femicide

Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera

mandy — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Georgina Guzman

Making a Killing is a collection of essays exploring the history and social/political/economic context of the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico from 1993 to the present day. Essays analyze the economic context of free trade that has contributed to a culture that devalues women workers and sees female bodies as expendable in the making of cheap products for American women. Essays examine activists’ and artists’ efforts to gain attention for the plight of women in Juarez, analyze the culture of law enforcement in Juarez, and vividly portray the efforts of mothers and relatives to get justice for their missing and murdered daughters.

Though the essays collected here are primarily academic, they are easy to read and will be of interest to the general public, not just other academics. The collection provides a thorough history and a complete picture of the efforts to stop the violence against women in Juarez throughout the last two decades. Though the subject is difficult, I enjoyed the book a lot.

I lived in El Paso, Texas for fifteen of the last twenty years; the stories of Mexican women being raped, murdered, and dumped in the desert on the outskirts of Juarez, Mexico filtered into my consciousness early. But so did the stories of narco-murders. In the last three years, the world has lost its preoccupation with the murder of women in Juarez and turned its attention instead to the mayhem and murders of over 25,000 Mexican citizens in the drug cartel wars ripping the nation apart. Juarez is the city most affected by these murders (3,000 in 2010 alone).

If I have one criticism of Making a Killing, it is that it pays little attention to the general culture of killing in Juarez. The murders of women didn’t begin in 1993—nor have they stopped. And the narco-murders didn’t begin in 2007—and who knows when they will end? Because the editors focus on femicide, only one essay suggests that the femicides overlap or are inextricably intertwined with the narco-murders. The culture of violence in Juarez envelops the femicides—but exceeds them as well. If we fail to explore and analyze this truth, then the murders of women by individual men and groups of men will be forgotten as we increasingly pay attention to the drug cartel war instead.

Written by: Jessica Powers, January 15th 2011

Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Américas

mandy — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Edited by Cynthia Bejaranos, Rosa-Linda Fregoso

Duke University Press

Terrorizing Women is a collection of papers written on the subject of feminicidio (feminicide), a term Marcela Lagarde y de los Rios used to identify the genocide of women when conditions exist “that allow for violent attempts against the integrity, health, liberties, and lives of girls and women.” As such, feminicide is an extreme form of gendered violence that involves the violation of women's and girls' human rights, is a threat to their safety, endangers their lives, and culminates in their murder.

Ciudad Juarez, probably the world’s best known city with an unimaginable rate of feminicide, has seen the murder of more than 600 women and girls and the disappearance of at least 1,000 more in time frame spanning less than two decades. Although there are many factors that allow for such a high rate of feminicide to continue undeterred in a border space such as Cuidad Juarez, feminicide is a widespread occurrence beyond Mexico, reaching into all of the Americas, with many different roots, but with similar factors underlying the opportunity for, and the impunity with which such violations of human rights continue to occur.

Terrorizing Women is divided into three parts, each part starting with a personal testimony of Mexican and Guatemalan women directly affected by an act of feminicide. These testimonies offer a glimpse into the terrifying and painful experiences the survivors of victims of feminicide have to endure.

“Localizing Feminicide” focuses on the location, or territories, where feminicides are rampant—including countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala and cities such as Ciudad Juarez and Mar del Plata—and the social and historical reasons behind the feminicides. “Transnationalizing Justice” exposes some of the reasons into why feminicide has been allowed to continue, with no end in sight, by exploring the roles of governments, NGOs, economics, accountability and justice systems with a focus on Ciudad Juarez. Part Two concludes with a photo essay, “Images from the Justice Movement in Chihuahua, Mexico.” “New Citizenship Practices” explores the role of poor migrant women’s citizenship and human rights in the border space; the role and limitations of the term feminicidio; the uses of the term in Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico; the paradox of the Ni Una Más (Not One More) campaign of Northern Mexico; and the symbolic leaders of the movement, the Mujeres de Negro (Women Dressed in Black).

Terrorizing Women is an eye-opening examination of the staggering numbers of feminicides occurring near the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and throughout Latin America, an exploration into the motivation behind the killings and the reasons for the impunity received by criminals, and an insight into the strength, courage and determination of the surviving relatives of those who disappeared, to continue the fight for justice.

Written by: Nilki Benitez, September 11th 2010

2666

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:16:00 +0000

By Roberto Bolaño

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Epic in its proportions, 2666 is a modern day mystery novel more akin to James Joyce than anything on the shelves by John Grisham. The five sections that comprise the book are set around the world, yet the heart of the narratives remains bound to the fictional Mexican border town of Santa Teresa. An industrialized hub, Santa Teresa is home to a multitude of maquiladoras whose workers are paid paltry sums compared to their American sisters directly across the border. An obvious portrait of Ciudad Juarez, Bolaño does not fail to leave out one vital detail. Throughout the book we are confronted with a string murders that exclusively target the women of Santa Teresa. It is clear that Bolaño is not only describing Ciudad Juarez, but he is boldly describing the femicide that has plagued the city for over a decade.

The novel opens with a group of European academics in search of their muse, Benno von Archimboldi. An elusive German writer, he is known only to his publisher. The scholars spend their days teaching his writing and attending conferences devoted to his work. Driven to find Archimboldi, their search brings them to Santa Teresa. It is here that they lose the trail, but they do not give up hope. “Archimboldi is here, and we’re here, and this is the closest we’ll ever be to him,” explains Pelletier, a French scholar who has devoted his life to Archimboldi. It is here that Bolaño reveals the nature of his beast. This town teetering on the brink of fiction and reality is the closest the reader will get to understanding the mystery that unfolds throughout the book. No matter how far Bolaño takes us away, it is to this town that we will eventually return.

Unique to other fictional tales that grapple with femicide, Bolaño does not mythologize the killings. Artfully, he creates a surreal world in which giants exist and wars rage on in castle-filled lands. But he handles the killings with a realistic integrity that enriches the text. The longest and most painfully poignant section titled “The Part about the Crimes” describes the killings and sexual abuses in detail, employing a style that stands apart. We learn the names of the women killed, and of the many more that remain unidentified, with family too far away or too scared to claim their lost daughters and sisters. Just as he does when the trail runs dry on Archimboldi, Bolaño leaves the reader with little closure. Some of the killers are found but most cases remain unsolved.

Written at the end of Bolaño’s life and published posthumously, 2666 is an expansive novel whose stories wildly unfurl leaving the reader with more questions than answers. At the close of the book the truth behind the mysteries remains elusive, however one thing is clear: the murders are not a fantastical portrait of society; rather they are an mercilessly truthful reflection of a world wrought with problems. In this respect the line between fiction and reality is appropriately steadfast in Bolaño’s profoundly affecting new novel.

Written by: Lizzy Shramko, May 4th 2009