Challenging Reproductive Control and Gendered Violence in the Américas by Hernández Leandra Hinojosa;De Los Santos Upton Sarah;

Author:Hernández, Leandra Hinojosa;De Los Santos Upton, Sarah;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Intersections of Culture,

Gender, Religion, and Politics

Problematizing the Notion of Choice in

Reproductive Feminicides in Latin America

In 2016, amidst poverty and a national economic crisis, headlines on national and international news outlets appeared with phrases including “Feed the Kids You Have, But Don’t Have Anymore” (Cruz, 2016) and “The Ghosts of Venezuela: Severe Economic Turmoil Has Turned Venezuelans into Versions of their Former Selves” (Gonsalves, 2016). Focusing on the political and economic turmoil in Venezuela, news reports lamented the economic downfall of Venezuela in 2015 and 2016 and how this dire situation shaped and continues to shape women’s reproductive health; reproductive access; and ability to survive in a country where there are limited resources, limited food, and extreme poverty. This is not the only gendered crisis in Latin America, however; political upheaval, economic issues, and feminicides in Mexico and protests in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina (among other countries) have also brought Latin American reproductive health to the forefront of the national and international imaginary.

Over the past few years, news reports have highlighted the dire state of being a woman in Latin America and point to what one journalist refers to as “sexual horrorism,” a phenomenon that characterizes gendered violence against women throughout Latin America (Estévez, 2016). Concluding that Latin America is the worst place to be a woman in the world, Estévez (2016) described but a few of the regional and related incidents across Latin America that showcase the gendered nature of violence, assault, and hatred against women, namely, the feminicides plaguing multiple Latin American countries, regions, and contexts: in October, 16-year-old Lucía Pérez of Mar de Plata, Argentina, was abducted, gang raped, sodomized, and murdered; Karen Rebeca Esquivel, 19, and Adriana Hernández Sánchez, 52, were found murdered in suitcases in Naucalpan, Mexico, which has been deemed the deadliest place for women in the country; a young pregnant woman was found murdered on a beach in Peru with sexual obscenities written on her legs; and Paola (last name unknown), Itzel Durán, and Alessa Flores, three sex workers and transgender rights activists, were found murdered in Mexico. These cases exemplify the larger epidemic of feminicidios plaguing Latin America, where women are brutalized, murdered, and also subjected to violences of poverty, health care access restrictions, and even in extreme circumstances restricted from having children.

In this chapter, we utilize the conjunction of feminicidios and Shepard’s theoretical tool “double discourse” (2006) to frame our study of reproductive feminicidios in Latin America to explore not only the oppressive circumstances surrounding women’s reproductive options in two Latin American countries and contexts, but the gendered nature and role of violence in these experiences and decision-making contexts, as well. Thus, this chapter interrogates the interrelatedness of structures and power relations such as the government, economics, culture, gender, and religion to more clearly understand the current state of reproductive health for women in Latin America with a focus on two case studies: feminicides in Mexico against pregnant women and women in Venezuela selecting voluntary sterilization as their most optimal reproductive choice.

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