Gender and Families in Crisis- In Search of Respect

-women are gaining rights and power in El barrio, many of them can find jobs and will not put up with being controlled

-The crisis of patriarchy manifests through increased domestic violence, strained personal relationships, and the breakdown of traditional male roles, reflecting the tension between changing gender norms and entrenched patriarchal values.

-both FL and CIP combine and their is a spike in domestic violence, where patriarchal norms in street culture mean that men “lash out against the woman and children they can no longer control“

romantic elopement is a concept in which if a woman is abused at home she can run away with a man and get married

-this fails for candy se runs away from her abusive father to marry her boyfriend Felix, however the tradition fails horribly as she is gang raped by him and a few of his friends

Candy claims that when she shot Félix she only shot him due to the fact he cheated on her (slept with his sister) and not the decades of abuse she had been subject to

-→ she sees her motives for the attack as a “ataques de nervios”-→ a culturally scripted outburst of violence-→ rather than seeking revenge on the man who had made her life miserable and abusive, this reinforces patriarchal etiquette(she is blaming the fragile nature of her gender for the shooting)

-Candy also blames women for felix’ violence saying he learned to treat women badly because “the women in those families like to play their husbands dirty“

-She also complains about girls who “only think of their sexual desires“

-she also remains committed to the nuclear family structure as she sought out a romantic relationship with primo as the solution to her problems ,he later goes on to treat her violently aswell

-candy’s life starts to unravel whilst Félix is in jail, she has no money and she has to resort to selling drugs as a way to earn a living to provide for her family. She gains cultural capital within the gang and becomes a wildly successful dealer, no one will mess with her and she is one of ray’s most respected dealers

-candy is still bound under felix’s control so much that she starts acting like him: ”selling drugs, flaunting her sexual conquests and abandoning her children”

-Caesar criticises candy for not being at home looking after her children

-state infrastructure theoretically aimed at helping the marginalised but is actually hostile and they ‘aggressively struggle with the system’

--welfare office revalidates its clients every six months and they ask for documents each time--- candy has difficulty with this due to her lack of cultural capital, she cannot fill in the necessary forms and cannot fathom why her baby needs a social security number

-she takes the case to court and wins- in the meantime however she is forced into extreme poverty and starts selling drugs for ray; when she quits for her children’s safety and starts applying for welfare again her caseworker asks how she earnt money in the meantime, she doesn’t want to answer this therefore she lashes out at her caseworker

-adolescent gang rape: ray and Luis coordinate the gang rape of teenage girls, primo and Caesar gladly participate in them

-primo exposed to gang rape from a really young age (pre puberty) and was forced into it against his will

-primo and his friends force women to submit to them by threatening violence. they also talk about which women are more or less suitable to be raped. Caesar insists that women enjoy being raped as they always ”come back for more”; they view it like a transaction, like the crack trade everyone is self interested and any tactics is fair game

1)Sex and betrayal. Candy’s husband sleeps with her sister, she throws a knife at him.

3)Candy shoots Felix, he had beat her daily for a decade. His violence had caused 5 miscarriages. She was also not allowed to open the windows of their home when he was out. This is a small-scale example of women’s revenge against El Barrio’s broader patriarchal structure. A shooting is a horrific act of abuse itself, but within the oppressive context of El Barrio, it could be seen as noble.

When they move to new York, the jibaro identities of the Puerto Ricans and social and cultural expectations of individuals in the US lead to cultural malalignment.

1) Families- an aspect of the jibaro identity is large families, individuals such as Ray contribute to this, however they are unwilling to be ‘fatherly’ and neglect their children, leading them to fall under the influence of the underground economy

2) Workplace- Primo and Caesar seek masculine work in sectors that they deem masculine, they are pushed out of these sectors and forced to get work in the service sector, which they find humiliating so result to the drug economy as it gives them autonomy and a sense of pride

Examples: Primo quits working at Mcdonalds as he feels embarrassed that he is ‘25 yrs old’

Ceasar quits working for the construction agency as he is surrounded by racist, white Italian Americans

When both get fired from their respective service sector jobs, they celebrate by going on crack binges

The perpetrators, including Primo and Caesar, rationalise gang rapes by comparing it to a transaction and claiming women enjoy it, revealing a deeply ingrained misogyny and the commodification of women's bodies akin to the drug trade's self-interested tactics.