Resisting patriarchy within the State: Advocacy and family violence in Mexico

Abstract

Synopsis In the 10 years from 1996 to 2006, all but three states in the Mexican Federation passed laws dealing specifically with family violence. These laws are more symbolic than substantive for protecting women's rights given their unbridgeable duality of objectives: one the one hand affirming the sanctity of the family, while on the other protecting family members from the threat of family violence. The patriarchal attitudes that permeate the State are reflected in the terms and objectives of family violence legislation. Although the formal aim of the legislation has been to protect women from partner violence, the subordination of its contents and implementation to the goal of preserving families has worked against protecting the victims of partner violence. This article adopts a post-structuralist feminist perspective on the State, conceptualizing it not as a unified entity, but in terms of the collaborations and conflicts of the multiple agencies, agents, and agendas which constitute it. Using Giddens' structuration theory, I examine patterns of resistance both to the patriarchal social structure and to the State that is reproducing it. Some State employees—most of whom are women—who work in agencies that provide direct assistance to victims of family violence and design prevention programs work around the familist agenda by reinterpreting and ignoring regulations, investing their own time and resources to protect victims of partner violence. This article explores the agency of these individuals and examines how they strategically challenge or derail the reproduction of patriarchal structures by the State, working from within it.