or parks that enhance fear. With this in mind, the municipality that inspired more anxiety towards the participants was Iztapalapa, with 55 mentions. Still, the specific place that was perceived as the most dangerous was the Centro (65 mentions), or downtown, in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc. In fact, Cuauhtémoc is the second most feared municipality with 41 direct mentions and the most specific points mentioned (22).

Followed by Gustavo A. Madero (23 mentions), Tláhuac (15 mentions), and Miguel Hidalgo (14 mentions). On the other hand, Cuajimalpa de Morelos (2 mentions) and La Magdalena Contreras (1 mention) were the least mentioned municipalities (Figure 23).

In addition, according to the newspaper Milenio, from January 2020 until September, 55 women were murdered and 450 were raped; 40% of these crimes were concentrated in Iztapalapa, Cuauhtémoc and Gustavo A. Madero (Vega & Rangel, 2020). Which enhances the perception of danger of the participants in these municipalities, with the factual number of crimes that happen in these territories.

As a non-binary person, I have been harassed in all the environments in Mexico City where I have been, some more violent than others. The situations in which my physical integrity has been compromised happened in the Historic Center and in Ecatepec. So I could consider them the most dangerous areas for me. However, I know that there are other regions of the city that are equally dangerous and I avoid going through them (Participant of survey).

Outside Mexico City, Municipalities like Ecatepec (16 mentions) and Nezahualcóyotl (12 mentions) were also heavily mentioned. Nevertheless, only the municipality was mentioned, not a specific point or neighborhood; which leads to think that perhaps the perception of the participants that mentioned these municipalities may not know a specific point, or be influenced by the media reports of violence of said municipalities.

As for the interviewees, most of the places they mentioned as unsafe in Gustavo A. Madero were their neighborhoods and the surroundings of their location. The most mentioned neighborhoods, streets and areas were: Cuchilla del Tesoro, San Felipe de Jesús, Gran Canal, Martín Carrera, Casas Alemán and San Juan de Aragón. Other areas mentioned were Gertrudis Sánchez, Providencia, Ciudad Lago, Aragón, El Olivo, Puerto San Blas, Cuautepec and Bondojito. Two interviewees mentioned feeling unsafe in any area of the Municipality (Figure 24).

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Figure 23: Tangible areas of Mexico City perceived as dangerous for the participants State

Times the municipality was mentioned

Times a specific point/area was mentioned

Name of the specific point Central de Abastos Constitución Paseos de Churubusco Atlalilco Cabeza de Juárez Unidad Vicente Guerrero

Iztapalapa Centro

Cuauhtémoc

Tepito

Mexico City

La Merced

Doctores Lagunilla Morelos Guerrero Buenos Aires Garibaldi Insurgentes Algarín Buenavista Condesa Hildalgo Juárez Narvarte Reforma San Lázaro San Martín Santo Domingo Tabalacalera Tlatelolco Zócalo Indios Verdes

Gustavo A. Madero

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Cuautepec Vallejo Casas Alemán Gabriel Hernández Instituto del Petróleo La Pastora Lindavista Martín Carrera Parque del Amor Ticoman

State

Times the municipality was mentioned

Times a specific point/area was mentioned

Name of the specific point Ojo de Agua

Tláhuac Tacubaya

Miguel Hidalgo

Tacuba Pensil San Miguel de Chapultepec Agricultura Anáhuac Laguna de Términos Tlalcoligia Yanquis

Tlalpan

Mexico City

Xochimilco Pantitlán

Venustiano Carranza Azcapotzalco Iztacalco Benito Juárez Álvaro Obregón Milpa Alta Coyoacán

Cuajimalpa de Morelos

El Peñón Avenida Circunvalación El Rosario La Raza Iztacalco Mixcoac Pedregal Copilco Carmen Serdán Circuito Azteca Ciudad Universitaria Acoxpa Miramontes Villa Coapa Santa Fe

La Magdalena Contreras

Ecatepec State of Mexico

Nezahualcóyotl Naucalpan de Juárez

Toreo Cuatro Caminos

Tultitlán, A tizapan, M etepec, Chalco, Tlanelpantla, Cuautitlán de Izcalli Morelos

Symbology

Peñón de los Baños 216 of 460 responses considered

01 time mentioned 05 times mentioned

10 times mentioned

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Figure 24: Perceived and experienced gender violence in Gustavo A. Madero Spatial points of where the interviewees claimed to feel unsafe or at risk versus where they have experienced gender violence within the Municipality.

Legend PERCEPTION OF FEAR

Sierra de Guadalupe

Neighborhoods perceived as unsafe No responses

Very unsafe Specific given point (of fear) by the interviewee Reclusorio Norte

EXPERIENCES OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Cuautepec

Specific given point (of experienced violence) by the interviewee Cerro del Chiquiguite

Cerro Zacatenco

Instituto Nacional Politecnico Parque del Tepeyac

Metro Indios Verdes

San Felipe de Jesús

Lindavista Martín Carrera Campestre Aragón

La Villa

Providencia

Gustavo A. Madero

Casas Alemán

Legend San Juan de Aragón

Subway station

Gertrudis Sánchez

Protected areas Green areas Location of interviewees

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San Juan de Aragón VI secc

Bosque San Juan de Aragón

Territorial limit with the State of Mexico Territorial limit with other Municipalities within Mexico City

San Juan de Aragón VII secc

San Juan de Aragón II secc

San Juan de Aragón V secc

San Juan de Aragón III secc

San Juan de Aragón IV secc

Parque del Tepeyac

Metro Indios Verdes

San Felipe de Jesús

Martín Carrera Campestre Aragón

La Villa

Providencia

Gustavo A. Madero

Casas Alemán

San Juan de Aragón Gertrudis Sánchez

San Juan de Aragón VII secc

San Juan de Aragón VI secc

Bosque San Juan de Aragón

San Juan de Aragón II secc

San Juan de Aragón V secc

San Juan de Aragón III secc

San Juan de Aragón IV secc

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Table 3: Intangible areas of Mexico City perceived as dangerous for the participants

Intangible places As for intangible answers, 254 responses were considered. Women answered the most, that they are afraid everywhere in the city (104 responses), then the subway (63) and public transportation in general (62). They also feel vulnerable in streets / sidewalks, parks, public transportation stops, the limits of Mexico City with the State of Mexico, avenues, markets and the vulnerable sectors of the city (Table 3).

Public spaces, well... It could be a “plaza”.

Shopping malls, I don’t know how to call them, and the ones called “mall” in English, I think those are the ones. And parks, I think so too (A.T, Housewife).

Furthermore, eight out of ten interviewees said they did not feel safe in their neighborhoods, even though four have lived there most of their lives. Specifically, the interviewees that live in Cuchilla del Tesoro added that they feel safe within their street for several reasons. Two of them stated that due to their location near the avenue, they saw more flow of people or did not have to walk too much for the bus stop. Two of the interviewees emphasized and awarded the danger of their neighborhood (Cuchilla del Tesoro) to the presence of narcotraffic.

* Percentages shown do not represent 100% since participants could choose multiple options. The total of participants considered in this table are 254.

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As I am two houses from the main avenue, that’s why I perceive it as safer but backwards, they are all drug dealing or on the street corners they are getting high and so on, and there have been many assaults back there. In fact there was also an incident where they left a young lady there in one of the courts behind, they killed her and left her there naked. [...] Where I am, as I am very close to the avenue, this, really, is very little the distance that I have to walk to catch the minibus, or the bus, and then I have not had, fortunately, I have not had any problem of those.

But in the Cuchilla del Tesoro Avenue back, there are many houses where they sell drugs, so there have even been deaths here because there are many drug dealers, and they fight for

the territory. And there are many people at night, I have not gone out but a lady, the lady who helps me who lives back there, says that at night there are many people taking drugs. Even the priest has told us that there, in the opposite corner of the church, many young people stand on the corner to get high (G.Z, Housewife).

The neighborhood is small, uh, it consists of 14 ponientes 14 orientes and exactly at the end it is called “cuchilla”, and right at the end in the east there is a part, two blocks over there, where there is an organization that is engaged in crime. It is, certain people who even trade the drug, so I think it is the delicate part of the neighborhood (G.G, Housewife).

While, the other interviewees referred to feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods due to some groups of people that gather in public spaces, most of them drinking alcohol or taking any drugs.

It was a street, in a lot where people lived like “paracaidistas” you could say, this one and you heard many things like people were bad. That was the part that was more of a no-go. Now it is, well, it was Martin Carrera, but now they have turned it into a center, this one for, like a help center for young people. I don’t understand very well if it is for adaptation or for them to learn skills... something like that. That’s what I’ve seen, it’s a different place (A.T, Housewife).

Right next to my street, there is a street that is used for commerce only. It is pure commerce, be it: beauticians, greengrocers, stores, bakeries… whatever, and there are always a lot of people drinking there, because of the wine shops. So they are drinking, they are getting high in the wine shops, they are selling drugs there. We are just one street away from there, so that’s the one I would like to tell you that I avoid, but I have no other way. I mean, I have to go there by force, because I need to buy groceries and they are right there. When I go to the supermarket, well, it’s different.

But when I need something, I have to go there by force (L.M, Housewife).

Well, there are several men and they usually sell a lot of things there [...] There is a carpentry shop, there are people who are welding, but most of them are men, so it makes me feel insecure (G.F, Employee).

Well, yes... you can say yes [feeling unsafe in her neighborhood], because there are many people there drinking or sleeping (M.N, Housewife).

The two interviewees who claimed feeling safe in their neighborhoods explained that it was due to their sense of community and trust in their neighbors.

My street, yes, because here where we live all the neighbors know each other and, when anything has tried to happen, they have come out and supported [the person in danger] (I.N, Employee).

Well, because in my experience, family or personal, we have never had any incident of robbery or of this type. I have walked, when coming from patrying, around 4-5 in the morning and without any problem... I have had to walk or go to the tacos at that hour, and fortunately nothing has ever happened to me. There are people who have had bad experiences, but nothing has happened to me, so that’s why I consider it relatively safe (A.R, Employee).

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6.3.3 How do you feel in public space?

Participants were asked to describe how they felt in public space in one word, and the most common words were: restless, alert, uncomfortable, anxious, exposed, nervous, observed, and vulnerable. On the other hand, few participants described they felt normal, peaceful, and safe. The interviewees claimed to feel “not very safe” or “nervous”; one claimed to feel unsafe, but that she has to get on with her life, leaving her uneasy but pretending she is secure. Some interviewees mentioned that their perception changes due to the time of the day (Figure 25).

Depending on the time but if it were late at night, fear, nervousness [...] In the morning it will probably be a little calmer, at ease (G.G, Housewife).

Figure 25: Please describe in one word how you feel when you are in public space:

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6.3.4 Risk factors Question number 14 was: “What risk factors do you perceive for being harassed/molested in Mexico City?” (Table 4), to which participants answered: Being unaccompanied (81,3%), time of the day (58,6%), being in a specific place (57,3%), age (56,9%) and the consumption of alcohol or drugs (43,2%).

I think the fact that I am young, and my female colleagues who are also young, make us vulnerable. [...] They [men] see us as inferior to them. (C.S, Student).

On the other hand, participants also declared that gender identification (33,6%), sexual orientation (21,0%), occupation (11,3%), and the ways of dressing (3,0%) could be risk factors for being harassed in public space.

Yes, I think so. I believe that they [people that identify differently from cisgenders] are exposed. I believe that the mentality still does not change, it still does not change to accept all people as we are, as we feel or how we behave or how we dress. I believe that there is still a lot of lack of education in this regard (G.G, Housewife).

I think they are more likely to suffer harassment than people who identify themselves as cisgender, because we are not talking only about sexual harassment, but about violence against them for the simple fact of identifying themselves in a way it’s not 78

used to. So, from stares, to stronger comments, I think they are more prone (C.S, Student).

Last but not least, participants responded that it is not a woman’s problem since risk comes from men (0,6%), and the mere aspect of being a woman (1,7%) is a risk factor of getting harassed.

Hmm, I say that gender no longer matters. Because now all kinds of people can be harassed, whether they are women, men, whatever (G.F, Employee).

Table 4: Risk factors

* Percentages shown do not represent 100% since participants could choose multiple options.

All interviewees agreed that the time of the day is a prominent risk factor for being assaulted, while eight of them agreed that gender identity or sexual orientation of a person is a factor of risk, and only four of them mentioned that age is a factor of risk, meaning that the younger someone is, the greater risk she has of experiencing harassment in public space (Figure 26).

Figure 26: Risk factors (Interviewees) Interviewees 01 02 03 04

05

06

07

08

09

10

05

06

07

08

09

10

Age Gender identity Time of the day 01

02

03

Agrees

04

Disagrees

No response

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6.3.5 Time of the day The majority of the people that answered the survey said that they feel the most unsafe at night (88%), while also feeling unsafe at dawn (57%), followed by the evening (38%), the morning (35,2%), and afternoon (17,1%) (Figure 27).

Figure 27: At what time of day do you feel most insecure?

Night (8pm-2am) 88,0%

Dawn (3-6am) 57,0%

Evening (4-7pm) 38,0%

Morning (7-11am) 35,2%

Afternoon (12-3pm) 17,1%

* Percentages shown do not represent 100%, since participants could choose multiple options

The dangerous ones [hours] were on weekends, Friday and Saturday, after about 6 o’clock, I tell you, there are a lot of drunks in the street islands2 or a bunch of super crazy people passing really fast with the cars. So it was not advisable to even go to the store, because you could be robbed or things like that. But when it was safe, since the high-school is next door, it was about 12 o’clock until about 3:30 in the afternoon, it was always full with kids (B.F, Student).

From the time the sun sets, the later it is, I think that from 6 o’clock in the evening, assuming that is when the sun sets, until dawn, I feel insecure. And the later it is at night, the more insecure I feel (C.S, Student).

Well I think that, by 11, 12 o’clock at night, why go out? There is no need... Why go out? (A.T, Housewife).

In the afternoons and evenings. Between 7 and 10 at night, I don’t go out at that time.

I don’t go out then, not even to buy anything... I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing. All my activities are done in the morning and in the afternoon and by 7 o’clock at night, I mean also as a routine, I start showering the girl to go to sleep, but... even if I forget something from the store, I don’t go out. (L.M, Housewife).

I think in the morning. Many would say in the evenings, but I feel more insecure in the morning. Like around 5 to 7 o’clock in the morning. [...] Well, I studied psychology, and most studies say that rapes occur at that time. Not many studies have been done about it, but most of them state that rape cases are always in the morning and not in the afternoon, as everyone would think, or at night, right? (G.F, Employee).

2

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The interviewee refers to the sections in the center of the streets that divide avenues.

6.3.6 What public spaces do you perceive as unsafe This question differs from the previously asked since that question stated where they had experienced aggressions, and this questions remarks on which public space they perceive as dangerous, even if they have not experienced any aggression on it. The majority of the participants again responded that in public transportation / public transportation stations (81,9%) and the streets or sidewalks (79,1%). It is essential to state that these results show that most participants have experienced and are scared of basic infrastructure: streets and public transportation. An interviewee stated that she felt unsafe the minute she stepped out of her home (Figure 28).

Figure 28: What public spaces do you consider dangerous?

Public transport 81,9%

Parks 32,1%

Streets 79,1%

Markets 32,1%

Plazas 24,3%

Others 4,5%

* Percentages shown do not represent 100%, since participants could choose multiple options

I think that of the times I have faced harassment, I feel unsafe in any place. I don’t foresee, I don’t see any place where I feel completely calm. Whether I go with people or not, I always walk around with fear, with the insecurity that something is going to happen to me (C.S, Student).

The answers were also followed by parks (52,5%), markets (32,1%), plazas (24,3%), and others (4,5%) (Figure 28).

Well, the spaces that have been planned and made to play sports but are not used like that. [...] All those spaces that have been made to be recreational and because of the people that use and the installations, are unsafe (G.G, Housewife).

Figure 29: Relation use-avoid in public spaces of GAM 05

06

07

08

09

10

All areas

Lonely areas

‘Gran Canal’

‘La Villa’

Street islands

03

Public transportation

Shopping malls

02

School

Markets

01

AV O ID

Parks

U

SE

Interviewees 01 02 03 04

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

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In addition, interviewees were asked to say which public space they used and feared the most (Figure 29). Some of them mentioned various spaces: four said to use markets the most, followed by public transportation and shopping malls. Two of them said they used parks the most to exercise and “to breathe.” One of them said the public space she used the most was her school. On the other hand, parks were the space most of them avoided the most, followed by “lonely areas.” Other interviewees mentioned they avoid public transportation, street islands, all areas, and two specific points in the Municipality: ‘La Villa’ and ‘Gran Canal.’ Both are added to the list since the interviewees specifically pointed out the public spaces they avoid the most.

6.3.7 What physical elements bring you fear in public space?

The participants argued that it was not a specific physical element that brought them fear; instead, it was the lack of something. For instance, the lack of light (90,4%) was the main factor of fear enhancement in public space, followed by lack of people (79,9%), abandoned buildings or environment (76,6%), and lack of vigilance (73,9%) (Table 5).

I think, where there is very little light, places where I am enclosed, where there are not so many people. And I think that’s it (C.S, Student).

Table 5: Physical elements that enhance fear in the built environment

* Percentages shown do not represent 100% since participants could choose multiple options.

Well, I think the lack of lighting. That there is little lighting; two, that the space is not very crowded or not very busy, and three, that obviously, as in every neighborhood, the groups of people that gather, like gangs, groups that, I don’t know, they start drinking on the sidewalk, right? I believe that these are some of the elements (A.R, Employee).

Among other physical elements that brought fear to the participants were: a specific group of people gathered in public space (57,6%), enclosed spaces (40,2%), accumulation of trash (23,26%), agglomerations of people (22,6%), lack of sound (18,5%), excess of sound (18%), graffiti (17,2%), open spaces (16,1%) and lack of vegetation (7,8%) (Table 5).

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Well, for me, it’s people with tattoos. No, I don’t criticize people who get tattoos, but there are certain tattoos that do provoke that feeling of being aggressive. I mean, it depends on the type of tattoo, doesn’t it?, but it’s that type, I don’t know... if they then bring their... I mean their perspective of... I don’t know, aggression on their face.

I don’t know how to explain it. Their dress, their clothing. Although, we know that there are people who are very well, well, dressed and everything, who also provoke this type of thing. No, nothing more than... I mean I know that I have to watch out for everyone, not just these people, because these people can be super relaxed but, you see them and you say “oh, this one is going to rob me” [laughs] (A.T, Housewife).

You know what can make me very afraid?: motorcycles. The sound of the motorcycles, because most of the times the assaults have been caused by the people on the motorcycles, so that little noise makes me kind of afraid. [...] Yes, the noise (G.F, Employee).

6.3.8 How do you know what space is safe and which is not?

Most participants said to know how to identify which place is safe and which is not by own and past experiences (73,7%), by the news or social media (66,7%), by sharing and hearing anecdotes from other people (66,1%), by intuition (1,5%) and by the appearance of the place (1,3%) (Table 6).

Table 6: How do you know what space is safe or not?

* Percentages shown do not represent 100% since participants could choose multiple options.

I think I inform myself according to the number of people that are there. I already have that perception, the more people there are, the safer you feel. [...] Well, I think it is because of what people talk about, because of the experiences of people who have had bad experiences in certain places or so (G.F, Employee).

Because of the people themselves, who tell you “no, you can’t go there” or yes, well, that’s how I have informed myself more than anything else (M.N, Housewife).

I am informed through the conferences of both the President, and the conferences that the Head of Government gives. That is how I inform myself of what they intend and what they are doing to help us in that sense. Well, I am very much aligned with the ideas with the projects of the Head of Government, in particular with those of the Mayor. [...] I follow the news very little, because I do not agree with how they handle it.

And yes, when I have the opportunity to be with family, friends we pass information on what we know. From word of mouth the information is often given (G.G, Housewife).

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6.4 Action towards gender violence in public space in Mexico City 6.4.1 Measures to feel safer Many of the participants’ measures to feel safe are to avoid certain people, places, times.

Explicitly, most of the participants avoid lonely spaces (87,6%) while also avoiding specific spaces they feel dangerous (76,5%), avoid being alone (62,5%), and avoid being out at a particular time (55,6%).

Well, I try to always be accompanied by a lot of people; I try not to go through places that are very lonely, or at certain hours. Nowadays in the subway there are spaces for women all day long, but before there were not. I try to go in those wagons and then I try not to change at night because then it gets very lonely (G.F, Employee).

Another often mentioned measure is to send their real-time location with other people (57,3%) and dress in a certain way (54,7%), meaning to dress in a way that they do not feel often looked at, in order not to “grab too much attention.” Participants also said that changing their routes frequently (34,1%) and pretending to do something or talk to someone while waiting or walking (33,6%) makes them feel safer in public space. Women also referred to being accompanied by a male (29,7%) makes them feel less afraid (Table 7). An interviewee mentioned that she stopped taking walks with her daughter and dressed her “simplistic way.”

She implies that she does it out of fear of her daughter being taken away from her in public space.

Table 7: Measures to feel safer in public space %*

No. Responses

I avoid lonely / abandoned spaces

87,6%

403

I avoid certain specific places

76,5%

352

I avoid going out/walking/being alone

65,2%

300

I send my real-time location to people I trust

57,3%

264

I avoid being in a public space at a certain time

55,6%

256

I dress in a certain way

54,7%

252

I change my daily route frequently

34,1%

157

I pretend to always be doing something/talking to someone while walking or waiting

33,6%

155

I try to be accompanied by a man

29,7%

137

I avoid congested spaces

16,5%

76

I carry pepper spray

12,3%

57

I carry some type of weapon

12,3%

57

I attend classes related to self defense

4,5%

21

I am always alert and beware of the space

2,3%

11

Others

3,2%

15

Measures

* Percentages shown do not represent 100% since participants could choose multiple options.

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My mom told me “you know what? now you don’t even have to dress up the girls so much” and I mean nothing about clothes, but that you don’t have to comb them so pretty, I mean, so that the little girls don’t attract so much attention, in terms of “oh what a pretty girl”, because they automatically become a target, and they can take her away. [...] Oh, I even bought a bracelet recently, I don’t have it at hand but it is a bracelet for me and the same bracelet for my girl; it comes with a cable, so when we go walking, when we go to the supermarket, I put it on. And then when I feel the tug, which is that the child is playing, I become alert, but it is quite a case, to go out with the child. I am very fearful (L.M, Housewife).

Well, for example, not taking out the cell phone. Always wear baggy clothes, or a sweater that covers you. My mom always says that I should look confident, well now we have masks, but to always look confident, without fear, to let them know that you know how to be in the street, that’s what I have done (B.F, Student).

At least here in Mexico [City], I don’t go out with very ostentatious things. I go out with a backpack, with some tiny earrings, I don’t wear a watch, I don’t dress up when I go alone. I try not to dress up so much, because I know that, I think it sounds bad... but I’m going to provoke men, or people. Because violence is no longer just from man to woman, but it is man-woman, man-man, woman-woman. So, I try those measurements, I feel safer that way. [...] Yeah, nothing ostentatious, tennis shoes... jeans, a t-shirt and that’s it (L.M, Housewife).

I just had an experience in which I was going out, and my own boyfriend told me “put on your jacket so they don’t say things to you”. So the fact that it is hot and I have to put on a jacket so they don’t say things to me... the fact of limiting myself, of dressing, of acting according to people’s attitude, this is what annoys me the most, what bothers me the most (C.S, Student).

On the other hand, women also referred to taking action to take care of themselves to feel more protected in public space. Some participants said they carry pepper spray (12,3%) or another kind of weapon (12,3%). 4,5% of them said that they attend classes related to selfdefense or that they are always alert and beware of the space (2,3%) (Table 7).

Well, what I always do is, almost every time I go out, I always look around defensively.

Whether I’m getting on the subway or walking, I always look around, I mean, there are times when I feel people behind me and I usually look around if I am safe... let’s say that’s my first measure, to look around to feel safer. And to see if at some point if someone wants to hurt me or something like that, to even have time to cross the street or go into a store, or something like that or even ask for help (A.R, Employee).

Let me think... The main measures I take are never to be alone; always travel with someone. I don’t walk alone on streets where there are not many people, and I don’t walk at night in the street. Besides that, I just ordered a self-defense stick. [...] No... it’s something else for self-defense. But, anyways, I ordered something so that when I go out, I can defend myself in an emergency situation. Besides, I try to use public transportation as little as possible, especially taxis, I prefer to use an app and send my location at all times so they know where I am. Also, phone applications to, in case of an emergency, dial... press a button twice and get messages of my location to some people. And, I think that’s it (C.S, Student).

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6.4.1 Measures to eradicate gender violence in public spaces The participants were asked the following question: “What do you think is the most viable solution to eradicate gender violence in public spaces?”. The four central answers were the following: education about gender violence for males (80,4%), more severe sentences for perpetrators (75,2%), more vigilance in public spaces (62,4%), and education about gender violence for everyone (4,8%) (Table 8).

Table 8: Measures to eradicate gender violence in public space

* Percentages shown do not represent 100% since participants could choose multiple options.

I don’t know, I think there are many things... I think this is a problem of thinking, of Mexican thinking... of men. I think that if people perceived humans differently, because everything is already twisted, it would be something else, wouldn’t it? It would be something totally different. I believe that everything lies in respect, things as simple as saying that if there are wagons for such and such people, they should be respected, right? I think it is respect (G.F, Employee).

Well, I think there are many things and most depend on the support of the Government.

It is education; it is staff, staff that is truly dedicated to the care and surveillance of spaces. Well, I believe that a lot of education is what makes the change, that this whole situation changes, right? [...] No, I think in general. If it is education for both and it is education from home, it is public education, and it is everything, right? I mean, I think it is in general (G.G, Housewife).

Well, that there was more security, that there were police officers watching, people watching. For example, the parks that are lonely and abandoned, so they [the State] should remodel them [the parks], rebuild them, make them beautiful and accessible, so that they no longer inspire fear. But above all there I wish for more vigilance (G.Z, Housewife).

What is the solution... I think there has to be a change, but in all people, because we have a bad government. If we ask the police for help, like “hey something is going on”, many times the police themselves are in collusion. So, I think we all have to change, no matter the sex, no matter the gender, no matter what; we have to change our mentality to be able to make a change, so that there is no more violence of any kind (L.M, Housewife).

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6.5 Desires Most participants (91,9%) feel that gender violence in public spaces threatens the complete freedom of people who identify themselves as women, while 6,3% responded that it perhaps it does, and 1,8% of participants stated that they do not think that gender violence threatens women’s freedom at all (Figure 30). The ten interviewees agreed that gender violence in public space threatens their freedom.

Figure 30: Do you feel that gender-based violence in public spaces infringes on the full freedom of women?

Maybe 6,3% No 1,8%

Yes 91,9%

Yes, of course [feels gender violence infringes her freedom]. I even got to see friends before the pandemic who sent their mother a photo of how they were dressed in case they disappeared, because they used public transport to go to school and to come back. So, I think that is something very intense, right? I mean, I think it hurts you to send a photo and that your mother receives it and who knows if you are going to return. I think it is attentive to your freedom, because you are afraid, you don’t know what’s going to happen (B.F, Student).

Yes [feels gender violence infringes her freedom], very much so. I think that women do not experience violence accidentally, but it is the result of discrimination. Unfortunately that’s the way it is, so no (L.M, Housewife).

The last question was the following: if you felt free in a public space, what would you like to do?, which many participants answered simple activities like walking, dressing as they wish, being alone, doing whatever they do without feeling that they are in danger, travel and just being (Figure 31).

Well, exercise and, if there were games I would interact with them (G.Z, Housewife).

Well, I would very much like to dress well, like, not covered. Dressing myself in the way I like to dress, I really like dresses and all that. And I want to feel safe, not being afraid that I turn around and someone is looking at me in a bad way. And I also think it would be peaceful for everyone, right? Both for my parents and me. They would give

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Figure 31: If you felt safe in public space, what would you like to do?

EXERCISE

outdoors

go out for a run

ride my bike without fear at any time

GOING OUT

WALK more at night

at any time with my friends alone wearing what I want to bars to clubs

LAUGH / SMILE

DRESS

ENJOY FEEL SAFE public space the city my time

FEEL CALM

READ CHAT DANCE KNIT PLAY

in the park a book alone

BE FREE LIVE

the park SIT inrelaxed

alone at night

RELAX

BE

at any time through the city freely without fear

as I wish

in my style according to the weather differently shorts miniskirts cleavages

DO WHAT MEN DO

FEEL CONFIDENT public transportation FALL ASLEEP inwithout worrying

GET OUT OF MY HOUSE

DO MORE ACTIVITIES

BE ALONE

LISTEN TO MUSIC

HAVE A LIFE EVERYTHING I CANNOT DO LET MY DAUGHTER HAVE A LESS RESTRICTED CHILDHOOD

ENJOY GREEN AREAS

USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION RECREATION SAME HOLD MY PARTNER’S

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as I do now but without worrying without fear

DO NOT WASTE MONEY ON SELF DEFENSE

with family with my son with my daughter

HAND IN PUBLIC SPACE

me more freedom because nothing is going to happen. Yes it would be very different. [...] I would not walk as afraid of the metrobus station to the square, but enjoy that little.

I would like to enjoy, enjoy the people, enjoy my city, enjoy what we have, but with the awareness that I am protected, that I am exactly safe (G.G, Housewife).

Hmm, I think I would like to do exactly what I can’t do. Walk alone, have, like, time to myself, walk around outside, uh, wear whatever clothes I want without feeling like I’m going to be harassed. To be able to walk, yeah, more than anything like, walk, go out by myself, which is something I don’t have the luxury of at the moment (C.S, Student).

I would like to walk and go to the parks without worrying (A.T, Housewife).

Oh, I want to do it so much here in Mexico City, but here you can’t... I know that in different states you can. But I would really, really like to go out in shorts... maybe it is a very silly thing to do for those who live in other states because for them it is very normal, but here going out in shorts or a little blouse, or with suspenders or a dress. I would really like to wear a short dress, I would really like to go out. Yes, I would like it very much. I even have some long dresses, and even then, I don’t dare to go out in the street. I would like to go out a lot, I mean, the simplest things... a simple short with a blouse, to be in a park reading with a cold coffee and not watching my back to see who comes behind me or... that’s the part I would like to do the most. I’ve tried to do that, to go to a park, and it’s not even in my municipality, it’s in Benito Juárez, in Parque de los Venados, I took my book, my coffee and...no. I think the insecurity I have is already there, I think it is mental that I am taking care of myself all the time, but...yeah, I would like to do that (L.M, Housewife).

I don’t know... I would like to be at peace. To be able to wear certain clothes without feeling insecure, without feeling that you are provoking because they always make you feel that way, right? (G.F, Employee).

Well, wear clothes that I like. Well, I would wear skirts, cleavages, or something like that (I.N, Employee).

Ah, to go out freely in the street. To feel safe at such and such a time of the night. That is it, that I would not be at risk (M.N, Housewife).

Maybe, dress the way I would like to dress. Well, in my case, I would really like to walk around in shorts, and now I don’t do it anymore because of the same reason, because you don’t know what you are going to go out and what you are going to be exposed to.

Now they tell you, “they raped you because you provoked it”, and although we know it’s not true, I also say well, “if I know how things are”... it’s not like I stop doing it, because I haven’t stopped doing it. But, when I do it, I say well... I am with my family, right?

Because I feel safer when there is someone with me, but if I say “oh yes, I am going to wear this dress, this neckline”, well, no, because to be honest, I don’t go out with peace of mind (A.R, Employee).

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Figure 32:Zócalo, 8M 2021

7. Conclusions

The main aim of this research was to find why women’s perception of public space is remarkably subdued by fear, and while the research questions are further answered, one must clarify that this topic was more complex than imagined. As stated in the beginning, it is a great challenge to directly express the reasons for such high levels of gender violence in a country as diverse as Mexico. Nevertheless, this research also found significant opportunities to fight against gender violence in public spaces in Mexico City.

Whereas it is already late to recognize that Mexico has been under a crisis of gender violence for almost 30 years, new policies, projects, and acceptance of this topic within the society are currently happening. Though most of these projects are enhanced and promoted on a larger scale in Mexico City, it is necessary to decentralize this fight against gender violence throughout its periphery and the whole country1.

1

With this said, on the 7th of September of 2021, within the month that this thesis is written; the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation declared unconstitutional to criminalize abortion by women and pregnant people in the state of Coahuila. This is not only important for the women that live in that state, but it sets a judicial precedent for its application in all Mexican states (BBC Mexico, 2021). It is also important to state that abortion by choice is only legal in Mexico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz. If abortion is legal in Mexico in its entirety, it will also enhance other Latin American countries to change their laws within abortion, hence, the importance of decentralizing gender-based policies.

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7.1 Findings This research found that women who feel the most unsafe in Mexico City are Cuauhtémoc, Iztapalapa, and Gustavo A. Madero. Considering the entire sample, women are more vulnerable in public transportation and the streets, making them use it less and be always alert as a way of protection. These measures only emphasize the difference in perception of safety in public space between genders. While men are also victims of violence and may also feel threatened in public space, women tend to be more discriminated in public space due to their gender.

Furthermore, this research also found that existing physical, cultural, and social patterns enhance gender violence in public spaces. Many women surveyed and interviewed perceive that machismo culture is one of the main factors that enhance violence against them.

Literature review, official reports, and the participants’ opinions in this research reinforce the idea that the difference between gender violence and public violence is the perpetrators.

Indeed, men are the primary aggressor of women in the private and public sphere, and their claim towards public space, at least in Mexico City, lies in intimidation, humiliation, and physical and sexual aggression to women.

Women also showed that they feel alert, vulnerable, anxious, and nervous in public space, followed by agreeing that feeling unsafe in public space attempts towards their complete freedom as citizens. Therefore, their perception of public space is mainly leaned towards a negative sense, like danger, unease, feeling uncomfortable, and at risk. This perception also changes within the time of the day, being unaccompanied and the place they. Many women found that age, gender identification, and sexual orientation may also be risk factors of getting harassed, but not the main factors.

At the same time, this research also found that physical elements in public space play an essential role in the perception of safety for women. Spaces that lack light, people, and vigilance are seen as a potential threat for receiving any aggression. For instance, some governmental projects like “Sendero Seguro: Camina libre, Camina segura” and “Viaja Segura” aim to tackle gender violence in public space; nevertheless, it is not enough.

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Although there may not be a systematic difference in perceived safety by gender in a typical public space, women are more sensitive to improvements in public space (Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021, p.10).

The researcher Gill Valentine categorized ten major design strategies that various Reading women would like to see adopted by planners and developers; these being: 1) a better location of access to sites, 2) visibility at doorways, 3) lightning, 4) walls painted white, 5) foot-bridges rather than subways, 6) surveillance in alleyways/subways, 7) optimal landscaping without the obstruction of trees or bushes, 8) ground floor development, 9) fill-in gaps between waste areas or empty spaces, 10) corners/dogged bends or straight sightlines (Valentine, 1990, p. 294). However, some recent research has found that graffiti removal or public toilets have less impact on safety perception than the removal of solid walls (Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021).

Another finding is that the measures that women use to protect themselves in public spaces are to avoid lonely and specific spaces they feel dangerous and avoid being alone and being out at a particular time. They also avoid dressing as they would like, sometimes sacrificing their taste or inadequate garments for a particular season.

In addition, many women distrust the government, which shows in the small number of official reports against gender violence in public space; however, the interviewees have felt empowered enough to report aggressions and talk about gender violence more openly within the last few years than before. Along with a reinforcement of existing laws and policies against gender violence and the training of authorities and public agents on gender violence, the consideration of gender-based policies can contribute towards the safety and equity among genders. Gender-based policies also mean access to employment and training opportunities close to home, access to good local services, access to affordable childcare, access to convenient, affordable, and safe public transport, and an urban environment well designed for personal safety (GLA, 2007; as cited in Burguess, 2008).

It is also important to point out that the interviewees’ perception of safety was strongly correlated within their neighborhoods. Thus, their fears were highly connected not only to their surroundings but also to what they have heard from others; for instance, the women living in Cuchilla del Tesoro feared crimes related to narcotraffic and had spotted where not to go by hearing stories. While the woman living in Heroes de Chapultepec feared the abduction of her daughter due to stories of minors’ kidnapping in the surroundings.

Lastly, the women ended the interviews and surveys, claiming that they would like to walk more, dress as they would like, be alone, and do their activities no matter where they are or the time. Thus, the feeling of freedom becomes a vital role in claiming the space, and the lack of it, as it is now, strengthens the hypothesis that women in Mexico do not claim the public space; they negotiate their safety with their absence (and attempt of invisibility) on it.

Moreover, even though planning and design of the urban environment will not solve alone the deep-rooted issues of gender inequalities and violence against women in public space, it is a necessary step for their inclusion on equal grounds in the public realm (Navarrete, Vetro & Concha, 2021).

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7.2 Outlook The scope of the research is continuing and more researched with time. The scale of the problem should be researched from different angles. Gender violence is a major social problem that affects the country’s economic structure, law enforcement, and it is now a known and visible issue that is no longer ignored. For this reason, further research under the eye of different disciplines must be done.

While this research aimed to look at a general perspective, it was easy to find topics to analyze carefully and deserve their research. For instance: the cultural roots of machismo, the relationship of the pandemic and the surge of new waves of violence, the impact of the pandemic in the households economy and its relation with gender, the variances of gender wage wap within the municipalities, the creation of gender-based policies in municipalities that need it the most, such as Iztapalapa, Cuauhtémoc and Gustavo A. Madero, and so on.

From the author’s perspective, although the crisis of gender violence is now under the national scope, it is far from controlled and or tackled. From the thousands of femicides in Juárez and its many more disappearances, from 11 women murdered every day throughout the country and the countless daily aggressions in public space that undermine our claim of our cities, now women are claiming the space with rage, screaming ‘enough is enough.’

Ni una más2.

2

94

Not One More

95

8. End matter

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167-185. DOI: 10.22395/angr.v16n31a7 Retrieved from: http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/ angr/v16n31/1692-2522-angr-16-31-00167.pdf Pickup, L. (1988). Hard to get around: a study of women’s travel mobility (Ed). Women in cities: Gender and the urban environment (pp. 98-116). London, UK: Macmillan Education LTD. Pumarino, N, & Muñoz, D. (2021). Atravesar el estallido social: mujeres caminantes e incertidumbre en la ciudad de Santiago. Revista INVI, 36(101), 109-148. https://doi. org/10.4067/S0718-83582021000100109 Ranade, S. (2007). The way she moves: mapping everyday production of gender-space.

Economic and Political Weekly, 42(17), p. 1519-1526. Retrieved July 5, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4419518 Rasoulpour, H. (2019). The urban public space as the natural space for women. Global Journal of Engineering Sciences, 3(1). DOI: 10.33552/GJES.2019.03.000553 Ríos, G. (2021, May 27). Identificando espacios públicos (más) seguros para las mujeres en Ciudad de México. Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo. https://www. mx.undp.org/content/mexico/es/home/blog/20210/05/identificando-espacios-publicos-mas--seguros-para-las-mujeres-e.html Rodríguez, Z. (2013). Machos y Machistas: Historia de los estereotipos mexicanos. La Ventana. Revista de estudios de género, 5(39), 252-260. Retrieved on September 3rd, 2021 from http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S140594362014000100012&lng=es&tlng=es Salazar, G. & De la Garza, P. (2020). La cobertura periodística de los feminicidios en México. Heterogeneidad y variación. Revista mexicana de opinión pública, (29), 111125. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.24484911e.2020.29.70633 Retrieved from: http://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/rmop/n29/2448-4911-rmop-29-111.pdf Sandin, L. (2020, March 19). Femicides in Mexico: Impunity and Protests. Center for Strategic & International Studies. Retrieved from: https://www.csis.org/analysis/ femicides-mexico-impunity-and-protests SCIM. (2013). Datos Generales: Gustavo A. Madero. Retrieved from: http://www. microrregiones.gob.mx/zap/datGenerales.aspx?entra=nacion&ent=09&mun=005 Segovia, O. (2017) Desigualdades y violencias de género en el espacio público de la ciudad (Ed.), Desigualdad de género y configuraciones espaciales (pp. 89-119). Ciudad de México, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

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Soto, P. (2021, April 9). Algunas reflexiones sobre el movimiento feminista en México.

Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Retrieved from: https://mx.boell.org/es/2021/04/09/algunasreflexiones-sobre-el-movimiento-feminista-en-mexico Srivastava, S. (2012). Masculinity and its role in gender-based violence in public spaces (Ed.), The Fear that Stalks: Gender-based Violence in Public Spaces (pp. 13-50). New Delhi: UNDP and Zubaan.

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Valentine, G. (1989). The geography of women’s fear. The Royal Geographical Society, 21(4), 385-390. from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20000063 Valentine, G. (1990). Women’s fear and the design of public spaces. Women and the Designed Built Environment (1978-), 16(4), p. 288-303. Retrieved July 5, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23286230 Villegas, P. & Malkin, V. (2019, December 26). ‘Not My Fault’: Women in Mexico Fight Back Against Violence. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/world/ americas/mexico-women-domestic-violence-femicide.html Whittaker, C. (2019). Why ‘macho culture’ is not to blame for violence against women in Mexico. The Conversation. https://blog.abaenglish.com/paragraph-connectors-inenglish/ Wilson, E. (2001). The Contradictions of culture: cities, culture, women. London, UK: SAGE Publications.

World Health Organization. (‎2011)‎. Gender mainstreaming for health managers: a practical approach. Geneva: World Health Organisation. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/ news-room/q-a-detail/gender-and-health World Health Organization. (2012). Understanding and addressing violence against women: Femicides. Pan American Health Organization. Retrieved from: https://apps.who.int/ iris/bitstream/handle/10665/77421/WHO_RHR_12.38_eng.pdf Yáñez, I., Cymorek, M., Kruspel, V. & Del Villar, Z. (2020, October 27). Using Data to Shed Light on the Shadow Pandemic of Domestic Violence in Mexico. Data-Pop Alliance. https://datapopalliance.org/using-data-to-shed-light-on-the-shadow-pandemic-ofdomestic-violence-in-mexico/ Yeung, I. [Vice News]. (2020, August 17). Women Are Being Killed With Impunity in Mexico.

[Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO3uj81X7O8&list=PLw613M86 o5o5x8GhDLwrblk-9vDfEXb1Z&index=10&ab_channel=VICENews 102

8.2 Figure References Figure 1:Arau, S. (2020) Fin de la crónica fotográfica aérea del movimiento feminista #8M. [Photograph]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Santiago_Arau/status/1236842622959996928 Figure 2:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 3:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 4:Museum of London, Heritage Images, Getty Images. (1908). Daisy Dugdale leading the procession to welcome Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, London, 1908.

[Photograph]. https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/daisy-dugdale-leading-the-procession-to-welcome-nachrichtenfoto/464468309 Figure 5:Sargent, J. (1882). Street in Venice [Painting]. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC., United States. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46428.html Figure 6:Arau, S. (2021) Palacio Nacional: 06.03.2021 [Photograph]. Twitter. https://twitter. com/Santiago_Arau/status/1368605102043508739 Figure 7:Made by Author (2021).

Figure 8:Ramírez, I. (2016). Ellas Tienen Nombre: Cartografía Digital de Feminicidios. [Digital Cartography]. https://geoactivismo.org/ellas-tienen-nombre/ Figure 9:Schultz, E. (2020). Cross with pink sign “Ni Una Más” (Not One More) in the Paso del Norte International Bridge. [Photograph]. Seattle Times. https://projects.seattletimes.com/2020/femicide-juarez-mexico-border/Tourism Media (n.d). Alameda Central.

[Photograph]. Expedia. https://www.expedia.com/pictures/mexico/mexico-city/alameda-central.d507563 Figure 10:Arau, S. (2020) Fin de la crónica fotográfica aérea del movimiento feminista #8M. [Photograph]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Santiago_Arau/status/1236842622959996928 Figure 11:Tourism Media (n.d). Alameda Central. [Photograph]. Expedia. https://www.expedia.com/pictures/mexico/mexico-city/alameda-central.d507563 Figure 12:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 13:Archivo CDMX. (n.d). Espacios Recuperados. [Photograph]. https://www.archivo. cdmx.gob.mx/vive-cdmx/post/espacios-recuperados-cdmx Figure 14:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 15:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 16:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 17:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 18:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 19:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 20:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 21:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 22:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 23:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 24:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 25:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 26:Made by Author. (2021) 103

Figure 27:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 28:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 29:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 30:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 31:Made by Author. (2021) Figure 32: Arau, S. (2021) Zócalo, CDMX. [Photograph]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/santiago_arau/status/1236748213543198720?lang=en

8.3 Table References Table 1:ONU Mujeres. (2018). Encuesta sobre la violencia sexual en el transporte y otros espacios públicos en la Ciudad de México: Programa Insignia Global Ciudades y Espacios Públicos Seguros para Mujeres y Niñas. Instituto de las Mujeres de la Ciudad de México. https://mexico.unwomen.org/es/digiteca/publicaciones/2018/dec-2018/encuesta-violencia-sexual-transporte-cdmx Table 2:Made by Author. (2021) Table 3:Made by Author. (2021) Table 4:Made by Author. (2021) Table 5:Made by Author. (2021) Table 6:Made by Author. (2021) Table 7:Made by Author. (2021) Table 8:Made by Author. (2021)

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For further following of this Thesis, contact the researcher: aliciasafon@gmail.com