“But I don’t have any fear,” said Débora Maria da Silva, one of the founders of Mães de Maio. “After all, I don’t have anything else to lose: My son was my greatest treasure.” Ms. Silva also says she doesn’t feel intimidated by the police because she is, indeed, an authority. Mothers have certainly occupied an authoritative position in Latin America since Iberian colonization.

"Men and women can too often feel held back by what society expects of them, with people prevented from taking opportunities and fulfilling their potential... whether that means fathers who want to spend more time with their children without feeling as though that will hold them back at work, men and boys suffering from mental health problems who are afraid to seek help because of the stigma attached, or male victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault who are worried they will not be taken seriously."

While most of the world has drastically reduced maternal mortality in the past three decades, the US is one of just a handful of countries where the problem worsened, and significantly.

"It is true that when the casualty list starts to be devised, the females are more likely to be on it," Thompson told The Washington Post. "That's because you've already got built into the equation a gender preference for male characters" carried over from decades of scripted television that revolved around men. In most of these shows, he said, the "females characters have already been subordinated."