La fem ir shell

The Left

False feminism and the soft left have conspired to disguise patriarchy, but it both exists in and defines our society

Klubock 1, Thomas Miller, “Writing the History of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Chile”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 81:3-4, August-November 2001, pp. 493-518 (Article)

The feminist histories that use Foucault are careful not to mystify the operation of discourse or the epistemic power/knowledge systems. Instead, they combine Foucauldian approaches to the technologies and techniques of power with an understanding of the central role of gender ideologies in build- ing social relations. For example, while drawing on Foucault to analyze the disciplinary activities of the experts, specialists, and technocrats who peopled the social welfare agencies and institutions built during the popular front gov- ernments, Rosemblatt also employs Gramscian theories of politics and femi- nist understandings of the role of gender in history to build a sophisticated analysis of state power. Rather than decentered and multiple locations of power, Rosemblatt describes a hegemonic state built on political alliances

between middle-class professionals, social reformers, feminists, unions, and leftist parties. She shows that the alliances that defined the nationalist- populist project of the 1938–52period were sustained by the shared commit- ment of leftist party leaderships, social reformers, and moderate feminists to upholding a sexual division of labor and gender ideology that granted male laborers in industries and mines the status and prerogatives of citizenship, while excluding “nonproductive” women workers, rural workers and peasants, and the indigent from full membership in the national community and the working class. The popular fronts, with the support of labor and the Left, built their political hegemony on the foundation of a gendered political ideology that defined the rights and benefits of national citizenship in terms of the male worker and head of household and the female housewife. The state imple- mented a family wage system supported by labor and the Left, in which wages paid male workers and benefits for children and wives would guarantee the exclusion of women from the labor market and provide incentives for both men and women to marry.27 In her article for this issue, Rosemblatt demon- strates that Left-labor participation in the establishment and administration of social welfare institutions benefited male blue- and white-collar workers, who were defined as productive, while women workers and housewives, as well as male and female rural workers and peasants, were defined as nonproductive. Women were thus relegated to a subordinate and dependent position in working- class households and a secondary role as citizens of the modernizing nation.

Mexican State

Mexican state ensures patriarchy

Frias Martinez (presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy) 8, Sonia, The University of Texas at Austin, http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/3878/friasmartinezs72092.pdf?sequence=2

Adopting a feminist post-structuralist approach to the analysis of the State’s role, the research reveals inconsistencies between the discourses and practices of the Mexican State regarding partner violence. By analyzing administrative family violence legislation, I determine whether the Mexican State has in fact made substantively meaningful attempts to challenge patriarchy and to end violence against women in the family realm. The family violence legislation has two often inherently contradictory purposes. On the one hand the objective is to protect the family as a core social institution. The second, which is often in conflict with the first objective, is to protect women from abuse by their partners. This dissertation demonstrates that these conflicting objectives and the embededness of patriarchy throughout the social help explain why certain branches of the Mexican State tend to strengthen patriarchy and reify women’s subordinate position in the family. The way in which the State interprets and implements family violence legislation reveals the inability and/or unwillingness of the State to protect women’s rights and highlights the patriarchal assumptions pervading the State’s actions.

Migration

Migration is fundamentally patriarchal and reiterates oppressive, gendered conditions

Hondagneu-Sotelo (Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California) 92, Pierrette, “Overcoming Patriarchal Constraints: The Reconstruction of Gender Relations among Mexican Immigrant Women and Men”, Gender and Society, Vol. 6, No. 3, This Issue Is Devoted to: Race, Class, and Gender (Sep., 1992), pp. 393-415

Patriarchy is a fluid and shifting set of social relations in which men oppress women, in which different men exercise varying degrees of power and con- trol, and in which women resist in diverse ways (Collins 1990; hooks 1984; Kandiyoti 1988; Baca Zinn et al. 1986). Given these variations, patriarchy is perhaps best understood contextually. This article examines family stage mi- gration from Mexico to the United States, whereby husbands precede the migra- tion of their wives and children, and it highlights how patriarchal gender rela- tions organize migration and how the migration process reconstructs patriarchy. In family stage migration, patriarchal gender relations are embedded in normative practices and expectations that allow men and deny women the authority and the resources necessary to migrate independently. Men are expected to serve as good financial providers for their families, which they attempt to do through labor migration; patriarchal authority allows them to act autonomously in planning and carrying out migration. Married women must accept their husbands' migration decisions, remain chaste, and stay behind to care for the children and the daily operation of the domestic sphere. These normative patterns of behavior, however, are renegotiated when the departure of one family member, the husband, prompts rearrangements in conjugal social power and the gender division of labor in the household. The process of family stage migration diminishes patriarchy, but it does not do so uniformly. In this case study, the time period of male migration and settlement distinguishes between two groups. Men who departed prior to 1965 were more likely to live initially in predominantly male communities, to endure a longer period of time in the United States without their wives and families, and eventually to obtain legal status, unlike a later cohort of undocu- mented immigrant men;' this differentially modified the obstacles their wives would face in migration. Women and men do not enter the migration process equally, but given the diverse historical and social contexts m which migra- tion occurs, women in the same culture and in similar circumstances may encounter different types of patriarchal obstacles and, hence, improvise different responses to migration. Distinct migration trajectories culminate in the creation of different types of gender relations once the families settle in the United States. Patriarchy is neither a monolithic nor a static construct, even within a group sharing similar class and racial-ethnic characteristics.

Migration just gives men another way to assert dominance over women – also further subjugates women under their fear of abandonment

Hondagneu-Sotelo (Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California) 92, Pierrette, “Overcoming Patriarchal Constraints: The Reconstruction of Gender Relations among Mexican

Immigrant Women and Men”, Gender and Society, Vol. 6, No. 3, This Issue Is Devoted to: Race, Class, and Gender (Sep., 1992), pp. 393-415

In all of the families in which men preceded their wives, patriarchal forms of authority prevailed, so that migration decisions did not arise as part of a unified family or household strategy. Generally, husbands unilaterally de- cided to migrate with only token, superficial regard for their wives' concerns and opinions. Women were not active decision-making participants. When I asked the men about their initial departure and their wives' responses, they were generally reluctant to present information that implied family conflict over migration. While some men admitted that their wives reacted unenthu- slastlcally, they claimed that their wives agreed or, at worst, were resigned to this situation because of economic need. Typical of their responses was one man's comment: "How could she disagree? My brother was here [in the United States], and things were going well for him." When I asked the women to recall these scenarios, many of them reported having been vehemently opposed to their husbands' migration. The principal reason was fear of their husbands' desertion, of becoming a mujer aban- donada (an abandoned woman). One woman, speaking of her home town in Mexico, estimated that "out of ten men who come here [United States], six return home. The others who come here just marry another woman and stay here, forgetting their wives and children in Mexico." Women feared that their husbands' migration would signal not a search for a better means of support- ing the family but escape from supporting the family. Their husbands' migration promised an uncertain future for them and for the children who would remain behind; therefore, women tended to respond negatively to their husbands' departure. Even so, few women were in a position to voice this opposition. Some of them were young - teen brides when their husbands began their long migra- tion careers. In retrospect, these women recognized that they were not accustomed to disagreeing with or even questioning their husbands' judg- ment. Dolores Avila, who was initially left behind with an infant and who gave birth to a second child while her husband was in the United States, recalled: "I had to believe that he knew what was best for us, that he knew how to advance our situation." Other women expressed their opposition in silence, through prayer. Several women reported that they implored God to have the border patrol capture their husbands and send them back home. While their prayers were sometimes answered, the men stayed home only momentarily before departing once again. Other women initially supported their husbands' decision to migrate in the hope that U.S. remittances and sav- ings would alleviate economic needs; as time passed, these women became opposed to their husbands' lengthy sojourns.

Migration makes conditions for women left behind worse, no remittances and general increase in financial burden

Hondagneu-Sotelo (Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California) 92, Pierrette, “Overcoming Patriarchal Constraints: The Reconstruction of Gender Relations among Mexican

Immigrant Women and Men”, Gender and Society, Vol. 6, No. 3, This Issue Is Devoted to: Race, Class, and Gender (Sep., 1992), pp. 393-415

Remittances sent by migrant husbands arrived sporadically and in smaller amounts than anticipated. While store credit and loans from kin provided emergency relief, these sources could not be relied upon indefinitely. In response to extreme financial urgencies and in spite of structural limitations on employment, women devised income-earning activities compatible with their child-rearing responsibilities. The most common solution was informal- sector employment, usually vending or the provision of personal services, such as washing and ironing, which they performed in their homes. These women, especially those with young children, worked intensively. Often, it was precisely these conditions that prompted women to migrate. A study of women who fit the pattern of family stage migration found that all 14 women in the sample reported pursuing migration to end the burden of being the sole head of household (Curry-Rodriquez 1988, 51). Although these expanded activities and responsibilities were onerous, the women discovered unanticipated rewards during these spousal separations. Women provided a substantial portion of family resources, and they became more competent at performing multiple roles, as they honed new skills, such as budgeting or public negotiation. A cluster of studies conducted in Mexico and among Mexican immigrant women in the United States suggests that these conditions foster women's autonomy, esteem, and role expansion (Ahern, Bryan, and Baca 1985; Baca and Bryan 1985; Curry-Rodriquez 1988; Gonzalez de la Rocha 1989; Mummert 1988). As Teresa Ibarra, a woman whose husband migrated to California while she remained behind in a small town in Michoacan caring for five children, explained: When he came here [to the United States], everything changed. It was different. It was me who took the responsibility for putting food on the table, for keeping the children clothed, for tending the animals. I did all of these things alone, and in this way, I discovered my capacities. And do you know, these accomplish- ments gave me satisfaction. Earning and administering an autonomous income did not automatically translate into greater power for women. These women administered budgets with negligible disposable income, an experence characterized more by the burden of stretching scarce resources than by holding the reigns of economic power (Beneria and Roldan 1987, 120). Paradoxically, the men migrated north for economic reasons, to fulfill breadwinner responsibilities, and to save money to purchase a house, buy land, or pay debts. Yet in the United States the men encountered -especially in this particular metropolitan area of California -an extremely high cost of living and low wages, which their "illegal" status only exacerbated. This situation hindered the accumulation of savings and remittances, and over time, the women resented their hus- bands' shunning of familial responsibilities, especially with so few economic resources returning in the form of remittances.