The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers

by French, John D.; James, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780822320005
• ISBN10: 0822320002
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers examines the lives of Latin American women who entered factory labour in increasing numbers in the early part of the twentieth century. Emphasising the integration of traditional labour history topics with historical accounts of gender, female subjectivity, and community, this interdisciplinary volume explores working women's agency and consciousness and offers rich detail regarding women's lives as daughters, housewives, mothers, factory workers, trade union leaders, and political activists. Widely seen as a hostile sexualised 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 labour 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 discussions of previously neglected topics such as single motherhood and women's struggle against domestic violence. Theoretically informed and original in scope, The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers should be of interest to students and scholars working in women's history as well as Latin American labour, political, and social history. 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

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Squaring the Circle: Women's Factory Labor, Gender Ideology, and Necessity	1	(30)
JOHN D. FRENCH
DANIEL JAMES
"Tales Told Out on the Borderlands": Dona Maria's Story, Oral History, and Issues of Gender	31	(22)
DANIEL JAMES
Women Workers in the "Cathedrals of Corned Beef": Structure and Subjectivity in the Argentine Meatpacking Industry	53	(19)
MIRTA ZAIDA LOBATO
Unskilled Worker, Skilled Housewife: Constructing the Working-Class Woman in Sao Paulo, Brazil
BARBARA WEINSTEIN
"My Duty as a Woman": Gender Ideology, Work, and Working-Class Women's Lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1900-1950	100	(47)
THERESA R. VECCIA
Talking, Fighting, Flirting: Workers' Sociability in Medellin Textile Mills, 1935-1950	147	(29)
ANN FARNSWORTH-ALVEAR
Women and Working-Class Mobilization in Postwar Sao Paulo, 1945-1948	176	(32)
JOHN D. FRENCH
MARY LYNN PEDERSEN CLUFF
The Loneliness of Working-Class Feminism: Women in the "Male World" of Labor Unions, Guatemala City, 1970s	208	(24)
DEBORAH LEVENSON-ESTRADA
Morality and Good Habits: The Construction of Gender and Class in the Chilean Copper Mines, 1904-1951	232	(32)
THOMAS MILLER KLUBOCK
Household Patrones: Wife-Beating and Sexual Control in Rural Chile, 1964-1988	264	(33)
HEIDI TINSMAN
Oral History, Identity Formation, and Working-Class Mobilization	297	(18)
JOHN D. FRENCH
DANIEL JAMES
Contributors	315	(2)
Index	317