The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers: From Household and Factory to the Union Hall and Ballot Box

by Daniel James (Editor)

Overview

The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers examines the lives of Latin American women who entered factory labor in increasing numbers in the early part of the twentieth century. Emphasizing the integration of traditional labor history topics with historical accounts of gender, female subjectivity, and community, this volume focuses on the experience of working women at mid-century, especially those laboring in the urban industrial sector. In its exploration of working women’s agency and consciousness, this collection offers rich detail regarding women’s lives as daughters, housewives, mothers, factory workers, trade union leaders, and political activists.
Widely seen as a hostile sexualized space, the modern factory was considered a threat, not only to the virtue of working women, but also to the survival of the family, and thus, the future of the nation. Yet working-class women continued to labor outside the home and remained highly visible in the expanding world of modern industry. In nine essays dealing with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala, the contributors make extensive use of oral histories to describe the contradictory experiences of women whose work defied gender prescriptions but was deemed necessary by working-class families in a world of need and scarcity. The volume includes discussion of previously neglected topics such as single motherhood, women’s struggle against domestic violence, and the role of women as both desiring and desired subjects.

Contributors. Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Mary Lynn Pedersen Cluff, John D. French, Daniel James, Thomas Miller Klubock, Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Mirta Zaida Lobato, Heidi Tinsman, Theresa R. Veccia, Barbara Weinstein

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822319962
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	12/04/1997
Series:	Comparative and International Working-Class History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.08(w) x 9.18(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

John D. French is Associate Professor of History at Duke University.

Daniel James is Bernardo Mendel Professor of Latin American History at Indiana University.

Editorial Reviews

"Now, at last, a collection that goes beyond simplistic notions of Marianism to show how factory work shaped Latin American women’s attitudes and how the women themselves negotiated for their dignity. Oral histories combined with more traditional sources give a fresh look at how gender operated in the workplace and in the home. No mere gap filler, this book represents a whole new line of inquiry."—Temma Kaplan, State University of New York, Stony Brook


"This work portrays the richly textured world of twentieth-century working women. They recall their memories of labor in male-dominated factories where they challenged pervading paternalistic attitudes. Their moving and intimate narratives are aptly contextualized by a group of historians deeply committed to creating a gendered view of a field previously dominated by men’s views and memories. A splendid collection."—Asunción Lavrin, Arizona State University

From the Publisher

The articles in this collection strive to go beyond commonplace studies of 'women workers and women's work' in a far-reaching attempt 'to explore the articulation of gender and class in the lives of working-class subjects, both male and female.'

World Views

This fine collection of...fresh and innovative efforts of new scholars....should be required reading for anybody with an interest in the history of labor and gender relations in Latin America....[T]he essays in this collection are well crafted, provocative, and fun to read. This book will stimulate interest and debate among both specialists and students.

Luso-Brazilian Review

These articles are representative of exciting, innovative, and suggestive new work.

Hispanic American Historical Review

The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers is an illuminating collection, the diversity of which reflects the multiple gendered spaces inhabited by women factory workers and the multiple identities negotiated by them in their daily lives. It represents an important step towards the development of a fully gendered labour history which recognizes that the issues of class and gender are 'inside one another,' neither one more important or prior to the other.

Journal of Latin American Studies

This book represents a major contribution, even a milestone of sorts, for the new Latin American labor history that the editors have promoted and practiced, and it is certain to be widely read....The book's power resides in its ability to weave into a coherent whole the diverse experiences of women from a part of the world characterized by great social, political, racial, and ethnic diversity and to persuade us of the inextricable dynamic of gender and class....Few volumes so powerfully convey the complexities of working-class life and so convincingly expose the poverty of deterministic theories of working identity.

American Historical Review

[T]hese essays are a major step toward producing fully gendered accounts of working women and men, that is, of the whole working class itself....Traditional research methodologies and sources...are effectively complemented by wide-ranging use of oral history and testimonies that rescue the hidden voices of those doubly silenced by class and gender.

Choice