The bodies of Maria Jose Alvarado, 19, and her sister, Sofia Trinidad, 23, were found almost a week after they disappeared after being seen leaving a party near the city of Santa Barbara, in Honduras. Maria Alvaro was due to fly to London this week to compete in the Miss World competition as Miss Honduras. Plutarco Ruiz, Sofia’s boyfriend has confessed to killing both women, allegedly because he was angry and jealous after seeing her dance with another man.
Men’s violence against women is a cause and consequence of sex inequality between women and men. We need to make the connections between the objectification of women and violence against women. While women are seen and judged as decorative objects judged by sexist beauty standards and simultaneously as men’s possessions, women and men can never be equal; and as long as we have sex inequality, we will have male violence against women. The ‘Miss World’ competition is part of the problem.
And yet femicide – the systemic killing of women because they are women – rarely makes the news. If it does, it is usually because, as in the case of the murder of Maria Jose Alvaradom the woman herself is seen as newsworthy. Across the world, hundreds of women are violently killed every day. So far this year, in the UK, at least 131 women have been killed through suspected male violence. Ordinary women killed by ordinary men, violence so ordinary that it is rarely front-page news.
Karen Ingala Smith 
There is, of course, the Mr. Universe contest which idolises an extreme version of masculinity, but this is rafely televised or given media attention outside it’s own niche market, whereas Miss World is. Interesting to speculate why this should be.
Honduras might be in the news this month but when is the death toll, ie murder rate, in the West Indies generally ever given media space ? Examine ‘life expectancy’ by gender and then please re-comment.
I love it when men issue tell me what to do.
Is ‘men issue’ a similar short hand some peopele adopt for siblings when they mean brother and sisters, and therfore ‘men issue’ means a KJ biblical type ‘issue’, i.e. a child of ? And I would not expect to tell anyone anything if the sentence included, asit does, the words please, examine and re-comment. That looks to me like an invitation to treat more than any dictate, wouldn’t you say ?.
Miss World is simply a marketing opportunity for cosmetics companies. Miss India has won disproportionately often because it is the country with the largest population next to China) to sell cosmetics to. All these cosmetic companies sell skin lightening creams but the truckload.
Honduras has the highest rate of murder of any country, so actually proportionately femicide is slightly lower there. I am not saying this to deflect from sexist murder.
The link to such tripe as Miss World should be perfectly clear, but there will be those who deny that there could be any link between the ‘beauty’ industry and violence against women.
Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.
Thank you for highlighting these appalling statistics and truths about violence against women. We all need to keep on raising awareness of the reality of femicide and the inequality between women and men.