Rereading Women in Latin America and the Caribbean

This indispensable text reader provides a broad-ranging and thoughtfully organized feminist introduction to the ongoing controversies of development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Designed for use in a variety of college courses, the volume collects an influential group of essays first published inLatin American Perspectives. Each part is organized into thematic sections that focus on work, politics, and culture, and each includes substantive introductions that identify key issues in the scholarly literature on women and gender in the region. Demonstrating the rich, multidisciplinary nature of Latin American studies, these essays promote critical thinking about women's place and power, about theory and research strategies, and about contemporary economic, political, and social conditions. They convincingly show why women have become an increasingly important subject of research, acknowledge their gains and struggles over time, and explore the contributions that feminist theory has made toward the recognition of gender as a relevant—indeed essential—category for analyzing the political economy of development.

This indispensable text reader provides a broad-ranging and thoughtfully organized feminist introduction to the ongoing controversies of development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Designed for use in a variety of college courses, the volume collects an influential group of essays first published inLatin American Perspectives—a theoretical and scholarly journal focused on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. The reader is organized into thematic sections that focus on work, politics, and culture, and each section includes substantive introductions that identify key issues, trends, and debates in the scholarly literature on women and gender in the region.

Demonstrating the rich and multidisciplinary nature of Latin American studies, this collection of timely, empirical studies promotes critical thinking about women's place and power; about theory and research strategies; and about contemporary economic, political, and social conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean. Valuable as both a supplementary or primary textRereading Women makes a convincing claim for a materialist feminist analysis. It convincingly shows why women have become an increasingly important subject of research, acknowledges their gains and struggles over time, and explores the contributions that feminist theory has made toward the recognition of gender as a relevant—indeed essential—category for analyzing the political economy of development.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Theory, Themes and the Realities of Gender in Latin America
Part 2 Women, Work, and Development
Chapter 3 Introduction to Part I: Selections from "Women, Development, and Anthropological Facts and Fictions," by Eleanor Leacock ; Selections from "Approaches to Understanding the Position of Women in the Informal Sector," by Tamar Diana Wilson
Chapter 4 Economic Restructuring and Gender Subordination
Chapter 5 The Urban Family and Poverty in Latin America
Chapter 6 The Myth of Being 'Like a Daughter'
Chapter 7 Women in Mexico's Popular Movements: Survival Strategies against Ecological and Economic Impoverishment
Chapter 8 Caribbean Transnationalism As a Gendered Process
Part 9 Politics, Policies, and the State
Chapter 10 Introduction to Part II: Selection from "Mobilizing Women: Revolution in the Revolution," by Norma Stoltz Chinchilla; Selection from "Gender Equality in the Salvadoran Transition," by Ilja A. Luciak
Chapter 11 Chilean Women's Organizations and Their Potential for Change
Chapter 12El Comité de Amas de Casa de Siglo XX: An Organizational Experience of Bolivian Women
Chapter 13 The Mother of the Nicaraguans: Doña Violeta and the UNO's Gender Agenda
Chapter 14 Constructing and Negotiating Gender in Women's Police Stations in Brazil
Chapter 15 Reading Between the Lines: Women, the State, and Rectification in Cuba
Chapter 16 Seeking Our Own Food: Indigenous Women's Power and Autonomy in San Pedro, Chenalhó, Chiapas (1980-1998)
Part 17 Culture, History, and Feminisms
Chapter 18 Introduction to Part III: Selections from "Women, Class, and Education in Mexico, 1880-1928," by Mary K. Vaughan; Selections from "Reclaiming Voices: Notice On a New Female Practice in Journalism," by Margaret Randall
Chapter 19 Story Without Words: Women and the Creation of a Mestizo People in Guayaquil, 1820-1835
Chapter 20 Brazilian Women in Exile: The Quest for an Identity
Chapter 21 Remembering the Dead: Latin American Women's "Testimonial" Discourse
Chapter 22 Roger Sanchez's 'Humor Erotico' and the Semana Cronica: A Sexual Revolution in Sandinista Nicaragua?
Chapter 23 Evita: The Globalization of a National Myth
Chapter 24 Annotated Index of Articles on Women and Gender inLatin American Perspectives