Violence on bodies of WOC

[google image results of phrase "latina"]

This is a point that has been made many times before, considering the way that the bodies of women of color are conflated with sexuality, promiscuity and "the exotic". I'm using this screenshot of the google results to the word "latina" to illustrate how what was originally a political, organizing term has been warped and associated with negative and body specific connotations. The importance of this racialized stereotype in connection with labor is the ways that this assumption of latina sexual promiscuity intersects with vulnerability to a disenfranchised labor system which allows for violence against them in many forms.

Specifically, I'm thinking of the femicide in Ciudad Juarez and the border cities of Mexico of women who work in the maquilladoras for low wages, and have been the targets of largescale sexual violence, and murder. The murders in Ciudad Juarez have been called femicide as an organizing term by feminists because women are the targets and are being targeted for their gender and race. This is also an important connection to our class because one of the biggest issues and points of vulnerability around Ciudad Juarez is that many of the women travel there in buses (migration) in order to work, and thus are removed from their communities and any type of protection in order to produce capital. As a result of the labor system which demands low skill, low wage workers the women become commodities, and are treated as disposable.

I'm connecting this with the images on google because it illustrates the ways in which we as a society commodify people and bodies, and how by doing so we permit violence against them. We even support it through a continuation of these stereotypes, jokes, assumptions, and our implicit support of the labor system. The projection of commodified sexuality and compliance on the bodies of women of color is in itself a violent act, which can only lead to further dehumanization.