A pioneering study of Latin American women that views contemporary perceptions and realities of women’s lives, women’s roles in modernization versus tradition, the conflicts of class struggles among women, and the future of women's participation in Cuban society.

A comprehensive state-of-the-art review of gender in one of the world's most diverse and dynamic regions. The authors draw on a wide range of sources, including their own field research, to explore changes and continuities in gender roles, relations and identities during the late twentieth century into the twenty-first. Debunking traditional universalizing stereotypes, diversity in gender is highlighted in relation to the cross-cutting influences of age, class, sexuality, ethnicity, rural-urban residence, and migrant status.

In the past thirty years, women's representation and gender equality has developed unevenly in Latin America. Some countries have experienced large increases in gender equality in political offices, whereas others have not, and even within countries, some political arenas have become more gender equal whereas others continue to exude intense gender inequality. These patterns are inconsistent with explanations of social and cultural improvements in gender equality leading to improved gender equality in political office. Gender and Representation in Latin America argues instead that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries and that these challenges matter for the number of women and men elected to office, what they do once there, how much power they gain access to, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society more broadly. The book draws upon the expertise of top scholars of women, gender, and political institutions in Latin America to analyze the institutional and contextual causes and consequences of women's representation in Latin America. It does this in part 1 with chapters that analyze gender and political representation regionwide in each of five different "arenas of representation"-the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. In part 2, it provides chapters that analyze gender and representation in each of seven different countries-Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. The authors bring novel insights and impressive new data to their analyses, helping to make this one of the most comprehensive books on gender and political representation in Latin America today.

A highly readable survey of women's experiences in Latin America from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries.

Integrates gender and sexuality into the main currents of historical interpretation concerning Latin America.