The Women's Revolution in Mexico, 1910-1953

Contributions by Katherine Elaine Bliss, Sarah A. Buck, Stephanie E. Mitchell, Carmen Ramos Escandón, Martha Eva Rocha, Nichole Sanders, Stephanie Smith, Andrew G. Wood Edited by Stephanie Mitchell, Patience A. Schell

Publication date:

12 December 2006

Length of book:

244 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

228x154mm
6x9"

This book reinvigorates the debate on the Mexican Revolution, exploring what this pivotal event meant to women. The contributors offer a fresh look at women's participation in their homes and workplaces and through politics and community activism. They show how women of diverse backgrounds with differing goals were actively involved, first in military roles during the violent early phase of civil war, and later in the state-building process. Drawing on a variety of perspectives, the volume illuminates the ways women variously accepted, contested, used, and manipulated the revolutionary project in Mexico. All too often, attention has been limited to elite, pro-revolutionary women's formal political activities, particularly their pursuit of suffrage. This timely volume broadens traditional perspectives, drawing on new scholarship that considers grassroots participation in institution building and the contested nature of the revolutionary process. Recovering narratives that have been virtually written out of the historical record, this book brings us a rich and complex array of women's experiences in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era in Mexico.

Through nine impressively crafted essays, the authors investigate numerous and various ways women shaped revolutionary activism in Mexico from 1910 to 1953….Through innovative investigations of temperance workers, teachers, prostitutes, urban elite women, female military veterans, and other women, this important book reveals how the revolution created new opportunities for women to become social actors while broadening their contributions in areas traditionally reserved for women. The essays reveal that as the government expanded its role in people's lives, crossing into sectors previously regarded as "the women's sphere," women became more influential in crafting the revolutionary agenda. An important consequence of the book is the recognition that additional critical investigations of women will reshape contemporary interpretations of the revolution. Such an expanded analysis has had other significant results, including a broader interpretation of feminism in Mexico, the ways gender roles are considered and evaluated, and how women's history in Mexico might be more expansively studied. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals.