When American women started fighting for their civil rights in the 1960s, why couldn’t some of their ideas slip over to the small town of Cindad Juarez, Mexico?
Last week, I brought to attention the terrible history of the murders that have been occurring in Juarez since 1993. This week, I would like to focus on the male, patriarchal society that plagues the town.
Crime officials have had about 10 years to solve the case, but even though many suspects have been arrested and placed behind bars, women’s bodies are still found along empty highways and deadened deserts.
Women think they’re escaping to the city, where they can try to dig out a life for themselves. They leave their families with hopes of making it big. For them, Juarez is New York City. But at the end, they encounter a society where they are seen only as negligible human beings.
The only work available to these women is at the local maquiladora, or factory, where what they earn is nowhere near enough to make a living. It’s not surprising these factories are owned by men – men who don’t care about providing a safe environment for the women. Many of the murder victims were maquiladora workers.
Do the factory owners really care that the women must go to work in the dark hours of the morning and return by midnight just so the factory can produce its quota? If they did, they could have done something to fix the problem – like hire more workers to reach the quota. So what if the profits decrease a little? Perhaps more lives could be saved.
The male-dominated world the women live in is partly to blame for why the culprits have never been caught. The murders offer evidence of how the men think of themselves in relation to the women. The serial killers raped many of their victims before murdering them. Some of the victims’ hands were tied behind their heads, their hair was cut and their breasts were mutilated.
These crimes are inhumane. They help show how many of the men believe they have great authority and power over the poor, helpless women.
One city official even suggested that the crimes may be connected to the wealthy families who live in Juarez. But, of course, in a male-dominated society, none of these claims have warranted an investigation. In Juarez, the women are expendable. Anyone can get away with murdering a female. They already are.
Officials aren’t concentrating on finding the killers. Instead, they pin the blame on the women, baselessly saying they are prostitutes.
Even the governor of the state of Chihuahua blamed the women for their murders, saying they shouldn’t have dressed provocatively. This respectable and intelligent general believes that if the women had stayed at home with their families, they would never have been murdered. Hearing such a claim from a high official shows the ignorance that the women face every day.
According to many of the males, the woman needs to be the shy, homely housewife who only cares for her children. Many of those men may not realize it, but the Lucille Ball age of femininity is over and done with. Women have the opportunity to hold all kinds of careers in the government, entertainment and service sectors.
The Juarez women should not be under house arrest. They are not supposed to stay indoors all their lives in fear of a faceless serial killer, unable to live life to its fullest potential.
Not to mention city officials aren’t doing anything to help protect their female population. Women are still vulnerable targets, as they wait out on street curbs in the dark for the buses that take them to work – their only chance to make something of themselves.
In a time when strong women have the opportunity to be anything they want to be in the United States, Juarez is still a century behind.
R.H. Aly can be reached at [email protected].
