Brainstorm #5

In the article, Toward a Planetary Society, Fregosa states that Senorita Extraviada “portrays women neither as passive victims nor as hapless dependents” (26). I agree with this statement of how young women were represented in this film. I believe that the women were shown to be quite strong: seeking independence through working in the factories. They were also aware of the dangers that came with being a woman. These women recognized how the political patriarchy chose to “fix” the problem by arresting innocent people and sending women back to their “places in the home.” This consciousness is reflected in Lisa Cacho’s concept of “social death” in that in the attempt to speak up against injustices, people were silenced and demeaned as human beings. In the end, the families of the victims begin to organize and fight back against the injustices of the government. They have learned that being close to the United States means that the crossover rate is higher, with open space and a large amount of drugs. This causes many of their problems to be overlooked, unseen, or misrepresented. In one case, the local newspaper reported that a missing girl had been seen with her boyfriend when the girl in the picture was not the missing girl. The families needed to be resilient in order to spread the real news about the violence taking place against women in Juarez. The use of media and networking allowed the families to seek the justice against authorities that they sought. Furthermore, the families were able to gain backing from larger non-government agencies to document the violence and force other countries to act. This is the networking and the resilience the families endured in order to seek justice and end the violence.