How attacks on women mobilized Mexico’s ‘feminist earthquake’

They were called vandals and provocateurs.

But Irinea Buendia didn’t mind. She was thinking of Mariana, chanting for an end to gender violence in Mexico, a photo of her murdered daughter hanging by a string around her neck.

This latest demonstration of women was organized under the hashtag #terremotofeminista (feminist earthquake) and controversially called on Sept. 19, the day the city marks two of its deadliest quakes. But it was just one that has gained force – and backlash – here in recent weeks.

In August women, Ms. Buendia among them again, were so outraged by allegations that police had raped minors that they doused the Mexico City’s security minister in pink sparkles, and days later defaced the capital’s most iconic monument. It became known as the “glitter movement” – and outside feminist circles, it wasn’t widely welcomed. “They call us vandals, I call it dignified rage,” Ms. Buendia says.