WCW: This Woman Is Rescuing Latina Identity From The Tumblr Porn Abyss

by Brenna Ehrlich 1 min ago

It’s Woman Crush Wednesday, where we honor the women we want to be best friends with/be mentored by — or just be. Allow us to introduce you to this week’s lady of the entirety of this 24 hours…

Name: Xochilt Montaño

So why should we care about this lady? She started an awesome movement on Tumblr — along with four friends — to reclaim Latina identity. The whole thing is called Reclaiming the Latina Tag.

That’s pretty cool. Why did she want to reclaim the tag, though? What does that mean? Well, back in 2012 Xochilt was cruising through the #Latina tag and it was all, uh, porn.

Um. What? That’s really weird. I know! And did you know Latinas are also more likely to characterized as hyper-sexualized in movies, too?

What?! I mean, that’s a story for another day (literally, we wrote about it), but that ties in as well, since women were — and are — basically being made into fetishized objects on Tumblr.

So how does this whole thing work? Well, Xochilt decided to take back the tag, she told Buzzfeed, by uploading selfies. She thinks the selfie is an “act of resistance.” Those photos are often also captioned with info about the selfie-taker, flooding the #Latina feed with real women — not pornified snaps.

Wow! How do people react to that? Sadly, some people end up fetishizing the selfies as well, but Xochilt and Co. just block those guys. “It’s pretty tiring having to block all the fetishizing perverts, but it’s worth [it] if we stop seeing hypersexualized (without permission) or demeaning memes on the Latina tag,” she told Buzzfeed.

So is this all about fighting offensive images? No! That’s just part of it. Xochilt also wants to “celebrate the accomplishments of Latina women and also show that Latinas have different nationalities, races, sexual orientations, ethnicities, psychical characteristics and social classes.” Latinas can also go there to connect with their own heritage.

What can I do? How can I get involved? Well, you can pose questions via Tumblr’s “Ask” feature! Knowledge = Power, after all.

Brenna Ehrlich

Brenna Ehrlich is a reporter for MTV News as well as the senior writer/editor for the O Music Awards. In the past, she served as associate editor at Mashable, penned a netiquette column for CNN and co-authored the blog and book “Stuff Hipsters Hate.” She likes trying not to die in moshpits and listening to songs on repeat. Follow her on Twitter @BrennaEhrlich for news on cats and punk bands.