CHAPTER 12 WOMEN AND GENDER IN MESOAMERICA 473their societies. In the process, they are articulating unique forms of feminism that
merge class, gender, and cultural interests.
Several factors have influenced indigenous women to intensify their activism in
Mesoamerica since the 1970s. Two of the most important are the suffering that poor
women have experienced as a result of the effects of neoliberal economic policies in
the region and the human rights abuses they have endured as a result of the current
low-intensity war in Chiapas and the civil wars of the region in the 1970s and 1980s.
In their communities and also as insurgents in armed struggles, women have woven
together new social structures out of diverse threads, from the social justice programs
of the Catholic Church; to experiments in self-governance in autonomous Zapatista
townships of Chiapas; and to the development of multiethnic regional and national
indigenous movements directed at land rights, democracy, and self-determination
(Eber and Kovic 2003; Speed, Hernández-Castillo, and Stephen, 2006).
From its inception early in the twentieth century, the Mexican feminist movement
has ebbed and flowed in consonance with national and international political cli-
mates. The movement has made great strides in the past twenty-five years. Hundreds
of women’s organizations work at both state and national levels to promote in-depth
analyses of women’s situations at regularly held feminist conventions and through
media campaigns. Mexican women follow with interest feminist discussions presented
in magazines, radio, television, and newspapers. Feminist organizations in Mexico
have forced men and women alike to pay attention to issues of rape, birth control,
voluntary pregnancy, sterilization, homosexuality, decriminalization of abortion, sex-
ual harassment, and domestic violence. As evidence of gains made to bring the rights
of homosexuals to public attention, on June 26, 1999, ten thousand gays, lesbians,
bisexuals, and sympathizers marched through Mexico City to the city’s historic cen-
ter. Gay and lesbian organizing has been spreading throughout Mexico, facilitated
by increased access to telephones and the Internet.
Dealing with issues of gender inequality openly has furthered the awareness of
women in all Mexican social classes of the need to confront patriarchal domination.
Thousands of women—especially middle-class, professional, and unionized women,
and to a lesser degree women in rural areas—are demanding the right to control their
bodies, equality in the job market, and access to decision-making in public life. They
are pressuring political parties to deal systematically with women’s issues in govern-
ment programs and to include women as candidates in their slates. Even though
women and gays and lesbians are still grossly underrepresented in the highest and
medium-rank political positions, they have begun to increase their presence in na-
tional and state political bodies. In Mexico since the late 1990s, openly homosexual
or bisexual men have served in important political posts, such as secretary of tourism,
governor of Quintana Roo, and ambassador to Cuba (Reding 2000).
The Zapatista movement represents a dramatic development in terms of in-
digenous women’s organizing (Hernández Castillo 1997). This movement stands
out among social and revolutionary movements in Mesoamerican history for its will-
ingness to identify women’s oppression as a central problem of society. On January
1, 1994, at the beginning of the uprising, the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación
Nacional) made public the “Women’s Revolutionary Law.” (See Box 12.8.)