Women's Works at the Street Lynx Gallery

Gallery owner Lorenzo Masnah shows prints to a group of Irish tourists. 

Hurry down to La Candelaria's Lynx Art Gallery, on Calle 18 just above Carrera 6 (diagonal to the Freemasons' Temple) to see their exhibition of works by women artists.

The exhibition continues until Sept. 29, when they'll hold a closing ceremony from 6 to 9 p.m. attended by the artists. Admission is free.

Calle 18 No. 4-94, La Candelaria.
Tel: 313-242-0070
@street_lynx_bta

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Sexual Violence as a Weapon in Colombia's Conflict

Sexual abuses have been in the news not only because of the endless parade of headline-making sex crimes, often targeting children, but also because of revelations of wholesale sexual attacks being used as a weapon of war by Colombia's various armed groups. 

A recent report by the Centro de Memoria titled 'The War Written on the Body' counted more than 15,000 sexual attacks amidst Colombia's armed conflict, committed by armed groups of all types, including the official military. That number, of course was surely a huge undercount, since most such crimes are never reported.

The report included testimonies by women and girls recounting attacks by armed groups, often as punishment for supposed disobedience. One woman, for example, had helped her children escape from being recruited as FARC fighters, for which misdeed the guerrillas gang raped her. Other women were targeted with attacks as warnings to or punishment against their husbands, for example for not paying protection money to the armed groups. 

One FARC leader, Raul Reyes, who was killed in 2008 by a Colombian military bombing of his camp in Ecuador, kept an escort of female guerrillas, some as young as 10 or 11, whom he sexually abused.

A graph shows numbers of reported cases of sexual abuse
related to Colombia's armed conflict. Cases
peaked in 2002 and 2014.

A young girl recruited by the guerrillas described in the Centro Memoria's report how the guerrillas arranged newly arrived girls up in two rows: the virgins on one side, the rest on the other. The virgins were given to the guerrilla commanders for their recreation, while lower-echelon guerrillas had to make do with the others.

Female guerrillas who became pregnant were usually forced to have abortions or had their newborns taken from them.

A conservative politician calls for
life sentences for child abusers.

Sex crimes are also in the news because some conservative politicians are advocating for capital punishment or life in prison for child rapists. That has many asking why the demobilized guerrillas - many of whom committed sex crimes, as well as murder, kidnapping and forced displacement - should get off with little more than a symbolic punishment, and even be allowed to hold political office.

And I also wonder why the wave of accusations (almost all of them certainly true) of sexual misbehavior against prominent men in the U.S. has not spread to other places, particularly Latin America. After all, in a nation like Colombia where many men feel entitled to make sexual comments to women on the street, and where machismo culture is strong, is it credible that much worse things don't happen in the privacy of offices and studios?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Mysterious Lady of Lourdes Plaza

For weeks - or perhaps months - this young woman stood very quietly on Lourdes Plaza in Bogotá's Chapinero neighborhood, transmitting some mysterious message.

From whence she came - or who put her there - she offered no clue. And she left her message - if she carried one - open to interpretation: With her uplifted skirt, was she making a statement about men's tendency to objectivy women? Something about women's endurance despite adverse conditions? Was she carrying out sort of stationary, inanimate performance art? A permanent temptation for men to misbehave, in the era of Harvey Weinstein and ex-U.S. President George Bush? Or, was she doing nothing at all?

And now, she's gone. Stolen, perhaps, or removed by her creator. And we'll never know why she came and went.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Remembering Rosa Elvira Cely

Participants in today's ceremony carry a sign about another victim of gender violence. 

Almost exactly three years ago, Rosa Elvira Cely, a 35-year-old cafeteria employee was savagely raped and left to die in the upper part of Bogotá's Parque Nacional. Discovered unconscious by police the next morning, Cely died while awaiting treatment after being shuttled from one hospital to another.

The viciousness of the crime and senselessness of Cely's death has made the crime an emblematic one for activists against violence against women, who staged a commemorative ceremony today on the site of the crime.

Despite publicity campaigns and stricter punishments - Cely's attacker, who was mentally ill, was sentenced to almost 50 years in prison - violence against women continues to be an epidemic in Colombia. A recent report by the Defensoria del Pueblo said there were 38 cases of such violence per day in Colombia - and those are only the cases reported and recorded publicly. Congress has two laws pending on the issue, one of which would make femicide a specific crime, and another increasing penalties for acid attacks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Good and Bad Sexploitation?

 A step up for Colombian women? The new Miss Universe, Colombian Paulina Vega, in all her glory.

The El Espectador and El Tiempo newspapers sold out early yesterday, thanks to the crowning of Paulina Vega as Miss Universe.

Should Colombians be proud that this young woman from Barranquilla was crowned the prettiest

Tabloids celebrate Colombia's
Miss Universe victory.

woman on Earth? Should Colombians cheer that their women are honored for their looks and curves, rather than their brains and abilities?

In response to a question about what women could learn from men, Vega opined that many men do believe in gender equity, and that women could learn that from men. Admittedly, beauty queens are not known for their intellectual depth, but that response strikes me as remarkably off base. Presumably, women should by nature believe more strongly in gender equity and not need to learn that from men. And, by perpetuating shallow, stereotypical images of women, is Vega doing anything to reduce such gender inequity?
Evidently, Colombia's got a ways to go to reduce inequity. The 2014 Social Institutions and Gender Index ranked Colombia 38th out of 108 nations surveyed, but behind most of the other Latin American nations. In 2013, the United Nations Development Program’s Gender Inequality Index ranked Colombia 91st out of 186 nations. And gender violence - most notoriously acid attacks - remains a huge problem here.

And what about the contrast between the celebration of Vega's victory and the (very justified) outrage over the recent Miss Tanguita, or Little Miss Thong, beauty contest held in the town of Barbosa, featuring 6 to 10-year-old girls.

A step forward for girls? A Little Miss Tanga contestant parades before a drunken crowd.

While a world of difference exists between children and adults exhibiting their bodies, the two contests promote the same values of beauty and sexuality. If Little Miss Thong is damaging because of the way it exploits young girls and celebrates the wrong values, can Miss Universe be so different?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá's Dangerous Campaign Against Gender Violence

A banner hung on the Plaza del Che in the Universidad Nacional publicizes 'The week of no violence against women.' 

 Don't hit a woman...tomorrow.

ADN newspaper reports that Nov. 25 is
the 'day without violence against women.'

That's the message Bogotá seems to be sending out these days. Violence against women - or any sort of violence - is a terrible thing. But the instruction not to commit violence today, this week or this month seems to send an implicit message that committing violence tomorrow, next week, or next month IS alright.

It's the same message I get from those useless warnings stenciled on Bogotá streetcorners and alleys:

'Urinating prohibited on this street.'

So on the next street it's okay?

While it's a good thing to designate a week to draw attention to gender violence - a huge problem in Colombia - they'd better serve their goal by simply drawing attention to the problem, rather than calling on men to stop hitting women 'this week.'

'Urinated Prohibited On This Street.' And on the next street?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia Qualifies for the 'Other' World Cup

Colombia's Women's Team: On their way to the Olympics and the World Cup, in case you didn't notice. (Photo: El Tiempo)

Even as Colombia continues to feel the glow from its run in the football World Cup, and the country's self-esteem seems to be pegged to James Rodriguez's performance for Real Madrid, Colombia's qualifying for the Women's World Cup, to be held next year in Canada, received scant attention.

The women qualified by finishing second, after Brazil, in the Copa America, played in Ecuador. At the same time, they also qualified for the Olympics and Panamerican Games.

This is the second time the Colombia women have qualified, and in at least one sense it's a greater achievement than the men's qualifying, since there are places for far fewer teams (but fewer nations field women's teams). Colombia may stand a better chance at winning the women's cup, since the field appears more open than on the men's side, where a few elite teams dominate. In women's international soccer Brazil and Germany also do well, but Norway, Japan and the United States have all won women's cups, and even China and Canada have placed high.

A big boost for Colombian and Latin American women's soccer would be the creation of professional leagues. Women's leagues do exist in Europe, and one is struggling to survive in the U.S., but they receive minimal attention.

While a few Colombian women athletes have become heroines, it's perhaps a sad commentary that the greatest attention women athletes have received recently was for the supposedly suggestive colors of the women's cycling team's uniform.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Women On Top

Candidates Marina Silva and Dilma Rousseff, who appear headed toward a run-off for Brazil's next presidential term. 

In December 2013 Michelle Bachelet defeated Evelyn Matthei to win her second term as Chile's first female president - the first time that a presidential run-off has featured two female candidates, as far as I know.

Chilean Pres. Michelle Bachelet, right, and conservative
candidate Evelyn Matthei during this
year's presidential election, which Bachelet won.

Now, it looks almost certain that Brazil's first female president, Dilma Rousseff, will face a fellow female leftist, Marina Silva, in the second round of that nation's presidential election.

And Argentina, the nation separating Brazil and Chile, is also ruled by a woman, altho Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is the political heir of her deceased husband, the former president Néstor Kirchner. (Is this the first-time ever that three contiguous nations were ruled by women?)

And, several Central American and Caribbean nations are also ruled by women.

While women leaders are still a marked minority in Latin America, their numbers seem dramatic for a region in which women have only been able to vote - much less run for office - for less than a century. In Chile and Brazil the first women obtained the vote in the early 1930s and in Argentina in 1949. Colombian women were only given the right to vote in 1954 - ironically, by a dictator.

The three female-headed nations make up 25% of South America's 12 nations - altho much more of

Argentine Pres. Cristina
Kirchner.

its population and economy, because Brazil and Argentina are so large. That places the continent ahead on a world scale, since only 21 of the United Nations' 193 nations - or barely more than 10% - are headed by women.

For its part, Colombia has never had a female president. But several women have been seen as contenders in recent elections, and in this year's presidential vote two women - a leftist and a rightist - each won a respectable 15% of the vote.

Why has South America, whose macho, Catholic culture has not traditionally been seen as particularly progressive on women's issues, become something of a leader for female leaders? Part of the answer might just be chance. Three, after all, is a small sample size. And Argentina's Kirchner came to power on the coattails of her husband Nestor, who has since died.

As for Brazil's Rousseff and Chile's Bachelet, it's hard to ignore the fact that both were political dissidents persecuted by their nations' dictatorships. But what THAT means, I'm not sure. After all, most persecuted political dissidents were likely male.

As a minimum, these women's political victories make clear that Latin culture does not throw insurmountable obstacles in the way of women politicians. Now, it's up to these women leaders to leave behind real accomplishments to ease the path for future women politicians.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Hidden Women Revealed!

The controversial 'Mujeres Ocultas' (Hidden Women) exhibition which was opposed by conservative Catholic organizations is on display now in the Museo Santa Clara a block south of Plaza Bolivar. The conservative organizations filed 86 tutelas, or lawsuits, against the exhibition's opening in the museum - which was a church attached to a convent - because of the works' erotic content. The artist, Maria Eugenia Trujillo, mixes and erotic and sacred to represent how women have been 'held in custody, cloistered, forced to submit,' according to the museum.

A museum guide said that each year the Santa Clara selects three outside exhibitions related to the museum's content and history. And Trujillo's work is certainly related. After all, the nuns of this convent were permanently cloistered: once they entered, they never saw the outside world again. Above and at one end of the museum's exhibition hall - once the convent's church - is a dark wooden wall with holes in it. Behind this wall sat the nuns so that they could watch the service while remaining unseen. In 1983, the building became a museum and the Catholic Church officially deconcecrated it, making it a secular place. Altho the artworks on display are all religious, the pieces are considered secular cultural artifacts, a museum guide said.

However, the conservative protesters argued that displaying the erotic material in the one-time Catholic church amounted to a desecration and an attack on their faith. A judge ordered the exhibition temporarily closed, but a Cundinamarca court later ruled that it could go ahead.

Like the subjects of most such controversies, the artworks here are quite tame, tamer than what you see most nights on prime-time television.

A display criticizes the Catholic church as repressing women and reducing them to 'a single function: procreation.' 

The Santa Clara Museum also contains a permanent display of death portraits of the convent's nuns.

Under the church's alter is a crypt, where prominent people were once buried. Other graves were found under the church's floor. All of these remains were moved to the crypt. Recently, the bones were lent to Universidad de los Andes students, who hope to learn from them about common causes of death hundreds of years ago.




By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Born Without Hands, She Needs No Handout

Morales and her niece in her shop near San Victorino Plaza.

Mastering their tightly woven craftwork is a challenge for any young woman of the Zenu indigenous people in Cordoba Department. But Odalis Yaneth Moralez Velásquez had an added obstacle: she was born without arms.

Nevertheless, when she was eight, Morales began learning to make her people's traditional handicrafts: with her toes.

Weaving with her toes.

"I said, 'if I can do other things with my feet, why can't I weave?'" she recalled.

At first, it was difficult: "What a normal person learned in a week," she said, "I learned in two months."

Made by toes, worn on the feet.

But Morales persevered and succeeded.

But then appeared of a terrible force nobody could cope with. In 2009, right-wing paramilitary groups, which roam much of Cordoba, murdered Morales' father and older brother and stole the family's property. She says she has no idea why.

Devastated, Morales fled to Bogotá.

"I had to start from scratch," she says.

A rare sight: Customers in the La Fortaleza mall.

For years, Morales wove and sold her crafts on city sidewalks, where she often drew a crowd. I profiled her several years ago at work on La Septima.

Recently, however, she said police increasingly harassed street vendors, and so, when a mall owner who'd seen her on television offered her a shop rental, she moved in. She now sells her work in the La Fortaleza mini-mall off of San Victorino Plaza, adjoining Ave. Caracas.

Hidden indoors, however, she has much less foot traffic and fewer customers. Morales is a single mother with two children to support and a long commute from south Bogotá.

"This week, I haven't really sold anything," she says with her characteristic smile. Whereas on the sidewalk "there was always someone to buy, someone to help."

Artesanias Odalis: Cra 13A No. 12-13 Local 02. Pasaje Comercial La Fortaleza. 
Cel: 311-414-6865 / 300-715-7060. Land line: 795-5951. E-mail: artesaniasodalis@hotmail.com . 

Related post:

The Armless Weaver of La Septima

Let your fingers do the dialing.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours