Your Side, My Side, Feminicide!
The mass femicide in the Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas border in relation to the systematically gendered law of violence that favors men.
Imagine a large sum of land filled with nothing but green floors and big bright blue skies where the birds chirp your new favorite tune and all of a sudden the bird has fallen and the colors that used to be present are now fading behind the shadows of a being.
Your home is no longer home, and you are forced *cough* I mean encouraged to work in between the border of Mexico and the United States at a maquiladora for this shadow in hopes of one day retrieving the land where the sky was blue and life was filled with light.
Now, instead of blue skies and green fields are rows of thousands of workers in a small building, where there are miles of pink crosses and the remains of a tragedy that not even words could describe, but I will do my best.
In the borderlands of Cuidad Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, femicide is the reality and blue skies are the virtual lies these women have to keep themselves daydreaming about to keep on going. In the maquiladoras, primarily owned by wealthy men on both sides of the United States and Mexico border, women are being overworked, underpaid, and violated in the most cringe worthy respects.
With promises of one day owning their blue skied homes, these women often times spend more than twelve hours a day as either the day crew or night crew. With little to no resources to get home since they are being paid well below minimum wage, the maquiladora has arranged bus drivers to pick up and drop off these women at their homes. The reality of this “perk” is that in most cases it ends up with a mass femicide as woman are being targetted due to their vulnerability and are brutally raped, murdered, and tossed in the desert as if her life meant nothing.
The New York Times reports,
In the decade in-between, there had been 340 REPORTED killings! That number only alotts for the amount reported! The accurate amount is predicted to be approximately 5,000 women murdered within the time span up until 2015. It is believed that these women are being targeted from the maquiladores, “factories,” because they are known to be at their most vulnerable as most are from the highest position of a minority groups as they are female, poor, and in most cases indigenous. There is such a disparity as the law continues to favor men by not policing the brutal attacks and in most cases, covering up the incidents or redirecting them towards blame on the victim themselves.
Lucinda Joy Peach states,
“…mostly male police and prosecturos and judges have continued to engage in gender bias by failing to arrest and/or prosecute and/or to convict male perpetrators of domestic violence”
“…the maleness of law is its traditional segregation of men and women into “separate spheres,” with men in control of the “public” spaces of government, lawmaking, employment, including military service…”
As Peach explains, this mass feminicide occurring in Cuidad Juarez is due to the maleness of law that is creating this belief of invincibility and patriarchy. As the state continues to be a male dominated field where men are deciding when and if these murders will be investigated, if the men will be held accountable, and basically if the womens lives mean anything to them. The answer is simple, no.
The fact of the matter is that sick privileged men are targeting the most vulnerable of women in the maquiladoras and utilizing their invincibility with the law to continue to commit these crimes because the matter of the fact is that they can.
And what is even more alarming is when the mothers and relatives of these victims ask for justice, they are being told there is no suspect or reverse the blame. They often ask the wrong questions such as, “why would a decent girl be out at such a time?” or making statements like , “she probably asked for it.”
The Texas Observer states,
In the Cuidad Juarez, family members and supporters of these hundreds of remembered women march through the streets in protest of the gendered law favorable of men. Let us take a second and review the second sign to our left from the #NIUNAMAS march. It states, “el machismo viola la ausencia del estado tambien,” which directly translates to, “because the state is absent, the machismo violate.” This sign clearly exemplifies the extent to which the government has favored men in allowing them to further assissinate the women, mainly from the maquiladoras, by simply staying silent and on most occasions being absent from the epidemic that is occuring around them on an almost daily basis.
Lucinda Joy Peach’s argues that it is the law’s inadequate response that fails to protect women from male violence. She states,
“At least part of the reason for the law’s inadequate response to demestic violence is its failure to acknowledge women’s status as persons who have a legal right to be protected from male violence”
“Using the cloak of “privacy rights,”….courts and legislatures permitted rampant abuses of women…to continue without formal legal protection or remedy, even leading cause of injury to women in the United States”
Peach is explaining that the violation of women will continue because the law allows it to continue by favoring men and not acknowledging women as anything more than a victim. They law also fails to acknowledge sexual violence against the female workers of the Maquiladoras because they are in an abundance and their value is not.
The feminicide occuring on the borderlands of Mexico and the United States is important because it is sending a corrupt message to men that the law is on their side and to women that they are not protected. A sad but perfect example of this is the hundreds of women being murdered whom work at the maquiladoras. These womens lives matter so little to both the assailants and the governement because they are mostly women of darker complexion of indegenous descent.
Historically colonizers have viewed darker complexion and native ancestry as being lesser than and savage, and in the severity of colonization in Mexico, I firmly believe this racism is the motive for the assailants. It is due to the ways of thinking that we, as colonizers, have inherited the land and customs while others stay at the bottom of the sprectram with thier lives being lesser in value.
Because the law is in their favor, these men begin to value the lives of these maquiladoras female workers even more and see them as easily dispensible. Where there is one, there will be another, and another. The endless supply of women for these murderers and rapists to take advantage of is endless, and what is the worst part is that there is no one to stop them nor does anyone care to stop them.
The fact of the matter is that the government in the Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas border need to acknowledge the flaws of their gendered law of violence that favors men and further punishes women by not protecting them.
These women deserve the right to go to work and not have to worry about being raped, let alone murdered on their ways home. They deserve to feel strong, to be safe, and to see blue skies and green fields once again.
Most importantly, these women deserve to live. #NiUnaMas
