Decoding Gender: Law and Practice in Contemporary Mexico

Citation:

Baitenmann, Helga, Victoria Chenaut, and Ann Varley, eds. 2007. Decoding Gender: Law and Practice in Contemporary Mexico. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Authors: Helga Baitenmann, Victoria Chenaut, Ann Varley

Annotation:

Summary:
"Gender discrimination pervades nearly all legal institutions and practices in Latin America. The deeper question is how this shapes broader relations of power. By examining the relationship between law and gender as it manifests itself in the Mexican legal system, the thirteen essays in this volume show how law is produced by, but also perpetuates, unequal power relations. At the same time, however, authors show how law is often malleable and can provide spaces for negotiation and redress. The contributors (including political scientists, sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, and economists) explore these issues-not only in courts, police stations, and prisons, but also in rural organizations, indigenous communities, and families. By bringing new interdisciplinary perspectives to issues such as the quality of citizenship and the rule of law in present-day Mexico, this book raises important issues for research on the relationship between law and gender more widely." (Summary from JSTOR)
 

Table of Contents:

Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgements

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1: Law and Gender in Mexico: Defining the Field
Helga Baitenmann, Victoria Chenaut, and Ann Varley

Part II: Discourses on Law and Sexuality

Chapter 2: Love, Sex, and Gossip in Legal Cases from Namiquipa, Chihuahua
Ana M. Alonso

Chapter 3: Sins, Abnormality, and Rights: Gender and Sexuality in the Mexican Penal Codes
Yvonne Szasz

Chapter 4: Gender, The Realm Outside the Law: Transvestite Sex Work in Xalapa, Veracruz
Rosío Córdova Plaza

Part III: Gender at the Intersection of Law and Custom

Chapter 5: Women's Land Rights and Indigenous Autonomy in Chiapas: Interlegality and the Gendered Dynamics of National and Alternative Popular Legal Systems
Lynn Stephen

Chapter 6: Indigenous Women, Law, and Custom: Gender Ideologies in the Practice of Justice
María Teresa Sierra

Chapter 7: Indigenous Women and the Law: Prison as a Gendered Experience
Victoria Chenaut

Part IV: Legal Constructions of Marriage and the Family

Chapter 8: Domesticating the Law
Ann Varley

Chapter 9: Conflictive Marriage and Separation in a Rural Municipality in Central Mexico, 1970-2000
Soledad Gonzalez Montes

Chapter 10: The Archaeology of Gender in the New Agrarian Court Rulings
Helga Baitenmann

Part V: Legal Reform and the Politics of Gender

Chapter 11: The Politics of Abortion
Adriana Ortiz-Ortega

Chapter 12: Married Women's Property Rights in Mexico: A Comparative Latin American Perspective and Research Agenda
Carmen Diana Deere

Part VI: Afterword Thinking about Gender and Law in Mexico
Jane F. Collier

Bibliography
Notes on Contributors Index

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Indigenous, International Law, Justice, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights, Sexuality Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2007

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