Too often in the history of Mexico, women have been portrayed as marginal figures rather than legitimate participants in social processes. As the twentieth century draws to a close, Mexican women of the countryside can be seen as true historical actors: mothers and heads of households, factory and field workers, community activists, artisans, and merchants. In this new book, thirteen contributions by historians, anthropologists, and sociologists—from Mexico as well as the United States—elucidate the roles of women and changing gender relations in Mexico as rural families negotiated the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. Drawing on Mexican community studies, gender studies, and rural studies, these essays overturn the stereotypes of Mexican peasant women by exploring the complexity of their lives and roles and examining how these have changed over time. The book emphasizes the active roles of women in the periods of civil war, 1854-76, and the commercialization of agriculture, 1880-1910. It highlights their vigorous responses to the violence of revolution, their increased mobility, and their interaction with state reforms in the period from 1910 to 1940. The final essays focus on changing gender relations in the countryside under the impact of rapid urbanization and industrialization since 1940. Because histories of Latin American women have heretofore neglected rural areas, this volume will serve as a touchstone for all who would better understand women's lives in a region of increasing international economic importance. Women of the Mexican Countryside demonstrates that, contrary to the peasant stereotype, these women have accepted complex roles to meet constantly changing situations. CONTENTS I—Women and Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Mexico 1. Exploring the Origins of Democratic Patriarchy in Mexico: Gender and Popular Resistance in the Puebla Highlands, 1850-1876, Florencia Mallon 2. "Cheaper Than Machines": Women and Agriculture in Porfirian Oaxaca (1880-1911), Francie R. Chassen-López 3. Gender, Work, and Coffee in C¢rdoba, Veracruz, 1850-1910, Heather Fowler-Salamini 4. Gender, Bridewealth, and Marriage: Social Reproduction of Peons on Henequen Haciendas in Yucatán (1870-1901), Piedad Peniche Rivero II—Rural Women and Revolution in Mexico 5. The Soldadera in the Mexican Revolution: War and Men's Illusions, Elizabeth Salas 6. Rural Women's Literacy and Education During the Mexican Revolution: Subverting a Patriarchal Event?, Mary Kay Vaughan 7. Doña Zeferina Barreto: Biographical Sketch of an Indian Woman from the State of Morelos, Judith Friedlander 8. Seasons, Seeds, and Souls: Mexican Women Gardening in the American Mesilla (1900-1940), Raquel Rubio Goldsmith III—Rural Women, Urbanization, and Gender Relations 9. Three Microhistories of Women's Work in Rural Mexico, Patricia Arias 10. Intergenerational and Gender Relations in the Transition from a Peasant Economy to a Diversified Economy, Soledad González Montes 11. From Metate to Despate: Rural Women's Salaried Labor and the Redefinition of Gendered Spaces and Roles, Gail Mummert 12. Changes in Rural Society and Domestic Labor in Atlixco, Puebla (1940-1990), Maria da Glória Marroni de Velázquez 13. Antagonisms of Gender and Class in Morelos, Mexico, JoAnn Martin

In the 1890s, Spanish entrepreneurs spearheaded the emergence of Córdoba, Veracruz, as Mexico’s largest commercial center for coffee preparation and export to the Atlantic community. Seasonal women workers quickly became the major part of the agroindustry’s labor force. As they grew in numbers and influence in the first half of the twentieth century, these women shaped the workplace culture and contested gender norms through labor union activism and strong leadership. Their fight for workers’ rights was supported by the revolutionary state and negotiated within its industrial-labor institutions until they were replaced by machines in the 1960s. Heather Fowler-Salamini’s Working Women, Entrepreneurs, and the Mexican Revolution analyzes the interrelationships between the region’s immigrant entrepreneurs, workforce, labor movement, gender relations, and culture on the one hand, and social revolution, modernization, and the Atlantic community on the other between the 1890s and the 1960s. Using extensive archival research and oral-history interviews, Fowler-Salamini illustrates the ways in which the immigrant and women’s work cultures transformed Córdoba’s regional coffee economy and in turn influenced the development of the nation’s coffee agro-export industry and its labor force.

"Examines the political and social influences behind the creation of the postrevolutionary Mexican welfare state in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s"--Provided by publisher.

Where does our food come from? Whose hands have planted, cultivated, picked, packed, processed, transported, scanned, sold, sliced, and cooked it? What production practices have transformed it from seed to fruit, from fresh to processed form? Who decides what is grown and how? What are the effects of those decisions on our health and the health of the planet? Tangled Routes tackles these fascinating questions and demystifies globalization by tracing the long journey of a corporate tomato from a Mexican field to a Canadian fast-food restaurant. Through an interdisciplinary lens, Deborah Barndt examines the dynamic relationships between production and consumption, work and technology, biodiversity and cultural diversity, and health and environment. A globalization-from-above perspective is reflected in the corporate agendas of a Mexican agribusiness, the U.S.-based McDonald's chain, and Canadian-based Loblaws supermarkets. The women workers on the front line of these businesses offer a humanized globalization-from-below perspective, while yet another "globalization" is revealed through examples of resistance and local alternatives. This revised and updated edition highlights developments since the turn of the millennium, in particular the deepening economic integration of the NAFTA countries as well as the growing questioning of NAFTA's consequences and the crafting of alternatives built on foundations of sustainability and justice.

Sex in Revolution challenges the prevailing narratives of the Mexican Revolution and postrevolutionary state formation by placing women at center stage. Bringing to bear decades of feminist scholarship and cultural approaches to Mexican history, the essays in this book demonstrate how women seized opportunities created by modernization efforts and revolutionary upheaval to challenge conventions of sexuality, work, family life, religious practices, and civil rights. Concentrating on episodes and phenomena that occurred between 1915 and 1950, the contributors deftly render experiences ranging from those of a transgendered Zapatista soldier to upright damas católicas and Mexico City’s chicas modernas pilloried by the press and male students. Women refashioned their lives by seeking relief from bad marriages through divorce courts and preparing for new employment opportunities through vocational education. Activists ranging from Catholics to Communists mobilized for political and social rights. Although forced to compromise in the face of fierce opposition, these women made an indelible imprint on postrevolutionary society. These essays illuminate emerging practices of femininity and masculinity, stressing the formation of subjectivity through civil-society mobilizations, spectatorship and entertainment, and locales such as workplaces, schools, churches, and homes. The volume’s epilogue examines how second-wave feminism catalyzed this revolutionary legacy, sparking widespread, more radically egalitarian rural women’s organizing in the wake of late-twentieth-century democratization campaigns. The conclusion considers the Mexican experience alongside those of other postrevolutionary societies, offering a critical comparative perspective. Contributors. Ann S. Blum, Kristina A. Boylan, Gabriela Cano, María Teresa Fernández Aceves, Heather Fowler-Salamini, Susan Gauss, Temma Kaplan, Carlos Monsiváis, Jocelyn Olcott, Anne Rubenstein, Patience Schell, Stephanie Smith, Lynn Stephen, Julia Tuñón, Mary Kay Vaughan

This book reinvigorates the debate on the Mexican Revolution, exploring what this pivotal event meant to women. The contributors offer a fresh look at women's participation in their homes and workplaces and through politics and community activism. Drawing on a variety of perspectives, the volume illuminates the ways women variously accepted, contested, used, and manipulated the revolutionary project. Recovering narratives that have been virtually written out of the historical record, this book brings us a rich and complex array of women's experiences in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era in Mexico.

This original collection abandons culinary nostalgia and the cataloguing of regional cuisines to examine the role of food and food marketing in constructing culture, consumer behavior, and national identity.