Introduction

Narcocorridos are a specific kind of Mexican corridos devoted to the world and achievements of drug-traffickers. Interestingly, the three-meter rhythm that the typical corrido follows is not conductive of dancing, which upholds the function of the corrido: to tell a story. In learning about the purpose and history of corridos through musical experts and musical historians, I found that corridos about prominent figures were mainly about men. These corridos praised war heroes and drug traffickers for their hypermasculine attributes. Very few corridos were about women and those that included women in their lyrics and visuals did so in a manner that reinforced patriarchal stereotypes of women. I was prompted to examine the manner in which narcocorridos portray gender and gender relations by analyzing lyrics and accompanying visuals. By doing so, I ultimately sought to understand the relationship between narcos and their women.

In Mexico, the equivalent of marrying rich is marrying a narco. With said perception readily present amongst young women in Mexico and in the Mexican diaspora as well as the rise of narco buchona style on social media, I sought to understand gender and gender relations in the narco world through corridos in order to understand the allure of becoming a narco wife. What is the role of women in the narco world? Is the narco world a place where women can feel empowered and safe, or is the narco world another space where women must conform to gender norms in return for protection and opportunities that are otherwise unattainable?

In the hegemonic masculine narco world, women, at least those that are not coerced into dating or marrying narcos, decide to become involved with narcos as a means to achieve socioeconomic mobility and most importantly seek protection. The choices made by marginalized folks to survive informs us about how they are thought of and treated, essentially informing us about their social exclusion and the institutional changes that must occur in order to prevent said folks from going to extreme lengths to survive.

I turned to the works from Chicane/Latine studies scholars to understand how gender and gender relations are understood by Mexican folks and those that are part of the Mexican diaspora. Additionally, works of Latin American studies scholars guided me to understanding the social, political, and economic state of Mexico. Works by media studies scholars informed my understanding of gender archetypes present in narcocorridos. Most importantly I looked into testimonios of young girls and women previously and currently involved with narcos whose stories are known thanks to Mexican journalists. In their testimonios these young girls and women described their lives before becoming involved with narcos, commonly citing their lack of resources and access to education and employment as reasons for seeking relationships with narcos.

History

The Corrido: Purpose and Evolution

Musical experts argue that the musical aspects of the corrido (i.e., poetic form, meter, instrumentation, and vocalization) help further its ultimate motive: to tell a story. The corrido form is strophic, meaning that the same melody is sung repeatedly throughout the song with different words. Furthermore, the unornamented style of the corrido largely contributes to creating a solemn mood, which allows narcocorrido composers to express the uncensored and blunt realities of their country. The three-meter rhythm that the typical corrido follows is not conducive to dancing, which upholds the function of the corrido: to tell a story.

Mexican musicologist and leading academic expert on corridos, Vicente T. Mendoza categorizes the corrido in three different eras. The first era is the pre-revolutionary period between 1875 and 1910. The second era is between 1910 and 1930, which occurred during and remotely after the Mexican Civil War. The third era began in the 1930’s and continues to the present day. Although printed material tracing the evolution of corridos is nearly nonexistent, most scholars agree that the corrido was derived from Spanish romantic ballads. There are remarkable similarities in the manner a six-line ballad written by a sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador named Bernal Diaz del Castillo and the battle corridos of modern Mexico are sung.

In “Praise the Drug Lords: Narcocorridos in Mexico,” Klaas Wellinga outlines the evolution of corridos for readers to understand how the narcocorrido came to be. In what Vicente T. Mendoza categorizes as the pre-revolutionary era, corridos were used to tell stories about disasters, murders, accidents, criminals, bandits, and dramatic events. The golden age of the corrido was during the Mexican Revolution, a time in which people were singing about crucial battles and revolutionary heroes like Zapata and Villa.

Shortly, after the Mexican Revolution, the genre lost momentum until the 1960’s and 1970’s, when high demands of marihuana in the United States, led to a rise in the production and smuggling from Mexico, leading to the beginning of a new corrido genre that would reflect said developments. Although the first narcocorrido dates to 1934, during the Prohibition years, when people were singing about smuggling liquor and drugs, the genre officially began in 1972 with Los Triges del Norte’s Contrabando y Traicion. The commercial success of the single led Los Tigres del Norte and other singers to further expand their repertoire of narcocorridos. In 1980, these musical acts began singing about real, living, and wanted drug lords and continued to do so through the 1990s. The eighties and nineties were formative decades for the modern narcocorrido. Prior to the eighties, narcocorridos were ballads that talked about the dangers of smuggling: the clashes and shootouts with the cops, the military, the Border Patrol and the DEA. At the beginning of the genre, the songs condemned drug trafficking and celebrated police officers and the military that intervened. With the rise of Mexican cartels in the 1990’s young musicians, including Los Tucanes de Tijuana began glamorizing the narco lifestyle and world.

Literature Review

Gender and Gender Relations in Latin America

In assessing how narcocorridos portray gender and gender relations, it is important to understand how most people in Latin America and the Caribbean understand gender and gender relations. For instance, in “Girl” by Antiguan writer, Jamaica Kincaid, an older woman gives advice to a young girl. The older woman essentially tells the young girl that to survive in a patriarchal society, women are to serve men and behave in a manner that does not challenge their hegemony. The older woman is representative of the misogynistic attitude older women in Latin America and the Caribbean have. As seen in the short story, young girls are silenced when they attempt to advocate for themselves and shunned when they exhibit bodily autonomy. This short story reveals how cultural ideals of womanhood uphold hegemonic masculinity. In other words, the “virtues” of women, including purity, domesticity, piety, and submissiveness reinforce those of men, which include strength, risk taking, aggression, and sexual initiative.

In The Narcocorridos Movimiento Alterado (2008-1012): Representations of gender and gender relations in a world of hierarchies, drugs and violence Jennie Galvin uses the cultural ideals of womanhood and manhood seen in Kincaid’s “Girl” to unpack gender representation and gender relations in narcocorridos. In the first chapter, Galvin argues that narcoculture perpetuates the Macho stereotype and ultimately reinforces hegemonic masculinity. In the second chapter, Galvin looks at visual representations of masculinity in visual media and in the manner in which men that are part of the narcoculture dress and carry themselves. In chapter three, Galvin argues that through appropriation there is a possibility for hegemonic femininity, which will empower women that are part of the narco world. Galvin brings attention to the women in the narco world that are in positions of power and explains how they present themselves in a similar manner as their male counterparts. Chapter four is an analysis of visuals that objectify women. Said visuals are more abundant than those that portray women with masculine traits (i.e., violent, and sexual). Galvin essentially makes a case for more lyrics and visuals that showcase women with masculine traits that are created for the female gaze and that do not cater to male fantasies.

Additionally, in “Cultural Tune-Out: Misogyny and Violence in Narcocorridos,” Lucero Saldaña utilizes a Chicana Feminist lens to examine the female archetypes present both in the lyrics and the music videos of narcocorridos to reveal the misogyny and violence towards women embedded in the genre. To do so, Saldaña references Maria Herrera-Sobek and Esther Diaz Martin, two Chicana Feminist, who thus far, are the only ones to study corridos through a feminist perspective. Herrera-Sobek writes about archetypes in her book, The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis, proposing that the lover archetype in Mexican corridos emerged from La Malinche, who is said to have assisted conqueror Hernan Cortes’s occupation of the Aztec empire. In corridos, women like Malinche are portrayed as defiant lovers or as a conspirator of the male’s illegal activities. Saldaña found that most of the time, however, the women of narcos are an accessory whose only use is sex. In this manner, corridos reflect machista ideals prevalent in male-female relationships in Mexican and Mexican American societies. In said relationships, women experience unequal partnership, they have little to no economic and political power in both the relationship and in the broader society. On the other hand, men dominate and control the power in the relationship, going as far as demanding sex and respect from the woman through violence.

Saldaña’s propositions can be seen in chapter four of Isabella Allende’s book The House of the Spirits, another piece of literature that further reveals the perception of gender and gender relations in Latin America.

Clara waited for her sister-in-law to finish the mystical litanies of Our Fathers and Hail Martyrs, then used the meetings to repeat the slogans she had heard her mother shout when she chained herself to the gates of Congress. The women listened with embarrassed smiles, for the same reason they prayed with Ferula: so as not to displease the patron’s wife. But those inflammatory cries only made them laugh. ‘Since when has a man not beaten his wife? If he doesn’t beat her, it’s either because he doesn’t love her or because he isn’t a real man. Since when is a man’s paycheck or the fruit of the earth or what the chickens lay shared between them, when everybody knows he is the one in charge? Since when has a woman ever done the same things as a man? Besides, she was born with a wound between her legs and without balls, right, Señora Clara?’ they would say […] The women nudged each other in the ribs and smiled shyly, toughened by the sun and their unhealthy lives, knowing full well that if they took it into their heads to put Clara’s ideas into practice, their husbands would beat them. (Allende 118).

The older women listening to Clara believe that men should have control in the relationship and that women should serve the men instead of attempting to be on equal footing with men. Their reaction reiterates what the older women told the young girl in Kincaid’s “Girl”: women should serve men and leave the power to the men. This excerpt shows how domestic violence is essentially normalized and encouraged from men to prove their manhood and power in the relationship, showing not only the gender norms Mexican men and women have to uphold, but the gender relations that are commonly seen in Mexico and throughout Latin America.

Furthermore, in understanding Saldaña’s argument regarding women in the narco world being mere accessories, it is important to consider how women are relegated to being mere pieces of meat, whose value is dependent on their physical attributes in patriarchal societies around the world, not only in Latin America and the Caribbean. Gabriel Garcia Marquez explores the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies in “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother.” In the tale, the grandmother holds Erendira responsible for their house burning down, which results in the grandmother pushing Erendira into prostitution in order for her to pay for the damages. The first time the grandmother offers Erendira to a man, the man, “[…]considered the strength of her thighs, the size of her breasts, the diameter of her hips [and concluded], ‘She isn’t worth more than a hundred pesos’,” (Garcia Marquez). Garcia Marquez paints how women’s worth is determined by their physical attributes by depicting a man determining the monetary value of Erendira’s body. The narco world is a world of power, money, drugs, and sex, so it is no surprise narcos use their power and money to acquire women and even modify their bodies to show them off and satisfy their sexual desires, ultimately making women out to be objects that can be bought to serve the needs of men. Therefore, the passive role of women in the narco world is due to the fact that they are but mere sex dolls and collectibles to narcos.

Social Exclusion of Women in Latin America

To understand the decisions of women to become narco wives despite having to conform to patriarchal stereotypes, it is important to understand their socio-economic standing. In Bad Girls Sosa Villada chronicles the lives of travestis who work as street prostitutes. Villada gives readers an insight to the violence and rejection travestis face in Latin America, as well as access to their emotions and thoughts as they navigate womanhood and motherhood as prostitutes. Essentially, Villada humanizes travestis, rather than treating them as a case study, which allows readers to understand them before judging their actions. In Latin America, members of the LGTBQ+ community are oftentimes not treated with dignity due to rigid patriarchal structures. Members of the LGTBQ+ community face discrimination, which hinders their ability to acquire education and employment. Social exclusion leads members of the LGTBQ+ community to turn to extremes as the last resort to survive.

Like members of the LGTBQ+ community, in Latin America, Women are not treated with dignity and they often face discrimination rooted on patriarchal stereotypes of women, which hinders their ability to acquire education and employment, pushing them to go to extreme lengths to survive. In a BBC article titled, “México: como la narcoestética está cambiando el cuerpo de las mujeres de Sinaloa,” Linda Pressly interviews plastic surgeon Rafaela Martinez Terrazas, whose patients are often sent to her by narcos. In their conversation, the two discuss the types of bodies narcos seek and most importantly the reasons why these women undergo said procedures, most of the time unwillingly. Pressly interviews a woman that has been involved with a narco since she was 16. The woman, who Pressly refers to as Carmen, shares that she left home when she was 16 to search for a life her family would not be able to give her due to poverty. Carmen became involved with narcos seeking social economic mobility, as well as protection. When she first left home, Carmen began working as a housekeeper for families involved in organized crime, where she was sexually assaulted. An affluent figure in the business, offered to be her padrino (sponsor) to protect her, which she accepted. Since accepting the offer, Carmen expresses feeling safer: “Puedo caminar por cualquier lugar de Culiacan, y me siento super protegida de que no me va a pasar nada.” (transl: I can walk anywhere in Culiacan feeling super protected knowing that nothing is going to happen to me).

The Case: Being a Woman in Mexico

Poverty and low employment rates amongst women

Although the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reported that in 2022, the percentage of people living in poverty fell to 29% of Latin America’s population (181 million people) and extreme poverty declined to 11.2% of the region’s population (70 million), Jose Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, ECLAC’s highest authority says that, “…there is no reason to celebrate. More than 180 million people in our regions do not have enough income to meet their basic needs, and 70 million of them lack the income needed to acquire a basic food basket…The incidence of poverty is also higher among women, the indigenous population and people who live in rural areas.” Additionally, in a 2017 report published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) titled “The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle,” the OECD found that only 44.9% of working-age Mexican women are employed, which is the third lowest employment rate in the OECD, while 78.5% of Mexican men are employed.

In these reports, the work women do at home, which is domestic, child-care work, is found to be a leading cause to their low employment rates and impoverished conditions. The lack of childcare services and labor laws that protect women’s employment during maternity cease to exist or are not enforced. Women in Latin America have little to no protection against gender-based discrimination in the workplace due to the patriarchal society in which women are expected to enact femininities.

Violence Against Women in Mexico

In the patriarchal society men are encouraged to enact masculinity through violence and control, leading to high rates of gender-based violence and homicides against women. As part of their series Engendering Safety: Addressing Femicide in Mexico, Gemma Kloppe-Santamaria and Julia Zulver published, “Beyond Collateral Damage: Femicides, Disappearances, and New Trends in Gender-Based Violence in Mexico,” where the two discuss statistics regarding gender-based violence and homicides as well as the neglect these cases face at the hands of authorities. For example, in 2022, the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System reported that 3,754 women and girls were murdered, but only 947 cases were investigated as femicides. States with high numbers of gender-based homicides often report femicides as mere homicides to decrease their state’s femicide rates. The two also found that although the states where most of the cases occur have enacted “Gender Violence Alerts,” the supposed laws enacted to protect women are not applied uniformly across the states. Some officials even refuse to give the cases the attention they deserve, placing the blame on women.

Discussion

Hypermasculinity in narcocorridos and gender relations in the narco world

Music can be understood as a social phenomenon that reflects reality (Allen 10). Allen suggests that the cultural aspect of music, in this case the narcocorrido, can help trace the changes in the role of women. The role of Mexican women has been to be a daughter, wife, and mother relegated to the home, where a man is to provide for her and protect her. Traditional gender norms are deeply ingrained in Mexican culture and society, the reason the majority of the narcocorridos uphold said gender norms. Even so, the instances when women are portrayed as strong and independent in narcocorridos can be traced to points in Mexican history, where women were seen as equals to men. Allen explains that said portrayal of women began in the 1900s during the Mexican Revolution, when the figures of Adelita and Valentina, both soldaderas (female soldiers) fought beside men. During the Mexican Revolution, women enacted masculinities and were allowed, though momentarily, to stray away from domestic tasks in the home to join men in the struggle for independence.

Narcocorridos, however, do not consistently portray women as strong and independent, granted that those notions of women are not widely accepted in Mexican society. In fact, hypermasculinity, which is the exaggerated appreciation of the power of men, in narcocorridos leads to the devaluation of women and their attributes (Yanes Valdes Salas 53). Galvin puts into perspective how men in narcocorridos enact hypermasculinity through violence.

In most M|A [Movimiento Alterado] songs, the killing of others is a means of emphasising one’s masculinity, of demanding respect and seeking revenge. In fact, in the frequent all-male contests, prevalent in the M|A’s lyrics, killing appears to be a means of ensuring respect among peers and enemies where the ultimate submission is death. Furthermore, the threat of violence is used as a tool to protect male honours and pride and to establish the gender hierarchies between the M|A men. What is more striking, though, is how violent acts of torture and killing are normalised. (Galvin 73).

Galvin suggests that violence is the epitome of manhood and because the narco world is a predominantly masculine world, violence becomes normalized and encouraged in the narco world. The violent nature of narcos puts narco wives in a vulnerable position in which they are unable to exhibit their strength and be independent, creating the narrative that narco wives are submissive and dependent on their husbands, or merely accessories.

By way of illustration, narcocorrido artist, El Komander, plays the role of a narco in all his music videos, which all feature recurring imagery: guns and women. The choice of imagery is a reflection of what the artists believes captures the masculinity of actual narcos: guns to perpetuate violence and women to exhibit power and control.

In 2021, journalist Anabel Hernández published Emma y las otras señoras del narco, where she talks about the role and treatment women receive in the narco world through interviews with well-known narco wives, including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s wife, Emma Coronel. Hernández ‘s findings are congruent with Saldaña’ s claims regarding the objectification of women and the imbalance of power between the narcos and their wives. In an interview for El Pais, Hernández was asked why women in the narco world do not assume power, Hernández responded, “Las esposas no tienen ninguna independencia, ni siquiera económica, no pueden tomar ninguna decisión, no tienen nada a su nombre y aunque viven la gran vida, dependen completamente de ellos. No pueden decidir nada como cerrar la etapa criminal de sus vidas e irse an otro país, por ejemplo. Porque ellos no las quieren con iniciativa, las quieren esclavas.” (transl: The wives have no independence, not even financial, they cannot make any decisions, they have nothing to their name and although they live the high life, they are completely dependent on them. They cannot decide anything like closing the criminal phase of their lives and going to another country, for example. Because they don’t want them with initiative, they want them as slaves). In her response, Hernández said that narco wives have no autonomy. Hernández’s response further counters the malinche archetype. Women are not meant to take initiative, meaning that they shall not attempt to involve themselves in the narco business. In the narco world, women are commodities, or as Hernández puts it, a collectible. By collecting women, narcos intend on building a support network, forcing women to act out patriarchal stereotypes of femininity, such as being accommodating and nurturing.

When asked about the role of women, Hernández stated, “Las mujeres son indispensables, son su oxígeno. Estos hombres solos no podrían traficar, no existirían, no sobreviven. Necesitan ese apoyo sentimental, emocional, sexual, de gratificación.” (transl: Women are indispensable, they are their oxygen. These men alone could not traffic, they would not exist, they would not survive. They need that sentimental, emotional, sexual support and gratification). Similar to the advice the older women gave the young girl in Kincaid’s “Girl,” narco wives are to serve narcos without threatening their hegemony in order to enjoy luxuries and be granted protection and not suffer domestic violence or even worse be killed. In fact, Maria Teresa Guerra, Women’s Rights Lawyer based in Sinaloa, has found that many of her clients that have been involved with narcos have experienced more violence in comparison to women that are not involved with narcos because narcos enact their hypermasculinity through being controlling and violent. In an interview with Pressley, Guerra shared that when narcos feel they have been betrayed by their women, they kill them, meaning that narco wives need to walk on eggshells when expressing body and sexual autonomy. Additionally, as women are viewed as property, women are targeted by their husband’s enemies when the enemies are trying to send a message.

Freedom, power, and respect for Women

While the gender binary and gender relations present in Mexican society translate over to the narco world, meaning that women involved with narcos have to enact patriarchal stereotypes to receive protection, riches, and opportunities, there are possibilities in the narco world for women to defy gender roles and enact masculinities. These women in the narco world show that they are as strong and competent in creating and leading a drug empire as their male counterparts. As Galvin proposed, through appropriating masculinities, women are able to rise in power and break free from their dependence on their narco husbands. In a report published by North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) titled, “The Daughters of La Nacha: Profiles of Women Traffickers,” Elaine Carey and Jose Carlos Cisneros Guzman argued that: “Their stories make clear that women often gain greater economic control and personal power from drug trafficking, operating as equal partners with or independently of men. More importantly, successful women pass on their credentials to their children, just as their father’s and husbands did to them, creating matrilineal-based organized crime families,” (Carey and Cisneros Guzman 24).

Along similar lines, in “La Música y La Mujer: The Connection Between Drugs, Women, and Narcocorridos in Mexico,” Veronica Allen looks at narcocorridos about narcas. In her findings, Allen states that although the narcas were able to gain access to said opportunities through their husbands and fathers, “all these women succeeded in going beyond what their individual circumstances originally offered; they leave behind the male authority and create their own place and success in the world of narcotrafico. And, in the end, this is what makes them tough and independent,” (Allen 25). Becoming involved with narcos can be a launchpad for women to achieve freedom, power, and respect, if the opportunity arises to be the head of the cartel.

The promise of protection, opportunities, and socioeconomic mobility

When Klaas Wellinga identified common themes in contemporary narcocorridos, Wellinga analyzed the lyrics of El agricultor (The Farmer) by Los Pumas del Norte.

Yo se que el negocio es duro,
que traigo en cuello mi vida
porque ando contra la ley.
Desde que entré lo sabía,
pero pa’ salir de pobre esta es la única salida.

(transl: I know the business is hard,
that I carry my life around my neck
because I go against the law.
Since I entered, I knew,
but to get out of being poor this is the only way out).

In this song, Los Pumas del Norte acknowledge that being involved in drug trafficking is dangerous, illegal, and not a desirable line of work, but being an honorable hard-working man only leads one to die of hunger. Wellinga states that the narco propaganda spread through narcocorridos is one in which, “the whole business offers the possibility to escape poverty, to be someone, to enjoy the good things of life: cars, jewelry, drugs, alcohol, weapons, luxury houses, and most of all, women,” (Wellinga 109). In an article published in AD-Gnosis titled “Narco-Culture as a distortion of gender stereotypes: An aggravating factor in the situation of violence and conflict in society” Massiel Miranda Yanes and Shanny Valdes Salas relate the narco propaganda Wellinga identified in narcocorridos with societal conditions (i.e., poverty and lack of educational opportunities) in Mexico to understand the decisions made by the sectors of the population most desperate to survive and be better off.

In an environment of deprivation, it is more difficult for young people to achieve the status that is socially and culturally demanded. However, according to the opportunities provided by the environment, whether legal or illegal, people end up negotiating the way they can achieve this status…This perspective allows us to understand better, the fact that regardless of the risks associated with drug trafficking and violence levels that characterize it, while continued the lack of opportunities and poverty in society, there will be those willing to take the risk of getting involved directly. It is a survival issue. (Yanes and Valdes Salas 55).

Since women are one of the sectors of Mexican society with higher incidence of poverty, it is no surprise they would opt to become narco wives despite the hegemonic masculine narco world.

In Pressley’s BBC article, an interview with a padrino, or sponsor involved in the narco world puts into perspective how vulnerable women living in poverty are to the offers of being involved with narcos. The padrino shares with Pressley, “‘Por lo general, si una mujer no es hija de alguien con medios económicos, busca un novio que pueda mantenerla,’ dice. ‘Entonces, el acuerdo podría ser pasar cosas como un automóvil, una casa, dinero en efectivo o artículos de lujo.’” (transl: ‘In genreral, if a women is not daughter of someone with financual means, she looks for a boyfriend who can support her,’ he says. ‘So the deal could be to receive things like a car, a house, cash, or luxury items’). As seen with Carmen, women from poor families seek opportunities to improve their living conditions and acquire everything their families are unable to provide for them. Most importantly, they seek protection from domestic and sexual violence at home or in the workplace from these violent and powerful men in the narco world. This protection, as Pressley writes, is important in states, such as Sinaloa, where poverty and violence reigns.

Conclusion

Based on the idea that music reflects reality, through narcocorridos we can understand gender and gender relations in the narco world. While the majority of narcocorridos portray women as having a passive role in this world, the emergence of narcas and female corrido artists telling their stories in their lyrics, the more active and aggressive role of women in the narco world is becoming known. Even so, in the predominantly male narco world, only a few women are able to establish themselves as important and well-respected figures. In contrast, the majority of the women are relegated to serve as collectibles, sex dolls, and support systems.

Being involved in the narco world is a double-edged sword. While women escaping poverty and violence can find protection and socioeconomic mobility by becoming a narco wife, many must be at their husband’s service whether it be providing them with emotional support or sex, enacting traditional gender roles. Protection and luxuries are not a promise, women are disposable and replaceable for narcos. The value of women is their bodies and sexual services, so when narcos no longer find women useful in these prospects these women return to the hell they were escaping from. Additionally, those escaping violence are not completely safe in the narco world granted narcos establish their power through violence, making these women vulnerable to violence at the hands of narcos trying to protect their hegemony.

The narco world is not an escape from patriarchy. The notion that it is an escape from poverty and violence is rooted in the yearning for a better life because of the patriarchal state that refuse to listen to women and meet their needs for protection, education, and employment. Narcos take advantage of the desperation women feel to acquire wealth and protection to control and use these women who feel that they do not have other alternatives.

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