Working Out Gender

by Christina Marín, Ph.D., New York University, USA

Next to oil, maquiladoras are Mexico's second greatest source of U.S. dollars. Working eight to twelve hours a day to wire in backup lights of U.S. autos or solder miniscule wires in TV sets is not the Mexican way. While the women are in the maquiladoras, the children are left on their own. Many roam the street, become part of cholo gangs. The infusion of the values of the white culture, coupled with the exploitation by that culture, is changing the Mexican way of life. (Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza 32)

I came to Juárez to track down ghosts. And to listen to the mystery that surrounds them. (Lourdes Portillo, Señorita Extraviada)

Perpetual Impunity: A Way of Life

1      There will be no answers at the end of this paper. The answers are out there; someone knows who is killing women along the border between Mexico and the United States. Some say this is the resulting phenomenon inevitably plaguing global border cities, "where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldúa 25). Examining the localized examples of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and Chihuahua City in Mexico, we find that for every young woman ferociously cut down in the flower of her youth, hundreds more seem to flock from around the country to take her place in the Third World "industrial complex," the maquiladora. I intentionally use the term flock to convey the brutal carnage to which these women, after almost fifteen years of an ongoing femicide[1]The slightly different terms femicide and feminicide are used in different resources to describe what is happening in these cities, as well as in other Third World countries, as a result of globalization., come willingly, like lambs to the slaughter. In her 2001 documentary film, Señorita Extraviada, Chicana filmmaker Lourdes Portillo claims, "Juárez is the city of the future. As a model of globalization, Ciudad Juárez is spinning out of control."

2      It is nearly impossible to imagine, with the international exposure of this fatal trend, that women would still come, knowing what they must. The workers who come are described in many sources, spanning the fields of law, border studies, gender studies, and popular culture. One law professor explains, "they are often extremely poor, having left barren farmlands in Mexico's interior or impoverished regions that lack adequate health, education, and public services" (Arriola 735). And although one might argue that televisions and Internet access are scarce in the poorest communities scattered throughout the countryside, the news of more than 400 women brutally raped and murdered is ubiquitous in Mexico. But work is work; a salary, no matter how meager, is better than nothing.

3      Another problematic concern is the rampant misinformation formulated by the Mexican government regarding the murders in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City. According to Pheona Donohoe, a writer and activist based in Melbourne, Australia, who has traveled to Ciudad Juárez, "[t]he identity of those responsible for the murders is unknown, although many believe that the government is covering up the truth. For now, at least, the women remain victims of widespread phallic terrorism" ("Women"). A description of the documentary film Dual Injustice on the Witness: See It, Film It, Change It website, claims that "[a]lthough Chihuahua's Attorney General has referred to the problem of women as a 'myth', a large pink cross filled with embedded nails and hanging nametags for each a [sic] victim sits in front of the Governor's office to remind authorities of the soaring numbers." It is a monument that attests to the fact that, "[i]n 2004, 31 women were brutally killed in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, which represents a 58% increase compared to 2003. In January to March 2005 alone, six bodies have been found so far. Meanwhile, those tortured to confess to the murders sit in jail" (Witness).

4      This last piece of information refers to the gender-blind impunity and unchecked injustice that permeates the legal system in which male family members are being arrested, tortured into confessing, tried, and convicted of raping and murdering female victims. One example of this miscarriage of justice is the case of David Meza:

Neyra Azucena Cervantes was last seen on her way home from school in Chihuahua City around 6pm on May 13th, 2003. When her family learned of her disappearance that evening, they contacted the police. However, as authorities were typically slow to investigate, Neyra's relatives created a task force of family and friends to search for her. Among the many called upon, David Meza, Neyra's cousin, traveled 1,500 miles from the southern state of Chiapas to join their search and demand police assistance. As negligent authorities took a month to put up missing signs of Neyra and reassigned new officers to her case every eight days, the family grew more critical of the police's efforts. As the days and weeks passed, the family increasingly pressured authorities to properly investigate Neyra's disappearance. During a heated discussion in their last meeting with the Attorney General, David directly challenged his competence, to which he responded, "You want a culprit? You're going to have him very soon." One week later, David was in jail.[2]For David's testimony regarding the torture he was subjected to see the Resource Center of the Americas.Org: Working for Human Rights in the Global Economy link at www.americas.org/item_27514. (Witness)

A report by Amnesty International, titled "Ending the Brutal Cycle of Violence Against Women in Ciudad Juárez and the City of Chihuahua," reinforces these claims:

Consistent allegations of torture made by suspects detained and interrogated by state judicial police have never been properly investigated, undermining the credibility of investigations and violating the fundamental rights of suspects and families of victims. Despite the risk of grave miscarriages of justice, there have been no advances in the investigation and punishment of torture or independent judicial review of gravely flawed criminal proceedings, which do not adhere to basic fair trial standards.[3]This particular report gives a very thorough account of numerous agencies involved in the femicide, as well as policies and laws that have been enacted to protect the citizens, expecially women, of Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City. Unfortunately, as the report indicates, "[t]here is continued concern at the failure of the investigating and judicial authorities, particularly at state level, to consider the murder of women and young girls as part of a pattern of violence against women, rather than as individual criminal acts." (Amnesty)

5      In another strange twist of the cycle, the U.S. government managed, for over ten years, to turn a blind eye to the tragic misgivings of its neighbor to the South, while still benefiting financially from the enormous profit margin on the border. After all, the vast majority of maquiladoras are owned and operated by U.S. Fortune 500 companies. And to make matters worse, when we examine the border from a northern perspective, "the prevailing attitude [is] that whatever happens on the other side is of no concern to Americans, no matter how bad the problem" (Arriola 754). Leslie Sklair's 1992 article in the Bulletin of Latin American Research, "The Maquilas in Mexico: A Global Perspective," published prior to the discovery of the first victims in Ciudad Juárez, might be looked at as a harbinger of things that were to come. Sklair explains: "The maquila industry originated in the mid-1960s, when the Mexican government introduced a Border Industrialization Program which permitted Mexican and foreign-owned factories to operate along the border duty free on condition that they exported all their products" (91). Further elaborating on the state of affairs at that time (some fifteen years ago), Sklair reveals that "[t]hese factories, mainly US-owned, were also able to take advantage of tariff regulations covering the re-import of assembled unfinished goods using US-manufactured components. Mexico now has about 2000 maquilas, employing almost half a million workers" (91-92). Ironically, the Introduction to this article foreshadows the fact that "the transnational corporations operating through the maquila industry have created a transnational capitalist class in the border region and have reinforced a culture-ideology of consumerism, and this has gradually begin to make a significant difference to the ways in which Mexico and the global capitalist system relate to each other" (92; emphasis added). More prophetic is Sklair's Conclusion, which alleges that the "'maquilisation of Mexico' along the border" is a "new globalizing force [that] offers not only promises of economic change, but a hidden agenda of a new way of life" (104-105).