Tania Turner holds a B.A. in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Political and Social Sciences from the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). She has been a monitoring and evaluation analyst for Freedom House Mexico and Research in Health, and Demographics (Insad). She is part of Rizoma Collective, focused on recovering traditional knowledge and urban gardening.
1. Latin American feminisms are living one of its best moments. Feminist philanthropy has been a backbone of the movement. What are the lessons from this experience you can share with us?
Indeed, from the Green Wave in Argentina to the Chilean Las Tesis’ hymn, “El violador eres tú”(The raper is you), we have witnessed some impressive moments of feminist movements in Latin America in the last years. At the same time, we have also witnessed a ramping up of the horrific phenomenon of violence against women, girls and trans people in the region, which has deepened and become more visible during the lockdowns of the Covid pandemic.
Both phenomena are related. Undoubtedly, the increasing violence against women and girls encouraged the voices raising against it. Rapes, harassment and feminicides, affecting women and girls of all sectors and classes, began to be more visible. From Argentina to Mexico, the context of violence which women and girls are suffering in their own bodies has overwhelmed all our societies.
It couldn’t be denied that this terrible violence against women was happening everywhere and that there was no possible justification to the insufficient responses we were seeing. Authorities have been overwhelmed and they seemed not to know how to deal with the situation. Moreover, in many cases, they have tried to diminish the impacts re-victimizing women with their public pronouncements.
For women in Mexico, especially the young ones, cases of feminicide like Fatima or Abril back in 2020, were so unbearable that they had to take the streets massively. The March 8th demonstration of women in 2020, just before we all got into lockdown for Covid’19, was amazing. Thousands of women in all their diversity completely covered one of the more iconic avenues of Mexico City, painting it like a purple wave. We were all there, yelling out loud that “enough is enough”. We were irritated, angry, full of energy to beat it all down, and we were together.
The criticism for painting walls and monuments with pronouncements against the violence we are all suffering was hard, but this time our voices were harder. There had been a lot of demonstrations in Mexico, but this one was different: women of all social classes and different sectors came together. That time it was no possible to eclipse our demands with any criticism. But Covid 19 arrived and hit hard, demobilizing the movement for two years, although the increasing violence keep our anger crouched, growing still in our hearts.
Now in 2022, we are back on the streets and we have found that we are still there. Although, we have found that somehow our movement is being divided. Politicians are learning how to weaken us by dividing us internally. This is happening in many Latin-American countries and is very concerning.
2. What is the most annoying aspect of philanthropic field that you find to be easily changeable but for some reason, approached and treated as the most difficult thing in the world?
I think we have to move towards general – multiyear support. For some donors, it is difficult to trust and because of that, to create space for building confidence with the groups they fund. We keep building vertical relations in which money seems to be the most important thing that has to be taken care of… but, I mean, the most important thing when we are relating each other for social justice, is social justice itself!
What we have to take care is the strategy, the approach, and of course the well-being of the groups that are implementing all the activities. We have to treat money as one of the instruments to accomplish our goals. It is not the only thing that is needed, neither the most important one. All the reporting of expenses and other bureaucratic workloads, instead of letting activist to do activism, are forcing them to sit down for days to fill formats, just because there is no trust that what they say they are doing, is indeed what is happening.
On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that social justice is not an objective that will be accomplished in one year. We are fighting an unequal and unfair system that has prevailed for centuries, supported by super powerful ideologies that have pushed humanity to global wars several times. Taking that on account, we have to be real and know that it is impossible to ask activists to change the whole system in a year, not even a lustrum, or a decade. We have to fund strategies in the long-term and be confident, work together, knowing that there will be push-backs and there will be victories. It is a matter to understand in which side of the balance you want to be.
3. If feminist philanthropy is inseparable from trust and solidarity, what do those two phenomena mean to you?
I think I have responded this a little above, but I would love to broaden the answer. For me, feminism is the movement to change it all, it is the one that can include all the others; is the movement for inclusion, for equality and for respecting all living entities, including Mother Earth.
Trust means that you are being seen as equal, as worthy to handle and keep your word and act in congruence. In Mexico, the Tojolabal indigenous population describe the “True Man (person)” as the one who speaks the “True Word”, the word that comes from the heart. For me, to trust is to interact with others as “True Persons”, sharing with each other the True Word.
Solidarity is the process in which you can go beyond, just feeling empathy and act in consequence to that feeling. Solidarity is the act of taking a stance, following your empathy in congruence with your beliefs. It is expressed by action, and that’s why it has been fundamental to build civilizations, but also to build resistance.
In that sense, two pillars of feminist movements are trust and solidarity, because without them it is impossible to build something different. Only by trusting you can walk a path in which everything is uncertain, and only with solidarity you can walk it with the strength of knowing that you are not alone.
Interview by Đurđa Trajković
