Shantytown women, their work, survival strategies and aspirations : a case study in Tetela del Monte, Mexico

Abstract

This thesis attempts to expose the daily lived experiences of shantytown women in the context of their work and survival strategies. Using a socialist feminist analysis and incorporating the radical feminist view of patriarchy and marriage, it reveals the extent of shantytown women's subordination both in the public and private sphere. Trends in the Mexican economy over the past decades are highlighted to illustrate the nature of industrialization policies and their effects on the poor, particularly women who, by being forced out of jobs in the agricultural sector, have become the majority of migrants heading for already over-crowded cities. In the urban setting, women's job opportunities are limited and most become domestics or street vendors. With such employment, they combine their productive and reproductive roles. The structures which keep poor women marginalized are reflected through an examination of the position of women in Mexico since the conquest. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)