La CriticAna Analyzes “Temes” by iLe

Written By Ana Castellanos

12/26/2025 

*Content warning: This analysis contains frequent mentions and details of sexual and physical violence against women and trans people. Please take care if engaging. 


A Note About Heteronormativity

I want to state that this is a very heteronormative song and video. While violence against hetero and cis women is important to address, it is not a complete perspective. This song- and by extension this analysis- emphasizes violence committed by men onto women. Statistically, violence does follow this pattern. But it’s important to note that there are a lot of gaps in this framework. 

About the Artist & the Song

Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar, known as iLe professionally, is a Puerto Rican singer and songwriter who was destined to be a musician. Her mother, Flor Joglar de Gracia, is an actress in the theatre troupe Teatro del Sesenta, and her father, Jose Cabra Gonzalez, was also a musician.

As a kid, iLe would sing at private parties, learned to play the piano, handbell, and took private singing lessons with Hilda Ramos, a renowned Puerto Rican soprano. iLe began her career singing backup for Calle 13 with her brothers Rene Perez Joglar (Residente) and Eduardo Cabra Martinez (Visitante). In 2019, she released ‘Temes,’ the song we’re going to analyze today as part of her second solo album “Almadura.” 

Sociopolitical Context

In ‘Temes’ iLe questions what men are afraid of in their subjugation of women when it is women who face criticism, blame, and violence. And when I first heard the song, I couldn’t help but think of the response to the women’s movement in Latin America. 

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a rise in marches in Latin America demanding an end to violence against women and girls and the impunity of femicides, and bodily autonomy. The movement is mostly made up of marches, protests, and rallies that take place in March around International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month that seek to bring attention to the high rates of femicide in many Latin American countries.

One of the main rallying cries is #NiUnaMenos #NiUnaMás -or “Not one less, Not one more” which demands that not even one less woman or girl is on this earth and not even one more woman or girl added to the quota of the missing or dead. According to the UN’s ​​Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),

“In 2023, at least 3,897 women were victims of femicide or feminicide in 27 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. This means at least 11 violent deaths of women every day due to their gender.” 

Latin America is also the deadliest region in the world for trans people with “255 recorded murders of transgender people [from October 2023 - September 2024] in Latin America, accounting for 73% of all such homicides worldwide.”  Unfortunately there is a lack of data on homicides of trans women specifically. However in Latin America and the Caribbean their life expectancy is as low as 30 years old due to a combination of factors such as discrimination in healthcare settings and of course, femicides. 

I want to be clear that violence against women and trans people does not only happen in Latin America or the global south. It happens every day here in the U.S. 

According to the Human Rights Campaign, “over 2,800 hate crimes were recorded against LGBTQ+ people in 2023.” And the U.S. is the 3rd deadliest country in the world for trans people.

In 2023, over 2,400 women were killed in single victim/single offender homicides in the U.S.. This doesn’t include murder-suicides or familicides. I live in South Carolina, a state that has consistently ranked in the top 10 deadliest states for men killing women. 

Gender-based violence is a worldwide problem. According to UN Women, over 50,000 women and girls were killed by their intimate partners in 2024 alone, adding up to 137 women and girls being murdered everyday by someone in their own family. This number doesn’t include women and girls who were murdered by other family members or strangers which means the number of femicides is actually much higher than that 50,000 figure. 

Shame & Blame

Going back to iLe’s song, she opens by asking “Why are you afraid of me, if I am the fruit of something that has no name, the mistake man never commits?” She is referring to sex and how it is taboo and stigmatized, which is ironic because we are all here because people have sex. We are all the fruit of sex. 

She also highlights that sex and pregnancy is never the man’s fault. Even though when it comes to conception, it literally takes two to tango; the woman is at fault for “allowing” it to happen. 

Whenever there is an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy, the woman bears the burden of the physical & societal consequences. Just think of the whole plot to “The Scarlet Letter” where Hester Prynne is literally cast out of her town for being pregnant and unmarried while the man who impregnated her gets to keep the secret of his sinful fatherhood. 

Even if or when the father “steps up” and is a part of the baby’s life, it’s seen as almost heroic instead of the literal bare minimum. Even the words we use like ‘step up’ means that they are elevating themselves somehow. We never say a pregnant woman stepped up and raised her child - it is just expected of her. And if she chooses to end the pregnancy she is called a murderer. It seems like no matter what women do, they will always be judged. 

Which brings me to another line of the song. “The world judges me with eyes closed and everything I do is a sin.” The world is quick to judge a woman and slow to judge a man often for the exact same behaviors. Women’s behaviors are villainized through religion and morality. While men and boys also face criticism, the fact that pregnancy is visible on women means that the person who can’t get pregnant - cisgendered men- can get away with promiscuity. 

Violence against women’s bodies

The song further explores the shame, blame, and violence placed on women when it says “and it is my fault for having been out alone.”

Not only are women judged and punished more harshly for normal behavior like engaging in consensual sex, but when there are violent, nonconsensual incidents, it’s also our fault for being alone. 

Sadly, we can’t guarantee our safety by never being out alone because nearly 90% of murdered women were killed by someone they knew. Telling women and girls not to go out alone is not going to save us when we’re more likely to be hurt in our own home.

Even if we were out on our own and a stranger did kill us, why is it our fault? It’s always ‘why were you out so late?’ and ‘you shouldn’t have had so much to drink.’ When will we start asking ‘why did you hurt her?’

Later, iLe alludes to the lack of autonomy which is taken from us through intimidation, control, and presence of sexual violence. “Your loot is in possession of my liberty and my body is the recipient of your desires.” Our freedom has been stolen from us and is held hostage. We are inactive recipients of your desires, forced to accept whatever is thrust upon us. 

She asks “Why do you fear me, if my story has now been left without life?” This is a clear and poetic reference to femicides, or the intentional murder of a woman or girl. 

She continues the question of why we are feared if it is , “your jealousy” that “stabs me in the back” and “your rage that shoots me in the head?” 

The line ‘you violently rip away all the air that I breathe and you leave my voice without sound” refers to strangulation. Metaphorically, her voice is taken away when she is attacked in such a way. Physical violence is used to punish us and remind us of our place. It’s a way to take away our voice.

It is also a literal way of taking away someone’s voice. Strangulation is an extremely violent attack that, when lethal, literally takes away someone’s voice forever. And when not lethal it can cause permanent damage to the vocal chords, trachea, and other parts of the throat. 

Strangulation and jealousy for that matter are indicators of a high risk of lethality. The lethality assessment has several questions for survivors of domestic violence to answer. The more of the questions they answer ‘yes’ to, the higher the chances that the person who harms them will kill them. 

What does the song have to do with real life?

Women are judged for having sex, for getting pregnant, for being harmed, but men -who also have sex - who get women pregnant, and who are by far the most likely to harm the women- are not as criticized. Similarly, women’s rights activists are judged for vandalism, graffiti, supporting abortion, the ways they protest, all while little attention is given to what they are protesting about. People seem angrier that historic buildings have paint on them than women and girls being raped and killed. The response is not “let’s stop violence against women.” It’s “esas no son maneras.” We’re often asked to reproach the use of vandalism at the marches. I think we need to stop answering that question when we’re asked it and start asking in return “do you condone rape and murder?” 

There are valid critiques of this movement - is the feminism intersectional? Does it include calls for racial equality? Are indigenous and Black women centered in these conversations? Does it call for economic justice? Does it include trans women? Does it call for an end to violence against trans, queer, and nonbinary bodies? The answer is barely. There are mentions of racial and queer justice but the movement is largely taken up by white, mestiza, straight, cis-gendered women. The rights of those marginally marginalized people are still important but the movement is weak and incomplete if it is not including and centering the voices of the most marginalized.

Gender-based violence is extremely underreported, so we have to question what statistics would tell us if everyone reported and if this movement weren’t so heteronormative. 

First, a lot of men do face abuse from women and from other men. I’ve heard so many people respond to this by saying ‘but women are abused more than men are,’ and while that is true, that is very dismissive to the men who are being abused. If a man discloses abuse, naming facts and figures about how they are in the minority of this situation is not helpful.

Secondly, while people in the LGBTQ+ community are just as likely -if not more - to experience IPV, they are often excluded from this conversation and movement. And when they are included, they are often an afterthought. Keeping the movement women-centered is a disservice to everyone from queer people and men facing abuse, to the stereotypical victim. Not just because we ignore survivors of IPV, but because we fail to address the root of the problem by only focusing on the people who are harmed.

In Conclusion

The song ends asking ‘Why are you afraid of me? What are you afraid of? 

In an interview, iLe tackles this question stating that misogyny is a manifestation of fear and weakness. iLe has openly aligned herself with feminism and in concert has urged that everyone should join the movement and not to be afraid. 

This song exposes the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of the reaction to the women’s movement. Why are we feared? Why is our movement feared? Is it because we don’t accept the violence placedd on us? Because we yell and cause a scene? What are we, women, afraid of? iLe edifies those who do not understand that women are afraid of violence every day. 


References

Ana Castellanos
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