Mexico Murder Trial Puts Women’s Rights in Spotlight

The machismo of Mexican society leaves little room for strong female characters, a la the movie “Thelma and Louise.” But when Claudia Rodriguez and her friend Victoria Hernandez went for a night of drinking and dancing here a year ago, Rodriguez took her gun.

The 30-year-old had been attacked twice before in recent months. She was heading into a city where violent crime--rape included--is increasing. This time, she would be prepared.

It was just before sunrise, Rodriguez would testify, when she and her friend--after being insulted by a male companion--left the Meson Tarasco bar.

The man followed them out of the bar, onto a bus, then onto a bridge leading to a subway station. There, Rodriguez later testified, Juan Miguel Cabrera attacked her.

Cabrera, 27, started ripping off Rodriguez’s clothes and tried to rape her, both women testified later. Rodriguez resisted. She scratched him. She tried to push him away. She screamed. Finally, she struggled for her gun.

Rodriguez, a mother of five, does not deny that she shot Cabrera once with her .22-caliber pistol. He died two hours later.

Her homicide case, meantime, has become a battle cry for Mexico’s nascent women’s rights movement, as she and hundreds of her supporters insist that the shooting was a clear instance of self-defense.

Mexico’s judicial system has disagreed. Rodriguez has spent the last year in prison while on trial for murder. Although Mexican law permits use of deadly force in self-defense, experts say it has never been applied in a rape case.

Six months ago, a judge ruled against a motion to dismiss the charges against Rodriguez. She could not invoke the notion of self-defense, he said, citing matters such as her conduct. He made note of her being a married woman who was out on the streets at 5 a.m.

But, as Rodriguez’s lawyer and prosecutors prepare to deliver closing arguments in the case here later today, leaders of as many as 20 Mexican women’s activist groups have come together in protest.

More than a dozen activists have locked themselves inside a mock prison cell they put up outside the federal Interior Ministry here. The black-barred cage, they said, is meant to call attention to double standards in a Mexican judicial system that, they say, favors men over women.

Those who support Rodriguez say attempted rapes are all too common in this city, where such assaults--though increasing--are rarely prosecuted, let alone resisted. What is unusual about this incident, they say, was the way Rodriguez fought back--a response that they acknowledge has chilling echoes to a scene in the film “Thelma and Louise.”

But unlike that movie’s lead characters, Rodriguez and Hernandez did not flee afterward.

Instead, Rodriguez, her supporters say, has taken a stand, seeking a judicial decision that activists here say will set a key precedent for women across Mexico. The case has been further complicated because Cabrera’s mother insists that her son did nothing wrong.

“If the judge declares Claudia guilty, then all women run the risk of being guilty if they defend themselves,” said Lucia Lagunes, an activist in the mock cell Thursday. “If they find Claudia guilty, self-defense would be the same as criminality for all Mexican women.”

Maria Eugenia Chavez, another activist, pointed Thursday to a robbery case involving a man to illustrate her view that Mexico has a sexist standard about self-defense.

She noted that newspapers and official reports told how a male robbery victim--in an incident that occurred just days after Rodriguez’s--had fatally shot an assailant who had tried to steal his watch; police never charged him, saying he acted in self-defense.

A poster at Thursday’s protest underscored the point: “In Mexico, a woman’s integrity is worth less than a watch.”

“How is it possible that a woman is judged like this, while a man is not judged in the same way for killing someone while he’s being robbed?” asked Sonia del Valle Lavin, a journalist who works for the Women’s Communication and Information group.

Del Valle is among the activists here who believe that women are winning their fight for rights as Mexico’s macho culture is beginning to break down.

She and other protesters cited as proof the government decision in March to form a National Council for Women, which is just beginning to try to protect women from sexual harassment and abuse.

“It’s still difficult, but we have succeeded in many things we’ve fought for through the years,” Del Valle said. “I think people are becoming more and more conscious of the problems women face here.”

The women activists have now turned to the nation’s courts, seeking decisions that they hope will show real change in Mexican society. They hope for favorable results in the Rodriguez case.

After hearing today’s arguments, the judge will have two weeks to issue a verdict. If found guilty, Rodriguez faces up to 15 years in prison.

Ruling against her dismissal motion in July, Judge Gustavo Aquiles Gasca appeared to offer little hope for acquittal. Noting that Rodriguez remained in the streets at that late hour “in the company of her aggressor, despite his propositions to her,” the judge ruled: “She provoked him to attack her so she could shoot him in some vital part of his body.”