Mexican Union Women and the Social Construction of Women's Labor Rights

Abstract

While much has been written about organized labor's role in strengthening democratic rule and citizenship in Latin America, little research has been done on its role in expanding women's citizenship rights. A society's ideas about citizenship and the rights that reflect these ideas are not simply granted by the state. Rather, they result from civil society's continued discourse and struggle with and against the state. For traditionally marginalized members of a society such as women, this organized social discourse and struggle is an essential means of contributing to social dialogue about what citizenship should be and demanding the creation or enforcement of citizenship rights that reflect that dialogue. Union women in Mexico City have promoted changes in union culture and Mexico's federal labor law so that both more effectively protect the fundamental equality of women workers.