Mexico, much like the rest of the world, has an equality problem. With many women still silenced by tired traditions, roles, and ideologies, it can be easy to forget that the country has some of the highest rates of femicide and gender violence in the world. Hoping to confront these problems head on are feminist collective Las Hijas de Violencia (otherwise known as “the daughters of violence”). Using punk rock, confetti guns, and some enthusiastic intimidation tactics, the group is targeting catcallers and street harassers – taking back their streets, and encouraging women to reject the constraints of the male gaze. “There’s a lot of controversy over whether making ‘positive’ comments on our bodies is aggressive,” they explain, carefully. “But many women just don’t want to hear ‘positive’ comments about their body from a stranger.” I caught up with the group to find out more.

How did you all meet? And what made you decide to start Las Hijas de Violencia?

Las Hijas de Violencia: This project began in 2013 when Ana Beatriz and Ana Karen (both graduates of Mexico’s Escuela Nacional de Arte Teatral) made a play about what it’s like to be a woman. It didn’t have a feminist approach, but while we were researching we discovered feminism and began to investigate it. It led to an exploration of performance, and to street action. Betzabeth Estefanía (a graduate of Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado La Esmeralda) joined in 2015 and became an essential part of the aesthetic and visual side of the project.

“Music and confetti guns are ‘harmless’ because they don’t hurt the aggressor, but symbolically it is a response that has an impact, and changes the role of power” 

Had you experienced street harassment before? What had happened?

Las Hijas de Violencia: In Mexico, street harassment begins when you’re between 9 and 11 years old. Culturally, as women, we’re taught to be passive beings, and most of us are not taught how to respond to the harassment that comes from strangers. It’s also encouraged in the family, school and work spaces. Our aim is to visualise this problem, as many people believe it’s not serious.

Why a confetti gun?

Las Hijas de Violencia: When we were researching the play, we began to realise how daily violence had become normal for us. What struck us most was the street harassment. We discovered that it was the purest example of the legitimisation of violence against women in public spaces. The theatre was too formal for us to give the impact that we needed. We wanted to create a symbolic action – music and confetti guns are ‘harmless’ because they don’t hurt the aggressor, but symbolically it is a response that has an impact, and changes the role of power.  The harasser usually denies having harassed and tries to flee from the scene in fear of being ridiculed. The performance objective is to subvert the role of power in the public space when sexual harassment occurs.

How have men been reacting since you started the project?

Las Hijas de Violencia: The first reaction is shock. Usually, they deny that they were committing harassment, then they try to ease the situation and end up laughing because they feel ridiculed fleeing to music and confetti. Only one man shouted that his was going to kidnap and rape us, but as we approached him, he ran away – proving that he was just trying to keep the role of power in the situation. When women watch the performance on the street they laugh a lot, as it’s a way of venting their frustration. They all have been harassed more than once while walking through the streets of the city.

What about online?

Las Hijas de Violencia: There are many other daughters of violence who identify with us because they get publicly harassed every day. They write to us, excited, saying that we motivated them to respond their harassers. That motivates us to us to continue our actions. We have also been cyberbullied by men who send us messages with threats of kidnapping, rape and execution. It’s a situation faced by many feminists, and it’s urgent that we apply some security measures for these situations. We are in a legal process now, complaining about the threats we have received, since neither Facebook or Twitter have done anything about it.

What do you wish you could change about your country?

Las Hijas de Violencia: We want, both our country and the world, to change the economic, political, social, cultural patriarchal system that exploits, oppresses and kills. We want a place where we can feel free to go out and not have to be brave for it. We want to unlearn what we were taught about being a woman. We want the ‘compliments’ to stop being seen by Mexican folklore as justified, and stop being fueled by macho Mexican cinema. We want to stop Mexican soap operas from teaching women to compete with each other for a man.

We know that will not change the world, and that harassment will continue to exist. That does not mean we should not fight for what we believe. Nor does it mean that we should tolerate aggression every day. We militate as feminists every day in our daily lives to change our own world.

The interview has been translated from Spanish. See more here about Las Hijas de Violencia on their Facebook here