Violence against women in Mexico includes different forms of gender-based violence. It may consist of emotional, physical, sexual, and/or mental abuse. The United Nations (UN) has rated Mexico as one of the most violent countries for women in the world. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico (INEGI), 66.1 percent of all women ages 15 and older have experienced some kind of violence in their lives. Forty-nine percent have suffered from emotional violence; 29 percent have suffered from emotional-patrimonial violence or discrimination; 34 percent from physical violence; and 41.3 percent of women have suffered from sexual violence. Of the women who were assaulted in some form from 2015 to 2018, 93.7 percent of them did not seek help or report their attacks to authorities.
There are different explanations for the causes of these high numbers of violence; scholars have looked at the cultural roots as well as economic policies and changes that have led to a recent growth in the amount of gender-based violence. There was a rise of international attention looking at the state of violence against women in Mexico in the early 1990s, as the number of missing and murdered women in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez began to rise dramatically. Women in the Mexican Drug War (2006–present) have been raped, tortured, and murdered in the conflict. Women have also been victims of sex trafficking in Mexico.
While legislation and different policies have been put in place to decrease violence against women in Mexico, different organizations have shown that these policies have had little effect on the state of violence due to a lack of proper implementation.
Cultural roots
Susan Pick, Carmen Contreras, and Alicia Barker-Aguilar, researchers from the Mexican Institute for Family and Population Research (IMIFAP), examine the cultural roots that play a role in the current state of violence against women in Mexico. They look into the culture of "machismo" that has created a feeling of superiority or entitlement for men in Mexico. Women, on the other hand, have been traditionally put into roles of subservience due to the culture of "marianismo" and have had less access to knowledge and power to discuss and change the current norms. They call violence against women "an expression of male power," and they include institutional forms of violence, such as lack of access to resources or types of freedom.
Origin of machismo and marianismo
Liberation theologian Virgil Elizondo has argued, "The devotion to Mary is the most popular, persistent, and original characteristic of Latin American Christianity". Other scholars have also agreed with this point of view, arguing that when Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes, landed in Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City) in 1519, he imposed Spains' gender norms and Christian evangelization beliefs on to the indigenous societies. As a result of Spanish colonization, the ideological gender models of marianismo and machismo were embedded into Mexican society.
Pre-colonial gender norms
Pre colonial indigenous groups such as the Mexica, Quechua and the Aztecs believed in a gender complementary and parallel society; men and women operated in two separate but equal, interdependent divisions. For example, both Aztec men and women had their own political systems in which same-sex rulers were appointed to government. These appointed officials would then discuss political related concerns over the general population and generate solutions together. Men nor women overpowered one another because the Aztecs believed that the creation of a human was equally made by both genders, therefore they were each to be treated and respected equally within society. As a result, women had many political freedoms and the opportunity to achieve economic independence. Women had the liberty to choose from a variety of jobs ranging from being a midwife to a market trader. In addition, they could own various forms of wealth assets including: houses, land and movable goods. If a woman owned land before marriage, she still maintained independent control over her property and could choose who inherited her assets without needing the disclosure of her husband. The term "woman land" is found across Nahuatl documents, the Aztec language, indicating land was passed down to a woman either through "inheritance, dowries, or gifts". However, Aztec women's rights were taken away with the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.