"At home, we were always told that the man eats first and we eat last. The man can beat you as hard as he likes but you must have respect for him. In some communities the traditional ceremonies also center on men. But there are other communities where the women, realizing the community needs them, venture out of their homes."
-25-year-old Cakchiquel Indian Woman; interviewed in Guatemalan Women Speak
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Menchú was first introduced to the women's rights movement through the Catholic Church in Guatemala; she later became a major representative of the movement, often encouraging women to acquire an education to better themselves. She spoke worldwide, advancing women's legal and political rights, as well as partnering with local Guatemalan organizations to ameliorate their everyday lives -- such as through improved literacy or technical job training.
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"Rigoberta came to represent the antithesis of stereotypes of Maya women as silent, traditional, static, without politics, and without agency. Indeed, in I, Rigoberta and in her life, Rigoberta demanded recognition of Maya women as more than pawns of political processes designed and led by others. Rigoberta obliged the world to recognize Maya women as agents of their own history whose participation in political movements shaped those very movements regardless of their initial catalyst...[Through] her political action as a tireless speaker around the world, she put...[Maya women] back into the historical narrative of Guatemala -- and firmly placed Maya women in that narrative as conscious subjects, not malleable, manipulated instruments."
-Victoria Sanford, Buried Secrets
"We [women of Guatemala] want to participate in the economy, in the political system, in the decisions that make our destiny. We want to be in Congress, we want to be in the government, and we want to participate like any other citizens and make our contribution to the history of Guatemala." |
In 2012, she co-led a truth mission to Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras to investigate violence against women. The team interviewed hundreds of women, revealing cases of “femicide…sexual violence, rape, forced disappearance and attacks and arbitrary detention of women and women rights defenders” (Williams, “From Survivors to Defenders”). More than 95% of these crimes remain silent and unprosecuted.