March For Mexico's Forgotten Victims Analysis

Women have long been viewed and treated as inferior, and in many parts of the world that’s still the case. For the female factory workers in Juarez, Mexico it’s no different. For We Are Sold, I and My People: Women and Industry in Mexico’s Frontier by Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly chronicles the struggles female factory workers have had to face for many years. The article Poor, Female, Murdered: March for Mexico’s Forgotten Victims by Helen Pitt details the critical problem these women face today. The purpose of this paper is to prove that for this particular culture, normative personality traits are not enough to provide psychological and personal resources that give their members resilience to withstand the terrible things happening

That place is Juarez, Mexico, but it hasn’t looked like that since the 1960’s. Over the last 50 years Juarez became a city full of factories and manufacturing plants referred to as maquiladoras, or maquilas for short. These maquilas are owned by companies that reside in places outside of Mexico such as, Japan or America, and produce things like apparel and electronics. It’s also not by chance that these maquilas primarily employ single women, who are uneducated or have little to no work experience, and are living way below the poverty level. According to Fernandez-Kelly the age of female maquiladora workers in Juarez range between 17-25 years old, and 57% of them are

Studies show that there are a slew of health issues that are associated with working in a maquiladora. According to Inside Mexico’s Maquiladoras: Manufacturing Health Disparities by Stephanie Navarro pregnancy is one of the top issues for maquiladora workers. The Mexican labor law mandates that pregnant women are paid for maternity leave, but it’s been found that employers actually coerce the workers into resigning so they don’t have to pay. Some employers take it a step further to ensure that employees don’t get pregnant at all. “These accounts range from reports that women are regularly punched in the stomach, such that they are unable to sustain pregnancies, to reports of managers monitoring menstrual cycles to ensure that workers are not pregnant.” (Navarro, Pg.2) Another serious issue according to Navarro is sexual harassment. Many of the women reported being sexually harassed by their male managers or one of the foremen. “Examples of sexual harassment that researchers have found include managers offering workers a lighter workload in exchange for dates or sex with the female workers.” (Navarro, Pg. 2) These experiences are horrible, but they also don’t prove anything about normative personality traits. Although, I do see a connection between all of the women who have experienced these issues due to their place of employment. However, that has