Tactics and targets: the role of women’s bodies in the Mexican feminist movement

Abstract

This thesis explores the historical, political, and cultural entanglements between the Mexican state and women’s bodies with the latter serving as both targets of violence and tactics of resistance. In so doing, this study serves to contextualize and better understand Mexico’s contemporary, urban, grassroots, feminist movement. Using decolonial feminist theory and interpretivism, as well as through a recognition of the role of formative events, i.e., colonialism and the Mexican revolution, it analyzes how women have challenged patriarchal, colonial, and extractivist systems by reclaiming their bodies as cuerpos-territorio through the transgressive use of art, poetry, and song. The four chapters of the thesis examine the symbolic and political roles of key historical figures and their artistic representations and contributions across time, like Sor Juana, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Adelitas, and Frida Kahlo, thereby situating modern day feminist mobilizations in Ciudad Juárez and Mexico City, along with recent feminist chants and performances like “Un violador en tu camino” and “Canción sin miedo,” all showing how the body becomes a site of defiance. In the end this thesis provides both a critical analysis and a tribute to Mexican feminist resistance.