In Chile, Andréa and her daughter Catalina: "My mother taught me not to depend on a man"

Text by: Justine Fontaine Follow

On the occasion of International Women's Rights Day, March 8, the third installment in our series devoted to transmission between mothers and daughters. In Chile, 19-year-old Catalina and her 40-year-old mother Andrea learned to live without dependence on men and demonstrated together against gender-based violence.

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In this house with an ocher facade, spread over two levels in a housing estate in the great suburbs of Santiago, live three generations of women. In the overwhelming heat of this late summer afternoon in southern Australia, grandmother Audilia briefly interrupts her nap - she works at night - to go downstairs to get a glass of water. At 67, she " never needed a man, " says Catalina, her 19-year-old granddaughter. " I think we inherit this in the family, " smiles Andrea, her 40-year-old mother today, brown hair, colorful clothes and a determined look. " And that's what I taught my daughter: you can't depend on a man!" ", she says.

So when a few years ago her daughter Catalina told her that she wanted to get married later, to wear a wedding dress when she was older, Andrea replied immediately: " At your age, you have to think to your studies, your goals in life ... If you fall in love next and want to get married, fine, but don't see it as a goal in itself. You don't even have a boyfriend and you are already thinking about getting married. No, forget it, "she recalls laughing, sitting in the living room of her Quilicura house, a few hundred meters from a supermarket several times looted since the start of the social movement, which broke out on October 18 against deep inequalities in the country, and sometimes turned into a riot.

Andrea Espinoza was 21 when Catalina, her first child, was born. In a country that is still very Catholic and conservative, “ the majority of my friends in middle and high school had children, got married, and stayed at home, because that is what society imposed on us. Women had to stay at home to take care of the children, while the man went to look for work. Her sister, who lives minutes from her home, followed this model. But Andrea, she has escaped what was the norm for women of her generation. She raised her daughter alone, partly " thanks to the support of my mother ". Because Catalina's grandmother, who was then a domestic worker , " had a certain flexibility in her working hours " and she came to pick her up in the kindergarten.

In her professional life, Andrea Espinoza has never felt discriminated against for her status as a single mother - and anyway, she doesn't care what anyone will say - but at the same time has always found that women were asked more. While she was in charge of recruiting certain salespeople in a bank, her chiefs " were almost all men, and they said: '' Why did you hire her when she has two children ? And she arrives late too ... '' Whereas if a man did the same thing, they didn't even notice it , '' she recalls.

Catalina grew up seeing her mother lead her professional life and her family life - she has another 11-year-old son - and now considers her a model. She is aware that she would not necessarily have thought the same thing if she had grown up in a family like that of her aunt, her mother's sister, who married young and stayed at home to take care of his children. “ She considers that the family must be a father, a mother, and the children. While I don't, and I owe it to my mother : she doesn't need a man to run the house. So why would I need a man to live ? "Summarizes the young woman with long black hair, who intends to enter university this year, and is ready to go into debt if she does not obtain the scholarship to which she applied.

Femicides, " a point of no return "

At 19, it is Catalina who also transmits to her mother: since last year, the conversations between the young woman and her mother are turning more and more often towards feminism. On March 8, 2019, International Day for Women's Rights, the high school student demonstrated for the first time in Santiago, with a friend. Just under a year after the start of a large student feminist movement in Chile, more than 190,000 people take to the streets of the capital. The demonstration " marked a point of no return for me, " says Catalina.

The young woman then began to take an interest in the cases of feminicides in her country. Each of these cases - there were 45 feminicides in Chile last year, according to official figures - the revolt: " When I read that a woman was killed, I do not stop there. I'm looking for information to understand who she was, who did this to her, etc. ", She explains. And she seeks to alert Andrea: " I tell my mother that this woman had complained four times " against her spouse or ex-spouse before being killed, " and I get very angry because I have not want the same thing to happen to me or to kill my mother or my friends. Andrea, who " does not consult social networks " and " watches little TV ", learns mainly through her daughter, especially on subjects related to women's rights.

"The rapist is you"

So, last November 29, they went together to a demonstration, a few weeks after the start of the social movement.

Approaching the usual gathering point, they see more than a hundred young women lined up, blindfolded and green scarves around their necks or wrists, shouting, their finger pointing towards the crowd: " The culprit is not me, neither my clothes, nor where I was. The rapist is you ! A refrain imagined by the feminist collective of Valparaiso "Lastesis", whose militant song, A rapist on your way , went around the world in the space of a few days.

" I was impressed by their freedom, that they dared to express themselves together, sometimes topless and without worrying about what people could say ," recalls Andrea, smiling. " What they did was what we wanted to do for so long, without knowing how, " enthuses Catalina. " With this song, many people said to themselves:" Yes, why would it be the girls' fault if they are raped ? " "

Uniform and touching

On hearing these words, memories of Andrea's adolescence reappear. During her last year of high school, she had to cross the whole agglomeration of Santiago morning and evening by bus to go to class. And, like today in almost all Chilean schools, the uniform was compulsory: pleated skirt or knee-high dress for girls. " I do not count the number of touching that I suffered on the bus, " she protested. " All these degenerates, they touched my legs for example, and they did it on purpose, " she recalls. " I was still a kid, I said nothing, I was just trying to run away . "

She never told her mother: " I was ashamed, " she recalls. But since Lastesis, she says she noticed a clear change: " The girls face the men on the bus, they don't let anything go, they don't have the fear that we had in the past ", judge Andrea, who also notes let her daughter dare to speak today if she is being harassed. " We no longer see ourselves as the weaker sex ... ", she believes. Catalina ends her sentence: " Because we are not ".

This March 8, Andrea participated for the first time in the demonstration for women's rights, with her daughter, in Santiago. Against feminicides, against rapes, but also “ for the legalization of abortion, equal pay… There are so many subjects to fight for ! "Defends Catalina.

► Also read: In Lebanon, a smooth transmission between mother and daughter

► To read also: In South Africa, Ruth and Masetjhaba, between memories of the past and new opportunities

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