Practicing Accountability, Challenging Gendered State Resistance
Feminist Legislators and Feminicidio in Mexico
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2368263 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paulina García-Del Moral (0000-0002-7504-0248, University of Guelph, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 844-868 |
| Publication date | 2020-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Gender & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0891-2432 • E-ISSN: 1552-3977 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0891243220948217 |
| OpenAlex | W3081225136 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 28 |
In the late 1990s, Mexican feminists mobilized transnationally to demand state accountability for the feminicidios (feminicides) of women in Ciudad Juarez. Feminicidio refers to the misogynous killing of women and the state's complicity in this violence by tolerating it with impunity. Drawing on debates of the Mexican Federal Congress (1997-2012) and interviews with feminist state and non-state actors, I examine feminist legislators' response to transnational activism, which was to pass the 'General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence' and to create the penal-type code of feminicidio, which includes provisions to punish negligent state actors. These laws make the state a target of its own punitive power. To pass these acts, feminist legislators faced resistance from male legislators and the Federal Executive. I build on feminist institutionalism to theorize this resistance as gendered. Gendered state resistance was pervasive because feminist legislators practiced accountability by identifying the complicity of state institutions, including Congress, in perpetuating feminicidio. As part of the process, they built alliances with other female legislators and framed their arguments with notions of modern statehood. Although this framing strategy resulted in innovative legal change, I interrogate the assumption that modernity is the solution to feminicidio, because it can lead gendered state resistance to manifest as a simulation of accountability
Accountability · Complicity · Impunity · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Punitive damages · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law
Making Sense of Violence in Latin America
Symbolic and Transformative
Public Opinion on Lethal Violence against Women in Mexico
Chicana feminist approaches toward transformational teaching
Indigenous women, multiple violences, and legal activism
Femicide
De la violence létale contre les femmes à la violence féminicide
Evaluation of the Spanish Version of the Machismo Measure with Mexican Men Who Have a History of Domestic Violence
Hybrid Interpersonal Violence in Latin America
Machismo, Rape Myths, and Sexual Violence
The Limits of the Law
Femicide
Global Feminism
Frenemies
In an Abusive State
Women and States
Governance Feminism
Constructing a Global Law-Violence against Women and the Human Rights System
Terrorizing Women
The Architecture of Feminicide
En-gendering the Police
The (Heterosexual) Regendering of a Modern State
Re(gion)alizing Women's Human Rights in Latin America
Women on the Sidelines
Does Women's Presence Change Legislative Behavior? Evidence from Argentina, 1983–2007
Apuntes Acerca del Estudio de la Participación de los Inmigrantes Cubanos Y/O Personas de Origen Cubano en la Conformación de la Política Exterior Estadounidense Hacia Cuba
The Tradition Effect
The Making and Unmaking of Feminicidio/Femicidio Laws in Mexico and Nicaragua
The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change
Finding the Man in the State
The Dialectics of Still Life
Opportunities and Expectations
Transforming feminicidio
Carceral politics as gender justice? The 'traffic in women' and neoliberal circuits of crime, sex, and rights
The state, gender, and sexual politics
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |