Description
Book SynopsisExamines the mutually influential interactions of gender and the state in Latin America from the late colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. This book locates watershed moments in the processes of gender construction by the organised power of the ruling classes and in the processes by which gender has conditioned state-making.
Trade Review“This collection promises to be a thought-provoking and well-used source for the continuing debates in this field. A great asset for researchers and students alike.”—Sarah Radcliffe, University of Cambridge
“This splendid volume is unique for its analytical savvy regarding the gendered history of power, authority, and cooptation in Latin America. Each chapter provides a provocative and detailed rendering of patriarchal societies and women’s agency from spaces as varied as households and legislatures. This book will be of wide interest to specialists on the region and, far more broadly, it will spur reinvigorated theoretical debate on the tortuous relationship historically between gender and the state.”—Matthew C. Gutmann, author of
The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico CityTable of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xv
I. State and Gender in Latin America
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Gender and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century / Elizabeth Dore 3
Twentieth-Century State Formations in Latin America / Maxine Molyneux 33
II. Case Studies
Civilizing Domestic Life in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, 1750–1850 / Eugenia Rodríguez S. 85
Slave Women's Strategies for Freedom and the Late Spanish Colonial State / María Eugenia Chaves 108
Rape and the Anxious Republic: Revolutionary Colombia, 1810–1830 / Rebecca Earle 127
Property, Households, and the Public Regulation of Domestic Life: Diriomo, Nicaragua, 1840–1900 / Elizabeth Dore 147
Parents Before the Tribunals: The Legal Construction of Patriarchy in Argentina / Donna J. Guy 172
Modernizing Patriarchy: State Policies, Rural Households, and Women in Mexico, 1930–1940 / Mary Kay Vaughan 194
Commemorating the Heroínas: Gender and Civic Ritual in Early-Twentieth-Century Bolivia / Laura Gotkowitz 215
Women and the Home in Mexican Family Law / Ann Varley 238
Domesticating Men: State Building and Class Compromise in Popular-Front Chile / Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt 262
State, Gender, and Institutional Change: The Federación de Mujeres Cubanas / Maxine Molyneux 291
Gender and the State in Argentina: The Case of the Sindicato de Amas de Casa / Jo Fisher 322
Getting Gender on the Policy Agenda: A Study of a Brazilian Feminist Lobby Group / Fiona Macaulay 346
Contributors 369
Index 371
