Mexico

Citation:

Prieto-Carrón, Marina, Marilyn Thomson, and Mandy Macdonald. 2007. “No More Killings! Women Respond to Femicides in Central America.” Gender and Development 15 (1): 25–40.

Authors: Marina Prieto Carrón, Marilyn Thomson, Mandy Macdonald

Abstract:

This article looks at a specific form of social violence against women in Mexico and Central America, the violent murder of women - femicidio or feminicidio in Spanish, femicide in English. We explore the nature of femicide by analysing the situation from a gender perspective, as an extreme form of gender-based violence (GBV), and linking femicides with discrimination, poverty and a 'backlash' against women. In a climate of total state impunity, it is extremely important to support the responses of feminists and women's organisations in the region who are carrying out research to document femicides and GBV in general, supporting survivors and their families, and carrying out advocacy activities. 

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Impunity, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America, North America Countries: Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua

Year: 2007

Citation:

Speed, Shannon, Castillo Hernandez, Aída Rosalva and Lynn Stephen. 2006. Dissident Women: Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas. Austin, US: University of Texas Press.

Authors: Shannon Speed, Castillo Hernandez, Aída Rosalva , Lynn Stephen

Annotation:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface: Indigenous Organizing and the EZLN in the Context of Neoliberalism in Mexico Lynn M. Stephen and Shannon Speed and R. Aida Hernandez Castillo

 Acknowledgments

Section 1. Key Women's Documents 

1. Women's Revolutionary Law
2. Women's Rights in Our Traditions and Customs
3. Comandanta Esther: Speech before the Mexican Congress
4. International Day of the Rebel Woman
5. Introduction R. Aida Hernandez Castillo and Lynn M. Stephen and Shannon Speed 

Section 2 Indigenous Women's Organizing in Chiapas and Mexico: Historical Trajectories, Border Crossings

1. Chapter 1 Between Feminist Ethnocentricity and Ethnic Essentialism: The Zapatistas' Demands and the National Indigenous Women's Movement R. Aida Hernandez Castillo
2. Chapter 2 Indigenous Women and Zapatismo: New Horizons of Visibility Margara Millan Moncayo
3. Chapter 3 Gender and Stereotypes in the Social Movements of Chiapas Sonia Toledo Tello and Anna Maria Garza Caligaris
4. Chapter 4 Weaving in the Spaces: Indigenous Women's Organizing and the Politics of Scale in Mexico Maylei Blackwell

Section 3 Rights and Gender in Ethnographic Context

1. Chapter 5 Indigenous Women's Activism in Oaxaca and Chiapas Lynn M. Stephen
2. Chapter 6 Autonomy and a Handful of Herbs: Contesting Gender and Ethnic Identities through Healing Melissa M. Forbis
3. Chapter 7 Rights at the Intersection: Gender and Ethnicity in Neoliberal Mexico Shannon Speed
4. Chapter 8 "We Can No Longer Be Like Hens with Our Heads Bowed, We Must Raise Our Heads and Look Ahead": A Consideration of the Daily Life of Zapatista Women Violeta Zylberberg Panebianco

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militias, Tribe, Violence Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2006

Citation:

Radel, Claudia. 2012. “Gendered Livelihoods and the Politics of Socio-Environmental Identity: Women’s Participation in Conservation Projects in Calakmul, Mexico.” Gender, Place & Culture 19 (1): 61–82. 

Author: Claudia Radel

Abstract:

A livelihoods approach positions individuals, situated within households, as active agents within processes occurring at various scales. Environmental conservation efforts represent one such process with direct implications for local sustainable livelihoods and the gendered nature of livelihood strategies. In this article, I examine collective processes of socio-environmental identity construction as gendered sustainable livelihood strategies, articulated in and through the activities of women's agricultural organizations in communities bordering the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in rural southern Mexico. I present group histories and visual evidence from group activities – adapted from participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methodology – to highlight two important concepts. These are: (1) that gendered livelihood strategies are outcomes of negotiations within households and communities, in response to specific gendered opportunities and constraints; and (2) that gendered livelihood strategies consist of linked material and ideological aspects.

Keywords: livelihood strategies, conservation, identity politics, women's CBOs, mexico

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Economies, Environment, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Households, Livelihoods, Political Economies Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2012

Citation:

Author: Amy Dunckel Graglia

Abstract:

Feminists have long known that a woman’s confidence, sense of possibility, aspirations, and personal growth depend on their ability to be mobile. Yet gender-based violence and sexual harassment against women commuters greatly limit those freedoms. How then should cities adapt in order increase women’s equal access to mobility? To address this question, this article looks at the case of Mexico City, investigating how women pursue mobility despite hostile and violent conditions that immobilize them. Based on women’s testimonies, comments made on online debate forums, and surveys among women commuters in Mexico City, this article maps the ways women cope with violence and harassment on public transportation. The analysis also pays particular attention to how women’s coping strategies are restructured through state interventions, including women-only transportation. The data reveals that gender-based violence in Mexico City’s public transportation limits women’s mobility and reinforces gender inequality. It also shows, however, that under the right circumstances women-only transportation can be used as a place to create a rights-based movement. The article concludes that Mexico City is an example where women-only transportation has played a role in changing the traditional gender norms which have reinforced violence against women commuters.

Keywords: gender-based violence, public transportation, public policy, coping strategies, gender inequality, women-only transportation

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Infrastructure, Transportation Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2016

Citation:

Eastin, Joshua and Aseem Prakash. 2013. “Economic Development and Gender Equality: Is There a Gender Kuznets Curve?” World Politics 65 (1): 156-86.

Authors: Joshua Eastin, Aseem Prakash

Topics: Civil Society, Class, Democracy / Democratization, Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Education, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Men, Girls, Boys, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, Globalization, Households, Livelihoods, Political Economies, Rights, Human Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, MENA, Americas, Central America, Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe Countries: India, Mexico, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka

Year: 2013

Citation:

Fuentes, Annette, and Barbara Ehrenreich. 1983. Women in the Global Factory. Brooklyn, New York: South End Press.

Authors: Annette Fuentes, Barbara Ehrenreich

Abstract:

In free trade zones all over the world, women make up 80 to 90 percent of the workforce. Women in the Global Factory explores the lives of these women-from California's Silicon Valley to Mexico's maquiladoras (border factories) to New York's garment sweatshops.

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Livelihoods Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico, United States of America

Year: 1983

Citation:

Wright, Melissa W. 2001. “Feminine Villains, Masculine Heroes, and the Reproduction of Ciudad Juarez.” Social Text 19 (4): 93–113.

Author: Melissa W. Wright

Annotation:

From Introduction: In this essay, I attempt to demonstrate how this development plan for “the next Silicon Valley of Mexico” necessarily requires the reproduction of the current city, marked by poverty, inadequate infrastructure, and unskilled, low-waged laborers who work in labor-intensive industries. This contradiction becomes clear upon close inspection of the proposal’s internal design, which is revealed through the narratives used to describe and justify it. These explanations reveal that the Silicon Valley of Mexico proposal does not call for the replacement of the unskilled laborers who live in squatter settlements and attend overcrowded schools. Rather, ORION’s plan for the Silicon Valley of Mexico promises to join high-tech, design-oriented operations with the labor-intensive manufacturing facilities that still mainly rely upon low-waged workers who live in poorly serviced areas of the city. These are the very workers that ORION’s team needs in order to convince potential investors that the proposal for developing the next Silicon Valley of Mexico is a viable plan.

Topics: Development, Economies, Poverty, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Infrastructure, Livelihoods, Political Economies Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2001

Citation:

Sanchez, Teresa Figueroa. 2015. “Gendered Sharecropping: Waged and Unwaged Mexican Immigrant Labor in the California Strawberry Fields.” Signs 40 (4): 917–38. 

Author: Teresa Figueroa Sanchez

Abstract:

Mexican immigrants play an important role in the development of the strawberry sharecropping industry in California. Although scholars have studied the political economy of strawberry sharecropping, I examine Mexican immigrant male and female sharecroppers who restructured their households to employ mostly women and underage pickers during the strawberry harvest. Based on ethnographic research and my autoethnography, I argue that sharecroppers developed a complex social system to pay wages, distribute domingos (pocket money), collect stipends, and manage savings—not without some tension along gender lines—within immigrant households. Using a feminist political economy perspective, this article sheds new light on the economic and social reproduction of the immigrant household and the appropriation of women’s undervalued labor in advanced capitalist economies.

Topics: Economies, Gender, Gender Roles, Femininity/ies, Households, Political Economies Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico, United States of America

Year: 2015

Citation:

Brumley, Krista M. 2010. “Gender, Class, and Work: The Complex Impacts of Globalization.” Edited by M. T. Segal. Interactions and Intersections of Gendered Bodies at Work, at Home, And At Play 14: 95–119.

Author: Krista Brumley

Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the literature on work, gender, and globalization using an intersectional approach.

Methodology – The data for this chapter are derived from two years of qualitative fieldwork at a Mexican multinational corporation. I conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 86 employees at all levels of the organizational hierarchy as well as content analysis of the company magazine.

Findings – My findings suggest that globalization leads to similar benefits for women and men, with respect to autonomy and decision making in the workplace, but are framed distinctly depending on class. Globalization is gendered in that it offers an additional benefit of economic independence to women. Women at different levels of occupational prestige, however, experience the globalizing process in diverse ways. I conclude by suggesting that globalization results in a tension within the company in how to incorporate female workers in a more meaningful manner.

Originality/value of chapter – Research on globalization in the developing world primarily examines factory workers or women in certain occupations, such as domestic workers. This study focuses on an overlooked group of workers that includes female and male white-collar workers. It offers a comparative analysis of the gendered and class-based effects of globalization on workers of different ranks within the same company. Most globalization studies on Mexico center on the Maquila industry, whereas this study examines workers in a Mexican-owned international company.

Topics: Class, Economies, Gender, Globalization, International Organizations, Multi-National Corporations Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2010

Citation:

Taylor, Guadalupe. 2010. “The Abject Bodies of the Maquiladora Female Workers on a Globalized Border.” Race, Gender & Class 17 (3/4): 349–63.

Author: Guadalupe Taylor

Abstract:

 The topic of the body has been analyzed from a variety of perspectives. Although biology does not define women, it cannot be denied that women's bodies play a major role in determining their lives. This paper will question the universalism of materialist feminist theories to explain the violence against the bodies of female maquiladora workers. First, I will present Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler's conceptualizations of the female body. Second, I will analyze if the Socialist feminist theory is broad enough to encompass the bodies of maquiladora workers in its analysis. Finally, I will advocate the need for conceiving a transcultural-transnational feminist approach that includes class, gender, culture, state, globalization, free-trade agreements, and phenotype of women who work in the maquiladora industry. It seems necessary to formulate an approach that considers a broad scope of issues that affect maquiladora workers who form part of the proletariat on the border between the United States and México. Since the Mexican government exempt of taxes to US companies that opened factories on the border, NAFTA has turned Mexico in an excellent source of profits for transnational companies based on the exploitation of Mexican workers, mainly female workers. The patriarchal state and capitalism have reinserted women in a space where they have lost citizenship and where their bodies have become abject objects for the benefit of globalized industrial production. I suggest that a transcultural-transnational feminist approach is needed to explain and to foster an agenda for improving the plight of the maquiladora workers. This approach is suitable for this population because it includes class, gender, culture, State, capitalism, free trade agreements, and the phenotypes of all women.

Keywords: abject, maquiladora workers, borders, body, ethnicity, social class, patriarchy, gender, race, oppression, capitalism, feminism, materialism, Marxism, feminist theory, indigenous, praxis, disapora, transcultural, transnational, western, mexico, mexican

Topics: Citizenship, Class, Economies, Feminisms, Gender, Femininity/ies, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Globalization, Indigenous, Livelihoods, Multi-National Corporations, Political Economies, Violence Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2010