Latino countries have never been known as bastions of equality for women, but things are changing for the better in Latino America, just not as often as we hear on the news. Mexico, being such a large country, seems to always be receiving bad press about their record in this area.
Its no wonder, with all of the bad news we have been seeing coming out of Mexico. 431 women have died in Ciudad Juarez in Northern Mexico over the last 12 years in what appears to be sexually motivated murders (Prensa Latina). Many of the women in this same part of Northern Mexico work in Maquiladoras. Maquiladoras are factories owned by multinational companies who use Mexico's cheap labor to increase profits on items sold in the U.S. and other countries.
Many of the Maquiladoras like to hire young women, citing that they have nimble fingers that are suited this type of work and are good workers. The truth in reality has a lot more to do with the idea that some managers believe that these young women are easier to control and are not as likely to organize as a male workforce.
There are many other examples of inequality in Mexico, but I want to talk about something positive. I met a woman that exemplified some of the positive changes in Mexico on my last trip. Her name was María. She is a dentist in Ciudad Victoria.
We were all stuffed in a van on the way back to our hotel in Tampico after a grueling day of working in the free dental clinic in a village on the Gulf of Mexico. The van was bouncing and dodging rocks and the occasional cow, then came to a complete stop because of a valiant skunk in the middle of the road that threatened to spray the van if we moved any closer.
I started talking to María about my research paper that investigated the conditions in Maquiladoras. She seemed interested, and then she explained how there were positive changes going on in Mexico in the lives of women. She owned her own dental practice, managed it, and had a good business. Amazingly, her husband stayed at home and took care of the house. There is evidence that this is becoming more common, especially in areas where a lot of women work in the maquiladoras.
What struck me about this conversation was how María was another example of how preconceived notions about gender and even our prejudices about different countries keep us from seeing the whole truth. Mexico is not inhabited entirely by those outdated caricatures of macho men with big mustaches and dark-eyed, fiery, yet demure women. Mexico is changing like the rest of the world, many times for the better. It just may be hard to see it from the picture the media paints.
Finding who you are and how you fit in society can be such a struggle, no matter what country you live in, but it's not without hope. There are still people who define themselves by more timeless truths, instead of letting their society define them.
-John
To learn more about maquiladoras, visit:http://www.cfomaquiladoras.org
Here's an interesting paper on machismo also:
http://www.fgvsp.br/iberoamerican/Papers/0456_Machismo6-2003.pdf
