The Many Realities
Shapiro, Helen
" En perseguirme mundo que interesas? 'En que te ofendo, cuando solo intento poner bellezas en mi entendimiento y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas? Teniendo por mejor en mis uerdades. consumir...
...agencies, in cooperation with local governments, is dismal...
...La Revuelta (October 1977...
...Women also are compelled to migrate because their labor tasks, more than men's, have been replaced by mechanization...
...Yet it has also become evident that an increase in the number of employed women has the potential to push issues to the fore: at home the "double day" becomes a point of contention...
...illegitimacy and other children (in that order...
...7 (October 1977...
...33 NACLA Report 27...
...16 The conditions under which abortions are performed are far from safe...
...My boyfriend) hadn't even finished high school...
...Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women," in Reiter, Toward an Anthropology, p. 164...
...Besides, don't you also sell 'quesadillas' (maize pancakes) on the corner at night...
...Women of the upper classes have more resources at their disposal to approach the problems of work and home...
...At 4:30, when lunch ended, I had to begin cooking supper...
...4 Until the last century, this even included a denial of education...
...Despite these differences, a clear pattern emerges of women of all classes leaving the work force upon marriage or childbearing for the reasons given...
...Listen, the point is that what you do is work...
...This is one of the recent newspapers and magazines to come out of the women's movement in Mexico City directed to a mass audience...
...Legalizing Biological Determinism "On August 11, Edward Souza Rocha, a 34-year-old Belo Horizonte (Brazil) landscape architect, killed his 30-year-old wife while she was dressing one afternoon...
...Was it difficult to get the job at the factory...
...IV, no...
...Complaining that his wife smoked, drove about the city without a chaperone, was not around to welcome him when he returned from work and watched television shows that displayed people 'kissing passionately,' Rocha said he murdered his wife in an 'unthinking moment' when she said she wanted to leave him for another man...
...Extreme forms of superior, aggressive and authoritarian behavior by men are not only tolerated but admired...
...June Nash and Helen I. Safa, eds., Sex and Class in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1976...
...For women of the upper classes, being "destined to serve as our support whilst we (men) travel through the sad desert of life" translated for centuries into a life of seclusion in the home, the only exception being Church-sponsored activities...
...In Argentina, the estimate is one in four...
...Specific expressions of sexism can vary enormously according to the social milieu - a society in which women's feet are bound is a far cry from that which has unequal representation on the Central Committee...
...Many women who do use contraceptives hide the evidence, which often leads to problems if discovered...
...Multinational industries such as electronics and apparel, in which the production process has been broken down into discrete operations, have transferred the most labor-intensive, low-skill procedures to the third world in order to take advantage of cheaper labor costs...
...Ibid...
...Also, as we have seen, a woman's recourse to social prestige is often only through her family...
...VIII, no...
...tariff regulations, and attractive investment incentives offered by the host countries, which may include tax breaks, investment credits, and even the guarantee of non-unionized labor...
...Statistics from the International Labor Organization, Statistical Information on Women's Participation in Economic Activity (Geneva: ILO...
...Sexual abuse can be part of the job as well, since adolescents in the family are sometimes sexually initiated with the domestic 27 Young migrant women predominate...
...Also see: Nadia Haggag Youssef, "Women and Work in Developing Societies," Population Monograph Series, No...
...And Depo-Provera, an injectible contraceptive known to cause myriad harmful side effects, including cancer, can be bought over the counter in Central America and parts of the Caribbean...
...But all women suffer from ignorance, lack of options and hypocritical social standards and sanctions...
...Surveys done in the Mexican border industries found that pregnancy tests are often required with job applications...
...In Latin America, excluding the Caribbean, about one in five women participate in the labor force...
...In many respects, Sister Juana's cry is as profound today as it was 300 years ago...
...They have been just what the name implies- programs to control populations...
...The poor, who are unable to pay for safe abortions or get the consent of two doctors, are particularly affected...
...Marianne Schmink, "Dependent Development and the Division of Labor by Sex: Venezuela," Latin A merican Perspectives, Vol...
...It is not surprising that 54% of all maternal deaths are attributed to abortion complications...
...1 (Winter 1978), p. 106...
...Most clinics stress reliability before safety and tend to leave as little responsibility as possible to the woman involved...
...Mujeres migrantes y economfa campesina: Anlisis de una cohorte migratoria a la Ciudad de Mkxico, 1940-1970," Amdrica Indigena (Mexico), Vol...
...156-160...
...4 This flies in the face of the premise that women will automatically be incorporated into the industrial sector as development proceeds...
...Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter and Emily Honig, Women at Farah: An Unfinished Story (Reforma, 1979...
...La mujer en A mdrica Latina, 2 vols...
...4SeptlOct 1980 After divorce, the double standard continues to be invoked...
...CIM, "Status of Women...
...And finally, for those women who do desire to control their fertility, they are often prevented by men who gain personal prestige from the number of offspring they have fathered...
...Women and Class Struggle," Latin American Perspectives, Vol...
...Currently in Mexico, for example, the government is strongly advocating family planning...
...It is the young, single women who predominate in the paid work force...
...9 (1970 figures...
...1-2 (Winter and Spring 1977), p. 168...
...For many, religious or moral beliefs are challenged as well...
...For more on the "global assembly line," see "Capital's Flight: The Apparel Industry Moves South," NACLA's Latin America & Empire Report (March 1977...
...Well, if it was only the cooking, then I only had to clean the kitchen and the dining room...
...Supposedly they hired me as a cook, right...
...Breakfast had to be ready at seven...
...The Church has also shown its strength by organizing sizeable counter-demonstrations to pro-abortion rallies on short notice...
...I also do the laundry for a lady because truly what Ruben gives me is not enough...
...and Boserup, Woman's Role...
...Despite this psychological warfare, women in Latin America continue to seek abortions in massive numbers...
...Brazil is a case in point...
...in persecuting me what do you pursue...
...IV, no...
...Our children can hardly breathe since the air is so polluted...
...3 9 For women who are able to keep their jobs after childbirth, nursing becomes the next issue where legislation doesn't assist reality...
...Nor were they given employment in heavy industry, which was reserved for men...
...Most domestics themselves are unaware of their legal rights, and when they are, their own perception of job insecurity and isolation as workers undermines their ability to protest...
...For many in the region, the major battle is for day-to-day survival...
...CIM, "Status of Women," Table No...
...While they may not have the same responsibilities as their married sisters, they run the risk of being labeled "macha" if they are too assertive, thereby jeopardizing their marriageability...
...Period...
...Men, on the other hand, seasonally migrate to other rural areas in search of work...
...Lourdes Arizpe, Indigenas en la Ciudad de Mixico: El Caso de las Marias'(Mexico: Sep-Setenta, 1975...
...Instead, in countries where cottage industries gave way to more modern shops, women were not absorbed into them at a fast enough rate to offset their declining presence in the old...
...2 (1978...
...Government," Mother ones (November 1979...
...The rest are dedicated to miscellaneous activities which include the sorting of coupons, production of asbestos yam and assemblage of plastic sprays and ornamental products...
...6 Regardless of a woman's class, her life is circumscribed by virtue of being female...
...It is this fundamental division of sexual roles which can be generalized to Latin America...
...Usually, working outside the home is not financially mandatory...
...All the cleaning, the washing, and without an increase in salary...
...Sure, I looked in many places...
...Dangerous contraceptives continue to find their way south of the border...
...While we will be focusing on women in the nonagricultural sector, the overall distribution of women in the economy provides a necessary context in which to place the discussion...
...8. Ibid., pp...
...I think abortion is a sin...
...41...
...This is further underscored in the clinics, where women are commonly asked if they are married and if their husbands approve...
...But I say, 'Maybe God understands and forgives.' I am very religious...
...And who would mind the house...
...Ibid., p. 28...
...His father would have killed him if he had found out and my father would have done the same...
...United Nations in a particular country--the numbers may reflect totally distinct types of work, and a very different socialization process as well, since cottage industry is isolating and factory work is centralized outside the home...
...52...
...In most countries a woman who has lived with one man for 20 years is legally no different than a single woman, so that she and her children are deprived of even the limited protection afforded her married sisters...
...When a married woman introduces herself as such, she promptly receives a 'no' combined with a 'there is nothing right now, we will call you,' etc...
...In all other countries, the basis for divorce differs for men and women...
...3 5 So, we still find women concentrated in "women's work" that has been transferred to the commodity sphere...
...37 The social attitude toward married women or women with children working outside the home has not changed much despite the increased number of employed women...
...Generally, nursing mothers are entitled to two halfhour breaks per day, in some countries with pay.O For many, the distance between home and work makes this impossible to begin with...
...AID still uses its channels to dump high estrogen-content birth control pills for drug companies that have found their U.S...
...Although their numbers are still small, the social impact of these working women in Latin American urban areas is potentially significant...
...Frequently, the husband's activities must be associated with concubinage, public scandal or desertion, whereas for women, adultery is adultery no matter the circumstances...
...While their participation has not begun to approach the 32% in the United States, the relative change is no less remarkable...
...nobody but she can look after her children.') Her response was: 'She is not here...
...How do I offend you when 1 only sMue to add beauty to my understanding, not my under- standing to beauty...
...Dalcon Shields were distributed by AID to third world countries through agencies like Planned Parenthood, despite knowledge of their dangers, until they were banned in the United States in 1974...
...6. New Haven Advocate, September 3, 1980...
...Divorce is illegal in Brazil and Colombia, and allowed only under exceptional circumstances in Argentina...
...For Latin America as a whole, 30% to 50% of all maternal deaths result from improperly performed abortions...
...She didn't want me to work because, according to her, 'a woman's place is in the home...
...In Mexico, abortion is allowed if the pregnancy was caused by rape or if two doctors agree that it is needed to save the life of the mother.-In general, penalties fall more heavily on women with "bad reputations" or on those who have aborted "legitimate" pregnancies, i.e., married women...
...Honduras is the only exception to this rule...
...39...
...Rather, it provided industrial societies with "a long tradition in which women do not inherit, in which women do not lead, and in which women do not talk to God...
...for Colombia, see the documents published by the Colectivo de Mujeres (Medellin, Colombia...
...IX (1978...
...3 Protected everywhere from dismissal for reasons of pregnancy, women are either denied employment altogether, or simply fired with a lame excuse upon becoming pregnant...
...Cited in Colectivo de Mujeres, Que vida defienden (Medellin, Colombia: Colectivo de Mujeres...
...Furthermore, since domestic service provides such a major outlet for the massive numbers of women seeking employment, the government is unwilling to threaten the job category by enforcing such laws, fearing possible social unrest...
...Ibid., p. 156...
...While such statutes are seldom invoked, they are a formal indication of the power relations in the family...
...CIM, "Status of Women...
...Also, they can afford to hire domestic help...
...Finally I managed to take a test in a bank thanks to the help of a friend who worked there...
...Most women gave economic reasons for aborting, but others mentioned abandonment or unfaithful husbands...
...4 (Fall 1977...
...for Argentina, see Nora Scott Kinzer, "Sociocultural Factors Mitigating Role Conflict of Buenos Aires Professional Women," in Pescatello, Female and Male...
...Among the special inducements are articles which would allow the entry on a temporary basis of machinery and components, the possibility of owning or leasing Mexican land through trusts engaged with Mexican banks, the total control of investment by foreign firms, and, since 1972, the extension of these stipulations to all of Mexico...
...But while the nature of this work does not change-- adding other laundry to their own or cooking a bit extra to sell-such work is occasionally included as economic activity...
...They make me laugh...
...Experience in the United States has taught that sex roles cannot simply disappear with the easing of women's economic dependency and seclusion in the home...
...In another case, a wealthy contractor was absolved after he killed his wife, Jo, when she attempted to leave him for another man...
...187-88...
...What's more, if nursing and primary teaching, both poorly paid, were eliminated from the sample, the number of female professionals would be almost nil...
...Women are not shown having the power to make their own decisions, even in conjunction with their sexual partners...
...The extremely powerful Catholic Church has played a consistent historic role in reinforcing the strength of this ideology by teaching that women's Godgiven role is to be the mainstay of the family-an ever-nurturing mother and an obedient wife...
...For more on this "informal" labor market, see ElizabethJelin, "Migration and Labor Force Participation of Latin American Women: The Domestic Servants in the Cities," in Wellesley Editorial Committee, ed., Women and National Development: The Complexities of Change (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1977...
...The tasks which are reserved for women in the wage labor market are often analogous to the responsibilities assigned to women in the home: women continue to reproduce labor power in their jobs as educators, nurses and service workers, while their function in clerical situations is to maintain the mundane daily needs of industry and finance offices...
...1970...
...As a consequence, even some progressive laws designed to protect women workers ultimately have discriminatory effects, particularly againstNACLA Report those who are married or of child-bearing age...
...The Global Assembly Line and the Social Manipulation of Women on the Job," Southeast Asia Chronicle (1979), p. 66...
...There are more than 100 maquiladoras, or "maquilas," in Ciudad Juarez alone...
...And for the few who do manage to divorce, the legal obligations of the husband to alimony and child support are loosely enforced...
...But no real provision for enforcement against infractions exists...
...Daycare is scarce and often expensive, and when available is often limited to pre-schoolers...
...Latin America has the highest percentage of household employees in the world, and they are almost exclusively women...
...For information on abortion not specifically cited, see, for Mexico, Grupo Parlamentario Comunista, Coalici6n de Izquierda, Maternidad Voluntaria: Proyecto de Ley (Mexico, December 29, 1979) and Frente Nacional por la Liberaci6n y los Derechos de la Mujer, El aborto en Mixico...
...Mayra Buvinic and Nadia H. Youssef, with Barbara Von Elm, Women-Headed Households: The Ignored Factor in Development Planning (Report submitted to AID/WID, International Center for Research on Women, Washington, D.C...
...Finally, there are many long-term relations in Latin America not "sanctified" by legal marriage...
...The especially virulent brand of sexism - machismo- that is so deeply embedded in Latin cultures further rigidifies gender stereotypes for both men and women...
...And then when I left, they searched all my belongings because they assumed I was stealing from them...
...Arizpe, "Women in the Informal Labor Sector...
...Mexico: Sep-Setenta, 1975...
...I can't even begin to think about working...
...And with that expansion came a continuous drop in women's rate of participation relative to men's...
...4 Their participation rate may approach 50% due to their absolute need to find work and possibly their inclination to define themselves as working more than the married woman who sees her husband as the breadwinner...
...She is married...
...That distinction is beginning to be made in some countries, most notably in Mexico where a united front of Left political parties and women's groups have proposed legislation which would not only provide free and safe birth control, but would legalize abortion (see p. 25...
...It is a gringo trick to depopulate our beloved country, in favor of the Salvadoreans...
...The effect of this has been to severely constrain the lives of women as compared to men...
...The Industrial Sector Only 20.2% of women in the labor force are employed in the industrial sector, as opposed to 52.2% for men...
...As we begin to examine women's place in the service sector, we quickly see that they are unevenly distributed across the occupational spectrum...
...Other organizations which publish statistics on women and labor market participation include the United Nations, the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), and CIM...
...husbands who denied paternity, were drunks or aggressive...
...Do you have children...
...Two out of every three migrant women wind up as servants, and studies in some countries have shown that the majority are minors...
...In Colombia, 65% didn't know of or didn't use contraception, and almost 80% had had a previous abortion...
...2 Women not only migrate to cities of their home countries, but also cross borders by the thousands...
...Sor Juana, late 1600s' The Many Realities Latin America: extreme concentrations of wealth-stark class divisions--political and economic repression affecting the majority of both men and women...
...At that time, the sector was essentially textile manufacture, largely household based...
...1 4 Legally, governments throughout Latin 6Sept/Oct 1980 E 3 a The sonda, a rubber instrument used in many illegal abortions in Latin America...
...It is evident that the women's movements in the advanced capitalist countries reflect particular conditions, so that any attempt to automatically generalize those experiences to the lives of Latin American women would in fact deny the uniqueness of their own situation...
...In those countries that permit it at all, divorce is typically costly and thus available only to the rich, while the poor usually resort to separation...
...in New American Movement, Working Papers on Socialism and Feminism (3rd Edition, revised), p. 5. 3. For an anthropological discussion of women's oppression and its causes, see Rayna R. Reiter, ed., Toward an Anthropology of Women (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975) and Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974...
...But since the factories are concentrated in particular localities, they have had a massive impact on the community in question...
...Martin's Press, 1970), pp...
...Mobility out of domestic service is rare...
...According to a Rio de Janeiro lawyer, the macho mentality in Brazil allows a man everything but punishes a woman who does not agree to total submission to her husband...
...Women do need special arrangements for maternity, and parents need special facilities in order to fulfill childcare responsibilities...
...Rather, women are simply encouraged to fulfill their primary function of populating their countries and are denied the freedom to choose...
...Ibid., pp...
...These industries provide the most blatant illustration of the ways in which gender socialization is exploited by capitalist enterprise...
...What would I do...
...Although the Mexican clinics are bound by law to dispense birth control in any case, the idea of male approval is maintained in women's consciousness...
...As industrialization proceeded, the sector expanded to include other types of production...
...4 3 Even outright economic independence, while certainly a necessary element to women's equality, is by no means sufficient to eradicate a sexual oppression with such historical weight and which is not only a product of economic dependence from the outset...
...15 (1974), University of California at Berkeley...
...More than half manufacture or assemble electric and electronic products, while approximately 30% produce apparel...
...La Revuelta (Mexico), No...
...But once I started working there, they told me that I also had to wash clothes and clean the house...
...But listen, so what do you do all day long...
...This does not deny that the legacy of populaClinic worker describes use of IUD to community...
...3 When women do step out of their principal role in reproduction to enter the work force, their secondary and unequal status is only reinforced as they become a source of cheap and expendable labor...
...In contrast to the more developed countries, where women often go back to work when their children are grown, the rates in Latin America continue to fall after that point in a woman's life...
...The service sector, which includes everything from street vending to secretarial work, has a much greater elasticity for labor absorption and has become the main receptacle for those who can't find other work...
...When women's domestic tasks - those related to food, clothing and personal services--became commercialized in factories, it was women who were drawn into the labor force to feed and run the machinery at the lowest possible wages...
...The maquiladora work force is 75% female" In the overall pattern of female employment in Mexico, this new industrial proletariat, which numbers only in the thousands, is small...
...The following illustrative study of the social impact of maquiladoras on women workers was conducted by Patricia Fernandez Kelly, a social anthropologist...
...The legal structures in most Latin American countries strictly buttress the status quo of women's role, leaving them very few mechanisms of control over their own lives...
...For example, adultery is grounds for divorce in most countries that permit divorce, but nowhere is the hypocritical double standard of morality more flagrantly applied...
...various articles in Peter Baird and Ed McCaughan, Beyond the Border (Berkeley: NACLA, 1979...
...the articles previously cited in Latin American Perspectives, and the "Draft Report" from a conference on "The Continuing Subordination of Women in the Development Process," held in Sussex, England, 1978...
...This is a vastly oversimplified explanation of a complex phenomenon...
...The noted exception to this pattern is the participation rates of women with dependents, be they ever-single women, widows or divorcees...
...910 Focus on Domestic Workers "I used to go to bed early because I had to get up early...
...Howard T. Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966) as cited in June E. Hahner, ed., Women in Latin American History (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1976), p. 39...
...For a fuller discussion of women's migration, seeJelin, "Migration and Labor Force Participation...
...7. Inter-American Commission of Women, Special Committee for Studies and Recommendations of the Inter-American Commission of Women for the World Conference of the International Women's Year (hereafter cited as CIM), "Status of Women: The United Nations and Mexico," Cahfornia Western International Law Journal, Vol...
...o Furthermore, the general predominance of SNACLA Report poor health conditions makes the introduction of birth control methods more complicated and dangerous...
...The middle class does not have to rely on laundries, for example, if they can easily afford a domestic servant to do their laundry by hand...
...Also, "Changing Role of Southeast Asian Women...
...This inequality is not a natural outgrowth of women's biological functions, but rather stems from the social transformation of those functions, particularly maternity, into gender stereotypes...
...This discounts women's domestic activities and economic contributions to the family...
...Not surprisingly, given the bias toward the natural mother's care, and the minority of women who work, the pressure for daycare has not been very strong...
...Men, of course, have no such restrictions.s Few institutional supports exist for divorced women...
...Ester Boserup, Woman's Role in Economic Development (New York: St...
...Some attribute this lack of enforcement to a government which, on the one hand, accedes to the political power of the Church by leaving the legislation intact, but on the other hand concedes to reality...
...They are distributed as follows: 17.4% in agriculture, 20.2% in industry and 59.5% in services...
...These in turn form the ideological basis for very specific and divergent definitions of what men and women can and should be...
...This socialization, combined with a lack of working experience, means that women are less likely to organize or make demands...
...Wellesley, Women and National Development...
...The percentage of women in the labor force of each sector vis-a-vis men is 8.6% in agriculture, 20.6% in industry and 41.6% in services...
...The Right usually relies on a pro-natalist position, including smatterings of moralism such as the opinion that the pill leads to sexual promiscuity for women and therefore the disintegration of the family...
...Pay is abysmally low, since room and board are considered ample compensation...
...The day's work practically ended at 10 o'clock, maybe later, because I had to cook the next day's meal also...
...It's not so with the men...
...In many countries, a husband may challenge his wife's right to work in court, on the grounds that household responsibilities are being ignored...
...They always asked me: 'Are you married...
...A Peruvian woman, interviewed at the age of 28, had worked as a domestic since the age of 11 and had never received a salary in her life...
...Paper laws are ineffective in dealing with the situation in which the supply of new workers is so great, leaving employers free to ignore the laws or interpret them as they see fit...
...78 Domestic work is even harder when communities lack essential services--Brazilian woman strains up hill to her shack balancing three gallons of water on her head...
...In Mexico, for example, it has flagrantly propagandized and terrorized its constituents by lining its churches with photographs of dead fetuses...
...For the majority of poor, working women, a totally reclusive life was never feasible, but they too were restricted by the dominant attitude of "a woman's place...
...Factories in Latin America never absorbed the high percentages of women as did those of Europe and the United States...
...2 But whatever the specifics may be, they reflect a more profound social arrangement of institutionalized sexual inequality which can be generalized across national and cultural boundaries...
...2 0 Women, then, have been incorporated into the non-agricultural labor force at an unprecedented rate...
...Abortion "The legislators, like rabid dogs, fight over legislation on abortion...
...The Service Sector Dependent capitalism has fostered a development process in which neither men nor women are absorbed into the industrial sector in adequate numbers, particularly in heavy industry, which has become increasingly capital-intensive...
...They are loyal to the company...
...Women and Migration in Latin America," ISIS: International Bulletin, No...
...In post-feudal societies, gender stereotypes have been institutionalized into a sexual division of labor in which men are primarily responsible for public activity and production (work outside the home) and women are relegated to the private sphere of reproduction (the home and family)-- a responsibility that is denigrated in fact as much as it is revered in rhetoric...
...in Colombia, it is 280,000 - a figure indicating that one in five pregnancies is terminated by abortion...
...For other historical and overview material on women in Latin America, see the following: Ann Pescatello, ed., Female and Male in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973...
...Paper prepared for 78th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Cincinnati, 1979), "Mexican Border Industrialization, Female Labor Force Participation and Migration," Revised version of a paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (San Francisco, 1978), and "Francisca Lucero: A profile of Female Factory Work in Ciudad Juarez," (manuscript, 1979...
...at work the employer's ability to exploit the worker/ woman dichotomy in the forms of lower wages and discriminatory employment practices is attacked...
...In Chile, only annulment can break the marital bond...
...Such women rarely move to factory work and almost never to clerical jobs...
...What then illuminates the Latin American experience is the particular ways in which the sexual division of labor is expressed, and the larger social context in the various countries which help to reinforce or begin to break down the traditional role patterns...
...In Colombia, a woman can get from one to four years in prison...
...And how does one make statistical allowance for the woman who, rather than admit the truth, asserts that yes, hers is a male- headed household, by whom she means her 12-year- old son?4 12SeptIOct 1980 economic contribution to the family automatically brings her equal status within it or in society at large...
...For example, maternity benefits generally provide for six weeks pre- and post-delivery with pay, with employers usually responsible for at least part of the maternity costs involved...
...In agricultural societies, women's economic contribution may have been more visibly necessary, but it certainly was no guarantee of equality...
...Particularly when discussing Latin America, we must be conscious of this distinction between employment and work...
...Colombian children die of hunger in the streets every day...
...In testimonies of women who have aborted, remorse or guilt is common: "Imagine, at 16 years old, what was I supposed to do with a baby...
...The lack of other employment opportunities in the area makes women - especially single heads of households- more vulnerable to loss of job security...
...The vast majority surveyed-86% in Mexico, 97% in Colombia-were self-declared Catholics...
...Young women are sent by their farm-based families or go on their own, motivated by their perception of greater employment possibilities in the cities- a perception true at least relative to their male counterparts...
...Most importantly, however, one half of the women in the service sector, or one of every three women doing non-agricultural work, are employed in domestic service...
...The most common forms of prescribed birth control are the pill and IUDs...
...IV, no...
...market reduced...
...For example, work is usually equated with paid employment, or with producing a good that enters the marketplace...
...Statistically, most women are not counted as "economically active," i.e., income earners, yet their work in the home provides necessary means for economic survival--indirectly or directly supplementing the inadequate incomes of male heads of households...
...Ibid., 1962 figures...
...See L.Y.C...
...What kind of life are they defending...
...You mean to tell me that you don't use your energy and that you don't get tired...
...J. Ladman, Economic Impact of the Mexican Border Industrialization Program: Agua Prieta, Sonora, (Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1972...
...And despite the supposed veneration of women's spirit, wife abuse and rape are common...
...Population and Imperialism: Women in Revolution," Latin American Perspectives, Vol...
...Attending meetings is difficult due to their domestic work, and their husbands' frequent opposition...
...and Patricia Fernandez Kelly, "Women in Mexican Border Industries: The Search for Cheap Labor...
...The expansion of the maquilas can be traced to the Mexican government's Border Industrialization Program, a package of special inducements initiated in 1965...
...Youssef, "Women and Work," p. 34...
...Chaney, "Agripina...
...Lim, "Women Workers in Multinational Corporations: The Case of the Electronics Industry in Malaysia and Singapore," Michigan Occasional Paper No...
...Their clinics have gained a sordid reputation for testing and marketing unsafe contraceptives and forcing sterilization on poor women who have no other option beside these public facilities...
...7 Divorce is rare in Latin America...
...Birth Control A woman's right to control her own fertility is perhaps the most important element in her life...
...Hence, the proliferation of market women, personal servants and the like.'S The last 50 years have witnessed tremendous changes in Latin America...
...And the wages they earn are likely to be too low to compensate for either alternative childcare arrangements or for the goods no longer produced at home...
...Also, despite the terrible working conditions, these jobs are generally the best paying available, so competition is keen and waiting lists for positions are long...
...5. NACLA interview with community women at Lagunilla in Cuernavaca, Mexico, January 1980...
...Women in one Mexican community who worked in a factory before having children expressed to an interviewer a longing for the social interaction of the workplace, but, typically, their husbands' intransigence prevents them from returning...
...Focus on the Maquilas The exception to women's marginal role in industrial production is the recent phenomenon of the "global assembly line...
...In most of Latin America, sexuality is not discussed at home or at school, and many women are ignorant of their bodies...
...4 7 A combination of other elements adds to women's passivity...
...The population has become considerably more urbanized, partly reflecting shrinking economic opportunities in the countryside...
...In addition to the mortality rates are the thousands of women who suffer from infection or permanent damage...
...Or do you think that minding the house is not work...
...SeptlOct 1980 3NACLA Report Stereotyping Women Latin American Style Since the days of Spanish colonization, Latin American society has venerated women as spiritually strong, self-denying and long-suffering - the repositories of morality...
...The proliferation of export-based manufacturing has been bolstered by changes in U.S...
...For most women as well, their notion of upward mobility is lateral and one-directional- not up a nonexistent occupational ladder, but out of the stultifying job and into the home, with its image of power and dignity...
...Once more, they want to use our bodies, to decide about them...
...in my conviction beholding it far superior to dispel the vanity in life than to dispel life in vanities...
...This staggering reality has led many leftists to dismiss the fight against the specific oppression of women as unimportant or even divisive...
...It is viewed as a negative reflection on a man's ability to fulfill his role as provider...
...In Colombia, it is rare for any woman, single or married, to abort her first pregnancy...
...Until 1975 in Mexico, it was the wife's legal obligation to take care of the home...
...Women's reproduction has been used as a political football by all persuasions in Latin America...
...The professions would, at first glance, appear the most promising...
...Esther Andradi and Ana Maria Portugal, eds., Ser mujer en Peri (Lima: Ediciones Mujer y Autonomla), p. 173...
...Single women are caught in a different double-bind...
...As a Salvadorean woman replied to the question of how many children she wanted, "I've never thought of that because that is as God wishes...
...Indirectly, it may entail producing essential goods such as clothing, instead of buying them...
...Many travel from Ecuador, Colombia and Panama to Venezuela, for example, to suffer the added burden of being undocumented upon arrival...
...television commercials show men talking about how "we" are trying to control births...
...Young servants may not even be paid anything in the beginning since employers consider that a training period...
...As a doctor in Honduras exclaimed, "I can assure you that 50% of the country people don't know (the birth control clinic) exists and are unaware of any means to control fertility...
...But in both cases, societal morality intervenes in discriminatory fashion...
...Women also turn their productive domestic activities into direct money-making enterprises...
...Their bodies are essentially manipulated for political ends...
...Colombian law states that when an abortion has been induced to save one's honor or the honor of a member of the family, the sentence can be reduced or pardon granted...
...3 Abortion is illegal throughout Latin America, and the Catholic Church represents a powerful impediment to all attempts at changing the situation...
...1 There is a particular irony in this sliding moral scale, since it implies a greater "right to life" for some than for others...
...Ibid., p. 165...
...Both fall back easily on nationalistic rhetoric: "Honduras needs more Hondurans...
...But there is no reason to assume that women's *Census data don't disaggregate heads of households by sex...
...Thus other, safer forms of contraception, particularly the diaphragm, are often impossible to find...
...America have the power to inflict strict penalties on both abortionists and those who abort...
...These programs have also ignored the social context in which they operate...
...While havens for multinational investment exist in countries like the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and others, the most extreme example of this type of production is on the MexicanAmerican border, where hundreds of foreign firms- "maquiladoras''- are now in operation...
...Finally, and very importantly, women are a more flexible work force...
...In Brazil, for example, only 12.8% of employed women work in the industrial sector, while in Ecuador, with a less developed industrial base, 34% are employed.3 Ecuador's figure reflects the continuing existence of cottage industries- primitive manufacturing done in the home...
...And you...
...references--------THE MANY REALITIES 1. Lourdes Arizpe, "Opening Remarks," Primer Simposio Mexicano-Centroamericano de Investigaci6n sobre la Mujer (Mexico City, El Colegio de Mexico and UNAM), 1977, p. 7. 2. Barbara Ehrenreich, "What is Socialist Feminism...
...2 9 And of course many women, primarily from Mexico, wind up as maids in the United States...
...It is easier to get their confidence...
...Well, I take care of the house, the children...
...The Left has often equated all birth control programs with imperialist control and abuse...
...But if the laws are not strictly enforced, or if employers are allowed to refuse employment to the affected parties, they only serve to keep women out of the labor force...
...I work in a factory...
...In this case then, a man has the right to impose an abortion on a woman, even against her will, in order to save his good name and that of the family...
...After a long process, I received a call at my mother's house, for I had written her number on the application...
...But the number of women this represents is very low, since professionals represent a very small category within the service sector...
...Unlike in the United States, there has been no strong push as yet for legislation to oppose discriminatory hiring practices on the basis of sex...
...Support Structures for the Stereotype "It's a well known fact that it's easier for a woman to find a job if she is single...
...Well, no work...
...Well, it is true that I have to make the time to prepare the quesadillas...
...While it is difficult to estimate the numbers of women in this position due to social and therefore statistical biases toward the nuclear family,* studies estimate that 20% of Latin American households are headed by women...
...Furthermore, the non-equation of "union" with "marriage" results in listing women in non- married unions as ever-single...
...in Mexico, from one to five...
...Instead, upon marriage and/or having children, the option of working as a live-in maid often becomes closed and "the only opportunity for a servantmother whose patrona refuses to keep her is to take to the streets either to sell some kind of commodity, to sell herself, or to beg...
...Marriage and Divorce In Chile, Ecuador and El Salvador, the husband owes protection and the wife obedience...
...Furthermore, all services from gas delivery to garbage pick-up function under the assumption that some woman is home during the day, be it the patrona or domestic...
...Despite the web of laws in Mexico, prosecution for abortion is rare...
...I bet that you get up earlier than everyone else in the house and are the last one to go to bed...
...There were two children who attended school...
...The legal supports for these accepted role patterns are powerful...
...p. 112...
...I had to get a job at the factory because what Josg gave me, whenever he could get a job, was not enough either...
...The serious under-representation of the work women do is often abetted by women themselves who, as indicated in the anecdote above, may not define these tasks as "real" work, and define themselves as non-working housewives...
...Thus, the personal servant has stayed within the financial reach of even the modest, lower middle class family...
...Heleieth lara Bongiovani Saffioti, "Female Labor and Capitalism in the United States and Brazil," in Pescatello, Female and Male...
...Patricia lived with maquila workers in Ciudad Juarez for six months, carrying out extensive interviews...
...Thus, for example, women of the poorer classes, who want to attend a community meeting on health services, water problems, etc., must often first ask permission from their husbands...
...Ruby Rohrlich-Beavitt, ed., Women Cross-Culturally: Change and Challenge (The Hague and Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1975...
...Moreover, it is the only area in the world where women's rate of rural to urban migration surpasses that of men.' 9 Most cities register higher percentages of women residents, while the reverse is true of the countryside...
...But the fact that women's lives are at stake is not really at issue...
...As you know, it is becoming harder and harder to get a job...
...the whole thing is so absurd, like everything else that happens in this country...
...There is no doubt that working experience provides many women with invaluable exposure to new ideas, and a new awareness of their own situation...
...Divorced or widowed women must wait at least 270 days before remarrying...
...When would I do it...
...Most importantly, the mere availability of birth control does not address the larger questions of family and children: given the high rate of infant mortality and the need for many hands to contribute to the meager income of poor families, for instance, there is an obvious logic to their high birth rates...
...The resultant passivity and inaction by society allows thousands of women to suffer and die from this carnage...
...Most are untrained for and unable to get work, thereby strengthening their economic dependence on men...
...For further material on women and development, see Boserup, Woman's Role...
...Maquilas are assembly plants which are either directly-owned subsidiaries or sub-contracting firms of U.S.-based transnational corporations...
...While exact figures are obviously unattainable, the yearly estimate in Mexico is 800,000...
...In Colombia, 54% were done by abortionists, 15% by nurses, 3% by midwives, 2% by druggists, 4% by doctors, 8% by the women themselves and 13% by other means...
...I wasn't there, so my mother took the message...
...1 and 2 (Winter and Spring 1977...
...World...
...Studies in Colombia and Mexico indicate that most women who seek abortion are married and mothers of three or more children...
...And at best, the two half hours can hardly be juggled to comply with a newborn's feeding pattern...
...Electronics: The Global Industry," NACLA's LA '& ER (April 1977...
...4. Fanny Calder6n de la Barca, Life in Mexico, ed...
...And the definition of "women's work" follows them outside the home as well...
...At 5:30 in the morning...
...In Chile, for example, while 50% of the professionals are women, four-fifths were in one of these two occupations...
...The term "working" father, in contrast, is clearly a redundancy...
...The chief advancement comes from moving to a richer family or perhaps becoming a cook with better pay...
...There is no clearer illustration of the tenacity of this than the example of the Mexican border, where women not only comprise the bulk of the industrial work force, but where men are often unemployed or underemployed...
...72-3...
...38, no...
...2 5 For a live-in domestic servant, the work day never ends...
...However, it is not "female" dexterity that is at issue, but rather the docility and submissiveness into which women have been conditioned...
...The mythology that women are most suitable for the repetitive, detailed tasks of sewing, or the minute assembly of semi-conductors, is widely espoused...
...14 (March 1980...
...45-46...
...As a result of this, as well as social pressures described below, the type of work they engage in is usually either within reach of the home or is such that it allows them to fulfill both tasks simultaneously...
...Andradi and Portugal, Ser Mujer en Perii, pp...
...31...
...Latin America has dramatically higher rates of female participation in the professions relative to other third world countries--it is estimated that half are women...
...They simply become "working" women, wives or mothers...
...She is at her house...
...Evelyn P. Stevens, "Marianismo: The Other Face of Machismo in Latin America," in Pescatello, Female and Male...
...In order to qualify for alimony, for example, a woman must be able to demonstrate "good conduct...
...I also do everything at home...
...Her lack of control over this most personal of decisions reflects the bondage of women to their primary social role as reproducers...
...In short, the tension between what a woman is supposed to do and the myriad of tasks she in fact performs becomes more acute...
...At the turn of the century, "industrial" workers were almost exclusively women- 92% (though only 4% of the female work force...
...Cited in Elsa Chaney, "Agripina: Domestic Service and its Implications for Development," paper presented at Primer Simposio Mexicano-Centroamericano de Investigaci6n sobre la Mujer (Mexico), November 7-10, 1977, pp...
...Jelin, "Migration and Labor Force Participation," p. 34...
...Another factor that skews the definition of woman's work is that the types of work available to her are not only determined by employment conditions and her skills, but by her sex and re-SeptIOct 1980 sponsibilities at home...
...If, in response to market fluctuations (prevalent in these industries), massive layoffs are called for, the social disruption from firing women will be less than if they were men...
...As one personnel manager explained, not only are they cheaper, but "Girls are educated to obey at home...
...27, 35...
...If women decided to kill all husbands who were unfaithful,' commented a Rio de Janeiro sociologist, 'it would probably mean the end of the species...
...And for those who are employed, better education grants them more opportunities and access to appropriate "female" jobs such as clerical and certain professional positions...
...1 7 Women's work is difficult to define, particularly within the traditional (male-defined) framework...
...Women's Work" and the Work Force "I have never worked...
...Their rationale has been that surging population growth in Latin America is the main impediment to development and the alleviation of poverty...
...They make me laugh...
...The bank was calling to tell me that I'd been given the job...
...3 The continuous supply of young women to do domestic work for a pittance, combined with the relatively few numbers of working wives, has also delayed the commercialization of many personal services...
...CIM, "Status of Women...
...Legislation exists in most countries to regulate the employment of domestic servants, including stipulations about minimum wages, social security, sick days and vacations...
...the Church still does not recognize divorce and thereby perpetuates its social stigma...
...Honduran women--Don't ruin your health participating in the Birth Control Program...
...2 Yet unlike the figures for white collar employment, which generally reflect the same occupations throughout Latin America, the definition of "industrial employment" is less uniform...
...Lourdes Arizpe, "Women in the Informal Labor Sector: The Case of Mexico City," in Wellesley, Women and National Development, and Marianne Schmink, "Women, Men and the Brazilian Model of Development," paper presented at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, April 5-7, 1979...
...Viana Muller, Report on the Assembly Plants on the Mexican Border (Tijuana and Nogales) (Mexico: El Colegio de M6xico, December 1975), p. 38...
...For women, machismo means accepting their inferior lot with self-effacing patience, compensated for by moral superiority...
...The methods by which birth control is dispensed not only ignore critical social factors, but do not encourage the women to take control over their lives...
...Being unable to prevent, schedule or terminate pregnancy means that she is captive to the cycles of procreation...
...Mayone Stycos, Margin of Life: Population and Poverty in the Americas (New York: Grossman, 1974), p. 155...
...E tion control programs, generally instituted by international or U.S...
...To avoid these problems and since my economic situation was critical, I introduced myself as a single woman...
...Most had very little education and thus even less access to information on contraceptives and sexuality...
...Women are often unprepared to use such forms, or are in relationships with men who will not tolerate them...
...Barbara Ehrenreich, Mark Dowle, Stephan Minken, "The Charge: Gynocide, The Accused: The U.S...
...I was able to go to work because the children can take care of themselves even though they are still little...
...2 Given this, and the unique conditions of work which set it apart from other employment, domestic service merits special attention...
...They regard as particularly irrelevant the way the issue has been espoused in the United States and Europe, an attitude exacerbated by a more general distrust of any new form of ideological and cultural imposition from abroad...
...Well, I have...
...They are usually not even independent in making decisions about what is supposedly their own sphere - the home...
...It becomes clear then that laws put on the books by men, whose perspective is to protect women's role as mothers rather than their rights as workers, only serves to reinforce their position as "special workers" and thus open them to additional discrimination...
...Poor women are particularly limited in their employment options outside the home...
...consumir uanidades en la uida que consumir la vida en uanidades...
...9. Cornell Capa andJ...
...Women's subordination in the home also serves to limit their participation at the workplace, in unions or in other outside activities which have the potential to challenge traditional roles...
...6 Her story is just one example of the ambiguity of being "just like the family" and exploited as a worker at the same time...
...Furthermore, the notion that women's income is "secondary," even when it is patently not true, makes it easier to pay women less than men...
...While it is true that many past programs have been deleterious, it is crucial to distinguish between programs that are used for control and those which provide free choice...
...The same difficulty extends to the comparison of statistics over time11 Women workers at shrimp plant in El Salvador pick out rejects...
...The notion of separate and unequal spheres is so embedded that women's primary social and self definition does not change even when they work outside the home...
Vol. 14 • September 1980 • No. 5
