Discourse is a particular knowledge about the world one lives in, which shapes how the world is understood and creates culturally significant meanings. Discourse relies on the creation of knowledge through power and the assumption that the institutional knowledge is linked to truth. Thus discourse creates cultural ideologies and also in many ways controls the ways in which these ideologies are disseminated. (Rose, 142) There are severe consequences in the cultural practices and symbolic forms which structure, symbolize, and define social identities in any given society. (Fregreso, 1) The photos of the murder victims and the verbal rhetoric that goes with them work as powerful discourse which aims at maintaining hegemony.

Images and text in the Mexican media have constructed and most importantly reinforced ideologies in reference to gender and female roles. (Rose, 146) The viewer constructs a certain understanding based on content and context of the photos. In the media it seems that certain key themes have been developed and employed in describing and representing these women. For example, the images in the photos are generally of a heavily made up, brown skinned, women who are standing in front of the maquiladora with her pay check in hand. Before the female maquiladora worker is killed and the photo exists in the home, this photo carry's meanings of independence, success, and the general representation of her as a human being; however to her male counter-part this photo is a reminder of the cultural shift in gender relations and power in Juarez. (Mora, 34)

As workers, the women of the maquiladoras create products for a globalized economy, but in essence they too our products which are controlled by this global economy and culture. As victims, these women are also commodified through the use of photography. Before death she is photographed by a male she knows, after death she is photographed and disseminated by men. The power of technological agency is given to the one who takes the picture, which in almost all of these cases is the male.

Borrowing from the anthropological approach, which is focused on objects as images in which things are to be done, we can understand how the recontextualization of the visual object can change the meaning. When the presentation form is changed, the photos meaning is changed with it. Thus when the portraits of the women were taken out of the home and out of the picture frames and put on display in newspapers or television and is accompanied by text or verbal discourse (which acts as anchorage), the women now were merely marked as victims of sexual violence. (Rose, 87)

Other photos of these women which hold significant cultural implications are the murder scene photos. As Mora states, we are a "culture obsessed with violence and murder especially its sexualized forms." (Nathan, 2003)These photos depict images of naked and decomposing bodies, women's dresses, shoes, and underwear, and in general a scene of violence and death. These photos take away the humanity of these women.

They are no longer daughters, mothers, wives, friends, church goers, but instead a de-faced body with no history. The crime photos are seen as evidence to the truth claim that these women are dead. These photos do not tell us who these women were or what kind of lives they lived, instead it sums up their entire existence and identity into them being a murder victim who died a violent and degrading death. This constant flow of murder victim's photos in the media as objects has only added to the "passive acceptance of the "rutinization" of the Juarez murders and also an excuse for legitimization of the "extremely conservative patriarchal and misogynist social and political order" in Juarez. (Nathan, 2003)

Such feminist scholars as Diana Russell have called the Juarez murders institutionalized. To better understand this we must focus on Institution apparatus. Institution apparatus plays an important role in the Juarez murders. Institutional apparatus is the "forms of power/knowledge that constitute the institutions". (Rose, 174) Institutional apparatus generally consist of "discourses, institution, laws, administrative measures, moral and philanthropical propositions." (Foucault, 194)

State institutions have offered no protection or security for the women of Juarez, the maquiladoras and the large American companies that own them do not find it their responsibility to safe guard these women, and dirty police have been implicated in crimes and also accused of spotty investigation practices. The police are the representation of the law and law serves as a "mask for power", however "power is already theirs", inherent in a cultural system. (Foucault, 140) The discourse which immersed the male- dominated Mexican media was again one that blamed the female sexuality for male evil.

Chihuahua authorities stated:

The photos served as evidence of the supposed reality of the situation, which was that the women dressed "inappropriately" and the textual and verbal rhetoric in the media serves as evidence that these women went to inappropriate places. These photos and verbal and textual rhetoric depend on the assumptions of the viewer that "their knowledge is true". (Rose, 144) The ideologies which surrounded these assumptions of truth are that women belong in a domestic environment and have no business being out at night. This discourse wants the reader to buy into the truth claim that women are the weaker and more vulnerable gender. The pictures serve as evidence of women's inability to protect themselves against male-domination. Thus such male dominated discourse believes that the female should quite work, stay out of the night districts, and return back to the domestic space because it is too dangerous out in the real world.

Furthermore, police and government officials continue to blame the female victims for their physical appearance (i.e. their beauty and desirability). The irony in this is that the male-hierarchy has produced a system and ideologies based on the importance of femininity and beauty for women; but if they are murdered for their beauty they are blamed for being too desirable. Again, the process and concept of feminity is a cultural construct by the male-hierarchy, which has been produced as a means of gaining and maintaining power for the male. Also, with every new photo released these women seem even more disposable. Almost every photo released to the general public the women are visualized in the same way. It makes it seem as if these women are replaceable commodities not only in the maquiladoras, but most importantly in the media. Every portrait and crime scene photo released or leaked just ads to the evidence that these women are plentiful, replaceable, and easily disposable. Seeing as how these crimes are still unsolved and the media always point this out, a man see this as evidence that the crimes are going unsolved, the women are easy and un-identifiable victims, and ultimately encourages and inspires men of Juarez to carry out the same crime. The media and government officials are creating dangerous rhetoric that encourages sexual murderers, creates fear for the women of Juarez, and ultimately de-humanizes and blames the innocent murder victim.