Gendered Experiences of War

• "prior to the brutality committed against women's bodies during the ethnic conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda, the international community had been slow to regocnize the historical reality of wartime violence against women, the fact that gender-based violence is an integral and pervasive component of warfare" (1)
• Gender-based violence as a weapon of terror

Feminicide

• "the repeated violation of women's human rights that culminates in assassination and constitutes genocide against women that is characterized most of all by impunity" (131) -Marcela Lagarde y de los Rios, who studied feminicide in Juarez and is quoted in "Feminicide in Guatemala"
• "patriarchal tool used to control, tool of racism, economic oppression, and colonialism"--quote from intro, "A Cartography of Feminicide" by Fregoso and Bejarano
• rooted in unbalanced social, political, economic inequalities (which often disadvantage women)
• victims typically have extreme signs of violence to body, including rape, torture, disfigurement. These signs expose loss of bodily integrity and and misogyny, as well as the women's lack of security and absence of social and political protection

Cotton Field Murders

Occurred in Mexico. Professor compared it to Guatemala's femicides. The murders were 3 cases heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that "serve[d] as legal precedent for cases of gender violence in a non-war context and for enumerating feminicide in international law" (6)--quote from introduction, "Cartography of Feminicide" by Fregoso and Bejarano

• Victims were Ivette Gonzalez, Esmeralda Herrera, and Laura Berenice Ramose
• IACHR found Mexico to be in violation of women's human rights in historic ruling

Juarez, Mexico and Feminicides

• there have been more than 500 murders of women since 1993
• "In Ciudad Juarez, whenever a body is found, there is an 80% probability that [victims of feminicide] comes from the 'western zone,' which has the highest concentration of immigrant population and the least infrastructure" (12), from intro "Cartography of Feminicide" by Fregoso and Bejarano
• Femicidal violence happens in cities under conditions of "extreme marginalization and social, judicial and political exclusion... forms of gender oppression, discrimination, and exploitation" i.e., extreme poverty and desperate conditions that put women in vulnerable situations and make them targets

Femicides in Guatemala

• in recent years, they are often the result of organized crime, drug trafficking, and domestic violence
• the fact that the Guatemalan state often ignores the murders and doesn't punish perpetrators only makes it worse
• in the past, Guatemalan femicide happened as part of the civil war as a tactic, and also to keep women from "giving birth to more enemies"--something Vargas brought up in class

Gender Power Structure

• "we define feminicide as the murders of women and girls founded on a gender power structure" (5, "Cartography of Feminicide" by Fregoso and Bejarano)
• the gender power structure is a social structure based on social, political, economic, and cultural power inequalities that disadvantage women
• this leads to gender-based violence
• this is because women are deemed to be worth less than men and are put in more vulnerable socioeconomic situations and are often disenfranchised from political decisionmaking

Justice for My Sister (film)

• centered around Rebeca, a woman trying to get justice for her sister Adela, who was murdered
• it takes her 3 years and she investigates, follows up with police, ensures that witnesses testify, and generally makes sure that the case moves forward all on her own, with 0 help from the justice system and a little help from the Survivor's foundation
• lives with her mother and 5 kids of her own, as well as the 3 Adela left behind. Struggles but pushes through for the sake of Adela

Seniorita Extraviada (Missing Young Girl)

• a film about the feminicides in Juarez, Mexico
• interviews relatives of women who have been killed, describes the evidence they have (where victim's bodies were found and the condition they were in, where they were last seen, inconsistencies in evidence from the police)
• interview a female lawyer who defended Sharif Sharif, an Egyptian man accused of kidnapping a woman who escaped from him
• the lawyer discusses the fact that the police's stories often seem fabricated. When the police would arrest groups of people (they said Sharif was connected both to a gang called the Rebels and then later to a ring of maquiladora bus drivers), the murders would continue even though the "perpetrators" had been arrested
• One victim, who was raped by police in front of her husband, describes numerous abuses by police officers. The victim describes a police officer forcing her to look at a collection of photos that showed many officers standing in a circle in the desert and assaulting women in various ways before killing them while smiling and laughing. 
• Victim was terrified to come forward because she feared police retaliation, but she wanted to share her story with the filmmaker

Sand Dollars

• A film about the complex reality of sex tourism in the Dominican Republic, where tourists pay for the company of local women
• Story focuses on a lesbian relationship between a wealthy, elderly French woman named Anne and a young Dominican woman named Noeli, who works as an escort
• Anne demands a high level of intimacy and wants to believe that she and Noeli are really in love
• Noeli has a boyfriend who demands both affection and a portion of the money that Noeli gets from her work. Noeli gets pregant with his child, complicating her relationship/work with Anne.
• Anne eventually decides she wants to bring Noeli to France to give her a better life and they go through the process of getting Noeli's passport and preparing to leave for France, but just before they leave, Noeli and her boyfriend steal money, jewelry, and Noeli's passport from Anne, then run off, leaving Anne alone

Sexually Fetishized Commodities

• Refers to women's sexual desirability being fetishized, which objectifies women's sexuality as a commodity in the social organization of the market of labor exchange
• "When these nude and seminude bodies [of murder/rape victims] are left abandoned and neglected, their historical identities, citizenship, and territorial specificity are taken from them. They symbolize the women's low human value as less than women--as sexually fetishized commodities" (59, "The Victims of Ciudad Juarez Feminicide" by Monarrez Fragoso)
• "The assassinated women have become things, but they are part of the social relations that turned them into sexually fetishized commodities" (60, Monarrez Fragoso)

Marxism

Philosophical, political, and economic system based on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism rejects capitalism and defends the construction of a classless and stateless society. Based on a method of analysis known as "Historical Materialism," Marx stated that industrial capitalist societies would evolve into socialist and then communist societies after the workers' unification and revolution against capitalism

• women's bodies as appendages of capital (61, "Victims of Ciudad Juarez Feminicide" by Monarrez Fragoso)
• Victimized bodies as a result of commodification and the labor market (61-62)

Exchange Value

"The body of the worker exchanges with the capitalist its commodity--the capacity of labor--which this body assumes as its capacity to dedicate itself to a set job" (62, "Victims of Ciudad Juarez Feminicide, Monarrez Fragoso)

• Capitalist has the right to produce a disciplined body for production
• "In Ciudad Juarez, everything involved in the maquiladora industry, including the compulsory breaks, leave, vacation, training, supervision, and the distrobution of work in response to technological changes, is determined by companies based on production needs" (62)

Capitalist Patriarchy system

Links gender inequality with capitalism and the exploitation of the social classes (60, "Victims of Ciudad Juarez Feminicide" by Monarrez Fragoso)

• the combination of gender inequality and capitalism leads to the commodification of female bodies and makes it easier for people to decide women's bodies are worthless and therefore easy to rape/mutilate/kill

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights

An autonomous judicial institution. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it makes up the human rights protection system of the Organization of American States (OAS), which serves to uphold and promote basic rights and freedoms in the Americas.

• Agreed to hear the cases of the cotton field murders in 2007 

The Alien Tort Claims Act

"The ATS is a deceptively simple one-sentence statute that reads: 'District courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.'" (209, "Transnational Remedies" by Simmons and Coplan)

• Basically, the act allows court cases (such ashuman rights abuses committed by U.S. corporations or citizens against non-U.S. citizens that violated U.S. treaties or a violation of the law of nations) to be brought to U.S. courts, where something can hopefully be done.
• an example would be if American-owned maquiladoras were found to be causing/participating in feminicides. The case might then be brought to a U.S. court even though the crime occurred in Mexico

Organized prostitution networks in Argentina

• Organized prostitution networks are run by police and criminals alike
• Some women have chosen prostitution, but many have been "disappeared" and forced to work in brothels, bars, and hotels
• The police collect money from the women or their pimps and also recieve bribes from brothel managers
• Drug traffickers sell or give drugs to prostitutes that the women use either to self-medicate to endure their trauma or that the traffickers use to keep the women weak and unable to resist

Mar Del Plata Cases

• 3 cases of femicide that occured in Mar del Plata, Argentina
• Victims were: Veronica Chavez, Silvana Carabello, and Ana Maria Norres
• They each disappeared and were connected to a police officer named Lines Ayala, who was connected to "black parties" and prostitution rings
• This revealed the prostitution networks and the complicity of state agents in allowing these networks to continue/thrive

Latin American Civil Wars

Civil wars that happened in Latin America as a consequence of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. These policies were meant to continue the subjugation of Latin America and benefit the U.S. geopolitically and economically. The U.S. used different Latin American governments as tools to impose American interests on Latin American governments over the interests of Latin Americans. This included propping up dictators and engaging in military interventions in order to get their way.

• Argentina, El Salvador, Peru, and Guatemala all experienced militarization of daily life in the 70s and 80s after years of dictatorships and continuing civil wars

Ciudadana X

• A chapter in Terrorizing Women that "examines the troubling status of poor migrant women as political actors in the denationalized space of Ciudad Juarez. Subaltern women's labor has served the state as a stabilizing force amid the economic and political crises of the neoliberal regime in ways that both promote and delimit new forms of female agency in the border region" (275, "Ciudadana X" by Camacho)
• There is a "persistent space" (280) between legislation claiming to protect the human rights of women and action related to protecting women's rights

Denationalization

There are 2 relevant definitions of denationalization:

• "to deprive of national rights or characteristics." In reference to people, it's the act of not considering them a citizen or not considering them worthy of the protections of a citizen. In reference to places, it is a breakdown of the control of a state over an area.
• "To transfer (an industry, for example) from governmental to private ownership." This is the process that has occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border and in many other "denationlized" free trade spaces where private companies from the global north have come in and taken control of state-owned spaces and industries.

Citizenship

"the subject's capacity to exert political agency as a recognized member of a political community, with entitlements to protections and services" (276, "Ciudadana X" by Camacho, paraphrasing Linda Bosniak)

Impunity

When justice is not served by the legal system and people are able to commit crimes with no consequences or repercussions.

Border Zone and Industrialization

• The Border Industrialization Program/Maquila Program was created less than a year after the Bracero Program ended in 1964. Maquilas were attractive to the US because of the availability of cheap labor and changes in US customs laws.
• In 1994, after NAFTA, there was a huge growth in the number of maquila programs. 1460 plants opened in the five years following NAFTA. 
• A lot of these maquilas are in the border zone between Mexico and the US, which has led to massive industrialization of the area

Free Trade Zones

Areas where commerce tariffs on goods and products do not apply

Inter-American Comission on Human Rights

Promotes the observance and defense of human rights in the Americas. Responsible for monitoring and ensuring implementation of human rights guarantees in the 35 independent countries of the Americas that are members of the Organization of the American States (OAS). Composed of a Commission and a Court.

Jinterismo

• Part of Cabezas' article on sex tourism
• Cuban colloquial word that arose in popularity in the 90s with the rise of mass tourism for individuals who do not participate in the formal economy and instead typically engage outside these lines. Jinteros participate in a broad range of activities and behaviors associated with hustling, ex., peddling cigars, selling alcohol, sex, tour guides, romantic partners
• term not applied to everyone, since it has racial undertones usually associated with darker Cubans/Afro-Cubanos
• can be gendered in the form "jineteras" to describe female sex workers.  was initially no stigma around the word. The term "jinetera conjures images of a woman riding the tourist, alluding to the sexual and power relationship of a woman on top and in charge." Castro said that jineteras "did it for pleasure and not for money." 

Cuban and Dominican Sexual Economy

• part of the Cabezas article on sex tourism
• "lack of viable work and the dependence on foreign exchange drive young men and women to migrate to tourist areas to earn a livingG"
• "Liasons with tourists provide recourse to get by and get ahead: not just to supplement low wages but also to procure opportunities for recreation, consumption, travel, migration, and marriage"

Masculinist violence

• "maintained and reproduced by the state, not only when it fails to take measures to prevent and protect women from violence, but also when it allows for impunity and contributes to the propogation of violence through the direct involvement of state institutions and state actors" (116, "Femicides in Mar del Plata" by Fontenla)
• Normalization of "violent patriarchy" (14, "Cartography of Feminicide" by Fregoso and Bejarano
• Relationship between machismo and violence, emphatic masculinism (14)

Racialized sexual constructions

"In the DR, law enforcement uses mass arres to keep locals--frequently working-class, dark-skinned women--from bother tourists because their dress, demeanor, and participatory claim to public spaces construct them as 'dangerous' women of suspect morality" (17, Cabezas)

• People with darker skin are exotified and seen as a sexual adventure for tourists and have a lot of stereotypes re: sexuality attributed to them

Sex worker

• a term used by Cabezas
• term lacks ambiguity, resists the idea that sex work isn't work
•  are used to describe relationships to lighter skinned sex workers while "prostitution" and "sex work" are used to describe dark-skinned sex workers. Light-skinned or upper class women in Cuba and the DR who only date foreign tourists are not percieved as sex workers, while darker-skinned women existing in tourist-frequented spaces can be percieved (correctly or not) as sex workers.

Prostitute

• a term used for sex workers 
• often associated with street sex work or more physically intimate sex work, rather than practices like seeking "foreign boyfriends" or escort work

Lighter and darker sides of sex work

• Sex work can often mean a huge step upward in terms of financial stability and social mobility for sex workers. It can provide numerous opportunities for better living conditions, moving to better areas, flexible schedules, more money, etc.
• However, sex work can be extremely dangerous. Many consider sex workers to be disposable and feel little remorse for being violent towards them.Police often target sex workers for violence and arrest. Sex work can also be emotionally draining and create the possibility for physical issues like pregnancy or contraction of STIs.

Social agency vs. social context

This is the crux of the argument about whether sex workers (or any workers) have real agency in their choice of work. 

• For example, many people see sex work as women having a lack of agency, women being "forced" into sex work. While this is true in a lot of cases (sexual slavery sucks, y'all), many women choose to participate in sex work because it is the best option that they have as a woman who may be poor, have to balance childcare with work, may have disabilities that make it difficult to do other types of work, or other issues. So one could argue that these women have the agency to choose sex work, which they see as the right kind of work for themselves.
• But one must also consider social context. Why do these women feel the need to turn to sex work, or why do people feel the need to engage in difficult factory work? It's because it's the best option available to them, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is a great option. Considering social context can limit perceptions of people's agency in choosing their work 

Sousa's sex trade

• Sousa is a town in the Dominican Republic that has been a popular place for male European sex tourists to visit since the 1990s. It's distinct from other destinations because there are no pimps or drugs involved.
• It's a place where female sex workers go in order to "sell sex for visas" and find foreign boyfriends who may help them out of their difficult financial and social situations

Black parties

• discussed in the Mar del Plata, Argentina case
• men would talk women into attending parties, often bribing them with lots of money
• the parties were "gatherings that feature excessive sex, drugs, and alcohol, and that occasionally end with some kind of violence or a woman's murder" (118, Fontenla)
• corrupt police gather at these parties where drugs are trafficked and women are exploited

Judge Hooft

A judge who investigated the cases of feminicides in Mar del Plata. His investigation was the only one that yielded any results and put away two police officers for connections to prostitution.

Social stigmatization of prostitution

Many consider prostitution to be "dirty" and the women who participate in it are often considered disposable, dirty, or immoral. This social stigma, often aided by the fact that prostitution is illegal and heavily criminalized, isolates sex workers from the wider community and makes them easier to exploit, abuse, and kill.

Discussion Question: What are the similarities and differences between the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico and those of Guatemala?

• The violence is often state-sanctioned in that the justice systems do not punish the murderers and hide or destroy evidence
• The amount of feminicides is likely the result of a history of violence in both countries. In Guatemala, it's the civil war in the past. In Mexico, it's the strong presence of the drug cartels.
• The women are often raped and mutilated
• The people who are able to obtain justice are often the family that these women leave behind

Discussion Question: How can we insert the story of Sagrario, Silvia, and Maria (the woman arrested by police) into the passage above?

• Sagrario, Silvia, and Maria all represent important individual stories within the larger context of the feminicides in Juarez. 
• They are all stories that combine the issues of feminicide with the issue of capitalism, the consequences of free trade, and the ways that poverty and lack of safety can affect women
• In Maria's case, feminicide/abuse comes with the added context of police involvement and lack of justice from the justice system

Discussion Question: In the context of the Ciudad Juarez feminicides, what is a sexually fetishized commodity? (Draw from Marxist theory and a feminist analysis in the following questions. Use examples from the Fragoso chapter.)

Discussion Question: How are women's bodies produced as commodities and items of consumption that then make women vulnerable to violence? (Draw from Marxist theory and a feminist analysis to answer the question. Use examples from the Fragoso chapter.)

Women are sought out as low-wage laborers in the maquiladoras. They are valuable in that the labor they provide adds value to the products they produce. However, their wages are low and little consideration is given to them or their wellbeing. They are exposed to poisonous substances and the environment of the area in which they live has been exposed to the same poisons.

In this context where women do very difficult labor for low wages, they have little in the way of protection. They have no money, no power. They are seen as easily replaced because there are many other women in similar positions looking for similar work. Because of this, these women are seen as easily exploited and entirely disposable. 

Discussion Question: What is the difference between wartime violence and peactime violence regarding the violent deaths of women? (From "Femicide in Guatemala)

• In war time, "women are considered trophies on whom the vengeance and unbridled hatred of enemies can be enacted... When soldiers arrived in rural communities, they killed the men and forced the women to cook for them, serve them, and dance for and with them; they also assaulted, raped, and, finally, killed women and sometimes burned them" (133), all under the orders/supervision of their commanding officers. 
• in peacetime, it seems that it's the result of a "culture of violence" (134) learned during the war that leads to "pregnant women... killed" and "victims subjected to torture, rape, and other sexual abuse... The difference in the current violence lies in the great number of women who have been assassinated without knowledge of who killed them and without any meaningful response from the state." (134)

Discussion Question: Other than the victim, who suffers the emotional costs of femicides?

Their families (particularly their children) and friends, as well as other people in the community who have to live in fear because they never know who will be next.

• Internal armed conflict--state actors and counterinsurgency targeted indigenous women
• Peacetime/post-conflict-private actors
• "If a story ran on the news today saying that the corpse of a street vendor, newspaper seller, university student, or even a doctor or lawyer had been discovered, no voices of outrage would be heard" (135)
• "It is worth noting that the majority of victims of femicide are women of reproductive age... It is in this age range that women often obtain middle and high levels of education, although young girls, adult women, and seniors are also on the lists of femicide victims... the majority of the victims are students and housewives, and it can be said that the women affected belong to the middle and working classes" (135)