In So Far from God, Caridad, who has fallen into a life of drink and one-night stands with men she meets in bars, suffers a brutal and overpowering physical attack. The narrator reports that some townspeople regard the attack as the natural outcome of what they consider Caridad's questionable behavior, and we are left with the impression that Caridad has learned "the bitter truth" about the violent enforcement of women's second-class status in this society (Ostriker). However, while Castillo shows us the real physical oppression that all women face in the figure of a beaten and mutilated Caridad, she does not simply point the finger at men.

Caridad, Loca, and doña Felicia know that

it wasn't a man with a face and a name who had
attacked and left Caridad mangled like a run-down
rabbit. Nor two or three men. That was why she had...