Abstract
González-López manages to provide a compelling and thorough sociological account of a subject that is unspeakable and taboo in most societies: incest. While Family Secrets addresses the social forces and dynamics framing incest and sexual violence in Mexico, it also honors the 60 men and women who shared their lives and experiences. The level of care and introspection with which González-López treats the subject is remarkable. She begins the book with an awareness of all the possible ways that her work can be misconstrued—setting out to tell a complex story that avoids stereotyping Mexican culture or reifying culture of poverty arguments. Through detailed structural analysis, she succeeds. Although she acknowledges that the Mexican state is sexist and homophobic, she is quick to point out that many other societies share these characteristics. That is, these characteristics are not intrinsic to being Mexican. Her analysis shows how incest occurs and is facilitated regardless of socioeconomic status or position, thus establishing that it does not only occur among the poor.
González-López reveals the structural dimensions of Mexican society that shape incest: the evolution of laws enshrouding incest, the social organization and perceptions of sexuality, and the ideologies around children. She organizes chapters around the different configurations of incest: fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and nieces, and she dedicates an entire chapter to the stories of men. The subjugation of women is at the center of most cases of incest told. The subservient role of the mothers, sisters, and daughters influence their sexual subjugation and those around them. González-López contends that men hold an “ethic of entitlement to service,” while women and children hold an “ethic of obedience and servitude” (p. 53). This transpires in several ways, such as the cooking, cleaning, and care work that women and even young girls are expected to do in the family, especially for the men. Many of González-López’s respondents’ families shared a common structure, which was organized around the needs of men, and boys learn this, as they get older. She suggests that boys’ first object of love is the mother, who is at times cast as inferior and subjugated (p. 177). By watching the oppression of their mothers by their fathers or other men in their lives, boys too learn to subjugate women. González-López argues that boys learn and cash in their patriarchal dividends. To illustrate how this process works, she demonstrates how brothers and male cousins come to abuse their sisters and female cousins.
The abuse of daughters by their fathers was often hinged upon the idea that marriage is an institution built upon the sexual needs of men. Here, men are constructed as unable to control their sexual urges. In these instances, mothers are marital servants and if they cannot meet the husbands’ needs, daughters fill in, often becoming the “conjugal daughter.”
The most common type of incest that González-López notes is rape and abuse of nieces by their uncles. Moreover, the most common configuration is for an uncle on the maternal side as the perpetrator. She calls this the feminization of incest. She uncovers that some families have genealogies of incest, where many of the women have been abused at some point by an older male relative or one relative has abused several of the young women in the family.
The chapter on the men’s stories is excruciatingly painful to read. The violence that these individuals experienced is palpable. Yet, González-López again tells a structural account noting that for many of the men, unlike women, there is a consent–coercion continuum. Some of these men participated in incestuous relationships with a cousin, often a peer, but many were also raped and abused by other family members, especially if they were cast as weak, gay, or feminine.
González-López makes an important case for thinking about the role of children in Mexican society. She argues that children are seen as extensions of parents—lacking their own personhood and agency. Moreover, children are seen as essentially desexualized. These two constructions of childhood create the perfect context for disempowering a child who comes forth with allegations of abuse and hinders parents’ ability to protect their children’s sexuality.
The author ends the book with a reflection of Mexico’s current political moment, which is saturated with narco-violence. She suggests that this statewide violence might influence the way women, children, and LGBT communities are socially situated and perhaps, cause more violence. She makes an interesting case for studying the relationship between state-level violence, sexual violence, and incest. González-López should be applauded for the care in which she treats her respondents’ stories, the emotional labor that it takes to do this type of work, and the sociological account that makes sense of these stories. This should serve as an example to graduate students and scholars who aspire to tackle delicate issues in an ethical and responsible fashion.