CHAPTER 12 WOMEN AND GENDER IN MESOAMERICA 457Lázaro Cárdenas’s ascent to power in 1934 brought the promise of new possi-
bilities for women in the political arena (on Cárdenas, see Chapter 8). In 1935,
women organized the National Conference of Women, which gave birth to the United
Front Pro-Women’s Rights (FUPDM), an organization that united Mexican women
of diverse ideological, religious, and social backgrounds. After Cárdenas left office,
women had a difficult time regrouping an effective social movement in the conflu-
ence of international forces of the early 1940s and the dramatic expansion of in-
dustrialization and its concomitant social changes.
Politically active women’s groups redirected their efforts to charitable organiza-
tions, working to improve the situation of the most needy segments of the popula-
tion. Not until 1947 did women have the right to participate in municipal elections
both as voters and as office-holders. Finally, in 1953, President Ruiz Cortínes modi-
fied the Mexican constitution to grant women full citizen’s rights on a par with men
(see Box 12.3 for an example of women’s participation at the local level in postin-
dependence Chiapas, Mexico).
Rural Native Women in the Mexican Republic
1821–1940: The Case of Highland Chiapas
Not much changed for the better in the lives of indigenous peoples after indepen-
dence. In fact, in the second half of the nineteenth century in both Mexico and Cen-
tral America, their economic situation worsened as the infusion of foreign investment
in export products intensified the exploitation of indigenous labor. Furthermore,
Catholic priests continued to press the Indians to give up their native beliefs and
practices (see Box 12.3)
During the Mexican Revolution, the contending sides recruited, manipulated,
and mistreated indigenous peoples of highland Chiapas, resulting in the loss of thou-
sands of native lives. The revolution’s promise of land to peasants began to bear fruit
in the region only after 1936, when the Cárdenas government embarked on large-
scale land reform (see Chapters 8 and 9). From Cárdenas’s time to the present, the
Mexican government has sought to control and mobilize the indigenous population
by effecting changes in native communities’ government structure.
By law, each community was required to establish a Constitutional Council that
would represent it before state and national authorities. Whereas previously these
communities had been governed by civil and religious organizations (the “cargo sys-
tems”) headed by respected monolingual elders, during Cárdenas’s term the Mexi-
can government required that costitutional councils be made up of educated
bilingual men. These conditions led to a drastic transformation of the traditional
structure of government in indigenous communities and to the entrenchment of
mestizo power within the communities (Rus 1994).
The political changes described earlier inflicted a severe blow on women who for
centuries had been actively engaged in religious cargo services and had important
religious obligations complementary to their husbands’ civil positions. In the newly
created offices, women had no place: first, because since early colonial times Mexi-
can officials were accustomed to dealing exclusively with male leaders in indigenous