Premiere of “Cancion Sin Miedo”

There have been lots of exciting musical premieres around the world throughout history, but in my opinion, this will be one of the many more significant ones. This is a very impacting premiere to the Mexican culture. It is a song geared and dedicated towards feminicides and violence against women. Mexican women have been living in very serious and life threatening circumstances. They face death, rape, harassment, violence, disrespect, discriminated, and loss of other loved ones who happen to be women. It is an ongoing daily battle against domestic terrorism to women by men. The cause of this leading issue in Mexico is “machismo”, or aggressive male pride usually resulting in feeling superior to women. Men assume a dominant role, expecting women to be submissive and dependent on them. This behavior was born during the Spanish Conquista, the colonization of Mexico, when Hernan Cortes and his conquistadores raided the place, killed and raped indigenous women. This was the beginning of a culture of gender violence along with the French Civil Code, which inspired much of the early Mexican law, in which women were to be listed as dependents of men in all aspects of life from the law to finances. Losing independence, losing control, and losing identity. Ever since it’s beginnings, machismo has unfortunately now turned the country into a patriarchy in which it is governed mainly by men. Making women inferior to them, and in certain circumstances almost like a piece of furniture. Living this way for so many centuries has definitely taken a toll on women and its most recent generations, leading them to rebel and resist this toxic way of life.
Today the modern struggle mainly consists of violence against women just due to the fact that they are women. They seem to be a perfect target, since the government doesn’t really practice justice against most assassins, rapists, and aggressors. According to research, one in three women has been a victim of gender violence in their lifetimes. It has been shown through numerous surveys that the majority of women in Mexico do not report rape to authorities; these studies have shown that as few as 15 percent of rapes are reported.An INEGI report in 2017 found that of the women attending school in the prior 12 months, 10.7 percent of them were sexually assaulted. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico (INEGI), 66.1 percent of all women age 15 and older have experienced some kind of violence in their lives.Forty-nine percent have suffered from emotional violence; 29 percent have suffered from emotional-patrimonial violence or discrimination; 34 percent from physical violence; and 41.3 percent of women have suffered from sexual violence.Of the women who were assaulted in some form, 78.6 percent of them have not sought help or reported their attacks to authorities out of fear and due to lack of trust on law enforcement.According to Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Publica (SNSP) 93% of reported crime remains unresolved.Due to these horrific statistics, women have finally decided to take a stand, organizing protests against the government for not looking out after them. Angry, because the average wait time to have a search party go out to look for a missing female will take at least 72 hours, but if there is a call to the authorities that there is a group of women vandalizing some statues as a for of protest they will be there in approximately and averagely about 10 minutes. They have begun to start protests in favor of legal and safe abortions since there is a lot of cases of rapes and unwanted pregnancies. Authorities will immediately take action when reports of illegal abortions have been made, but none when it has to do with a domestic abuse phone call or a rape report. “Why can’t we decide what to do with our OWN bodies? And why is an abortion worse that what they have done to us?” says Rebeca Lane, a modern urban Mexican artist.

Due to all of the pain that Mexican are going through, with losses of other women they know, they have decided to unite and remain together as one. An artist that is very famous for being one of the first to initiate that “sisterhood” pact is Vivir Quintana. Vivir Quintana is a 32 year old Mexican musician who is very passionate about these feminist movements in favor of serving justice to all of the aggressors, assassins and rapists. She is also a well known activist for women’s rights. She composed what is now known as “ the Feminist Anthem” in Mexico. She wrote it out of rage and frustration that these injustices have brought her. The way it is performed is by many women standing together and singing in unison, the song allows the women to literally raise their voices loud and proud in a very strong tone. The voice style used is very similar to that of mariachi in which the woman’s voice tends to be lower and thicker than their regular speaking voice. According to research, this is due to the fact that women wish to feel in control and in dominance, tired of suppression and submission, deeper voices subconsciously allow them to feel stronger, safer, and in control. Vivir Quintana, known as the official pioneer of feminist resistance music, has now influenced and encouraged other women to compose music to raise their voices and express their exhaustion for suppression and injustice.
The premiere of this song in March 7, 2020 really impacted millions of Mexicans, especially women. Allowing them to understand that they are not alone, that the way their life has unfolded is unfortunately and disgracefully, not a normality. That this country has a lot of waking up to do, women are HUMAN BEINGS too!! They deserve respect and the right to chose over their bodies just like men. Therefore, the impact that this song had honestly has left many astonished. It has served as a song of strength, resistance, and consolation to Mexican women. It has served them the strength they needed to believe in themselves to try and make a change, to protest for all the wrongs the country has done to them. They felt the courage to try and put an end to all the injustices that costed MILLIONS of Mexican women’s lives that were simply over looked, and the many murders of innocence in young girls, as well as the cold blooded murder of respect towards women overall. Women went out there to protest for what was right, their right, and figured they had nothing to lose after all they have been through.
This song also fueled up a lot more modern artists to keep writing song of resistance, strength, and consolation towards these issues of violence against women. It created a massive domino effect in which many women opened their eyes and realized they deserved better, used the anger and rage to stand up for themselves and create a feminist movement in which they would protest in many ways to try and obtain something that every human being deserves, respect.