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The Guardian
17-05-2025
- The Guardian
The livestreamed killing of an influencer could be femicide – a misunderstood crisis
Valeria Márquez was killed in one of the most horrifically public ways possible. On Tuesday evening, the 23-year-old Mexican social media influencer, who had built up a large following with videos about beauty and makeup, was recording a TikTok livestream in the beauty salon where she worked in Jalisco, a state in west-central Mexico. A man entered the establishment and, with her video still running, shot her dead. Many details of the case are still unclear. However, Márquez's death is being investigated as a femicide, according to a statement by the Jalisco state prosecutor. Femicide is defined as the intentional killing of a woman or girl with gender-related motivations. (The term for killing males because of their sex, something that has occurred during war and genocide, is androcide.) While femicide is a universal and age-old issue, it is poorly understood. It is also sometimes wilfully misunderstood by some men's rights activists, who like to argue that it is a nonexistent problem because men make up the majority of victims (and perpetrators) of homicide. So it's worth spelling out the parameters of femicide. If a woman is killed in a robbery gone wrong, that's (probably) not femicide. If she is killed by an ex-boyfriend who views women as the property of men rather than autonomous human beings, that's femicide. 'Honour'-related killings are also obviously femicide. We are missing a lot of data on femicide. 'Too many victims of femicide still go uncounted: for roughly four in 10 intentional murders of women and girls, there is not enough information to identify them as gender-related killings because of national variation in criminal justice recording and investigation practices,' UN Women wrote in a report last year. Naming the problem – understanding why femicide is different from homicide – is important, because it helps us solve it. If more institutions took misogyny and domestic violence seriously, we'd see fewer dead women. A report by the World Health Organization notes, for example, that 'stronger gun laws related to men previously cited for or convicted of intimate partner abuse are of particular importance in reducing rates of femicide'. Justice for Márquez doesn't just involve finding her killer and ensuring they are punished. If this was femicide, it means being very clear about the misogyny that led to her death. It means holding all the lawmakers and institutions that perpetuate this misogyny to account. Justice means understanding that her death wasn't some sort of tragic one-off, but part of a far larger problem. 'If I die, I want a loud death,' the Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna wrote on social media shortly before she was killed by an Israeli airstrike this year. 'I don't want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time … ' That quote has haunted me ever since I read it. So many women who die premature and violent deaths die quiet deaths. They become statistics. Márquez must not just become another femicide statistic. Let her death, which has shone a spotlight on femicide, be loud. Let it have an impact that will remain through time. The president is obsessed with Swift and has posted about the pop star multiple times. The big Viagra budget, which has been widely discussed for years, isn't problematic in itself. The issue is that while the government has no problem spending this money on what is arguably gender-affirming care for cis men, it keeps yelling that trans people are a drain on resources. The issue is in the news once again after a judge in the Talbott v USA case, which challenges Trump's transgender military ban, noted that the military spends eight times more on erectile dysfunction medication than on gender-affirming care for trans service members. Liz Stead, 78, got kicked out of the military in 1969 when higher-ups sniffed out proof (a love letter) of Sapphic activity. She was also given a criminal conviction for 'perceived same-sex sexual activity'. As the BBC reports, she only found out about the conviction when applying for a scheme that awards financial redress for veterans sacked during a ban on homosexuality. Due to the fact that Israel isn't allowing international journalists into Gaza and murdering the Palestinian journalists and aid workers who are trapped in the enclave, it's impossible to really know how many children have been killed or starved to death by now. But we know there are more child amputees in Gaza than anywhere else in the world and, by one estimate, Israel kills a child in Gaza every 45 minutes. We also know that young children who do survive will never recover from being malnourished and traumatized in those formative years. While many people stay silent about a genocide that has been funded and enabled by the US, UK and Europe, the children's educator and entertainer Rachel Accurso (known and loved by parents of toddlers everywhere as Ms Rachel) has been speaking up about children in Gaza. And, quite predictably, she's getting vile abuse for it – including a piece in the New York Times that amplifies baseless, ridiculous and dangerous claims that she may be funded by Hamas. Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion A French study has found that men emit 26% more pollution because they eat more red meat and drive more. Of course we all need to be cognizant of our environmental impact, but it feels increasingly futile when billionaires pop to the grocery store on their private jets and warmongers pollute the planet. Last year, the Guardian reported on a study that found that '[t]he planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations'. In Jacobin, the anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee argues that 'the tradwife phenomenon and the manosphere are two sides of the same coin, reflecting the shift toward authoritarian politics'. Sometimes it's the people you most suspect. Tayo Bero spells out exactly how disturbing this is. 'You can't write a folk song – a folk song becomes one,' says Seeger. 'And they have helped to engender change because the community felt they spoke for them.' Chimpanzees are a hygienic bunch, a new study has found: they wipe their bums and even clean up after sex. Like orangutans, they also apply chewed plant material – which may have medicinal properties – to their wounds. In short, they are probably more knowledgeable about medical matters than the US health secretary. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
BBC News
15-05-2025
- BBC News
Mexican influencer Valeria Marquez killed on TikTok livestream
A 23-year-old Mexican social media influencer has been shot dead while live streaming on TikTok, the state prosecutor's office Marquez was killed when a man entered her beauty salon in the city of Guadalajara "and apparently fired a gun at her", according to the Jalisco state prosecutor's motive for the fatal attack has not been identified but the case is being investigated as a femicide - when women and girls are killed because of their gender, the state prosecutor violence is highly common in Mexico where the UN reports 10 women or girls are murdered every day by partners or family members. Moments before her death, Ms Marquez was sitting at a table holding a stuffed animal at her beauty salon in the suburb of Zapopan doing a later, she is shot dead, with the footage only ending when another person picks up her phone to stop the media reports say she was killed by a man pretending to bring her a arrived at the scene around 18:30 local time (12:30 GMT) and confirmed Ms Marquez's death, according to the state prosecutor's office did not name a of Ms Marquez, whose social media following totalled nearly 200,000 across TikTok and Instagram, have reacted with horror to her of Zapopan Juan José Frangie said his office had no record of Ms Marquez requesting help from the authorities due to threats against her, adding "a femicide is the worst thing", according to news agency state prosecutor says forensic experts are investigating the shooting.
South China Morning Post
14-05-2025
- South China Morning Post
Mexican beauty influencer Valeria Marquez shot dead during TikTok live stream
A young Mexican social media influencer, known for her videos about beauty and make-up, was brazenly shot to death during a TikTok live stream, in an incident that sent shock waves through a country that faces high levels of gender-based violence. The death of Valeria Marquez, 23, is being investigated according to protocols for femicide – the killing of women or girls for reasons of gender – the Jalisco state prosecutor said in a statement released on Tuesday evening. Femicide can involve degrading violence, sexual abuse, a relationship with the murderer, or the victim's body being exposed in a public space, according to Mexican authorities. Marquez was killed on Tuesday in the beauty salon where she worked in the city of Zapopan by a man who entered and shot her, the statement said. The prosecutor's office did not name a suspect. Seconds before the incident, Marquez was seen on her TikTok live stream seated at a table clutching a stuffed toy. She was heard saying, 'they're coming', before a voice in the background asked: 'Hey, Vale?' 'Yes,' Marquez replied, just before muting the sound on the live stream.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- The Guardian
Mexican beauty influencer shot dead during TikTok live stream
A young Mexican social media influencer, known for her videos about beauty and makeup, was brazenly shot to death during a TikTok livestream, in an incident that sent shockwaves through a country that faces high levels of gender-based violence. The death of Valeria Márquez, 23, is being investigated as a femicide – the killing of a women or girl for reasons of gender – the Jalisco state prosecutor said in a statement released on Tuesday evening. Femicide can involve degrading violence, sexual abuse, a relationship with the murderer, or the victim's body being exposed in a public space, according to Mexican authorities. Márquez was killed on Tuesday in the beauty salon where she worked in the city of Zapopan by a man who entered and shot her, the statement said. The prosecutor's office did not name a suspect. Seconds before the incident, Márquez was seen on her TikTok livestream seated at a table clutching a stuffed toy. She was heard saying, 'They're coming,' before a voice in the background asked: 'Hey, Vale?' 'Yes,' Márquez replied, just before muting the sound on the livestream. Moments later, she was shot to death. A person appeared to pick up her phone, with their face briefly showing on the livestream before the video ended. Márquez, who had nearly 200,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, had said earlier on the livestream that someone came to the salon when she was not there with an 'expensive gift' to deliver to her. Márquez, who appeared concerned, said she was not planning to wait for the person to come back. Mexico is tied with Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia as the countries with the fourth-highest rates of femicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the latest data from the United Nations economic commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, at 1.3 such deaths for every 100,000 women in 2023. Jalisco is ranked sixth out of Mexico's 32 states, including Mexico City, for homicides, with 906 recorded there since the beginning of President Claudia Sheinbaum's term in October 2024, according to data consultancy TResearch.
