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This chapter explores the competing and often overlapping narratives that have been used to interpret the murders of women. At the same time, these narratives expose the subject that is constructed within each account. The chapter begins with a description of the killings and violence against women in Ciudad Juárez and the media attention it garnered. It looks at the state's responses to gender violence, which were negation and disaggregation, and other accounts of feminicide. It demonstrates how the discourse of globalism elides the many structures of oppression in the lives of women and provides an explanation for the killings. Cultural representations that have been informed by the discourse of globalism, transnational activism on the border, and a discussion of Señorita extraviada, a film by Lourdes Portillo about the feminicide in Ciudad Juárez, are included.

This book aims to shed light on the hidden sources of violence and suffering in the everyday lives of Guatemalan women. It has been argued in this book that violence does not only reside in the individual's intentional acts to inflict pain on others. Instead, the book shows there are multiple sources of violence which redirect the analytical gaze to the violence that comes from economic, social, and political structures that generate suffering in the lives of women. Even though the book has made use of individual cases of injurious acts to make points about structures of violence, it emphasizes that such actions are not solely the product of individual's motivations but are shaped by the structures of violence in which people live. The kinds of violence discussed in this book affect everyone in different ways, shaping the actions of those who act as well as the lives of those who suffer. The book also tells stories about how sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law, and female friends have actively participated in and normalized the infliction of pain on other women, but because their lives are embedded in the same violent structures and the cognitive frames they use to guide their actions and understanding of the world are molded and shaped by the social violence of institutions. This chapter places the author's observations about violence in Guatemala in a broader context. It links the violence against women to a more recognizable form of violence, such as the current wave of feminicide in the country.

This chapter analyzes the notion of mexicanidad in terms of its underlying religious associations and their relation to official discourses on criminality. The construction of what constitutes a “morally good” Mexican versus an “evil” one, based on religious beliefs—such as an adoration of La Santa Muerte (The Holy Death) and —was used in official discourses to pathologize Barraza’s beliefs as those of a lower-class Mexican who was “evil” by nature. Her beliefs, along with her socioeconomic class, were exploited in media coverage to link her to criminality and serve as evidence that she was indeed a serial killer. Popular adoration of La Santa Muerte (and the associated figure of Jesús Malaverde) is contrasted with that of figures with whom she shares many characteristics, but which are deemed much more acceptable within the discourses of mexicanidad: La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Catrina. The chapter also explores the figure of the macho and the notion of machismo in the everyday lives of Mexican men and women.

The book concludes by trying to answer the questions that guided its research: Who counts as a victim and how is a criminal constructed in Mexico in relation to official criminality discourses and their intersections with notions of mexicanidad? This last part of the book explores the tensions between pivotal figures in the construction of mexicanidad such as La Virgin de Guadalupe, La Malinche, and La Llorona and how they contrast with the actual lives of the historical Malitzin, Juana Barraza, and the victims of feminicides. In this discussion, challenges are raised in regard to the figure of the macho and the notion of machismo in the everyday lives of Mexican men and women.