Breathe
By Claudia Pérez Atamoros
Extraordinary women? Ah, what the heck!
All "ordinary" women do extraordinary things; like surviving, for example, in a country like ours. Who can deny me?
An "ordinary" woman - the ordinary woman - is "condemned" to be exceptional every day of her life , from the moment she is born a woman. She cannot behave any other way because otherwise she is abused in jobs, in relationships, in transportation. The daily life of extraordinary women is not easy, neither in Mexico nor in the world.
In our country, according to INEGI figures (2021) at the national level, of all women aged 15 and over, 70.1 % have experienced at least one incident of violence, which can be psychological, economic, patrimonial, physical, sexual or discrimination; while the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Mexico reported last November that.
Globally, 736 million women (1 in 3) have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime; that, on average, five women or girls are murdered every hour by someone in their own family; and that the annual cost of violence against women and girls worldwide is about $1.5 trillion.
Violence, contempt and demerit towards the female figure is a global epidemic that concerns us all.
Mrs. Yolanda is 48 years old. She looks 65. On her left cheek she has "a tattoo" -she says- that reminds her that "that day I didn't do things right". "I didn't do things right that day".. It is a scar that leaves no doubt that the hot iron was stamped on her cheek, then as a child. It was her father. A "badly ironed" hem was the excuse. The trigger is the lack of education or macho education. The result, apart from the external, physical mark, was the emotional damage. "I preferred to stay a spinster." -Did I do the sewing well?
In Mexico, on average, 10 women are murdered every day and 7 out of 10 have experienced at least one situation of violence in their lifetime.
Malena, now 60, lost her children almost 18 years ago. Lost is an understatement. Her then partner decided to change the locks on the house and not let her back in. Her hatred for the mother figure emerged with fury. He denounced her for abandonment of the home and sued for loss of parental rights. He won, he, the journalist of the then great influences and media. She, an ordinary woman, worker at home, personal assistant to the whippersnapper, lost everything, everything, overnight: her home, her environment and most importantly, her children, but as an extraordinary woman she found a way to rebuild herself and to be present in their lives, every day for the last 18 years. In spite of being alienated by the father (as demonstrated by the expert evidence), her presence -at a distance- prevented the rupture of the mother figure and today, when they are of age, both returned to her lap and are grateful that she has never left their side, although they continue to live with that manipulative man who has turned them into young people absolutely dependent on his tastes and decisions.
The Civil Code of the CDMX, like that of other states of the Republic, states in Article 282 that the custody of a minor must be in favor of the mother. "Minors under 12 years of age must remain in the care of the mother, except in cases of family violence when she is the generator or there is a serious danger to the normal development of the children." Sometimes the law is a dead letter.
She, Riux, my childhood friend, reunited in adulthood, is about to turn 62. She has been plagued by the cursed cancer for six years. Her routine mastography reported a tiny tumor, smaller than a lentil. It was detected in time, although they warn that it is one of the most aggressive types. Three years of chemotherapy and radiation made it undetectable. Extraordinary woman. Ordinary woman, mother of two. Wife. Exemplary daughter. Spectacular friend who knows how to listen. Who laughs and dances like a goddess. She is happy.
Suddenly, visual discomfort, tests and again, the diagnosis that no one expects or wants to hear, and even less for the second time. It is metastasis (she will find out later), but didn't the breast cancer disappear? They tell her in Nutrition that this time it is another one. More cabinet studies. A small spot in the lung where the primary tumor lives. She is subjected to consecutive radiations in the brain to eliminate the metastasis and to recover her entire visual field. It disappears. She continues with the same faith that has always characterized her. She keeps herself for a couple of days after the chemotherapy and the radios but she always comes back to be, to live together, to exercise, to enjoy the food, to savor her red wine, to sing at the top of her lungs. Extraordinary woman.
She is informed that the lung tumor is not operable. She undergoes state-of-the-art cancer treatments. After thousands of tests, she is a candidate for the most innovative treatment for lung cancer: immunotherapy. And she, the ordinarily extraordinary woman, gets a 10. The damned cancer (the god Sabines was right to qualify it as such) becomes operable. And it was removed. In less than a week she is out of the hospital, walking, doing the exercises and putting a face, a very good face to life.
And in the routine studies they find "something" in her mediastinum. And there she is, moving forward. 30 radiotherapies, one daily, and her standard chemotherapy. In addition to targeted immunotherapy. And one sees her and sees her sensational. She is attitude. She is peace. She is an example. She falls, yes. She wonders why me, too. She is ordinary simply because she is an extraordinary woman. I refuse to call her a warrior.
In Mexico, medicine also lacks a gender perspective. The data are revealing. So are the dates. It was not until 1993 that women were included in clinical studies in the United States. "Just as there is a wage gap between men and women, there is also and has begun to be a topic of discussion the gigantic gap in data and scientific information associated with women's health.".
Women suffer from over-medication given their low presence in clinical trials to test new drugs. Data show that despite participants receiving the same dose of a drug regardless of sex, in more than 90% of cases, women have worse adverse effects.
In 2011 a review in clinical trials found that 75% reported no results by sex, including nine studies where less than 20% of participants were female; the gender gap in drug dosing has persisted worldwide. So much so that a cross-sectional study of more than 43,000 published articles and more than 13,000 clinical trials found that female participants were substantially underrepresented.
A 2018 measurement, more than two decades after women were once again included in clinical trials, found that, in 107 of these, 74% of them did not bother to include sex as a factor to be considered when reporting their results.
And we don't even talk about trans women, do we?
Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Full freedom without discrimination.
They are women, extraordinary women, in a world that undervalues, violates and discriminates against women. If it were a joke, I would dare to ask and exclaim: "Who would have thought of that!
On February 29th, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) determined that murdered trans women should be considered victims of femicide.
The Centro de Apoyo a las Identidades Trans (CAIT) has counted 590 murders of transgender people across Mexico between 2007 and 2022, which generates an average of 53 murders per year..
Being a woman is synonymous with being extraordinary. Of a daily feat. Of survival in a world conceptualized by men and inhabited by 49.7% of women, one third of whom accept having been victims of physical or sexual violence and in which, by the way, women have a 73% chance of being injured in a traffic accident, compared to what happens to men because seat belts were designed for male physiology.
Just there. All of them, ordinary women doing extraordinary things.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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