The Borders of #MeToo: A Conversation about Sexual Violence Against Women in Ciudad Juárez

This essay is a modest ofrenda—an offering—to the women victims of all forms of violenceto the people who have died (and will die) of Covid-19and to those who engage in all versionsof Lorena Cabnal's inspirational feminismo comunitarioevery day and everywhere on earth.To you, Rosita in Ciudad Juárez, and to all the Rositas of the world.

Before crossing the Paso del Norte international bridge that unites Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, a big black cross with a pink background—and many nails on it to hold pieces of paper with victims' names—reminds the traveling eyes of some the most cruel and grotesque expressions of violence against women in contemporary Mexican society. The painful icon is also a reminder of the priceless presence of inspirational feminists who have been working tirelessly at the community level to eradicate sexual violence against women in the Mexican border city—many years before the #MeToo movement was even imagined. But, has the #MeToo metaphorically crossed from the United States to the Mexican border city? Has the #MeToo movement had an impact on the lives of women in Ciudad Juárez? If so, to what extent, how, and why? The authors engaged in a conversation feeling motivated to explore answers to these questions and this essay offers some of the relevant themes emerging from that dialogue. This conversation is also inspired by at least four of the specific features of Latino/a sociology:

• • Latino/a sociology draws from and expands on interdisciplinary feminist standpoint theories;

• • Latino/a sociology uses emerging critical methodologies such as personal narratives, auto-ethnography, testimonios, and visual ethnography that seek to incorporate the voices of excluded groups;

• • Latino/a sociology is neither neutral nor value free but instead takes a stand against social injustice and promotes activist and political agendas for change;

• • Latino/a sociology seeks to produce knowledge for social justice, human rights, and social change (Baca Zinn and Mirandé 2020, 5–6).

Personal and Shared Standpoints

The first author, Gloria González-López, is a Mexican immigrant, a feminist sociologist, and a public intellectual currently living and working in Austin, Texas. The second author, Lydia Cordero Cabrera, is a feminist activist and currently the executive director of Casa Amiga Esther Chávez Cano, A.C., a leading, community-based organization in Ciudad Juárez. The authors offer their reflections from their individual and unique but also shared standpoints, also as cisgender adult women born and raised in Northern Mexico, Nuevo León, and Chihuahua, respectively, who have known each other professionally for about twenty years. They are aware of the multiple ways in which this intellectual exercise could have been explored if, for instance, this conversation had included the voices of additional academics and activists, or professionals with more expertise in this field. González-López and Cordero Cabrera are also aware of the complexities for an in-depth exploration of sexual violence; for example, gender, sexual and racial diversity, national origin, body ability, as well as class may selectively shape the risk of experiencing sexual violence in a complex Mexican border city. However, this article is based on a dialogue about cisgender women with a special focus on those who are socioeconomically marginalized; Ciudad Juárez is one of the cities with the highest rates of perverse gender-violence killing women—feminicidio—in the country, and thousands have disappeared and died in the region and the nation as consequence of the "war on drugs" of recent years. Finally, different themes emerged during the conversation between the authors and only three major topics are included in this essay. The authors hope, however, that the reflections they offer in this essay will inform and stimulate future feminist research projects examining sexual violence against women in the "#MeToo era," and during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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