This dissertation clarifies the manner in which violence against women is implicated in the re-constitution of gender in Chihuahua. Using data collected with a mixed methods, multi-staged protocol, this dissertation investigates how the routine threat of gender violence and the common presence of gender violence in women’s lives impacts the manner in which they reconfigure gender in the rapidly changing environment of Northern Mexico. This dissertation is intended as a contribution to Medical Anthropology in general, but specifically to the Anthropology of Violence and to Gender and Health Studies in its focus on gendered violence. This dissertation also contributes to the refinement of theory and methodology in Medical Anthropology. The implications of this research call for further research into the role of routinized terror in cultural reproduction and transformation as well as a renewed emphasis on embodied threat as a common aspect of the operation of power though societies.