Gender Equality In Mexico Research Articles

Experiencing Gender Regimes: Accounts of Women Professors in Mexico, the UK and Sweden

This article investigates differences between statistics on gender equality in Mexico, the UK and Sweden, and similarities in women professors’ career experiences in these countries. We use Acker’s inequality regime framework, focusing on gender, to explore our data, and argue that similarities in women professors’ lived experiences are related to an image of the ideal academic. This ideal type is produced in the interplay of the university gender regime and other gender regimes, and reproduced through the process of structuration: signification, domination and legitimation. We suggest that the struggle over legitimation can also be a trigger for change.

Women in Neurosurgery: First Neurosurgeon in Latin America and Current Mexican Leaders

History has taught us that Mexican culture has been largely supported by women, despite gender prejudice from the society. Neurosurgery has not been the exception. Therefore, we investigated the challenges and influence of female neurosurgeons in Mexico. We conducted a review of the literature and an analysis of the internal database of the Mexican Society of Neurological Surgery focusing on 3 topics: 1) the historical presence of women and gender inequality in Mexico; 2) the life and legacy of the woman who became the first neurosurgeon in Mexico and in Latin America; and 3) the participation of women in neurosurgery in the past 3 decades. In Latin America, the first woman in neurosurgery was María Cristina García-Sancho, who completed her neurosurgical training in 1951. Currently, women represent 6.2% of the total members of the Mexican Society of Neurological Surgery (MSNS). This percentage is still low, although data collected in this study suggest that it might increase in the next few years because 16.7% of Board Directors of the MSNS are women, the next elected president is a female neurosurgeon, and 14.5% of neurosurgery residents are women. Although a steady increase has occurred of women in neurosurgery in Mexico, there is still work to do, especially to overcome the barriers related to the old assumptions of the cultural and social roles of women.

Structural and Cohort Effects on Women’s Attitudes toward Gender Egalitarianism in Mexico

Women’s attitudes toward egalitarianism rest on a number of micro and macro conditions. Their education level and labor force participation significantly influence their attitudes toward gender equality. We apply a cohort change model to explain attitudes toward gender equality in Mexico using data from the 2011 National Survey on the Dynamics of Households Relationships (ENDIREH). Hierarchical linear modeling of data shows that younger women are more likely to adopt egalitarian attitudes than older women. Within birth cohorts, attitudes toward gender equality diverge significantly between employed and unemployed women. Availability of job opportunities resulting from labor market transformations appears to play an important and independent role in the growth of egalitarianism in Mexico. We find that the impact of education on gender egalitarianism starts decreasing with age and then increases for women born before the 1980s. We will discuss implications of the findings.

"You see, we women, we can't talk, we can't have an opinion…". The coloniality of gender and childbirth practices in Indigenous Wixárika families.

How women make decisions about care-seeking during pregnancy and childbirth, is a key determinant of maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes. Indigenous communities continue to display the highest levels of maternal and infant mortality in Mexico, a fact often accounted for by reference to inadequate access to quality services. A growing body of research has identified gender inequality as a major determinant of MCH, although this has rarely been situated historically in the context of major social and epistemological shifts, that occurred under colonialism.I used a feminist ethnography to understand the structural determinants of Indigenous maternal health. I drew on research about the colonial and post-colonial origins of ethnic and gender inequality in Mexico and specifically the Wixárika Indigenous region, in order to identify the different ways in which women have historically been disadvantaged, and the processes, situations and interaction dynamics that emerged from this. Sixty-four Wixárika women were interviewed while pregnant, and followed up after the birth of their child between January 2015 and April 2017. These data were triangulated with structured observations and key informant interviews with healthcare providers, teachers, community representatives and family members.The findings suggest that gender inequalities were introduced with the colonial system for governing Indigenous regions, and became naturalised as Wixárika communities were increasingly integrated into the Mexican nation. The associated structures of marriage, community and interpersonal relationships now operate as forms of institutionalised gender oppression, to increase Indigenous women's vulnerability, and influence decisions made about care and childbirth. Ethnographic data analysed in historical context evidence the continuity of colonial forms of inequality, and their impact on wellbeing. While welfare and health programmes increasingly aim to address gender inequality on social and relational levels, by rebalancing gendered household dynamics or empowering women, the historical and colonial roots of these inequalities remain unchallenged.

Austerity Policies, Public Expenditure, and Development from a Gender Perspective: What Is the Status of Mexican and Brazilian Women?

This article examines the impact of austerity policies on gender inequality in Mexico and Brazil. More specifically, it seeks to discuss the need to reconcile public expenditure with a development strategy that actually includes a gender perspective. The feminization of poverty is of particular interest, as it is the basis upon which we try to outline the socioeconomic conditions in which Mexican and Brazilian women live with regards to progress, setbacks, and challenges. Thus, a brief explanation of the term austerity is provided with the purpose of reflecting on the limitations and opportunities that public expenditure might have in terms of gender inequality. Then, basic economic statistics concerning the dynamics of economic growth and public expenditure are included and certain key variables revolving around gender gaps in both countries are examined. Finally, we offer a diagnosis of the consequences of poverty on the female population in order to identify the leeway that public expenditure focused on gender should have for the most vulnerable population sector. The purpose is to promote development policies based on greater equality. In summary, as a result of the study, we observe that public expenditure intended at fighting against poverty (female-male) had considerable success in the case of Brazil, but not in the case of Mexico. However, in both countries, the recent deepening of austerity policies could limit the efforts of public expenditure on the feminization of poverty in particular, and on gender inequalities in general.

Conceptualización de los Derechos Humanos Desde la Perspectiva de Género en Relación con la Reforma Laboral

In this work, a proposal for conceptualization of the human rights is presented from a gender perspective in order to relate its content with the reform of the Federal Labour Law, carried out on November 30th, 2012, in which some aspects of this matter were addressed. This relation was carried out revealing that the named “labour reform” does not take into account the above-mentioned conceptualization, in which the following attributes are highlighted: the respect for human dignity, the elimination of discrimination and the substantive equality. To build the concept of human rights from a gender perspective, besides the study of the conceptual framework on gender, gender perspective and human labour rights, the national and international legal framework on labour rights and gender equality in Mexico were analysed. And through the contrast of the main gaps in gender equality in labour matters in our country with the content of the mentioned reform, it was shown that it is not attached to the idea presented of human rights from a gender perspective.

Advancing support for gender equality among women in Mexico: Significance of labor force participation

Improvements in women’s support for gender equality have for long been a crucial component of social policies in developing countries such as Mexico. Women’s entry into the labor force is associated with higher levels of support for gender equality. It can be expected that working women are more supportive of gender equality than nonworking women. However, the gap in support for gender equality between employed women and full-time housewives could derive from differences in their education level, age, and level of support within the household rather than from their employment-related characteristics. Using the Blinder–Oaxaca method, this article decomposes the impact of women’s participation in the labor market and socioeconomic characteristics on women’s support for gender equality in Mexico. Results of this study suggest that a large share of the difference in levels of support for gender equality between nonworking and working women may be attributed to broad-level socioeconomic changes.

Suzanne Petroni: pushing equity for girls and young women

Suzanne Petroni: pushing equity for girls and young women

Stroke associated with pituitary apoplexy in a giant prolactinoma: A case report

History has taught us that Mexican culture has been largely supported by women, despite gender prejudice from the society. Neurosurgery has not been the exception. Therefore, we investigated the challenges and influence of female neurosurgeons in Mexico.We conducted a review of the literature and an analysis of the internal database of the Mexican Society of Neurological Surgery focusing on 3 topics: 1) the historical presence of women and gender inequality in Mexico; 2) the life and legacy of the woman who became the first neurosurgeon in Mexico and in Latin America; and 3) the participation of women in neurosurgery in the past 3 decades.In Latin America, the first woman in neurosurgery was María Cristina García-Sancho, who completed her neurosurgical training in 1951. Currently, women represent 6.2% of the total members of the Mexican Society of Neurological Surgery (MSNS). This percentage is still low, although data collected in this study suggest that it might increase in the next few years because 16.7% of Board Directors of the MSNS are women, the next elected president is a female neurosurgeon, and 14.5% of neurosurgery residents are women.Although a steady increase has occurred of women in neurosurgery in Mexico, there is still work to do, especially to overcome the barriers related to the old assumptions of the cultural and social roles of women.

Measuring Structural Gender Equality in Mexico: A State Level Analysis

The main goal of this article is to assess the level of gender equality across the 32 Mexican states. After reviewing conceptual and methodological issues related to previous measures of structural inequality I detail the logic and methodology involved in the construction of a composite and multidimensional measure of gender equality, at the social structural or macrosystem, level in Mexico: GEIMS (Gender Equality Index in Mexican States). The importance of assessing the level of gender equality among Mexican states is of theoretical and practical relevance for understanding potential sources of regional differences regarding many social phenomena. The methodology can be also used to construct gender equality indexes in other Latin American countries.

Economic Globalization and Women's Employment: The Case of Manufacturing in Mexico

Sociological research has been generally critical of the effects of economic globalization on developing countries. However, greater worldwide economic integration may have created new employment opportunities for women. In this article, we examine the effect of foreign investment and export production on gender inequality in Mexico, a country that epitomizes the global shift to an open-market economic strategy. Using data from nationally representative surveys of manufacturing firms between 1992 and 2001, we find that foreign and export-oriented firms employ significantly more women at every occupational level than do nationally-owned firms producing goods for sale in the domestic market. The greater employment of women in foreign and export firms cannot be explained by these firms' higher demand for workers of lower skill levels, their size, capital intensity, production technology, wage level, use of temporary workers, or industry. Using managers' responses to survey questions regarding gender preferences in hiring, we find that managers in foreign-owned export firms have a preference for hiring women that cannot be explained by firm-level factors. This preference may account for the observed differences in female employment. Finally, using firms' payroll information to analyze the gender wage gap in manufacturing firms, we find that foreign-owned export firms discriminate against women less in terms of wages.