Introduction
The gender-based violations and crimes against female citizens may consist of emotional, physical, sensual, and sexual abuse. This problem is considered a severe obstacle towards the enjoyment of fundamental human rights by women internationally and is strongly condemned in developed countries. Femicide is the murder of women, usually following the violence solely on the basis of their gender. This particular criminal action against women is of remarkable importance because of its severity and spread (Liu and Fullerton 4261). Mexico takes first place among the countries by the number of criminal records recognized as femicides (Lopez 163). This is why the term was first introduced in this country, later extending to other nations with similar illegal tendencies. The reasons for these statistics could be historical prerequisites bringing the present social mindset and resulting in current circumstances. This paper will apply intersectional and feminist analysis to carefully consider the effects of colonialism on today’s power structure in Mexico.
Main body
The history of colonialism directly affected the problem of equality in Mexico. In the era of New Spain, the racial hierarchy was assembled in the way that white people were considered superior, while Indian, African, and mixed individuals were discriminated against. Fortunately, this fact did not hinder the development of local artistic directions, which nowadays can be seen as evidence of past events. Katzew analyzed this social structuring in her work about casta painting (51). She also highlighted that the pieces of art could be considered as confirmation of racial segregation (Katzew 143). As a result, the women and sexual minorities of the victimized nations experienced more pressure than those of Europeans (Kempadoo 18). There are known instances of racial femicide when the enslaved women were treated as objects of sexual desires and killed afterward because of defiance (Ellman and Goodman 81). In the past, white women generally tended to be more accepted and protected because of the higher level of respect towards them due to their race. This tendency is conserved up until the present, making racial femicide a topical problem in Mexico.
Aside from that, there is strongly marked gender inequality evidence in Mexico, resulting in unfair distribution of social roles and violence against women solely because of their gender characteristics. It should be noted that until the 1990s, the female unemployment rate was incredibly high compared to those numbers for the male population (Liu and Fullerton 4265). The consideration of men as breadwinners for families has emerged into a lessening of the importance of woman imaging and dismissive treatment towards them (Lopez 167). Although today, females are employed more than in the past, they experience fewer rights compared to their male counterparts and severe violations of their labor powers (Liu and Fullerton 4270). Economic inequities demonstrate the diminishing of the role of females in the community flowing into the vast discrimination.
The gender inequality in the workplace can be observed in Maquiladora, which is the name for the factories inherent to Latin American countries. The women population of Mexico started working in these plants after the Mexican currency devaluation crisis at the end of the last century. Since then, the employees are discriminated against according to their gender characteristics. Men workers in this type of institution are often employed for management, supervision, and engineering positions (Maldonado-Macias et al. 210). At the same time, female representatives are given only low-skill jobs. They do not have the opportunity to earn the same salary as their male counterparts (Maldonado-Macias et al. 214). Moreover, feminine workers are also segregated according to their age, whereas young women are generally employed in factories with better working conditions (Liu and Fullerton 4267). Despite numerous injuries women acquire in the workplace, Maquiladora usually does not report the accidents, which helps the owners not to compensate. Besides unequal treatment, women experience sexual harassment from their employers (Lopez 164). It should be noted that the treatment of operators in these working places is very close to that in the colonial era. The nature of the violence can be attributed to the country’s historical features (Kempadoo 169). All of these factors contribute to the development of the situation with femicides in Mexico as Maquiladora is the tool of oppression female population.
The significant consequence of such financial oppression is the dependence of the female part of the society on the male members for a living. The economic pressure in the families is often the motive for males to feel dominancy and express their violent and despotic character, even though not the reason for it. The named situation is the case not only for marginalized communities but also for well-off families. There was evidence of gender violence and femicides when the subjects of the crimes were women from different social classes and income levels (Liu and Fullerton 4263). This fact attributes to the conclusion that women generally suffer from tyranny, which in turn emerges into the murder of women crimes.
Apart from that, inequality and unfair treatment of different gender representatives can be observed in other social constituents. Women are treated differently in the medical sphere, where officials considerably neglect instances of violent treatment and do not disclose them to law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the legislative institutions themselves ignore the reports of crimes against women or decide to accuse the victim herself. These factors indicate a dangerous level of discrimination not to take into account the usual persecution of sufferers in case of sharing their stories with the public. Chasing women is not followed by punishment, which makes the situation even worse and spread over time. Despite the adoption of protective laws, the lack of their practical implementation results in the fact that the problem persists to develop further, resulting from the abusive mentality of the society.
The past events that occurred in Mexico also significantly affected the development of sexuality in this region. The cultural legacies and traditions of different nations and races were combined, bringing new inherent and individual identity to the Mexican people. This tendency has impacted the reproductive arrangements changing the notions of the concept mentioned above. Consequently, the ideas are substantially different from Western ideals allowing diversity, polygamy, homosexual and bisexual practices. Although these instances are more applicable to disempowered and criminalized communities, their effect on the deterioration of the situation with femicides cannot be neglected. As Kempadoo (2004) has noted, the women resist the traditional oppressive and exploitative nature of masculine dominance by struggling against it in different social class structures, including marginal sexual spaces. There were also cases of lesbicide when women were killed based on their sexual orientation and gender (Ellman and Goodman 134). Frequently, victims are battered and discriminated against when trying to access the justice system. Henceforth, in regards to sexuality, there is evidence for the oppression of women and sexual minorities.
As mentioned above, Mexico’s judiciary structure is positioned against the female part of the society, neglecting the criminal records against them. The legislative regulations which are directed at the protection of women’s rights are not implemented thoroughly. Further, law-enforcement agencies do not exhibit the behavior of protecting women against their oppressors. The reason for that is the patriarchal social mindset, which states that women are accusable if they are the subject of violence because of their inappropriate actions and behavior. As a result, military structures do not support the victims, but on the contrary, they exhibit more pressure on them. Although there are initiatives to investigate the instances of femicides in detail or at least without bias and corruption, they are hardly achieved through international media coverage. Moreover, only numerous crime records are checked, which leaves many cases neglected.
Today the situation of femicide shows the deteriorating tendency in Mexico. The rates for femicide are considerably growing, making up 145 percent in 2019 compared to 2015. It should also be noted that the figures are undercounted because some states do not consider femicide an individual crime. It is hard to adequately assess the present situation as the institutions in Mexico do not provide fully reliable statistical information (Lopez 169). The absence of records of victims impedes knowing the real magnitude of the case.
Furthermore, given the pandemic circumstances, more women face domestic violence, which often has detrimental consequences in the form of female murder.
Since the society does not support the victims in Mexico, and governmental structures are positioned against women too, the situation does not seem to improve (Ellman and Goodman 45). The social structures accuse the women of their “inappropriate” style of clothing, behavior, and appearance, making the victims feel ashamed of what happened to them (Liu and Fullerton 4268). Ignorance of the people surrounding those women brings them closer to death because of a lack of support and care. As intimate partner femicide is the most common type of this crime, the victims tend to be too troubled with their feelings to report anything (Lopez 177). The impunity only contributes to the deterioration of the case as the murderers do not feel tremendous pressure caused by their deeds.
Conclusion
To conclude, femicide is an ongoing problem in Mexican society that has its roots in the country’s history, traditional mentality, and social structure. Colonialism left the discriminatory culture in the region, which resulted in inequality among the inhabitants, including women. Furthermore, gender inequality is the problem of not only the past but also the present as there are no effective measures for its prevention. In addition to that, the oppression of female constituents of the community is observed in the economic part of life too. A maquiladora is one of the institutions that have been using the feminine workforce in heavy physical labor. Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies do not take responsibility for the implementation of protective laws, thus fostering impunity. Women are also prosecuted for their sexual orientation, which is called lesbicide. It indicates a dangerous level of non-inclusiveness and human rights violations in Mexican society.
References
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Katzew, Ilona. Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. Yale University Press, 2004.
Kempadoo, Kamala. Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labor. Routledge, 2004.
Liu, Yu, and Thomas Jr. Fullerton. “Evidence from Mexico on Social Status and Violence against Women.” Applied Economics, vol. 47, no. 40, 2015, pp. 4260-4274.
Lopez, Angela. “Femicide and Gender Violence in Mexico: Elements for a Systemic Approach.” The Age of Human Rights Journal, vol. 12, 2019, pp. 158-183.
Maldonado-Macías, Aide, et al. “Job Strain Index by Gender Among Middle and High Managers of the Maquiladora Industry in Ciudad Juarez Mexico.” Advances in Manufacturing, Production Management and Process Control, edited by Waldemar Karwowski, Stefan Trzcielinski, and Beata Mrugalska, Springer, 2020, pp. 209-218.