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Copyright by Sonia Frías Martínez 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Sonia Frias Martinez Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: GENDER, THE STATE AND PATRIARCHY: PARTNER VIOLENCE IN MEXICO Committee: Ronald J. Angel, Supervisor Cynthia B. Buckley Roberto Castro Thomas W. Pullum Bryan R. Roberts Victoria E. Rodriguez GENDER, THE STATE AND PATRIARCHY: PARTNER VIOLENCE IN MEXICO by Sonia Frias Martinez, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2008 Dedication A mi hijo Diego por ser lo más maravilloso de mi vida y por darme fuerza para continuar adelante A mis padres Encarnación y Salvador por la vida, su cariño y por el apoyo incondicional durante todos estos años Acknowledgements This dissertation is the product of a great formative experience at the University of Texas at Austin and the product of many years of work and challenges. Having the opportunity of studying at UT has been a privilege. In Austin, not only I became a real sociologist, and earned a Ph.D. but also I developed strong ties with professors, classmates and numerous friends. My deepest gratitude and acknowledgment to Dr. Ronald J. Angel, who has guided me throughout this process wisely and with a lot of patience. He is my role model, and an excellent mentor. He has taught me the importance of finding a balance between personal and professional life. During several years Professor Angel shared with me his knowledge and has been the biggest influence in the scholar that I am now. Without his support, experience, wise advice and endless conversation in English, Spanish and Spanish, this dissertation would have not been possible. I am also very grateful for the comments, encouragement, ideas and support of the members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Cynthia Buckley, Dr. Bryan Roberts, Dr. Thomas Pullum, Dr. Victoria Rodriguez from the University of Texas at Austin and Dr. Roberto Castro at the CRIM-UNAM. All of them kindly made very important comments to this dissertation and writing numerous letters of recommendation helped me in the job search. v The accomplishment of my dissertation would have been impossible without the financial support that I received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through summer research fellowships and through a dissertation fellowship in Latin American Sociology for research and writing. I am also grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation, which sponsored a permanent seminar on Gender and Violence in the CRIM-UNAM, where I participated as fellow. That experience was key in developing my research, and gave me the opportunity of getting to know experts in the area of partner violence in Mexico. I am very grateful to my colleagues in the permanent seminar, as well as the assistants for their comments and patience while developing the index for measuring patriarchy: Juan Manuel Contreras, Maria Eugenia Fernandez, Enrique Mata, and Irene Casique. A special mention is needed for Professor Roberto Castro for his insights, useful comments and challenging questions. Many people in Spain, Mexico and the U.S. have been indispensable in this dissertation. I thank all of them. I had the fortune of counting with friends in both sides of the border that made this endeavor possible. In Guadalajara my very good friend Dr. Hector Robles, eternal discussant of the “theory of the number”, and his wonderful family –Irma, Rocio, Gustavo and Irma- hosted me as another member of the family. Hector has helped me throughout these years in many different ways and made possible a wonderful fieldwork experience in Jalisco. In Mexico City, thank you very much to Javier Rojas, and my family in Mexico City –Javier, Laura and Veronica- for opening the doors of their house, hosting, and encouraging me to pursue my dreams and finish this dissertation. In Morelos, thanks to Rodrigo Velazquez and his great family, Luis and Doña Silvia, for cheering me, hosting me and coming from time to time from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to spend time with me. In Guanajuato, one of my oldest feminist Mexican friends, Berenice Reyes, for helping me with my fieldwork, sharing her ideas vi and opinions with me and taking care of me while I was still pregnant with my son Diego. Thanks also to her family for making every Sunday special. In Chihuahua, Martha Raquel Faccio. She is an angel with a very wide heart. Not knowing from anything, she opened the doors of her house, drove me all around Chihuahua City, and became my friend. I am in debt with all of you. Thank you very much. In Spain I always receive the encouragement of my eternal friends: Monica Colome, Maria Jose Bello, Olga Doñoro and Natalie Cascales. They have not only backed my dreams but they have always been respectful of my decisions and have pushed me to follow my dreams. In the U.S., I want to mention some of my friends that I meet in graduate school that I am sure that our friendship will last for ever: Lorena Lopez-Gonzalez, Deniz Golkap, Umut Bespinar, and Viviana Salinas. Thanks to you for so many coffees, dissertation hours, support, and endless conversations. You all know that in the near future we will remember UT as the “good old days”. Javier Rojas shared with me, among many other good things, several years of intense sociological conversations that definitely increased my understanding of Mexico. I am very grateful to Javier for sharing so many good times. In JPs Coffee shop I wrote more than half of my dissertation. Thanks to all the people that I met there and who asked me for my well being and how my dissertation was coming along, and especially to Ozgur Ekici and Paul Jaquez. In JPs meet Cristina Martinez, my Spanish soulmate in Austin, thanks Cristina for all your help, and for all good and bad days shared and reminding me that I am strong to succeed regardless of the circumstances. Georgina Rojas, has rewarded me with very wise personal and scholar advice in the good and bad times. I will never forget all the time and conversations both in Austin and in Mexico. vii Thanks Jesus Salazar -Dr. Chicho- for his friendship and sharing so many thoughts and hours in which we were both walking together in the dissertation path. I am very grateful to Tania Camacho, Maria Garcia, for their energy, smile and supportive words, because you helped me to find balance during all this process. My special thanks to Alberto Mendoza for his friendship, unconditional support, for making me smile, his patience, and sharing so many hours of dissertation writing. My conversations with him, forced me to reconsider gender relations and the construction of gender in Mexico, which was very helpful while writing some chapters of this dissertation. I also want to thank professors, staff and other friends at the Department of Sociology or elsewhere in Austin or the U.S. for their encouragement and diverse ways of helping me during these years: Peter Ward, Susan Roberts, Martha Cotera, Benjamin Nieto, Laura Spagnolo, Marcela Gonzalez, Michele Robertson, David Pardo, Ricardo Lardizabal, Jaime Ramirez, Roger Gartman, Rita Stephan, Armando Sena and Daniel Silver. My parents, Salvador and Encarnacion, moved from Barcelona to support my little Diego and me in all this dissertation process. Thank you very much for helping me and taking care of Diego and me, and having to deal with a stressed-dissertation-daughter all the time. My gratitude to all my extended family for your concern and multiple “shippings of good energy”. Last, but not least, this research could not have been accomplished without the participation of my informants in the Federal District, Jalisco, Morelos, Guanajuato and Chichuahua. Thank you to all of them for sharing your experiences and your opinions with the goal not only of helping a young scholar but also aiming that with their collaboration would help to improve women’s situation, and the response of the State in the issue of violence against women. viii Gender, The State and Patriarchy: Partner Violence in Mexico Publication No._____________ Sonia Frias Martinez, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: Ronald J. Angel This dissertation focuses in the phenomenon of partner violence in Mexico. It examines the causes of partner violence at multiple levels of analysis. At the micro level it examines characteristics of individual victims, the family and the relationship. At the macro level the focus is on the legal and social structures that define domestic violence and the State’s response. Throughout the analysis, the State plays a central role as the set of institutional arrangements that define the rules of the game and that determine the possibilities for change and the potential roles and effectiveness of key players including the feminist movement. Throughout the analysis I examine the confluence of forces that influence the State’s attempts to reduce individual women’s risk of partner violence through its legislative, judicial and police powers in a historically defined situation characterized by pervasive structural patriarchy. A major objective is to asses the influence of the pervasive patriarchy in the system on individual women’s risk of partner violence. The approach adopted in this dissertation is based on the assumption that patriarchy is a social system that permeates social institutions and that becomes internalized and part of the ix normative everyday reality that structures individual’s interpretations and motivations. This research demonstrates that, on average, the structural gender inequality between Mexican men and women is high.

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