12

A Framework for Examining Violence

CECILIA MENJIVAR

People say that before the fighting we had peace. But dependency, and inequality are not only tolerated but
what do you call peace? The war begins at the psycho- accepted" is useful here to convey what I mean by the
logical level, in the plantations, where every day we normalization of violence. Although a neat compart-
were dying a little bit, every day we were consumi ng mentalization of the multiple sources of suffering is
ourselves. rarely found in practice, here I disaggregate them for the
-Guatemalan peasant, quoted in Daniel Wilkinson,
purpose of presenting my analytic framework. Taken
Silence on the Mountain
individually, the structural, symbolic, or gender forms
Es que la vida de una mujer es dura, Usted, Los hijos of violence can be so general as to be visible anywhere,
sirven de consuelo. A veces uno dice, " jAy Diosito, no and they can be interpreted differently (e g., structural
me olvides, por favor ten piedad!" l,Pero es que asf es violence can be taken as poverty); and each can arise in
la vida de uno, no? any number of situations. However, taking these forms
[A woman's life is tough. Children are the consola- of violence as a whole, in this context and from the
tion. Sometimes one says, "Oh, my little God, don't
angle I propo e, allows us to see that they are mutually
forget me, please have mercy!" But that's our life, no?]
constituted. Paraphrasing James Gilligan (1996), the
-Woman in San Alejo
question of whether to disentangle the different forms to
The first epigraph above points to the usefulness of see which one is more dangerous is moot, as they are all
opening up the analytic lens to examine instances of related to one another. The approach I lay out also per-
violence beyond those embodied in physical pain and mits me to unveil a context of violence that shapes the
injury, and the second brings up reflections on everyday lives of women in gender-specific ways and in a manner
violence in the world of the women I came to know. that exposes deep power inequalities. This approach
Both express the enduring reality of violence that reveals the systematic patterns of disadvantage that are
crosses multiple spaces and spheres of life, and they elu- neither natural nor necessary (cf. Kent 2006); or in
cidate the two aspects of violence I wish to examine in Gilligan's (1996: 196) words, "not acts of God."
this book: the multifaceted character of violence and its In establishing the links between violence at the in-
expression in the quotidian lives of ladina women that terpersonal level with that which originates in broader
contributes to its normalization. Raka Ray and Seemin structures, I seek analytic distance from individual-
Qayum's (2009: 4) conceptualization of "normalized" focused explanations or those that focus on "tradition"
as "legitimized ideologically such that domination, to elucidate the roots of violence in structures of power,

Cecilia Menjfvar. Enduring Violence : Lodi11a Wo111e11 's Li1•es in Cuatemula. <D 2011 by the Regents of the University of Cali-
fornia. Published by the University of California Press.

130
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 131

away from personal circumstances. Farmer (2003, STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE

2004) warns against conflating poverty and cultural
difference, for example; in his view, the linkage of as- Torres-Rivas (1998: 49) notes that structural violence
saults on human dignity to the cultural institutions of a (or structural repression) "is rooted in the uncertainty
particular society constitutes an abuse of cultural con- of everyday life caused by the insecurity of wages or
cepts. He (2004) then cautions that such, an approach is income, a chronic deficit in food, dress, housing, and
especially insidious because cultural difference as a health care, and uncertainty about the future which is
form of essentialism is used to explain suffering and translated into hunger and delinquency, and a barely
assaults on dignity. Thus although it is important to in- conscious feeling of failure .... It is often referred to as
terpret particular situations as forms of violence, it is structural violence because it is reproduced in the con-
equally significant to trace links to broader structures, text of the market, in exploitative labor relations, when
lest we inflict even more harm on the vulnerable. income is precarious and it is concealed as underem-
There are three considerations regarding my discus- ployment, or is the result of educational segmentation
sion of violence. First, the political economy of violence and of multiple inequalities that block access to suc-
does not affect everyone in the same manner; violence cess." And for Farmer (2003: 40), "the term is apt be-
weighs differently for those in dissimilar social posi- cause such suffering is 'structured' by historically
tions. Women and men from different social classes and given (and often economically driven) processes and
ethnic and racial backgrounds face dissimilar forms of forces that conspire ... to constrain agency."
violence and may experience the same violence in dif- An important feature of structural violence, Kent
ferent ways. Thus class violence parallels sexual and (2006: 55) observes, is that "it is not visible in specific
ethnic violence. and these are often conflated in real life events." Structural violence is "exerted systematically,
(Forster 1999: 59). Second, following the scholars on that is, indirectly by everyone who belongs to a certain
whose work I have built this framework, I argue that social order" (Farmer 2004: 307). Indeed, in Johan
violence is not always an event, a palpable outcome that Galtung's (1969) classic work, the differentiating aspect
can be observed, reported, and measured. From the between direct and structural violence is that in the
angle I propose, violence constitutes a process, one that second there is no identifiable actor who does the
is embedded in the everyday lives of those who experi- harming, so that "violence is built into the structure
ence it. Third, as Torres-Rivas (1998: 48) observes, not and shows up as unequal power and consequently as
all societies recognize the same things as violent, either unequal life chances" (171). For him, direct violence
in their origins or in their effects. Torres-Rivas's obser- comes from harmful acts of individuals that leave
vation can be extended to researchers, for scholars often physical scars, whereas structural violence is not ob-
make use of different theoretical repertoires and frame- servable and is the result of a process. Thus, in contrast
works to examine the same cases and thus do not assess to direct, physical violence, structural violence causes
them in the same manner. In Rashomonesque fashion, people to suffer harm indirectly, often through a slow
the same situation may be interpreted in a different light and steady process. But it is easier to see direct vio-
according to the lens used to examine it. In the rest of lence (Kent 2006); and when violence is a by-product
this chapter, I present one lens, one in which violence of our social and economic structure, and it is invisible,
emerges as fundamental. I present each of the compo- it is hard to care about it (Gilligan 1996). As Galtung
nents and end with a discussion of how they intertwine (1990) observed, for some people, malnutrition and
to affect life in a gender-specific fashion. As Martfn- lack of access to goods and services do not amount to
Bar6 (1991b: 334) noted, considering forms of social violence because they do not result in killings, but for
violence other than the political-military helps us to the weakest in society, such shortfalls amount to a slow
"arrive at a picture that is more complex but also more death. An examination of the ills that afflict the poor
distressing." My portrayal of the lives of Guatemalan from this vantage point highlights how a political econ-
ladinas in this book, therefore, is not sanitized and omy of inequality under neoliberal capitalism pro-
should not be taken as culturally accusatory or as a care- motes social suffering. As Miguel Angel Vite Perez
less characterization of an overly objectivized world. (2005) observes, when trying to understand how
132 BODIES

individuals become unemployed one must focus on earn 3.8 percent (World Bank 2006). In 1998 Guate-
how neoliberal economic regimes have led to labor in- mala's Gini Index was 55.8, five years later it was 58,
stability, to the com modification of public services, and and in 2002 it was 55.1, which indicates that inequality
to a precarious situation that engenders poverty rather rates remained stable over time. As an aggregate mea-
than focus just on someone's inability to keep a job. sure of inequality, the Gini Index does not detect levels
Structural violence as expressed in unemployment, of absolute poverty. For instance, between 1990 and
layoffs, unequal access to goods and services, and ex- 2001, 16 percent of Guatemalans lived on less than
ploitation has an impact on a range of social relations in $1 per day and approximately 37.4 percent on less than
multiple forms, including those that lead to the formation $2 per day (UNDP 2003), meaning that about half of
of social capital, a point I developed in fieldwork among Guatemalans live under $2 a day. Guatemala also holds
Salvadoran immigrants in San Francisco (Menjfvar the dubious distinction of having one of the two most
2000). Kleinman (2000: 238) argues, "Through violence exploitative and coercive rural class structures in Cen-
in social experience, as mediated by cultural representa- tral America (the other one is El Salvador), with high
tions, ... the ordinary lives of individuals are also shaped, rural poverty and inequality and high levels of unequal
and all too often twisted, bent, even broken." And as landownership (Brockett 1991: 62-70). Whereas 3 per-
Bourdieu (1998: 40) noted, "The structural violence ex- cent of landholdings control 65 percent of the agricul-
erted by financial markets, in the form of layoffs, loss of tural surface, close to 90 percent of the landholdmgs
security, etc., is matched sooner or later in the form of are too small for peasant subsistence (Manz 2004: 16).
suicides, crime and delinquency, drug addiction, alcohol- Such disparities vary by ethnicity and location. Thus
ism, a whole host of minor and major everyday acts of 58 percent of Guatemalans nationally lived in poverty
violence." The broader political economy does not cause in 1989, while 72 percent did so in rural areas a pro-
violence directly, but one must understand the extent to portion that dropped to 56 percent nationally in 2002
which it conditions structures within which people suffer but rose to 75 percent in rural areas the same year
and end up inflicting harm on one another and distorting (World Bank 2006). And although the majority of
social relations (see also Bourgois 2004a). ladinos are poor and lack access to basic sen ices. the
While it is crucial to acknowledge the devastating Maya are even poorer and disproportionately disadvan-
effects of neoliberal structural adjustment policies ini- taged. And in spite of development programs aimed
tiated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in at reducing the poverty gap, inequality has increased
Latin America that have resulted in sharp and unprec- in Guatemala.
edented levels of poverty (see Auyero 2000; Auyero Structural violence also comes in the form of a
and Swistun 2009), it must be noted that what the sweatshop economy that exacerbates gendered vulner-
region is experiencing is the cumulative effects of dis- abilities. In a careful examination of the effects of
advantage in a much longer historical process. Eco- sweatshop (maquila) employment in Guatemala, Marfa
nomic vulnerability is a part of this process rather than Jose Paz Antolfn and Amaia Perez Orozco (2001) dis-
a condition or state, and this process is cumulative, dy- cuss the psychological violence that takes place in the
namic, and relational (see Auyero 2000). Thus Guate- maquila, with serious consequences for the workers.
malans' current living conditions are hardly the result including loss of self-esteem. According to the authors,
of a few decades of neoliberal reforms. this situation creates a belief among the women that it
Latin America historically has exhibited a high is their fault that they do not have more education. and
degree of income inequality relative to other regions; it thus they blame themselves for their precarious situa-
has the most unbalanced distribution of resources of all tion. Indeed, the women with whom I spoke in San
regions in the world (Hoffman and Centeno 2003). And Alejo were well aware of the benefits that education
Guatemala has consistently ranked among the most un- can bring, but due to the need for their labor in their
equal, even by Latin American standards. The richest families many had been forced to abandon school early
10 percent of Guatemalans earn 43.5 percent of the or not to attend at all. However, they pointed to them-
country's total income, whereas the poorest 30 percent selves or their families as culpable for their lack of
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 133

education and diminished potential for success in life. noted that the poor (or the children of the poor) do not
The average years of schooling for adults in Guatemala attend school because they are "lured" to work, not
is three and a half years, even though the duration of forced to work, as women from poor backgrounds ex-
compulsory education is eleven years, and the literacy plained, Lucia, a teacher, said:
rate for men in 2002 was 75 percent and for women
The children work too much. People cultivate toma-
63 percent (World Bank 2006). Education and level of
toes in this area, and the kids go to harvest them and
poverty are related; by the Guatemalan government's then don't go to school. Instead they go to a literacy
own estimates, more than 95 percent of the poor have course in the afternoons. You see lots of patojos,
had no secondary education, and 44 percent have never young ones, congregated outside those centers [for lit-
attended school at all (Manz 2004: 16-17). eracy classes]. Instead of wanting an education, they
Nine of the thirty women I interviewed in San Alejo want to earn money. Oh yes, they are poor and need
had never attended school. Some had learned how to money, but they don't want the education. No, really,
sign their names or to read simple words, a couple had believe me, they just don't want to be educated, other-
attended adult literacy classes, and another nine had wise they would go to school, don't you think? As a
teacher, it pains me to see how kids go for money and
only attended elementary school. They cited their par-
not their future. But it's all the parents' fault.
ents, other relatives, or themselves as the reason they
had not acquired more schooling. It is only by tracing Other women were more elaborate in their assess-
the links to the profoundly unequal access to education ments, but most explanations ended up blaming the poor
and resources that one can turn attention to the root of for their predicament, adding insult to injury. Ofelia, a
this lack of opportunities. Hortencia, the mother of five receptionist, explained, "You see, they [the poorl have
whom I mentioned in chapter 1, explained why she many children, so their money is never enough. You
never attended school: know why? Because there is no family planning. Well,
there is, but the gente humilde [lit. "humble people,"
Because my papa was a mujeriego [womanizer] and a
drunk and my mama suffered a lot with him so they meaning the poorl don't accept it, and they prefer to
never sent me to school. I had to help her. I learned in have as many children as God sends them. So it's be-
the alfabetizaci6n [literacy classes] how to read and cause of their beliefs that they end up worsening their
write. and now I have even written letters to the United own situation, right?"
States for other people who don't know how to write The majority of the women with whom I spoke in
[she smiles and her eyes light up]! The other day my San Alejo mentioned situations they faced in their daily
compadre [lit., "co-father"; co-parent] came by so I lives that highlight structural violence and the normal-
could help him calculate how old he is because he ization of inequality. Several women talked about the
needed to go get his cedula [ID card]. Ay, the shame effects of the unequal land distribution system, couch-
of having to learn how to read and write as an adult ... ing their reflections in a framework of the ordinary,
one feels bad, ashamed. I was very embarrassed, but
explaining multiple forms of exploitation as the way
in time I learned.
things were. In San Alejo women do not work the land
While Hortencia saw her father as responsible for her directly (they can participate in the harvest), but the
illiteracy, one must recognize that access to education men do, and they do so through an exploitative land
in rural Guatemala when she was growing up was a tenure system. Many are landless and rent land from
privilege, not a right, especially for poor women. Not landowners through a contract called medianfa, which
everyone could attend school, and since the town had implies "half and half" but is hardly that. As it was ex-
only a primary school, many who did attend stopped at plained to me, the landowner provides the land and the
the sixth grade; only the few with more means traveled renter tills it and supplies everything else-seeds, fer-
to the city to continue beyond the sixth grade. Thus tilizer, and workers to harvest the crop. Then the land-
blocked educational opportunities and illiteracy are ex- owner and the renter supposedly share the crop. Such
pressions of the structural violence that assaults the a system lends itself to multiple forms of abuse, and
lives of the poor. However, some women of more means it is risky for the renter but not for the landowner.
134 BODIES

This system exemplifies what Galtung (1990) concep- unsolved disappearances, became the favored politi-
tualizes as the archetypal structure of violence. cal tools for Guatemala's military and political elites
Many women brought up the injurious consequences (McCleary 1999, cited in Torres 2005). Politically moti-
inherent in the system. Sometimes their partners were vated violence was so successful during Guatemala's
hired to work the land but were cheated and not paid reign of terror that it came to be known as a "cultural
after the harvest, losing money that was earmarked for fact," as somehow "natural" and "cultural" (Nordstrom
other purposes, including medicine and food. Mirna, 1997; Sluka 2000; Torres 2005). The Guatemalan an-
twenty-eight years old and the mother of five, com- thropologist M. Gabriela Torres (2005; 143-44) notes
plained that the landowner with whom her husband that "the naturalization of political violence into a cul-
worked would deduct money for everything needed to tural fact was produced, in part, through the creation and
work the land, leaving them with Q.100 (about $15 in promotion of a language or pattern of political violence
1997) per month in profits. She had to use some of this that-while it generated terror-at the same time obfus-
money to feed the twelve laborers who helped her hus- cated the political economy of its own production."
band, even when she was eight months' pregnant. In Until 1980 the targets of state terror were primarily
the case of Leticia, when her partner fell ill from HIV/ ladinos-students, peasants, union organizers, politi-
AIDS they had to sell half of a tiny plot of land so that cians, and revolutionaries-and in the 1960s and 1970s
he could afford his checkups in the capital. After he the state-sponsored violence had an urban character
died, she found out she also was infected, and she sold (Godoy-Paiz 2008). But in 1981 the army launched its
the other half of the plot to pay for her own checkups. scorched earth campaign against Maya communities
In her last year of life she was tormented about being Throughout this period ladinos continued to be killed,
unable to leave any land, or even a small adobe struc- but the atrocities committed against the Maya, de-
ture, to her young daughters. When she was already ill, scribed as ethnocide or genocide, targeted "Indians as
one of the few ways she could make a living was pick- Indians" (Grandin 2000: 16). The wide pread and sys-
ing tomatoes in the fields, but even this became diffi- tematic nature of this slaughter arguably reached the
cult toward the end because others in town knew of her threshold of crimes against humanity. As an intricate
illness and some potential employers did not want any aspect of a regional political structure in which U.S.
contact with her. As the women recounted these sto- political interests have weighed heavily (Menjivar and
ries, they presented them as the way things were, nor- Rodriguez 2005), in 1954 the U.S. gmernment orches-
malizing the relationship between those who own the trated the overthrow of democratically elected Jacob
land and those who till it, only occasionally insinuating Arbenz Guzman and installed a military regime that
how exploitative this "natural order of things" was. Not would govern the country, in various guises, for the
surprisingly, when I spoke with the women whose fam- next several decades. Successive U.S. administrations
ilies owned the land, their stories conveyed the other supported this regime as it engaged in widespread
half of the picture, naturalizing the narratives of ex- human rights violations, providing training and up-
ploitation I heard from poor women. port for the Guatemalan army's counterinsurgency op-
erations (Manz 2004; Menjfvar and Rodrfguez 2005).
According to the 1999 report of the U.N.-sponsored
POLITICAL VIOLENCE Truth Commission, formally known a the Comisi6n
AND STATE TERROR para el Esclarecimiento Hist6rico (CEH; Historical
Clarification Commission), the state responded to both
For thirty-six years, from 1960 to 1996, political vio- the insurgency and the civil movements with unimagi-
lence and state terror were the order of the day in Gua- nable repression, repre sion that climaxed in 1981-82
temalan society. During this time politically motivated with a bloodbath in which the army committed over
violence became an integral part of the functioning, six hundred massacres (Sanford 2008: 19). It tortured.
governance, and maintenance of the state (Falla 1994; murdered, and was responsible for the disappearance
Jonas 2000; Nelson 1999). Violence and terror, epito- of more than 200,000 Guatemalans (mostly Mayas); it
mized in public assassinations, ruthless massacres. and destroyed 626 villages, and hundreds of thousands
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 135

were displaced internally and internationally (Parenti the micro- and macrolevels, such that the violence that
and Munoz 2007; Sanford 2008). occurs in intimate relations is connected to the vio-
Although ladino communities were not targeted in lence that occurs between ethnic groups, which in turn
the scorched earth campaigns, there are ways in which is linked to global patterns of interstate wars, because
the general political violence led to the normalization the same mechanisms sustain them. Understanding the
of violence, distorting social relations [Link] affecting life links between the different manifestations of violence,
in ladino communities as well. The breadth and depth they argue, is a key step toward addressing the causes.
of state-sponsored terror reached all Guatemalans in Thus the cruelty with which certain assaults such as
one way or another, for one of the most destructive as- robberies and burglaries are sometimes committed in
pects of state terror in Guatemala was the widespread the context of common crime cannot be examined in-
reliance on civilians to kill other civilians (Ball, dependently of the violence engendered by state terror,
Kobrak, and Spirer 1999), as well as the strategic dis- as Taussig (2005) has observed for the case of Colom-
semination of gruesome killings in the media. Thus the bia. Often, acts of common crime are characterized by
political violence that claimed many lives and de- the same brutality and professionalization with which
stroyed communities in the Altiplano was so pervasive acts associated with political violence are carried out.
that it engulfed the entire country. Writing about the Torres-Rivas (1998: 49) notes that the criminogenic
insidious effects of the militarization of life in El Sal- conditions of postwar violence can be examined in the
vador, Martfn-Bar6 (1991c: 311-12) stated, "The mili- context of power and state violence: "The bad example
tarization of daily life in the main parts of the social of the use of violence on the part of the state is then
world contributes to the omnipresence of overpowering imitated by the citizens." "Common criminals" adopt
control and repressive threats .... This is how an atmo- strategies similar to those used by the state (the same
sphere of insecurity is fostered, unpredictable in its individuals may be engaged in both), and, as posited by
consequences, and demanding of people a complete examinations using brutalization frameworks (see Kil
submission to the dictates of power." He referred to this and Menjfvar 2006), individuals who commit common
phenomenon as the "militarization of the human mind" crimes mimic the state as it metes out punishments on
(1991b: 341). In such contexts, to paraphrase Cynthia enemies or dissidents. The violence of common crime
Enloe (2000), lives become militarized not only therefore is not dissociated from state-sponsored politi-
through direct means and exposure but also when mili- cal violence. However, as Snodgrass Godoy (2006:25)
tarized products, views, and attitudes are taken as nat- notes, "The depoliticization of crime [isJ among the
ural and unproblematic (see also Green 1999). Even if hallmarks of neoliberal governance in our insecure
concrete expressions of political violence differ in world[,] ... most starkly sketched in settings of extreme
degree, tactics, and expression, the broad effects cannot marginality."
be contained or isolated in one geographic area when The effects of political violence, then, are seldom
the state itself is the chief perpetrator. As Galtung contained in a specific geographic area, among the
(1990: 294) observed, "A violent structure leaves marks members of only a targeted group, or in only one aspect
not only on the human body but also on the mind and of life. It is not surprising therefore that the ladinas
the spirit." It was this kind of political violence, created with whom I spoke did not openly question the taken-
and spread through state structures, that reached, in for-granted world of violence that surrounded them,
one way or another, everyone in Guatemala. conveyed daily in newspapers, on television, and along
Political violence is linked to other forms of vio- the roads. Regular images and storie'S of gruesome
lence, including interpersonal violence in the home deaths created a climate of insecurity and continuous
(itself linked to symbolic violence) and what is referred alert (the "nervous system," in Taussig's [1992] concep-
to as "common crime." Douglas Hay (1992) notes the tualization) in eastern Guatemala as well, and it was
reciprocal relationship between violence from the state "part of life." Moving the analytic lens from the Alti-
and violence in private spheres. And referring to a plano, where political violence has been well docu-
chain of political violence, Jennifer Turpin and Lester mented and acknowledged, to eastern Guatemala,
Kurtz (1997) note the interrelated causes of violence at where for the most part it has not, unearths the breadth
136 BODIES

and depth of the project of state terror that engulfed, of violence often loomed in the background of their as-
with varying degrees of force and visibility, the entire sessments and perspectives.
country. As the project of state violence reached all corners
Torres (2005) argues that in the process of making of the country in different ways, the militarization of
violence quotidian, "natural ," and "cultural," the Guate- life was evident beyond the Altiplano; it materialized in
malan Armed Forces relied on a discourse expressed in soldiers and military vehicles on roads even in areas
the patterned and continuous appearance of cadaver re- that were supposed to be far from the "conflict" zones,
ports and articulated through both the signs of torture such as in San Alejo. The military presence there
left on bodies and the strategy of displaying the reports. served as an eerie reminder that violence was never far
Mutilated bodies left on the sides of roads and the un- or contained in just one area, and thus everyone could
identifiable victims of torture were meant to send a mes- be "at risk." Military violence was not separated in a
sage to the living. Victims of terror "disappeared" from black-and-white geographic mapping because the re-
their normal existence, making the disappearance itself pressive state could reach anyone, anywhere, any time,
a powerful me sage of what awaited those who contem- and the reminders of this were ubiquitous. One day as
plated sympathizing with the opposition (Menjivar and my assistant, our driver, and I were on the main road
Rodriguez 2005). The innocent bystanders who wit- leading to San Alejo, we saw there was commotion,
nessed abductions or discovered a tortured body on a and traffic was slow in a large town we were supposed
road got the message, one that was carefully and strate- to pass through. A crowd wa lined up on the sides of a
gically broadcast in the media (Torres 2005). Although semipaved road; it looked as if they were waiting for a
such sightings are associated with the Altiplano, they pageant to go by, and I did not want to miss it. To my
were not uncommon in other parts of Guatemala. surprise, I saw a convoy of U.S. military vehicles,
These observations are not meant to suggest that the Humvees too wide for the narrow roads of the town.
entire country experienced state terror in the same way People had come out of their homes to look at how
or to lessen the atrocities committed against the Maya in these massive vehicles almost touched the house on
the Altiplano; on the contrary, they underscore the reach both sides of the road as they maneuvered their way
of the political violence suffered in Guatemala. As through town. The military presence felt as huge as
scholars have documented for the Altiplano, relatives of those vehicles in that narrow road, and I wondered
the disappeared who never saw their loved ones again about the need to establish such a presence even in
live with the torment of not knowing if these relatives this region of Guatemala. I was told that a military
were in fact killed. Rosita, whom I interviewed in the presence-both Guatemalan and U.S.-was in fact
Altiplano, would cry whenever she tried to explain what routine; the reason people were watching that day was
it meant to have had her husband disappear fourteen out of curiosity. I asked a mall group of people what
years earlier. On one occasion she told me. "I live won- this was all about, and a man said, "It's the gringo .
dering, will he come back one day? How about for our They are on their way to fix the roads around here."
daughter's fifteen-year celebration? Every Christmas, "So they have come to help?" I entured to a k. The man
every New Year's, every birthday, I wonder if he will smiled, shrugged his shoulder , shook his head slightly,
come back. Sometimes I almost go crazy. Why did they and simply responded, "Saber" (Who know ). As Linda
[government army] not return his body to me? Why such Green (2004: 187) observes, civic actions mixed with
cruelty? I think my torture will last all my life." Filita, counterinsurgency strategies do "not negate the e sen-
on the other hand, explained that her father was killed tial fact that violence is intrinsic to the military's nature
right in front of her and her siblings rather than having and logic. Coercion is the mechanism that the military
disappeared and noted that this had been a consolation uses to control citizens even in the absence of war." The
to the family because at least they could give him a scene was troubling to me, but for the town dwellers
proper burial. Only in the brutality of Guatemala's reign and everyone in the region, accustomed to such sight-
of terror could the killing of a father in front of his chil- ings, it was life as usual. As Green (2004: 187) contin-
dren serve as consolation. The women I interviewed in ues, in Guatemala "language and symbols are utilized
San Alejo did not have similar experiences, but this kind to normalize a continued army presence."
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 137

The end of the armed conflict has not resulted in an "culture of terror" that normalizes violence in the pri-
absence of violence, and in fact new modalities have vate and public spheres, and can begin to understand
emerged. Death threats, attacks, kidnappings, and acts how those who experience it end up directing their bru-
of intimidation are a daily occurrence in "postwar" tality against themselves rather than against the struc-
Guatemala. Mutilated bodies are still found on the tures that oppress them (see Bourgois 2004a, 2004b).
sides of roads, kidnappings occur regulqrly, people live Thus the most immediate threat in postwar Guate-
in fear, and there are guns and security forces in places mala in the eyes of Guatemalan women and men is
where people conduct their daily lives-challenging common crime, and today there is gang-related crime
conventional assumptions about what it means to live everywhere, from the capital to the countryside (see
in "peacetime." All this is exacerbated by the impunity Manz 2004). Guatemala's homicide rate is one of the
that has been the hallmark of the postwar regime; highest in the hemisphere, and it has escalated annu-
many of those responsible for human rights violations ally. In 2001 there were 3,230 homicides; in 2005,
have entered politics and have even been elected to 5,338 (Procuradurfa de Derechos Humanos [PDH], in
public offices (Menjfvar and Rodriguez 2005). Sanford 2008: 24). If the rate continues to increase,
Sanford (2008) notes, there will be more deaths in the
first twenty-five "postwar" years than in all the thirty-
EVERYDAY VIOLENCE, six years of "wartime." In an unsettling situation (also
INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE, observed in other postconflict societies), street youth in
AND CRIME Guatemala, the criminalized young women and men
often referred to as maras (gangs) because their origins
Everyday violence refers to the daily practices and ex- have been traced to a gang bearing that name, are often
pressions of violence on a micro-interactional level, such blamed for the high levels of crime. Public officials and
as interpersonal, domestic, and delinquent (Bourgois the media offer these gangs as "explanations" for inter-
2004a: 428). I borrow the concept from Philippe Bourgois personal violence and crime and make it seem neces-
to focus on the routine practices and expressions of sary to "eliminate the maras," as a man in San Alejo
interpersonal aggression that serve to normalize vio- once told me. Guatemala is not alone in this predica-
lence at the micro-level. This concept focuses attention ment. In his examination of the "limpieza" (cleansing)
on "the individual lived experience that normalizes in Colombia, Michael Taussig (2005) notes the ease
petty brutalities and terror at the community level and with which the seemingly random violence in postcon-
creates a common sense or ethos of violence" (Bourgois flict societies is attributed to delinquent youth. My
2004a: 426). Analytically, the concept helps to avoid point here is that blaming poor young women and men
explaining individual-level confrontations and expres- for the postwar violence isolates the issue, a strategy
sions of violence, such as "common" crime and domes- that depoliticizes it (see Godoy-Paiz 2008) and mud-
tic violence, through psychological or individualistic dles attempts to explain and understand it.
frameworks. Instead, this prism links these acts to On a return visit three years after I first went to the
broader structures of inequality that promote interper- Altiplano, I happened to see an extraordinary image: two
sonal violence. As Alejandro Portes and Bryan Roberts girls, in their traditional traje, writing graffiti on a wall
(2005) note, increasing trends of inequality are very and then walking into a local arcade to play video games
much associated with rising crime in Latin America with their friends. In my conversations with people in
(see also Torres 2008), even if precise causality cannot town, I mentioned what I saw, and the talk quickly turned
always be established. Indeed, Portes and Roberts to crime. I was told that all the crime committed these
(2005: 76) note, "from a sociological standpoint, the re- days was the work of the maras, integrated by teenage
action of some of society's most vulnerable members in boys and girls whose "parents don't know what the kids
the form of unorthodox means to escape absolute and are doing." People were concerned because they used to
relative deprivation is predictable." From this angle one hear about these activities in the capital but not in their
can trace the violence of common crime to structural town. Perhaps because of the military attacks this town
and political violence, as well as to the creation of a suffered during the years of the violence, some of the
138 BODIES

town's residents were quick to link the militarization of where overt, direct forms of political violence were
life to the emergence of the maras. For example, Lita, a more likely to take place. Isabel mentioned that her
thirty-nine-year-old mother of three, observed, "Thanks brother had been shot and was recuperating. The inci-
to God, my husband didn't want to stay in the army any dent reminded her of the time, two years earlier, when
longer. Maybe he could have had a higher rank by now. her uncle was shot and killed not far from where her
But he wouldn't have been content with that and would brother had just been shot. She also mentioned a series
have become a thief, because the more you have, the of robberies and assaults on people close to her. She
more you want. And the longer you stay in the army, the attributed such act~, like others did, to drunkenness,
worse a person becomes. You learn how to pressure jealousy, and revenge. Similarly, when Teresa and I
people to do what you want." were talking about her family, she said, "These days
Paralleling Lita's assessment, the emergence of the my uncle is recuperating from a gunshot wound. Oh, he
maras in Guatemala, as well as in the rest of Central had a few drinks, you know how it is, then got his gun
America, has been linked to the militarization of life and shot himself in the leg." And Estrella, with a shrug
during the years of political violence. However, even if of the shoulders, said, "There are always people being
poverty and a recent political conflict are mentioned as killed around here. Sometimes you walk around and
factors behind the emergence and expansion of gangs see a crowd of people, and most of the time it's going to
in Central America (and of the violence we see today), be someone killed in the street. Normally it's a bolo
it is interesting that it is the countries with a recent his- [drunk]." Isabel seemed a bit relieved when she said.
tory of state violence (not just political conflict) that "These days, it's only my brother"; no one else in her
targeted their own people, such as Guatemala, El Sal- family had been assaulted recently. And Mirna was
vador, and, to some degree, Honduras, where this worried about a brother-in-law who drank too much: in
seems to be the case. On the other hand, in Nicaragua, the end, she said, anyone could be killed: "No one is
where there are similar conditions of poverty and safe. Such is life, one is here today and gone tomorrow,
recent political conflict but where the state was not in- right?" Perhaps what seemed more startling to me was
volved in terrorizing its own citizens (in that conflict, the element of ordinariness in the women's accounts.
the "Contra War," the government fought external ag- As Scheper-Hughes (1997: 483) notes, "The routiniza-
gression), youth gangs have not proliferated, and those tion of everyday violence against the poor leads them to
that exist do not seem to be as violent as those in the accept their own violent deaths and those of their chil-
other Central American countries. dren as predictable, natural, cruel, but all too usual."
Though I did not ask directly about violence in their The topic of direct physical violence came up even
lives, San Alejo women brought it up in our conversa- when speaking with Lucrecia about the town's fiesta.
tions, often in its direct, physical form, even when we We were having a lively conversation in the living
were talking about aspects of their lives that seemed room of her house about the music, the queens, the
remote from the topic of violence. Sometimes they three days of festivities, the bailes (dance ), when sud-
would mention instances of common crime that their denly she said:
friends and families had experienced; sometimes they Oh yes, for the fiestas siempre hav muertos [there are
would talk about how "easy it is to die" in their town. always dead people]. People drink too much. Oh God.
Yet at other times they would talk about additional there is always a mataz6n [widespread killings] during
sources of fear and suffering. It was surprising to me the fiestas. They kill each other. Well, this time. I
how easily and often this issue came up. In fact , the don't know, I think there were only three or four dead.
topic of direct violence made such an impression on me Not too many this year. In other years there are more.
that in a field note entry in 1995 I wrote, "Almost every- sometimes eight or nine. There will be at least some
one in this town seems to have had a relative killed. dead people during the fiestas. It's what happens
Everyone seems to own and use guns. Is it supposed to during a fiesta, right?
be this way here [in San Alejo]?" What I was trying to During my last visits to San Alejo in 1999 and 2000,
reconcile was that this was the region of Guatemala I heard gunshots almost e ery night. One evening a
considered relatively peaceful, far from the Altiplano, man brandishing a gun, chasing another man, ran past
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 139

our street, and I was told to stay inside. I was left responsible (e.g., the state and classes in power) for the
shaken, but my reaction made everyone laugh and tease conditions of violence in the first place (see Bourgois
me because I had made a big deal out of a guy running 2004a, 2004b). This theoretical angle allows us to cap-
around with a gun. This experience and others corrob- ture how multiple inequalities, power structures, and
orated the women's normalized descriptions of direct denigrating social relations become internalized dispo-
violence in their town. Again, this was postwar, "non- sitions (Bourdieu's "habitus" [1984]) that organize prac-
conflict." eastern Guatemala. tices and are unquestioned, misrecognized, accepted,
and ultimately reproduced in everyday life. Bourdieu's
key conceptualization, as it focuses on gender violence,
SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE AND THE constitutes my main framework for examining the dif-
INTERNALIZATION OF INEQUALITY ferent aspects of life of the women in San Alejo.
Symbolic violence is exerted in multiple forms of
Symbolic violence, according to Bourdieu (2004), stratification, social exclusion, and oppression in Guate-
refers to the internalized humiliations and legitima- mala; as such, it is constitutive of other forms. I began to
tions of inequality and hierarchy that range from sexism reflect on the insidiousness of structural violence and its
and racism to intimate expressions of class power. As links to the hidden injuries of symbolic violence when a
Bourdieu and LoYc Wacquant (2004: 273) put it, "It is female street vendor outside the city hall in San Alejo
the violence which is exercised upon a social agent with shooed away a barefoot blond boy (his blond hair was
his or her complicity." And, according to Bourgois the result of extreme malnutrition) wearing a tattered
(2004b), this violence is exercised through cognition Harvard Alumni T-shirt of undescribable color, because
and misrecognition, with the unwitting consent of the she thought he was bothering me when he asked me for
dominated. In this conceptualization, ''the dominated food. He took a couple of steps back and looked afraid.
apply categories constructed from the point of view of The expression on my face led the woman to explain her
the dominant to the relations of domination, thus actions and she assured me that it was okay to shoo him
making it appear as natural. This can lead to systematic away, saying, ''Ay, estos patojos son pear que animales,
self-depreciation, even self-denigration" (Bourdieu son como moscas, Usted" (Ah, these kids are worse than
2004: 339). A key point in Bourdieu's conceptualiza- animals; they are like flies). At first I wondered why this
tion that captures a fundamental aspect of the case I woman, who did not look much better off than the patojo
examine here is that the everyday, normalized familiar- in question and had probably experienced hunger her-
ity with violence renders it invisible, power structures self, could not feel compassion for him. As I thought
are misrecognized, and the mechanisms through which about the incident I realized that it had more to do with
it is exerted do not lie in conscious knowing. According the context of multifaceted violence in which both she
to Bourdieu: and the boy lived than with the woman's lack of com-
passion. I had mistakenly interpreted this act. In a fash-
Symbolic violence is exercised only through an act of
ion similar to the initial reaction of Scheper-Hughes
knowledge and practical recognition which takes
place below the level of consciousness and will and (1992) to the seeming indifference of the mothers to
which gives all its manifestations-injunctions, sug- their infants' deaths and life chances in Born Jesus do
gestions, seduction, threats, reproaches, orders, or Alto, I was not initially aware of the inadequacy of my
calls to order-their "hypnotic power." But a relation reading. To link this moment to the ravages of violence
of domination that functions only through the com- in the lives of this woman and this child·required shift-
plicity of dispositions depends profoundly,for its per- ing from a focus on the individual interaction to the
petuation or transformation, on the perpetuation or structures that give rise to and facilitate these forms of
transformation of the structures of which those dispo- violent relations, and it parallels other examinations of
sitions are the product. (2004: 342; original emphasis) dehumanization and objectification, such as Douglas
Significantly, symbolic violence in the form of feelings Massey's (2007) discussion of the dehumanization of
of inadequacy, mutual recrimination, and exploitation undocumented immigrants in the United States that
of fellow victims diverts attention away from those opens up the way for inhumane treatment.
 BODIES
140

The women I met in the Altiplano had countless sto- about their perceived inadequacies, their understand-
ries, many dealing with racism, about their experiences ing of being "naturally" unequal to men, and how "as
of symbolic violence in its overt forms. For instance, women" they knew "their place." Such expressions
Lita's teenage daughter spoke about her life as a worker were so common that one hardly noticed them. These
in Guatemala City, where ladinos often stare at her, powerful and insidious forms of symbolic violence en-
scold her (regaiian), and speak roughly to her, calling capsulate Bourdieu and Wacquant's (2004: 272) con-
her india, just because she is a "natural" (the term ceptualization that, "being born in a social world, we
Maya often use to refer to themselves). Equally impor- accept a whole range of pmtulates, axioms, which go
tant to note is how such expressions of violence are without saying and require no inculcating. . . Of all
internalized by the dominated and how the self is the forms of 'hidden persuasion,' the most implacable
wounded under these conditions. Ivette, a thirty-year- is the one exerted, quite simply, by the order of things"
old ladina in San Alejo, was married to a Maya man (original emphasis). I discuss this form of violence
from the town in the Altiplano where I did research. under gender violence below, because for Bourdieu and
Ivette wore fashionable clothes, always had her nails Wacquant (2004) gender domination is the paradig-
manicured, and had dyed her hair blond. We were talk- matic form of symbolic violence.
ing about what life was like for her, as a ladina, in the
Altiplano, and she said:
Well, I live well here. Everyone speaks Kaqchikel
GENDER AND GENDERED VIOLENCE
around here and all the women wear traje. But my hus-
band says that that's why he married me; he didn't I examine the different forms of gender violence that
want a woman with traje. In fact, he never had a girl- assault women's lives in San Alejo by borrowing from
friend who wore traje. Yes, on purpose, he didn't want Lawrence Hammar (1999), from a Guatemalan team of
una de traje [a woman who wore traje, meaning a social scientists who conducted a thorough study of
Maya]. And he doesn't want me to dress our daughter gender and gendered violence in Guatemala (U ICEF-
with traje. My sisters-in-law tell him to, but my hus- UNIFEM-OPS/OMS-FNUAP 1993), and from Bour-
band doesn't like it; he thinks it's not in good taste. dieu's work on gender violence. According to Hammar's
The stories I heard in the Altiplano were disturbing (1999: 91) conceptualization, gender differences in a
and provided me with a small window onto how racism gender-imbalanced political economy that disadvan-
in Guatemala is experienced. In the Oriente I heard tage women represent gender violence, whereas acts of
stories that show the other side of racism and support violence, including physical, psychological, and lin-
those I heard in the Altiplano. Comments in San Alejo guistic violence, constitute gendered v10lence. The
usually came in the form of an outright racist statement Guatemalan team differentiates public from domestic
about the Maya, or in the form of a joke (see Nelson violence and notes that the two cannot be i olated from
1999), or in a naturalized, normalized assertion each other; they define violence as "intentional mal-
(I return to this in chapter 7). On one occasion I was chat- treatment of a physical, sexual, or emotional nature,
ting with a couple of women in San Alejo on the steps which leads to an environment of fear, miscommunica-
of one of their homes, and the life and accomplish- tion and silence" (UNICEF-UNIFEM-OPS/OMS-
ments of Rigoberta Menchu came up. With surprise, FNUAP 1993: 22). The team note that all forms of
one of them explained what she thought about the violence are the product of unequal power relations;
Nobel Prize winner: "Right, she is not dumb. Because, among these the greatest inequality is that between
you know, one thinks that the Indians are dumb, well, men and women. And, according to Bourdieu and
that's what one believes, right? But you'd be surprised. Wacquant (2004: 273), "the male order is so deeply
Many are not. Look at La Rigo [Rigoberta], que chis- grounded as to need no justification[,] ... leading to [a]
puda sali6 [how smart she turned out]." construct [of relations] from the standpoint of the dom-
However, in San Alejo I was stunned by stories of inant, i.e., as natural." They argue further: "The case of
another form of symbolic violence that is also natural- gender domination shows better than any other that
ized and misrecognized. I often heard the ladinas talk symbolic violence accomplishes itself through an act
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 141

of cognition and of misrecognition that lies beyond- affected society in genera1, they responded negatively,
or beneath-the controls of consciousness and will, in indicating that these are isolated cases that do not have
the obscurities of the schemata of habitus that are at a wider effect. Some of the professionals did say that
once gendered and gendering" (original emphasis). violent acts against women can have a broad effect
Similarly, as Laurel Bossen (1983) observed in her re- when the children imitate the actions of the fathers and
search on Guatemala, an added dimensjon of systems become aggressors themselves, when families disinte-
of gender stratification is the development of ideologies grate, when women become a public charge if they are
that reinforce and rationalize sexual differentiation and left physically unable to work, and when society in
inequality. general becomes more violent (UNICEF-UNIFEM-
Gender and gendered violence and public and domes- OPS/OMS-FNUAP 1993). Therefore, institutions such
tic violence work in conjunction, and the interlocking of as the criminal justice system reinforce and formalize
gender violence and gendered violence increasingly violent structures, causing more injury and suffering
hurts women, as new arenas in which gender is a signifi- (often though not solely through neglect).
cant axis of stratification multiply. Guatemala's Gender Gender and gendered violence in Guatemala emerge
Development Index is 0.63, which places it 119th of in quotidian events, and it is precisely these everyday
175 ranked countries, below the 0.71 overall rate for Latin forms, sometimes expressed in seemingly innocuous
America and the Caribbean (UNDP 2003). Education at acts, that contribute to their normalization. Gender ide-
different levels is unequal by gender, and access to land ologies create spheres of social action that contribute
is equally lopsided. Already 40 percent of rural families not only to normalizing expressions of violence but also
do not have access to land, and within this hierarchy to justifying "punishments" for deviations from norma-
women have a much lower rate of direct ownership. A tive gender role expectations. This is manifested in im-
survey found that only 28 percent of 99,000 female agri- posed demarcations of public and private spaces and in
culturalists in Guatemala had permanent salaried em- the resulting restriction of women's movement in public,
ployment; the rest were employed temporarily (Escoto et as well as in practices that are more directly physically
al. 1993). Disparities by ethnicity further exacerbate violent, such as abductions of women before they marry
gender inequality, as indigenous Maya women fare far (robadas), a point to which I return in chapter 4.
worse than ladinas in human development indicators. Often the women I spoke with found their self-
The study by the Guatemalan team mentioned perceptions corroborated by their partners' threats, as-
above presents a number of insights that show the insti- saults, reproaches, and orders, but in some cases it was
tutionalization of gender hierarchies and violence, as other women who did the reproaching or contributed to
authorities in the medical and judicial fields frame the assault. For instance, Delfina told me that her hus-
their actions and decisions in the same "social order of band insulted her in front of friends and family, threw
things" that shapes gender and gendered violence. The food at her when it was not prepared to his taste, and
team interviewed sixteen professionals, including phy- often threatened to leave her for a younger woman.
sicians, nurses, policemen, lawyers, gynecologists, a This treatment was routine, though in a moment of re-
journalist, and a social worker, working in the public flection that epitomized the normalization of gender
and private sectors who, in one way or another, dealt violence and gendered violence in San Alejo she some-
with instances of domestic violence. They were asked how considered herself a bit fortunate. In her words,
about their views of men and women, and overwhelm- "He's never touched me. Can you believe he's never hit
ingly all agreed that "women are weaker," that "women me? Yes, I'm serious. It's true. You'd think, with his
are dependent on men," that "women must obey men," character, it could be awful. But he's not like others
that "men are the ones who hold authority," and that who hit their wives." Delfina's reflection about physical
"women are loving and caring." When they were asked violence in the lives of women and its absence in her
under what conditions a man is justified in assaulting a life casts it as normalized for others. Nonetheless,
woman, five of the professionals pointed to jealousy, Delfina mentioned that she felt depressed, tense, and
alcoholism, or infidelity on the part of the woman. unloved; the perverse effects of her husband's behav-
When they were asked if violence against women ior also led her to accept her situation as ordinary.
142 BODIES

So many other women she knew suffered similar (or (2005: 163) notes that "when women were killed, their
worse) assaults routinely that she did not find her own cadavers showed evidence of overkill and rape." This
condition "that bad." I am not recounting these com- point, Torres (2005) argues, suggests that women more
ments in an accusatory manner; rather, I want to cal I often than men were punished for divergence from ex-
attention to the connection between extrapersonal, pected behavioral norms Indeed, in her meticulous
macrostructures of inequality and the microlevel, ev- analysis of published records, Torres finds that the vic-
eryday world, as it is here that gender-based symbolic tim's gender played a crucial role in determining the
violence, the violence found in the social order, is type of torture, the way bodies were disposed of, and
instantiated. the extent and type of reporting made on violated ca-
To be sure, gender violence and gendered violence, davers. Thus, Torres (2005) argues, the gender-specific
and their normalization, are not new in Guatemala. In necrographic maps and the significance of their signs
an examination of gender and justice in rural Guate- point to the role of women in the restructuring of the
mala, Cindy Forster (1999) notes that between 1936 and Guatemalan nation through violence.
1956 there were several recorded cases involving harm- As in other politically conflictive societies, there-
ful acts against women (one had been killed) that failed fore, women in Guatemala have been murdered, disap-
to generate criminal proceedings. Authorities noted peared, terrorized, and stripped of their dignity, and
"nothing strange" in criminal acts against women; the rape and sexual violence against them have been an
"business as usual" attitude was especially noticeable in integral part of the counterinsurgency strategy (Am-
cases in which the women were poor and/or Maya. A nesty International 2005). Susan Blackburn (1999) and
justice system that carries inconsequential punishments Cynthia Enloe (2000) have argued that such treatment
for crimes against women, Carey and Torres (forthcom- can be linked to more obvious forms of state violence
ing) note, offers no legal sanction against gender-based against women, as strategies of state terror and as part
violence. Carey and Torres, as well as Forster, link all of a process of intimidation of dissident or minority
these forms of violence against women. Forster writes: groups. In this generalized context of gendered vio-
lence, indigenous women were singularly violated
In Guatemala as elsewhere, dominant ideologies that
(Torres 2005), for this violence was directed at them
justify coercion have shared a common purpose in the
routinization of human inequality. Closely linked be-
because they were women and because they were
haviors and social philosophies have legitimized the Mayas. As Nelson (1999: 326) notes. the disdain for
extraction of labor and obedience from masses of indigenous life, in particular, indigenous female life,
people across culture, class, or sex divides, sometimes was temporarily extended by the counterinsurgency,
through the use of terror. Abstractions that separate which treated all "probable insurgents" "like lndians-
the political from the personal and gender from race expendable, worthle s, bereft of civil and human rights."
or class, often damage the real-life permeability of But the real magnitude of the violence women suffered
these various oppressions .... Like violence against during Guatemala' civil conflict will never be known. in
women, violence against the poor and nonwhite exists part because many cases were not documented. but also
as a persistent threat. ... In Guatemala ... these op-
because many women, out of guilt or shame. remained
pressions were not necessarily parallel or dual sys-
too traumatized to come forward, and afraid of rejection
tems. Rather, each was intimately bound up with the
others, resting on the same scaffolding of structural by their communities (Amnesty International 2005). The
inferiority and manifested in daily violence that en- U.N. Truth Commission report states that rape, especially
forced domination and submission. (1999: 57-58) in indigenous areas, resulted in "breaking marriage and
social ties[,] generatmg social isolation and communal
Gender violence and gendered violence in Guate- shame[,] and provok[ing] abortions [andl infanticide and
mala today have roots in gender ideologies and in the obstruct[ing] births and marriages within these groups,
country's history of political violence. Though only one thus facilitating the destruction of indigenous groups"
quarter of the 200,000 disappeared and those executed (CEH 1999: 14).
extrajudicially during Guatemala's internal armed con- Thus Guatemala's regime and militarization of life
flict were women (CEH 1999; REHMI 1998), Torres has made possible multiple acts of gendered violence,
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING VIOLENCE 143

reflected in direct political violence against Maya information. For instance, several women in San Alejo
women but also by the encouragement of abduction, tor- mentioned that it was dangerous for women to travel by
ture, rape, and murder of female workers as a lesson to bus to work or to study, or to walk at certain times,
other women who might think of asserting their rights. even during the daytime, along roads that were not fre-
Direct and indirect forms of violence have coalesced so quently used. Linking the violence of the past and the
that Guatemalan women have lived "in a chronic state dangers of the present, Rosita, in the Altiplano, said
of emergency," Carey and Torres (forthcoming) note, that when her daughter informed her that she wanted to
which has been a precursor to the violence we see today. go to Guatemala City to study to be a secretary Rosita
Direct physical violence against women has increased just about died thinking of the many dangers her
in postwar Guatemala in absolute and relative numbers. daughter might face: "I couldn't sleep that night, just
Police records indicate that in 2002 women accounted thinking and thinking. How could I live without her by
for 4.5 percent of all killings, in 2003 for 11.5 percent, my side? And memories of all the ugly things come to
and in 2004 for 12.1 percent; figures compiled by the my mind. My hands shake just to think what can
Policfa Nacional Civil (PNC) (cited in Amnesty Inter- happen to her. One hears so much-well, I have seen
national 2005) note that the number of women mur- horrible things. My sister-in-law tells me not to put this
dered rose from 163 in 2002 to 383 in 2003 to more than fear into the girl's head, to let her do what she wants, go
527 in 2004, and according to Oxfam (Oxfam Novib to school, but this is terrible [Rosita is in tearsJ. Tell
n.d.), in the first half of 2005 there were 239 women me, what if I see her photo in the newspaper [meaning
killed, including 33 girls under the age of fifteen. The as the victim of a gruesome death]?"
Guatemalan lawyer Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey (quoted in In two instances during my last visits to Guatemala,
Preston 2009) noted that over 4,000 women had been I had the opportunity to glimpse the feelings of insecu-
killed violently in Guatemala in the previous decade, rity and fear that women in both San Alejo and the Al-
with only 2 percent of the cases solved. In fact, Torres tiplano experienced every day, though I would not
(2008: 6) argues that impunity in Guatemala demon- equate my limited experiences with what the women
strates tolerance to multiple forms of violence but also go through. In May 1999, during a conversation with
"the extent to which violence has become naturalized in Hortencia in San Alejo, she told me that two women
Guatemalan society." In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a simi- had been found killed, their bodies badly tortured, on a
lar pattern of killings has drawn international attention road not far from her house. Then she added a sentence
and condemnation. Aside from reports by Amnesty that sent chills down my spine: "Right away, I thought
International and the Inter-American Commission on about you two [my assistant and I], since you two walk
Human Rights, however, the Guatemalan women's around town and work, and the two women found were
deaths have started to receive international attention workers. I thought, could it be Cecilia and her friend?"
only in recent years. I responded with a nervous laugh that no, thank God, it
As with the killings during the years of overt politi- was not us. In December the same year, during a visit
cal conflict, those in Guatemala today are reported in to the Altiplano, the husband of one of the women I
gruesome detail in the national media, sending a simi- was visiting told me he had heard that a young woman
lar message of uncertainty and fear. Only this time the was kidnapped and found dead about 30 kilometers
message is directed at women , at all women regard- away. "She was an anthropologist," he said, "doing the
less of ethnic background but especially at those from same thing you're doing here." In an instant reaction,
poor backgrounds who work outside the home. And as not thinking clearly and perhaps seeking'distance from
Godoy-Paiz (2008) notes, not all women in Guatemala the woman found dead, I responded, "But I am not an
experience life and violence in the same ways; social anthropologist," as if disciplinary training would have
position shapes how women live and how they die. The mattered. In a fitting comment to my ridiculous re-
women in both San Alejo and the Altiplano pay atten- sponse, he added with a shrug of his shoulder and a
tion to the news; the images and descriptions refresh chuckle, "Oh, maybe she wasn't an anthropologist
memories of the insecurity of life, and they often make either, but in any case, she was asking a lot of questions
decisions about travel, study, and work based on this of women just like you do, and she was found dead."
144 BODIES

Hortencia's and this man's words were unsettling to me indigenous Mayas living in rural areas, the reported
and left me thinking not only about my own safety but murder victims today are both Mayas and ladinas
also, especially, about what it must be like for many of living in urban or semiurban areas. This new violence
the women I had met to live every day with the constant against women is all-encompassing. However, the bru-
threat of a horrific death. tality of the killings and the signs of sexual violence on
The presence of naked or partially naked bodies in women's mutilated bodies today bear many of the hall-
public places, on roadsides and city streets, continues to marks of the atrocities committed during the political
be an everyday sight in postwar Guatemala. One of the conflict, making the differences between "wartime"
most gruesome recent sightings was four human heads and "peacetime" Guatemala imperceptible.
and two decapitated bodies found in separate public
points of Guatemala City in June 2010 (El Peri6dico
2010). And to be sure, men also have been affected by CONCLUSION
the violence; in fact, many more men than women have
been killed. But the brutality and evidence of sexual I have laid out a conceptual framework that includes
violence (in most cases amounting to torture) creates structural, political, symbolic. everyday, and gender
a different context for the deaths of women. Amnesty and gendered violence to examine the lives of the
International (2005) reported that although the mur- women I came to know in Guatemala. Three points
ders may be attributed to different motives and may need to be kept in mind. First, the multiple forms of vio-
have been committed in different areas of the country, lence I have presented never occur in isolation, though
the violence today is overwhelmingly gender based. sometimes one form appears to be more salient. Thus in
The murders of students, housewives, professionals, the chapters that follow they appear intertwined in dif-
domestic employees, unskilled workers, members or ferent spheres of the women's lives. Second, violence is
former members of street youth gangs, and sex workers normalized in the women's everyday lives Only when
in both urban and rural areas, the overwhelming ma- discussed or pointed to do routine practices (sometimes
jority of them uninvestigated, are often attributed to attributed to tradition) become obvious and disturb the
"common" or "organized" crime, drug and arms traf- normalized gaze. Indeed, it is the insidiousness of this
ficking, maras, or a jealous boyfriend or husband. In routinized violence in regions that are perceived as
response to increasing demands for action, in 2008 the "calm" or "peaceful," or in practices that are taken as
Guatemalan government enacted a law stipulating spe- "part of tradition," to which I call attention. It is through
cial sanctions for these crimes against women (Preston this normalization and misrecognition that dehuman-
2009), but only a tiny percentage of cases have been ization becomes possible and suffering becomes a part
prosecuted. of life. Once violence is unleashed. whether in the form
Many of the women who have been killed in recent of state violence, domestic abuse, or exploitation, it
years come from poor backgrounds, which signals dis- emerges in different forms and shapes the lives and
crimination on the basis of both class and gender. minds of individuals. In the chapters that follow I ex-
Whereas the majority of women who were victims of amine the women's "private terrors" that encapsulate
violence during Guatemala's overt civil conflict were the multilayered violence I have presented here.
 13

T he C onsequences of the Criminal Justice Pipeline

on Black and Latino Masculinity

VICTOR M. RIOS

Black and Latino youth are overrepresented in every (Pager 2003); and a sense of mistrust and resentment
major component in the juvenile justice system toward police and the rest of the criminal justice system
(Kupchik 2006; Leiber 2002). Some researchers have (Brunson and Miller 2006; Fine and Weiss 1998). In
called this "cumulative disadvantage," as the overrep- this article, I argue that an additional consequence of
resentation increases from the time of arrest through enhanced policing, surveillance, and punitive treat-
the final point in the system, imprisonment (National ment of youth of color is the development of a specific
Council on Crime and Delinquency [NCCD] 2007, 4). set of gendered practices, heavily influenced by inter-
It is noteworthy that nearly 75 percent of juveniles ad- actions with police, detention facilities, and probation
mitted to adult state prisons in 2002 were youth of officers. This criminal justice pipeline provides young
color (Kupchik 2006; NCCD 2007), although only men with meanings of masculinity that ultimately in-
30 percent of juveniles arrested in this country are per- fluence their decisions to commit crime and engage in
sons of color (NCCD 2007). violence. While race affects how a young person is
Mauer and Chesney-Lind (2004) have argued that treated in the criminal justice pipeline, masculinity
the disproportionate incarceration of people of color plays a role in how young men desist or recidivate as
has had unintended consequences in poor communi- they pass through the system. One of the outcomes of
ties. They contend that such punishment not only ad- pervasive criminal justice contact for young black and
versely affects confined individuals but also extends to Latino men is the production of a hypermasculinity
negative effects on families, communities, and the that obstructs desistance and social mobility.
future livelihoods of those who come into contact with Harris (2000, 785) defines hypermasculinity as the
the criminal justice system. Among the collateral con- "exaggerated exhibition of physical strength and personal
sequences of punitive criminal justice treatment of aggression" that is often a response to a gender threat
young adults in the inner city are constant surveillance "expressed through physical and sexual ·domination of
and stigma imposed by schools, community centers, others." Drawing on this definition, I contend that the
and families (Rios 2006); permanent criminal creden- criminal justice pipeline encourages expressions of hy-
tials that exclude black males from the labor market permasculinity by threatening and confusing young

Victor Rios. "The Consequences of the Criminal Justice Pipeline on Black and Latino Masculinity," Annals of the American
A cademy of Political and Social Science vol. 623, pp. 150-62. copyright© 2009 SAGE Publications Ltd. Reprinted by per-
m ission of SAGE Publications.

145
146 BODIES

men's masculinity. This, in turn, leads the young men to West 2002; West and Fenstemaker 1995). Youth of color
rely on domination through violence, crime, and a school are inculcated into a set of hypermasculine expectations
and criminal justice counterculture. Multiple points in that often lead them to behaviors that conflict with the
the criminal justice pipeline may be salient for producing structures of dominant institutions. For example, Ferguson
hypermasculinity, including three that are examined here: (2000) demonstrated that schools participate in the
policing, incarceration, and probation. Detrimental forms making of black masculinity in children as young as ten
of masculinity are partly developed through a youth's in- years old. Masculinity-making is heavily responsible for
teraction with these institutions of criminal justice. the deviance and punishment that takes place in the
Messerschmidt (1993, 1997, 2000) has argued that classroom and later in the criminal justice system.
crime is a resource for "doing" race and gender (see To be assigned "real man" status by relevant others
also West and Fenstemaker 1995: West and Zimmerman and institutions, young men must pass multiple litmus
1987). He contends that "crime is employed to produce tests among peers, family, and other institutions These
and sustain a specific race and class masculine iden- masculinity tests, or codes, were identified by sociolo-
tity" (1997, 41). In other words, crime is one of the av- gists as early as the 1920s. In 1924, Edwin Sutherland
enues that men turn to in developing, demonstrating, discussed how boys are taught to be rough and tough,
and communicating their manhood. Indeed, criminal rendering them more likely than girls to become delin-
activity constitutes a gendered practice that can be quent (cited in Sutherland and Cressey 1955). In 1947,
used to communicate the parameters of manhood. As Parsons noted that at the very core of American adoles-
such, crime is more likely when men need to prove cence an aggressive masculinity is at play:
themselves and when they are held accountable to a
strict set of expectations (Messerschmidt 1997). Fur- Western men are peculiarly susceptible to the appeal
thermore, West and Fenstemaker (1995) contend that of an adolescent type of assertively masculine be-
havior ... to revolt against the routine aspects of the
this accountability-the gendered actions that people
primary institutionalized masculine role of sober re-
develop in response to what they perceive others will
sponsibility, meticulous respect for the rights of
expect of them-is encountered in interactions be- others, and tender affection towards women. (Quoted
tween individuals and institutions: in Kimmel 2006, 82)
While individuals are the ones who do gender, the pro-
cess of rendering something accountable is both inter- Contemporary urban ethnographers also emphasize
actional and institutional in character. . . . Gender this point. For example, Anderson (1999) describes
is ... a mechanism whereby situated social action con- "young male syndrome" as the perceived, expected,
tributes to the reproduction of social structure. (p. 21) and often necessary pressure to perform a tough, vio-
Here, I expand on Messerschmidt's notion of crime lent, and deviant manhood to receive and maintain re-
as a masculinity-making resource and on West and spect (see also Dance 2002; Duneier 1999). Pyke (1996)
Fenstemaker' understanding of gender as a mecha- found that masculinity is expressed differently by men
nism by which social structure is created and repro- of varied class positions. While wealthy men can prove
duced. Conceptualizing gender as structured action, a their masculinity through the ability to earn money and
social process that changes based on interactions with con ume products that make them manly, poor young
specific types of institutions, in turn, allows us to ex- men have to u e toughness, violence, and survival as
plore how the criminal justice system shapes the devel- the means of proving their ma culinity and resilience.
opment of specific forms of masculinity. Toughness, dominance, and the willingness to resort to
violence to resolve interpersonal conflicts are central
characteristics of masculine identity (Anderson 1999;
MASCULINITY, CRIME, Messerschmidt 1993). Such studies also explore how
AND CRIME CONTROL masculinity is central to the perpetuation of crime, but
they do not examine how the criminal justice system is
Individuals shape their behavior according to gendered involved in the masculinity-making process.
expectations and are subject to a system of accountabil- Kimmel and Mahler (2003, 1440) move beyond an
ity that is gendered, raced, and classed (Fenstemaker and emphasis on crime, arguing that violent youth are not
CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PIPELINE ON BLACK 147

psychopaths but, rather, "overconformists to a particular contact with the criminal justice system. Most of the
normative construction of masculinity." I contend that offenses committed by the delinquent boys were non-
these overconforming violent and delinquent youth give violent. All forty youth reported having persistent con-
us clues as to how masculinity is developed in relation to tact with police officers while growing up. The thirty
institutional constructions of manhood. Mainstream so- formerly arrested youth had all spent at least a week in
ciety and the criminal justice system expect a masculine juvenile facilities, and twenty-four had been assigned a
conformity that emphasizes hard work, law abidance, probation officer.
and an acceptance of subordinate social positions. Some I shadowed these young men, with permission from
young men attempt to embrace this masculinity as a them and their parents, as they walked the streets, at-
means to reform. However, when they attempt to follow tended court, and participated in community center
these expectations, they come to realize that doing so activities. While ethnographers traditionally study a
does not allow for survival on the streets, a place to specific site, I studied a mobile population and fol-
which they can always expect to return. lowed participants wherever they went, sometimes to a
In attempts to deal with young men's criminality, in- neighboring city, and sometimes to court and juvenile
stitutions develop practices heavily influenced by mas- facilities by way of their parents. Shadowing allowed
culinity. In turn, inner-city males become socialized to me to see and analyze routine practices and how these
specific meanings of manhood that are diametrically fit in with the full range of participants' activities.
opposed to those expected by dominant institutions of My own biographic characteristics contributed to
control. Thus, gendered interactions with the criminal this research approach. I was twenty-five years old
justice system place young men of color in a double when the study began, had grown up in the neighbor-
bind. Most buy into the system's ideals of reform by hood where most of these young men were from, and,
being "hardworking men." However, frustration with like them, was incarcerated as a juvenile. This allowed
the lack of viable employment and guidance opportuni- me to gain the young men's trust and to develop a sense
ties lead many young men to what seems to be the only of camaraderie with them. Because of my similar biog-
alternative: hypermasculinity, or the exaggerated exhi- raphy, I also was subject to some of the punitive treat-
bition of physical and personal aggression. The stories ment that youth received during my observations. I too
and actions of young men in this study provide insight was constantly harassed by adults and brutalized by
into how this double bind is partially generated by the police who associated me with the participants. This
criminal justice system itself. gave me a keen insider sense, or what might be called a
"carnal sociology" (Wacquant 2004; see also Goffman
1963), of what the young people were experiencing. On
METHOD the other hand, as an insider, I was aware that I may
have adopted some of the bias held by the youth in the
This investigation is based on ethnography involving study and deliberately tried to remain reflexive through-
in-depth interviews with forty black and Latino male out the study and data analyses.
adolescents living in Oakland, California. The study
was conducted from 2002 to 2005. The sample in-
cludes twenty black males and twenty Latino males, MASCULINITY VERSUS
ranging from ages fourteen to eighteen. Participants CRIMINALIZATION
were recruited from two organizations that worked
with "at-promise" youth and were selected through Junior, a sixteen-year-old Chicano from Oakland, Cali-
convenience and snowball sampling. Interviews were fornia, attended continuation school, which is a small
conducted either at the sites of the two community or- campus where delinquent, truant, and other problem
ganizations or at a public space where the youth felt students are sent to do their course work as a final alter-
comfortable. Throughout this article I use pseudonyms native to expulsion. I often shadowed Junior, walking
for participants, organizations, schools, and gangs. with him to and from school, places of leisure, and
Thirty of the forty participants had recently been in- home. One morning, as I walked with him to school, I
carcerated. The remaining ten youth had not come into counted six police cars patrolling his usual route, which
148 BODIES

is used by most teenagers from the poorer side of the become passive and nondeviant, while at the same time
neighborhood to get to school. Each patrol car slowed they are unable to obtain employment or eliminate the
to stare us down as they spotted him. To buy a snack, criminal stigma marked on them by the system. On the
Junior had to wait outside the neighborhood store for a other hand, when they fail to comply, they are likely to
few minutes because of store policy clearly stated on a be harassed or arrested. Like Junior, the rest of the
sign reading, "only two kids allowed in store at one young men in this study encountered criminalization
time." through gendered interactions as they entered the
Junior's school was located in the middle-class part system. The first point of contact with hypermasculinity
of town, about five miles uphill from his home. As we through criminal justice is with the police.
approached the school's neighborhood, the residents
who had previously called the police on Junior for sit-
ting on their steps stared with suspicion. As he entered Police
the school, he passed by the school-stationed officer.
Police officers are themselves embedded in an environ-
The officer asked him, "What kind of trouble are you
ment that embraces masculinity Indeed, academies
going to give me today?" We parted ways as I left him
train officers to practice a rogue and hostile masculinity.
at the foot of the school entrance and watched him
Prokos and Padavic (2002, 442) note that male officers
enter under the eye of the surveillance camera. He later
"equate men and masculinity with guns crime-fighting,
told me that his teacher reported him to the school-
a combative personality ... and a desire to work in high
based police officer for sleeping in class. All of this
crime areas.'' This positioning reverberates in the inner
policing happened in a one-hour span, from 7:45 to
city as "police officers in poor minority neighborhoods
8:45 a.m. on a typical Monday morning.
may come to see themselves as law enforcers in a com-
These day-to-day interactions fostered a sense of
munity of savages, as outposts of the la\\ in a jungle"
criminalization, that is, being viewed as a criminal
(Harris 2000, 798). In this context, punitive police treat-
when simply going about routine practices, and they
ment of men of color is not only racial violence; it is also
forced Junior to wonder whether he would ever be seen
gender violence: "Violent acts committed by men,
as a normal person or only as a criminal:
whether these acts break the la\\ or are designed to
I mean, I mean, you know, I try hard but I get messed uphold it, are often a way of demonstrating the perpetra-
with all the time even if I'm trying to keep it cool. It's tor's manhood. I call this kind of violence gender vio-
like when I keep it cool is when they fuck with me the lence' and assert that men as well as women may be its
most. ... I might as well be hard and let them know victims" (Harris 2000. 783).
that they ain't gonna fuck with me. Young people in Oakland encounter this gender vio-
lence regularly by police on the street at school, at
As a reaction to such treatment, Junior developed a
community centers, and in front of their apartment
tough front (Dance 2002) that used hypermasculinity as
a form of coping, survival, and resistance. Junior's crim- complexes. The boys often become victims in the
inalization intensified his conflicts over manhood and course of police officers' attempts to uphold the law.
ran a collision course with the criminal justice system's Officers want to "teach" 'Oung men lessons by femi-
demands of passivity, compliance, and conformity to a nizing them. They manhandle them, constantly call
subjugated racialized social status. Expectations of pas- them "little bitches," humiliate them in front of female
sivity and compliance, unaccompanied by change in peers, challenge them to fights, and otherwise brutalize
social conditions, engender hopelessness and an inabil- them. The following interchange is illustrative of how
the young men respond:
ity to function both in mainstream institutions and on
the street, where survival skills are intricately connected CASTRO: Dude [the officer] was pointing his gun. "I give
to hypermasculinity. Criminalization, policing, and the up, I give up." He hit him with a stick and broke his
justice system's pressures on young men force them to arm and this other fool had his knee on my neck.
make a choice: comply or become hard. When they All 'cause we were smoking some weed ... they
comply, they fail on the street because they have to beat us down and call us "little bitches."
CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PIPELINE ON BLACK 149

RAFA: They kick your ass, pistol whip you even try to were armed and dangerous, and officers treated them as
kill you ... them bust'as just trying to prove them- such.
selves you feel me? They trying to prove they are On various occasions, the boys and I were "roughed
more manly than us but if they didn't have guns or up" by groups of police officers who drove up in mul-
jails they would end up being the bitches. tiple patrol cars. We were harassed, humiliated, and
Gendered police interactions and gendered violence sometimes beaten. During these dozen or so times over
begin at an early age (see Brunson and Miller 2006; the three years, I learned that officers use a brutal mas-
Ferguson 2000). Slick's story illustrates this phenome- culinity that inculcates a tough-toughness, a manly-
non. He lives in the heart of a neighborhood that is manliness, and a hypermasculinity. This model often
home to one of Oakland's largest gangs, "La Nueve" leads young men to perpetrate crime and violence, and
(the East 9th Street Gang). In his childhood, Slick ex- it may sanction police to brutalize and arrest them,
pected police to protect him from violent gang mem- which leads youth to the next gate in the justice pipe-
bers. Then one day he realized that police saw him as line: incarceration. Once in confinement, these young
"the enemy." Slick was eleven years old when he was men adopt a masculinity that would protect them not
first brutalized by the police, the same officers who had only from the streets and police but also from violence
in confinement.
policed his neighborhood from the time that he was a
small child:
One time we were at St. Anthony's [park] ... the Incarceration
police out of nowhere started talking shit to me. And I
uh, uh I pulled up my pants, I just pulled up my pants
While incarcerated, young men are forced to overem-
and he just grabbed me and slammed me on the phasize their masculinity. The story of Big Rob, an
ground and hit me with the club. He was like, he was African American sixteen-year-old from Oakland, il-
like "Oh you look like you was gonna pull up your lustrates this point. He had been arrested for driving a
pants and do something." I was, I was pullin' up my "G-ride" (i.e., a stolen car). Rob's specialty was steal-
pants 'cause I be sagging my pants sometimes. ing cars and selling them to "chop shops," car shops
that dismantle the cars and sell them for parts. At the
Slick tried to pull up his pants to appear more formal time of the arrest, Rob was driving in a 1987 Buick
and to signify to the officer that he was complying with Grand National. He was stripped and cavity-searched
the law. He figured if he pulled up his pants, the cop upon arrival at "one-hundred-and-fiftieth," the coun-
might see him as a "good kid," by explaining, "He tried ty's juvenile justice facility. His possessions were con-
to tell me not to sag my pants anymore so he wouldn't fiscated, and he was provided a dark blue jumpsuit with
have to think I was a criminal." Eventually, Slick would the words "property of Alameda County" printed on it.
develop coping strategies that helped him deal with the
animosity he felt around police: he acted tough and put The guard told me "take a shower and make sure you
on a menacing performance when police came around. don't drop the soap, boy!" I didn't know what he was
talking about. It wasn't until I asked some dude that I
Slick cursed at police and gave them "dirty" looks
figured out what he meant.
when they drove by or pulled up next to us; his hyper-
masculinity became a resource for keeping the police "Don't drop the soap" is a reference to rape by other
at bay. This strategy often worked, which led officers to inmates in detention showers. Rob was placed in a caf-
call in backup when they decided to approach us. eteria where about twenty or so youth' congregated.
During my shadowing in Oakland, officers often ap- They stared Rob down, giving him dirty looks. A few
proached preadolescent boys in only one patrol car. boys walked up to him and asked, "Where you from?"
However, once the boys reached adolescence and Rob told them, "Dirty thirties." They responded with
commanded a certain bravado, officers always showed the names of their turfs. "I had to act hard. I balled up
up in at least two patrol cars. The boys' "hardcore" my fist and was ready to knock a nigga' out." Rob even-
behavior-developed through negative interactions with tually got into a fight, protecting himself from an
police officers-may have signaled to officers that they attack. He was sent to "solitary," only allowed outside
 150 BODIES

of his tiny cell with a cement bed to take a shower and two extreme worlds of manhood where only one was
call home. The officer who supervised his cell com- accessible-hypermasculinity. It is at this point where
mented "you gonna' learn how to be a man the hard male youth made their decisions to affirm, develop,
way." Once released, Rob and other young men like and demonstrate a manhood that appears to offer re-
him bring this repertoire to the streets. "Man! They spect, economic gain, and social status (Anderson
think I got better. Mothafucka's just taught me how to 1999; Jones 2004) instead of hopelessness.
be more violent, steal tighter rides [nicer cars] .... I The ideal of manhood that probation officers try to
even ended up with more bitch-ass enemies." inculcate is also one of responsibility. For these officials,
the responsibility of a young man is to follow his "pro-
Probation gram" and not be rearrested. The message becomes, "a
real man does not belong in jail." Once a male enters jail
Probation practices subject boys' ideas of manhood to or prison, he is at risk of becoming emasculated as his
strict evaluation. As agents of reform, probation offi- life is run by a system outside of himself. According to
cers attempt to teach young men how to be "real men" Jose, his probation officer, Mr. Bryan, explained the con-
by demanding that they work toward a societally ac- dition of men in containment through associations with
ceptable form of masculinity: acquire an education, feminization, by playing upon the fear and dread associ-
attain a job, and support a family. They are told to get ated with men being treated like women:
a job, do well in school, and stay out of trouble. The
likelihood of failure is high since most avenues of le- You want to go to prison where everybody is gonna
pimp you? The guards are gonna run you like a little
gitimate success are out of reach. Kimmel (2006)
bitch. The murderers and rapists [will] make you bend
argues that in the contemporary era,
over, they gonna treat you like somebody's wife.
Deindustrialization made men's hold on the success-
While probation officers, and the community, attempt
ful demonstration of masculinity increasingly tenu-
ous; there are fewer and fewer self-made successes to instill young men with positive notions of manhood,
and far more self-blaming failures. (p. 216) the street contradicts this masculinity-one demands
law abidance, the other contempt for the law. In trying
When these youth fail, they abandon the false expecta- to teach a dominant masculinity as a set of ideals, pro-
tions of obtaining a job; instead of becoming passive and bation officers unintentionally push young men of color
hopeless, they adopt a hypermasculine ideal of survival. further into hypermasculinity.
For example, Jose, a fifteen-year-old who had been
arrested for selling marijuana, lived in a state of confu-
sion when it came to masculinity. His description high- DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
lights the contradiction he confronted:
They [probation officers] tell us to be "real men." to
After being arrested and placed on probation, unable to
show respect but they don't see that if we show respect continue selling drugs or stealing cars for income, and
we'll get treated like punk ... being a man out here is unable to secure a job because of his record, T, a sixteen-
different. It means smashing on a scrub [beating an year-old African American from Oakland, resorted to
enemy up] if he breaks your respect ... it means han- using women as a central source of income. When asked,
dling your business in order to get paid ... not being a "Where do you get money from?" T replied,
bitch and shit, it means going to jail if you have to.
Pimp a bitch you know, let that bitch come out her
From Jose's perspective, and those of many other youth pocket ... act like I like her so she'll give me money
I interviewed, it was extremely self-defeating for pro- and shit ... most bitches will give me whatever I
bation officers trying to reform them to attempt to do need ... shoes, shirts, food, bus pass, whatever ... or
so by teaching them how a real man should act. These make her sell shit for me.
messages did not provide youth with tools to navigate T made the decision to no longer commit crime. How-
the streets, to do well at home and in school, or to suc- ever, his solution was to fully embrace hypermascu-
ceed at a job and make an income. Instead, youth saw Iinity and dominate women to accomplish what the
CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PIPELINE ON BLACK 151

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