James Brown’s lyrics have been heard throughout the world, however for the families in northern Mexico this melody is not true. Editors Cynthia Bejarno and Rosa-Linda Fregoso of Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas describes a man’s world that can live without a woman or a girl by arguing the violence acts, the murders, the sexual assaults, mass rapes, and disappearances specifically target women in Latin American countries. These acts of violence toward women were considered byproducts of war, however these same act of violence persist during “so-called peacetime,” this has lead women’s rights advocates and feminist legal scholars to create the terms femicide and feminicide” (Bejarno & Fregoso, 2010, p. 3). If these crimes, sexual…show more content… I found Bejarno and Fregoso’s arguments of gender-based violence compelling. They maintain if women’s rights are considered a private or cultural issue, then the public or political sector reinforce gender hierarchy giving authority to the patriarchal family members. The excuses for the acts of gender violence are perplexing. The violence against women and girls are considered their fault. While standing up to the state is a threat of emasculating the system. The fact that local municipality and government continue to evade the question of missing and murdered women is baffling. I argue that feminicide in Latin America is not an important global topic as in global warming, or political and religious…show more content… Camacho’s essay, “Ciudadana X: Gender Violence and the Denationalization of Women’s Rights in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,” examines female agency in the border region. She argues, because these women are poor the Mexican government provides the minimal protection and make the women powerless against sexual abuse, murder and kidnapping, in other words, “disposable non-citizens” (Camacho, 2010, p. 276). Camacho contends, the nature of border space and the political conflict over women’s ability to claim rights, women’s movements developed and took their demands to human rights agencies and international political organizations. My next question is, who benefits from Mexican female bodies? I agree with Camacho that global economies use Mexican female women’s bodies as a commodity, a source of cheap labor and revenue. However, this represents an assault on their agency, “Images of women used to sell tourism, merchandise, labor, and sex saturate the border cities in ways that deliberately eroticize the exercise of dominance” (p. 279). When women’s rights movements and international involvement challenged the hierarchy of patriarchal dominance and state power to view women as equal citizens this incited further violence. Camacho concludes by saying more action is
