466 UNIT 4 MESOAMERICAN CULTURAL FEATURES
education and technical training and consequently greater access to jobs with ben-
efits, security, and stability. In contrast, women are conceptualized primarily as house-
wives and mothers whose productivity is inevitably and properly limited by these
roles. Hence, any income they bring in is supplemental, and formal training is un-
necessary. Although change has occurred in this area, many parents still argue that
education is wasted on daughters since their future domestic roles make it unnec-
essary. This ideology and the practices it generates have led to the concentration of
women in the informal, self-employed sector of the economy or in unskilled work in
factories.
Ironically, women’s “comparative disadvantages”—including their culturally
shaped submissiveness and docility, and their willingness to accept a lower wage for
lack of alternatives—make them the most desirable workers for maquilas. Mexican
economists Lourdes Arizpe and Josefina Aranda (1986:193) argue that the “com-
parative disadvantages” of women have been translated into “comparative advan-
tages” for companies, capitals, and governments in the international markets.
In towns in the central highlands of Guatemala located near maquilas, approx-
imately half of the households send some members to work in maquilas. Both men
and women work in these factories, but women ages sixteen to twenty-four are the
preferred workers. Working in maquilas provides women alternatives to self-
employment, domestic service, or wage-labor in farming. Women workers state that
working in the maquilas enables them to give their families monetary assistance and
that it makes them feel stronger and more independent. Married women state that
their cash income decreases their dependence on their husbands. Young women re-
port enjoying greater freedom to dress as they please, to wear make up, and to go out
with coworkers in groups (Goldin 1999).
Other women report that maquila work is difficult and that they experience
many injustices and abuses in this kind of work (Pickard 2005). Women are required
to take pregnancy tests as a condition of employment—they are often fired if they be-
come pregnant or try to unionize; they have to work through the night to finish ur-
gent orders; they are often not paid for overtime; and supervisors sometimes harass
them, verbally abuse them, and even strike them with rulers or other objects.
In general, maquila work represents a temporary palliative for young women in
need of an income. These jobs do not create the conditions for long-term develop-
ment that could bring about major changes in women’s lives. Neither do they pose
a challenge to the existing social and economic structures that privilege men. In ad-
dition, women who have migrated to the U.S.-Mexico border in search of work in
maquilas have discovered that many factories are closing in order to relocate to Asia
where workers demand less pay and are less likely to organize for their rights.Violence Against Women
Violence against women, a problem throughout the world, has increased in recent
years in Mesoamerica. International attention has focused mainly on the murders of
women in Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican/U.S. border. However, the numbers in
Guatemala are higher (Amnesty International 2005). Why is this increase happening?
And how are these murders different from crimes against men?