Culture and Globalization by Angela H.

Kathleen Staudt examines violence against women with a global and cultural perspective. She analysis how violence against women “has become so common as to call it ‘normalized’ behavior in the Americas” (Staudt 30). She argues that violence against women is a custom of male dominance that has survived through the pass of time and is “legitimize by government inaction” until recently (Staudt 30). To support her argument Staudt takes into account cultural aspects such as the machismo culture argument and the links between child victimization and interpersonal violence.

Staudt also argues “violence against women is connected with the large society that is amenable to change, depending on economic context and public intervention”(Staudt 34). This can be attributed to arguments such as the Malinche myth, which represents women as traitors to men. Women are also seen chingadas, both as a state of being and personal trait. These ideas lead to a “historical justification for and anguish about violence against women, against the mother or wife who abandoned and/or betrayed the son or husband” (Staudt 36).

Staudt also argues that violence against women, especially in Juarez, is a result of the growing labor market that created jobs for women and low paying jobs for men. By working, Mexican women are challenging cultural obligations, such as homemakers and motherhood. She concludes that “perhaps male rage against cheapened wages under the global economic regime produces backlash and revenge, but they exercise that rage against an easier target than the global political-economic octopus; their partners” (Staudt 46).

Personally I agree with Staudt, being from a border town where the maquiladora industry has created job opportunities for women. As a former illegal maquiladora worker, I recall many of the women that I worked with feeling frustrated. The couple of women that I had the opportunity to work and become friends with were the only financial providers and their husbands/partners were unemployed or alcoholics, making these women feel the multiple pressures of financial instability and cultural compliance.