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Women and Narcoculture in Northwestern Mexico

By Eliza Friend

Neither the drug trade, nor the themes discussed in this section are unique to Mexico; illicit markets, heteronormativity, and misogyny exist and intersect throughout the world. The majority of available research regarding gender, masculinity, and society in cartel-controlled areas, however, focuses on the experiences of women in Latin America and, in particular, the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua; for this reason, this section will likewise focus primarily on the women, culture, and cartels of northwestern Mexico.

The Illicit Drug Trade in Mexico

           Though opium and marijuana trafficking has occurred in Mexico since the early 20th century, Mexican drug cartels, as we know them today—organizations that “dominate the import and distribution of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine in the United States”[1]—did not begin to emerge until the early 1980s.[2] It was in this pivotal decade that the American government concentrated its efforts on toppling the cocaine-kingpins of Colombia, inadvertently causing manufacturers to “turn to new and safer transit routes through Mexico where enforcement policy was practically non-existent.”[3] Throughout the 1990’s the Gulf, Sinaloa, and Juárez cartels established themselves as the preeminent trafficking syndicates.[4] This hierarchy was and is, however, constantly in flux. Beginning in the early 2000s, the supremacy of Gulf, Sinaloa, and Juárez was challenged by Los Zetas—an organization, originally created as “a private army for the Gulf Cartel,” that took a leading role in transforming the “Mexican drug trade from simply buying and selling drugs for profit to [including commonplace] kidnapping, torture, human trafficking, and gruesome murder.”[5] The cartels that currently “pose the most significant drug trafficking threats to the United States,” according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency, are the Sinaloa Cartel; the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization, both splinter groups of Sinaloa; Los Zetas; Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos, both splinter groups of the Beltrán-Leyva Organization; La Familia Michoacána; and the Juárez Cartel.[6]

         The Mexican government, with the assistance of the American government, has been “waging war” on the drug cartels for almost two decades.[7] A variety of approaches have been employed, from the military crackdown of former President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) to the “hugs not bullets” approach of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with none creating meaningful improvement.[8] Since 2006, Mexico has recorded more than 360,000 homicides and, as of 2022, at least 100,000 disappeared civilians.[9] Americans are spending approximately $150 billion a year on illegal drugs and Mexican cartels control 90% of the cocaine entering the United States.[10]

Narcoculture and Hegemonic Masculinity

            Primary among the byproducts of the illicit drug trade in Mexico is narcoculture, a social structure marked by performative masculinity, constructed honor, and male domination of marginalized identities. The state of Sinaloa —home to the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the oldest and most powerful cartels in Mexico (formerly headed by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán)[11]—is regarded by some as the “cradle of narcoculture.”[12] It is from Sinaloa and, in particular, the capital city of Culiacán, that this hierarchical structure is said to have originated during the late 20th century, growing in power with the cartel and spreading throughout Mexico alongside illicit goods.[13]

No Tengas Miedo by Los Buitres De Culiacan

            In their article, “Masculinities in Mexico’s Narco Culture: ‘Viejones’ and Honor,” Marco Alejandro Núñez-González and Guillermo Núñez Noriega, of Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa and Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo, respectively, provide the following evaluation of narcoculture:

“[Economic, violent, social, and cultural forms of capital] allow [traffickers] to make a performance of narcoculture, understood as a set of practices, values, beliefs, attitudes and symbols associated with drug traffickers and adopted, to a greater or lesser extent, by the population. [The following items exist as objectified forms of narcoculture]: expensive clothing, luxury vehicles, [music], Catholic religious figures, ostentatious consumption, [and] philanthropic actions… [These items are associated with] power, machoism, consumerism, purchasing power, altruism, heterosexuality, marginalization, status, importance, regionalism, paternalism, identity of class and exclusion...” [14]

            Further, Núñez-González and Núñez Noriega identify narcoculture as a “reproduction of the hegemonic model” of masculinity, created within a patriarchal social structure that “establishes a binary sexual difference” and “[disqualifies] intersexuality” by “[ascribing]…hierarchical, symbolic, and social domains of the masculine and feminine.”[15] This is to say, narcoculture “distinguishes [hypermasculinity] from and sets it above other forms of gender identities.”[16] Such a social system is empowered by traditional conceptions of patriarchy and strict interpretations of the gender binary that exist within dominant segments of Mexican society, including the Catholic church.

Narcoculture within Mexican Society

Government Failures and Folk Heroes

            The image produced by narcoculture—one of excess, manliness, and power—is made especially appealing to young men by the contrasting lack of opportunities offered to them by the state. In spite of the “characteristic violence” of drug trafficking, “which is overt, well known and publicized,” narcoculture acts as a “mechanism of social inclusion for great sectors of the disenfranchised.”[17] Illicit trafficking is a “real labor option” “for those whom the other choice is between immigration and starvation.”[18]

            The failings of the Mexican government have also created a sense of narco-apologism among many poor communities and launched infamous traffickers to the status of folk heroes.[19] For example, El Chapo Guzmán is beloved by many in Sinaloa because of his philanthropic efforts within the state and the protection he offers from other cartels, such as Los Zetas.[20] He has become “an unusual combination of Robin Hood and billionaire…because of his repeated ability to outfox the…government.”[21] In the words of one young Culiacán resident:

“Why do people admire him? Because he’s a living legend. He’s like Al Capone. He’s the Lucky Luciano. Like Tony Soprano. Like Scarface. He’s like a character on a television show, except that he’s alive, he’s real.”[22]

According to a resident of Mexico City:

“The drug dealers do more for the people than the government does. If you live in a dealer’s territory he treats you well. The government won’t do anything for you. It’s all bureaucracy and red tape.”[23]

Picture2.jpg

Source: Neuman and Ahmed, “Public Enemy?” New York Times

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Source: Ahmed, “In Mexico, Escaped ‘El Chapo’ Is Folk Hero No. 1.” The Hindu

The Roles of Women in Narcoculture and the Emergence of the “Buchona”

            Within the world of drug trafficking, women have been allowed to occupy a limited set of roles.[24] They may be mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters; trophy women (“buchonas”)[25]; female employees; female prisoners; or female victims of violence.[26] There are, however, notable exceptions to this; a small minority of women have historically and continue to “exercise power over others through violence” and act as “recruiters” and “leaders” within trafficking networks.[27] This subsection of women will be addressed in detail in a later section. With the spread of narcoculture, however, women have increasingly been forced into the category of trophy women, or buchonas—the term “buchona” is derived from the masculine “buchón,” meaning trafficker, and originated as a Sinaloan slang term for the wives and girlfriends of traffickers.[28]

            In her article, “Women and the Changing Structure of Drug Trafficking in Mexico,” Marisol Franco Díaz identifies the year 2006 as the beginning of a “restructuring” within major cartels, in which women were “[excluded]…from economic activities” and “[moved] from leadership to subordination.”[29] Per Franco Díaz:

“Narcoculture has become a kind of misogynous cult, where women have gone from being leaders, producers, and distributors to being decorative objects for exhibition.”[30]

            In effect, narcoculture has hypersexualized women and reduced their bodies to either exhibitions of beauty or territory to be conquered.[31]

            The image of the buchona—a woman with “[a big bust and butt], combined with a tiny waist” (generally achieved through plastic surgery)[32]—has spread over time into wider Mexican society. According to Isaac Tomas Guevara Martinez, a social scientist who focuses his studies on Sinaloa:

“For many Sinaloan women, their life’s focus is to marry a narco because of what it implies—the lifestyle, clothes, house, cars. Emma Coronel [the former beauty queen and current wife of El Chapo Guzmán] is the prototype of the ideal body type for many women.”[33]

            In defiance of the misogyny of narcoculture, some women are capitalizing on the label of “buchona” and using the glamorized aesthetic of mafia wives to build social media followings and launch business ventures.[34] An influencer called Jenny69, for example, recently launched a music career, promoting herself as “la chingona que salió de Riverside,” or “the badass who came out of Riverside.”[35] In the cover art of her music, she poses with symbols of northern Mexican life—a rooster and a cowboy hat—and wears a gold AK-47 necklace.[36] While the same cannot necessarily be said for the actual wives and girlfriends of drug traffickers, Mexican women who have embraced the buchona aesthetic “talk tough, shoot guns, flaunt their sexuality and boast about their capacity to party.”[37]

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Source: Miranda, “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’." Los Angeles Times

Femicide

            In 1993, the world’s attention was drawn to the border city of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as the bodies of young women—“many showing signs of rape, beatings, and mutilation”[38]—began appearing, discarded, on the outskirts of the city.

Femicide, as defined by the United Nations, is “an intentional killing with gender-related motivation” that “may be driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls, unequal power relations between women and men, or harmful social norms.”[39] Within Mexican law, the definition of femicide is outlined by Article 325 of the Federal Penal Code:

“The crime of femicide is committed by anyone who deprives a woman of her life for reasons of gender. It is considered that there are gender reasons when any of the following circumstances occur:

1. The victim shows signs of sexual violence of any kind;

2. Offensive or degrading injuries or mutilations have been inflicted on the victim, before or after the deprivation of life or acts of necrophilia;

3. There is a history or data of any type of violence in the family, work or school environment, of the active subject against the victim;

4. There has been a sentimental, affective or trust relationship between the asset and the victim;

5. There is data that establishes that there were threats related to the criminal act, harassment or injuries of the active subject against the victim;

6. The victim has been held incommunicado, regardless of the time prior to the deprivation of life;

7. The victim's body is exposed or exhibited in a public place."[40]

            Though the crime of femicide has been clearly recognized and defined within Mexican law since 2012 and activists continue to fight for answers on behalf of victims, very little has changed. According to official government data, femicides increased by 129% between 2015 and 2020; this is compared to a 79% increase in overall homicides during the same period.[41] Between 2016 and 2020, an average of 3,568 female homicides were recorded annually.[42] Due to a lack of reporting, however, these numbers likely reflect only a fraction of the epidemic of violence facing Mexican women. In 2018, up to 93% of crimes in Mexico, including femicides, were “either not reported or not investigated.”[43] Corruption and abuse of power are also incredibly common practices in the Mexican government, military, and police forces; this means that, in cases involving powerful individuals and drug traffickers, these crimes may be covered up by the very public servants meant to be investigating them.[44]

"When my mom died, people called me ‘the orphan.’ When my husband died, I became a widow … There’s no word to describe this..." [45]

Disappearing Daughters | 'Is being a woman a crime?'

            While it is difficult to make any statement with certainty regarding the femicides of northern Mexico, given the dueling academic arguments on motive and the state’s lack of effort to effectively investigate cases of violence against women, it would be a disservice to victims to exclude their stories from discussions of drug trafficking. These women and girls are treated as disposable and their bodies are thrown away like garbage; narcoculture devalues women and treats their bodies as “a territory of male sexual satisfaction and a place where warlords avenge their honor.”[47] It is entirely plausible to suggest that the hypermasculine social structure of narcoculture has created a permissive environment for some men, whether they are associated with criminal organizations or not, to act on their violent impulses.

  1. “Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels,” Council on Foreign Relations, accessed February 21, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-long-war-drugs-crime-and-cartels.

  2. “Inside Mexico’s Drug Wars | Modern Latin America,” accessed February 22, 2023, https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-3-mexico/moments-in-mexican-history/inside-mexicos-drug-wars/; “Drug Trafficking in Mexico: A First General Assessment - UNESCO Digital Library,” accessed February 22, 2023, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000117644.

  3. “Inside Mexico’s Drug Wars | Modern Latin America.”

  4. “Inside Mexico’s Drug Wars | Modern Latin America.”

  5. “Inside Mexico’s Drug Wars | Modern Latin America.”

  6. “Mexico’s Long War.”

  7. “Mexico’s Long War.”

  8. “Mexico’s Long War.”

  9. “At Least 100,000 People Are Missing in Mexico | The Economist,” accessed February 22, 2023, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2022/06/30/at-least-100000-people-are-missing-in-mexico

  10.  “Mexico’s Long War.”

  11.  “Mexico’s Long War.”

  12.  “‘Narco Chic’ Art Attracts Attention in Mexico City | Reuters,” accessed February 21, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-art-idUSN2425911520061125.

  13.  “‘Narco Chic’ Art Attracts Attention in Mexico City | Reuters.”

  14.  Marco Alejandro Núñez-González and Guillermo Núñez Noriega, “Masculinities in Mexico’s Narco Culture: ‘Viejones’ and Honor,” Región y Sociedad 31 (2019), https://doi.org/10.22198/rys2019/31/1107.

  15.  Núñez-González and Núñez Noriega.

  16.  “Hegemonic Masculinity - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics,” accessed February 22, 2023, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/hegemonic-masculinity.

  17.  Carlos Alberto Sánchez, “On Culture and Narco-Culture,” in A Sense of Brutality, Philosophy after Narco-Culture (Amherst College Press, 2020), 29–58, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11923978.4.

  18.  Sánchez.

  19.  Patricia D. Catoira and Virginia K. Bratton, “El Chapo for Presidente: An Examination of Leadership through Mexico’s Narcoculture,” Leadership, Popular Culture and Social Change, January 26, 2018, 91–106.

  20.  Matt Levin, “‘El Chapo’ Is a Beloved Folk Hero in His Mexican Homeland,” Chron, July 15, 2015, https://www.chron.com/crime/article/El-Chapo-is-a-beloved-folk-hero-in-his-Mexican-6386265.php.

  21.  William Neuman and Azam Ahmed, “Public Enemy? At Home in Mexico, ‘El Chapo’ Is Folk Hero No. 1,” The New York Times, July 17, 2015, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/world/americas/safe-haven-for-drug-kingpin-el-chapo-in-many-mexicans-hearts.html.

  22.  Neuman and Ahmed.

  23.  Neuman and Ahmed.

  24.  Lilian Paola Ovalle and Corina Giacomello, “La Mujer En El ‘Narcomundo’. Contrucciones Tradicionales y Alternatives Del Sujeto Femenino,” La Ventana, no. 24 (2006): 297–319.

  25.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales,” Los Angeles Times en Español, November 8, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/espanol/entretenimiento/articulo/2021-11-08/el-estilo-buchona-que-hace-alarde-de-excesos-consumistas.

  26.  Lilian Paola Ovalle and Giacomello, “La Mujer En El ‘Narcomundo’. Contrucciones Tradicionales y Alternatives Del Sujeto Femenino.”

  27.  Maria Elena Calderon Gonzalez, “Narcocultura y Violencia Contra Las Mujeres En México” (Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana Unidad Xochimilco, 2020), https://repositorio.xoc.uam.mx/jspui/bitstream/123456789/24650/1/50569.pdf.

  28.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales.”

  29.  Marisol Franco Díaz, “Women and the Changing Structure of Drug Trafficking in Mexico,” Voices of Mexico, 2015, 23–26.

  30.  Franco Díaz.

  31.  Calderon Gonzalez, “Narcocultura y Violencia Contra Las Mujeres En México.”

  32.  Deborah Bonello, “Women Are Dying for the Narco Wife ‘Buchona’ Body,” Vice (blog), October 18, 2022, https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adjzw/mexico-buchona-plastic-surgery.

  33.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales.”

  34.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales.

  35.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales.”

  36.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales.”

  37.  “La influencer Jenny69 se llama a sí misma una ‘buchona’. Cómo un estilo inspirado en el narco llegó a dominar las redes sociales.”

  38.  “Crying out for Justice: Murders of Women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico” (Washington Office on Latin America, March 2005).

  39.  “Five Essential Facts to Know about Femicide,” UN Women – Headquarters, November 25, 2022, https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2022/11/five-essential-facts-to-know-about-femicide.

  40.  Comisión Nacional para Prevenir y Erradicar la Violencia Contra las Mujeres, “¿Qué es el feminicidio y cómo identificarlo?,” gob.mx, accessed February 21, 2023, http://www.gob.mx/conavim/articulos/que-es-el-feminicidio-y-como-identificarlo?idiom=es.

  41.  Teagan D McGinnis, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira, and David A Shirk, “Analyzing the Problem of Femicide in Mexico,” n.d.

  42.  McGinnis, Ferreira, and Shirk.

  43.  Linnea Sandin, “Femicides in Mexico: Impunity and Protests,” March 19, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/femicides-mexico-impunity-and-protests.

  44.  Sarah Morland and Carolina Pulice, “Failures by Mexican Law Enforcement Aggravate Rise in Killings of Women,” Reuters, November 30, 2022, sec. Americas, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/failures-by-mexican-law-enforcement-aggravate-rise-killings-women-2022-11-29/; “Mexico’s Ex-Security Minister Genaro García Luna Convicted of Drug Trafficking,” BBC News, February 21, 2023, sec. US & Canada, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64726724.

  45.  “Disappearing Daughters | Mothers Search for Justice and Embrace Fragile Memories,” The Seattle Times, accessed February 21, 2023, https://projects.seattletimes.com/2020/femicide-juarez-mexico-border/.

  46.  “Reframing ‘Femicide’: Making Room for the Balloon Effect of Drug War Violence in Studying Female Homicides in Mexico and Central America: Territory, Politics, Governance: Vol 3, No 4,” accessed February 23, 2023, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21622671.2015.1064826?casa_token=P_rYdgUqolwAAAAA%3AxIoGEK4TMTxECkPdR0BSML13DXHYoOVACJI-UkQ_l8TNbDSCdWzXPFh0aD3uRnF68UsVCJs06kTt&journalCode=rtep20; Melissa W. Wright, “Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the Mexico-U.S. Border,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36, no. 3 (March 2011): 707–31, https://doi.org/10.1086/657496.

  47.   Elizabeth Ballen Guachetá, “Violence against Women and Female Body Stereotypes,” Revista Latina de Sociología 9, no. 1 (2019): 31–49, https://doi.org/10.17979/relaso.2019.9.1.2018.

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