WHAT IS SER MUJER?

Women Changing the World Together.

Ser Mujer is a San Miguel de Allende based group of Mexican, American and Canadian women of all ages working in partnership with community-based organizations.

 

Our goal is to promote the commonality of women’s issues across cultures, to raise awareness of their challenges, and to celebrate their accomplishments and contributions.

 

Ser Mujer honors the struggles and successes of women around the world with a series of films, talks, panel discussions, poetry readings and activities throughout San Miguel de Allende.

 

As part of the month long activities, Take Back the Night is offered to the community with the mission of ending sexual, relationship, and domestic violence in all forms. The event includes a peaceful march, a security fair, information tables, videos and a self-defense demonstration.

Thank you to our collaborators, sponsors and partners

2017 Events

Women Composers from Around the World

March 2
5 PM at UNAM

This conference-concert presents several female composers from different epochs and places around the (Western) world, such as Maria Szymanowska, Pauline Viardot, Teresa Carreño, Amy Beach and María Teresa Lara. The speaker shares her passion for the life and work of these female creators not only through an academic approach, but also through musical examples, some of them sung by the lecturer.
Language: Bilingual
Cost: Free

Film: Ausencias

March 6
6 PM at Bellas Artes

The Disappeared: More than 28,000 people have gone missing during Mexico’s drug wars. What happened to them? This is the question that drives activist Aracelli Rodriguez whose son Luis Angel, a federal police officer, went missing in Michoacan in 2009. Since the abduction of 43 students in the Mexican state of Guerrero last year, a procession of international observers has been scrutinizing the state of human rights in Mexico. They don’t like what they’ve found. Join Aracelli and Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Project for the Center for International Policy as they explain. Their talk will be preceded by the hauntingly beautiful short film film Ausencias by Hondura filmmaker Tatiana Hueso.
Language: Bilingual
Cost: $80p public – $20p students

Film: She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry
Art Opening: Woman Unfolding

March 7
1 PM at Teatro Santa Ana

10 women artists re-imagine the female body, no longer bound by considerations of age or cultural norms.

Opening 2:30-5pm following the film, “She’s Beautiful When SHe’s Angry”
Film Language: English with Spanish subtitles

Cost: $60p public

Take Back the Night

March 8
5 PM at Casa Cultural Mesones 71

On March 8, Ser Mujer will be organizing its second Take Back The Night as a way to celebrate International Women’s Day. Take Back The Night is an event that seeks to bring awareness to the public about sexual assault and offer a safe place for victims to break the silence of their own experiences. Take Back The Night events have been occurring in over 30 countries worldwide and on over 600 campuses, reaching over 30 million people.

5pm-6:30pm, please join our Information fair hosted by various organizations that address security, health, and gender related issues in the state of Guanajuato.
6:30-7pm we will march to the Jardin as a show of solidarity and as a way to bring awareness to the community about our mission of ending sexual violence. 7pm we will return to the Casa de la Cultura for a closing candle-lighting ceremony.
Cost: Free

Film: Daughters of the Forest

March 9
1 PM at Teatro Santa Ana
4:30 PM at UNAM

Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Cost: Teatro Santa Ana: $60p public
Cost: UNAM: Free

Poetry Readings

March 13
6 PM at Bellas Artes

Language: Spanish and English

Cost: $80p public – $20p students

Film: Trapped

Marzo 14
1 PM at Teatro Santa Ana

Language: English
Costo: $60p public

Film: Justice for my Sister

March 16
1 PM at Teatro Santa Ana
4:30 PM at UNAM

Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Cost: $60p public – $20p students
Cost UNAM: Free

Film: African Grandmothers Tribunal

March 21
1 PM at Teatro Santa Ana

Language: English
Cost: $60p public

Talk and discussion by Jennifer Ungemach and Casilda Barajas on Women and Water in San Miguel

March 22
11 AM at Teatro Santa Ana

Water access and quality issues impact women around the globe. Join Casilda and Jennifer (Caminos de Agua) to see how water flows through womens’ lives, celebrating emotions, confronting challenges, sharing realities, speaking truth, implementing alternative solutions and taking action. Be inspired by women activists from around the world. Special guests from the region share the realities of how lack of water and water contamination affects our community as well as their passion for building community through water access and quality projects. Come and celebrate Water Day with us.

Language: Bilingual
Cost: $60p public

Film: Yo Soy Asi
Selected shorts on the LGBTQ theme

March 23
1 PM Teatro Santa Ana
4:30 at UNAM

Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Cost: $60p public
Cost UNAM: free

Film: Maestra

What’s it Like to be a Woman in Cuba Today?

March 27
6 PM at Bellas Artes

Join Catherine Murphy and Aylin Wong for a conversation about today’s woman in Cuba. San Francisco-based filmmaker Catherine Murphy has spent much of the last 10 years working in Latin America and was asked to accompany Barack Obama on his historic trip to Cuba last March. She will be joined by Aylin Wong, from the Cultural bureau of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico. Their talk will be preceded by the short film Maestra, directed by Ms. Murphy.

Language: Bilingual
Cost: $80p public – $20p students

Collage of short films about Goldman Environmental Prize winning women

March 28
1 PM at Teatro Santa Ana

Language: English subtitles
Cost: $60p public

Women Risk Takers

March 29
11 AM at Sala Quetzal

Many girls are taught at an early age to strive for perfection, to be “good little girls” and not take the risk of making a mistake or causing trouble. “Don’t stick your neck out” we are told. What separates the well-behaved woman from the woman who makes history or dares to challenge the norm. Join us for what promises to be an inspirational finale for Ser Mujer 2017. Meet the women who have changed the world on a local, national and international level. Our panel includes writer and activist Ann Medlock, founder of the Giraffe Project which honors people around the world who have stuck their neck out for the common good. She is joined by San Miguel’s own Chelo Agundis, community activist Angelica Juarez-Rios, and plant spirit medicine practitioner and midwife, Alison Bastien. Be inspired.

Language: Bilingual
Cost: $60p public

2017 SPEAKERS

Ann Medlock

March 29

Ann Medlock is a writer and activist who founded the Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit that encourages people to stick their necks out for the common good and trains them in doing so successfully. She writes the Project’s website www.giraffe.org, its Facebook page, and many of its materials for students.

In her eight decades, she’s been a freelance writer, an award-winning public radio commentator, an editor at Macmillan, and speechwriter to US political figures and to the Aga Khan. Her personal writing includes Arias, Riffs & Whispers, a book of poems, and Outing the Mermaid, A Novel of Love, Fear and Misogyny, to be published in June 2017. She’s a board member of the Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat for women and has been working there on a memoir.

Casilda Barajas

March 22

Casilda Barajas, an architect by trade and a graduate of the UNAM. A resident of San Miguel de Allende now for six years, she is busy as an architect specializing in design with reeds and an active promoter of reed construction. Casilda promotes gray water recycling with biofilters and natural wetlands. She worked six years in Chiapas with this type of technology as well as designing and building a network of micro community health clinics in Zapatista communities. She also participates in another civil association (INANA –Initiatives for Nature). Casilda designs learning materials and community outreach strategies for Caminos de Agua.

Araceli Rodriguez

March 6

Araceli Rodríguez is the mother of Luis Ángel León Rodríguez, a federal police officer who disappeared in 2009 in Zitácuaro Michoacán. He is one of more than 28,000 Mexicans who have disappeared. Following the disappearance of her son, Araceli became a leader in the Disappeared Movement and has become a spokeswoman for the thousands of missing persons in Mexico.

Alison Bastien

March 29

Alison Bastien has been in San Miguel since 1973. She has an undergraduate degree in anthropology, and has worked as a childbirth educator, home birth midwife, midwifery instructor, and plant-spirit medicine practitioner and creator for the past 35 years. She and her family founded and still operate the La Victoriana shop here in SMA. Her writings, both nonfiction and memoir, have been published in various midwifery magazines and anthologies.

Jennifer Ungemach

March 22

Jennifer Ungemach, born and raised in Pennsylvania, graduated from Juniata College with a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and completed her master’s degree in Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture in Havana, Cuba. She has lived over a decade throughout Latin America where she has been involved in various projects in sustainable development. She is passionate about connecting people with big ideas, in particular related to safe, healthy and sustainable water and food.

Consuelo “Chelo” Agundis

March 29

Consuelo Agundis was born and raised and lived an active, full life of 82 years in San Miguel de Allende and is not about to slow down. Better known as Chelo in her beloved community, she owned, operated, and consulted in her pharmacy on Canal Street all while marrying 5 times and bearing 6 children. Today she continues to help manage her various apartment complexes while proudly serving as matriarch of her vivacious family.

Dra. Claudia Chibici-Revneana

March 2

Claudia Chibici-Revneanu (Graz, Austria 1978) is lecturer of UNAM. She holds a PhD in Cultural Policy Studies from the University of Warwick, UK. Member of the National Researchers System (SNI, a Mexican research program) has published literary and academic articles in national and international magazines and journals. Her main research interest is gender and music. As a mezzo-soprano, she has presented conference-concerts in various universities and cultural centers in Mexico.

Laura Carlsen

March 6

Laura Carlsen holds a B.A. in Social Thought and Institutions from Stanford University and a Masters degree in Latin American Studies, also from Stanford. In 1986 she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the impact of the Mexican economic crisis on women and has lived in Mexico City since then. She has published numerous articles and chapters on social, economic and political aspects of Mexico and recently co-edited Confronting Globalization: Economic integration and popular resistance in Mexico, and co-authored El Café en Mexico, centroamerica y el caribe: Una salida sustentable a la crisis. Before joining the Americas Project, Carlsen was a correspondent for Latin Trade magazine, editor of Business Mexico, freelance writer and researcher. As program director of the Center for International Policy, she is responsible for writing, assigning and editing materials; representing the organization in public forums; seeking out and maintaining collaborative relationships; and administering the Mexico City office and staff.

Catherine Murphy

March 27

Catherine Murphy is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who has spent much of the last 10 years working in Latin America. She is founder & director of The Literacy Project, a multi-media documentary project on adult literacy in the Americas.
As an independent producer, Murphy’s work has largely focused on social documentaries. She has field produced films like Saul Landau’s Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?, Eugene Corr’s From Ghost Town to Havana, served on the production crew of Gay Cuba; and subtitled Stealing America by Dorothy Fadiman, Jaime Kibben’s The Greening of Cuba, and Out and Refusenicks by Sonja de Vries. She also served an archival researcher for Susanne Rostock’s recent biography of Harry Belafonte, Sing Your Song.
MAESTRA is her directing debut.

Angelica Juarez

March 29

Angelica Juarez Rios is a community activist. Her family moved to San Miguel to give their children opportunities because there were no schools in their rural community. She lived in the neighborhood Las Cuevitas where she worked with a womans’ group she founded to build a bridge and streets to connect her neighborhood with San Miguel. She is mother of two, a grandmother and the owner of her own business, Transportes and Tours Allende.

2017 FILMS

Trapped

Director: Dawn Porter

U.S. reproductive health clinics are fighting to remain open. Since 2010, 288 TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) have been passed by state legislatures. In total, 44 states and the District of Columbia have measures subjecting abortion providers to legal restrictions not imposed on other medical professionals. Unable to comply with these far-reaching and medically unnecessary laws, clinics have taken their fight to the courts. In 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling (Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt) that prevents individual states from essentially outlawing abortion.

Language: English
Subtitles: No

Daughters of the Forest

Director: Samantha Grant

DAUGHTERS of the FOREST tells the powerful, uplifting story of a small group of girls in one of the most remote forests left on earth who attend a radical high school– Centro Educativo Mbaracayú (CEM)– where they learn to protect the threatened forest and forge a better future for themselves. Set in the untamed wilds of the Mbaracayú Reserve in rural Paraguay, this intimate verité documentary offers a rare glimpse of a disappearing world where timid girls grow into brave young women even as they are transformed by their unlikely friendships with one another

Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English

Yo Soy Así

Producer/Director: Jodi Savitz

Yo Soy Así is a documentary film which follows four Argentine, lesbian-identified women, as they recount their stories of coming-out, first loves, sex with women, overcoming prejudice, and their hopes for the future. The filmmakers hope to shed light on the complexities of lesbian life in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and how the different generations of lesbian women have accepted their sexuality.

Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English

Art Opening: Woman Unfolding

10 women artists re-imagine the female body, no longer bound by considerations of age or cultural norms.

Opening 2:30-5pm following the film, “She’s Beautiful When SHe’s Angry”

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry

Director: Mary Dore

This documentary resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY takes us from the founding of NOW, with ladies in hats and gloves, to the emergence of more radical factions of women’s liberation. It’s a film about activists, made to inspire women and men to work for feminism and human rights.

Language: English
Subtitles: Spanish

Collage of 2015-2016 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners

The Goldman Environmental Prize honors women and men who take grassroots actions to protect the environment in their communities. Goldman Prize recipients focus on protecting endangered ecosystems and species, combating destructive development projects, promoting sustainability, influencing environmental policies and striving for environmental justice. Prize recipients are often women and men from isolated villages or inner cities who choose to take great personal risks to safeguard the environment. This film will focus on six women prize recipients from Slovakia, Peru, the US, Canada, Kenya and Honduras. Their actions, courage and compassion are inspiring. Ordinary women act in extraordinary ways to protect the environment and their communities in these short videos. You will see them working in their communities and their acceptance speeches for the environmental prize.
51 minutes
Language: Various
Subtitles: English

Justice for My Sister

Director: Kimberly Bautista

An intimate look at violence against women in Guatemala by chronicling the three-year journey of Rebeca as she tries to hold her sister’s killer accountable. The film serves as the centerpiece of a transnational campaign to promote healthy relationships and denounce gender-based violence and femicide/feminicide.

Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English

African Grandmothers Tribunal

Director: Neal Hicks

This moving documentary from the Stephen Lewis Foundation shines a light on the urgent need to provide better protection for the human rights of African grandmothers. Grandmothers are the primary caregivers for a large number of children left orphaned and vulnerable by HIV & AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. But their ability to care for these children, and for themselves, is greatly compromised by the effects of gender- and age-based discrimination. They are subject to high rates of violence, an epidemic of property grabbing, extreme poverty, and woefully inadequate healthcare.

Language: Various
Subtitles: English

Absences

Director: Tatiana Huezo

Absences/Ausencias exposes the ever intensifying phenomenon of enforced disappearance in Mexico. This hauntingly beautiful short film illuminates the way disappearance affects women, and broadens our awareness of its social consequences in Mexico and Central America.

Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English

Maestra

Director: Catherine Murphy

Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island – and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.Narrated by Alice Walker

Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English

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