The Drive
Abstract
The Drive is a hybrid-poetry collection containing lyric poems, as well as fiction and non-fiction prose pieces, that explores the impact of different types of misogyny and violence against women, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of digital violence. This collection presents different voices and stories that examine themes of violence against the female body. The Drive was born from a poem in which I describe a Google Drive link created in October 2020 and shared through Twitter, where women anonymously submitted the name of their abusers, the school they went to, their age, and the type of abuse they suffered. On the first day that this drive became available to other women, the list had fifty names. The next day, there were over eight hundred names of young men between the ages of 20 and 25 who lived in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. I wrote this first poem to describe the various impacts a drive like this can have on a community, then I realized that I needed to delve further into this issue by writing about another Google Drive. About a year prior, a similar link was leaked on Twitter, only this link was used by men – some who also appeared in the list of abusers – to share, and sometimes sell nude pictures of women from Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. The photographs were circulated without the women’s consent. The Drive explores the many different sides, issues, consequences, and impacts these situations can create. The impact abusive situations like these can have on women is also examined along with the commodification of women’s bodies and a victim-blaming culture, fostered by these types of drives. As I developed The Drive, I realized one element that needed to be present as well was the idea and possibility of the re-writing and reconstruction of different narratives. I wanted to explore different territory by letting these stories be known and presenting perspectives that may not be usually seen in popular media.
Subject Area
Creative writing|Fine arts|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Adame, Marisol, "The Drive" (2023). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI30491727.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI30491727