gender, ethnicity and indigenous self

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Gender, Ethnicity and Indigenous
Self-Government in Oaxaca,
Mexico
Verónica Vázquez-García
a
a
Department of Rural Development , Colegio de
Postgraduados, Campus Montecillo, Carretera MéxicoTexcoco Km. 36.5, Montecillo, Texcoco , 56230 ,
Estado de México , México
Published online: 25 Apr 2012.
To cite this article: Verónica Vázquez-García (2013) Gender, Ethnicity and Indigenous
Self-Government in Oaxaca, Mexico, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 15:3,
314-332, DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2012.659857
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2012.659857
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Gender, Ethnicity and Indigenous
Self-Government in Oaxaca, Mexico
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VERÓNICA VÁZQUEZ-GARCÍA
Colegio de Postgraduados, Mexico
Abstract ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This article discusses the experiences in municipal politics of indigenous women in
Oaxaca, Mexico. The data base includes in-depth interviews with the eighteen
women who have been elected mayor since 1995, when the Government of Oaxaca
legally recognized indigenous self-government. By looking at the women as in/outsiders of their own culture, the article examines the ways in which they question various
components of the indigenous autonomous project as well as the performance of
western political institutions such as political parties and the educational system.
Women’s views go beyond the tradition/modernity dichotomy, where tradition is
associated with backward, patriarchal institutions and modernity with progress and
gender equality. Both tradition and modernity are redefined in order to identify the
elements that may contribute to gender equality in the indigenous self-government
project of Mexico.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keywords
citizenship, ethnicity, gender, indigenous self-government, municipal politics
INTRODUCTION
In January 1994, the people of Mexico woke up to a new political reality dominated by two opposing forces. On the one hand, the North American Free Trade
Agreement was finally beginning. According to the Government, the country
was on the path of economic growth and progress. On the other, the Zapatista
National Liberation Army, a guerrilla organization made up by Mayan peasants, had taken seven municipalities in Chiapas to demand rights for indigenous peoples. North and South; free trade and war; economic liberalization and
indigenous rights; modernization and tradition. This complex reality caused
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2013
Vol. 15, No. 3, 314– 332, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2012.659857
# 2013 Taylor & Francis
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dramatic changes, both in the ways Mexicans saw their country, and in the
questions asked by social scientists.
As the information on the Zapatista uprising continued to flow, Mexicans
discovered an even more intriguing phenomenon. Behind the covered faces
of the Zapatistas were a good number of indigenous women (Zylberberg
2008). True, indigenous women have always been involved in social organizations, but usually under the umbrella of economic rather than identity-based
demands (Espinosa 2009, 2010; Ochoa 2010). This time, a third of the Zapatista
army was made up by women (Rojas 1999). Some of them were in leadership
positions and played an important role in military action (Millán 1996; Pérez
and Castellanos 1999). Additionally, Zapatista women presented to the nation
the Women’s Revolutionary Law, a group of demands explicitly formulated to
address their concerns. The Law demanded rights both from the Mexican state
and from ‘indigenous brothers’ (Espinosa 2010).1
The Law was widely discussed by feminists. Some dismissed it as ‘nonfeminist’ because it contains ‘only a few demands’ rather than a ‘critical and
conscious’ societal plan (Bedregal 1999: 45); or because abortion was not
part of such demands (Lamas 1999). Questions were also asked about the
process through which the Law was produced (Bedregal 1999). Others
valued the fact that the Law expressed the experiences of women struggling
at the heart of an indigenous movement (Millán 1996). Most feminists silently
witnessed Zapatista women’s ability to mobilize support for indigenous
women’s rights all over the country. Almost two decades later, specialists
agree at least on one thing: the Zapatista Law led to the emergence of a new
political actor in the Mexican landscape, that of indigenous women (see
Millán 1996, 2008; Hernández 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Espinosa 2009, 2010).
The presence of indigenous women on the political scene has not been easy
or without contradictions. Indigenous women are part of a larger movement
that struggles for the recognition of their peoples. Women’s demands are
seen as a set of individual rights frequently placed in opposition to indigenous
collective rights. Women have often felt trapped between two conflicting identities (gender and ethnicity). They have articulated multifaceted identities that
have allowed them to openly discuss traditions, while at the same time protecting their rights to remain culturally distinct.
This article examines the ways in which indigenous women articulate their
political rights within the larger indigenous autonomy project. The database
includes in-depth interviews with all the eighteen female mayors who have
ruled a Custom and Practice (CAP) municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico. The
CAP system is a form of indigenous self-government dating back to colonial
times (Pacheco 2003) which was legalized in 1995 by the state congress in
order to reduce the growing unrest caused by the Zapatista uprising (Anaya
2003; Recondo 2007). To the present day, most municipalities in Oaxaca
(418 out of a total of 570) have formally adopted the CAP system.
The experiences of the eighteen female mayors are particularly relevant for
a number of reasons. First, most of the debate on indigenous women’s rights
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has taken place among activists. Female mayors speak as formal politicians
who have made it to the highest position at the municipal level, a feat achieved
by very few women (they represent less than 2 per cent of all mayors per triennium). Second, the sample of eighteen women includes all female mayors
who have ruled a CAP municipality in Oaxaca since 1995 to the present
day, a methodological bonus that contributes to the solidness of the analysis.
Third, women’s political participation within indigenous collectives is a major
issue both in Mexico and Latin America.2 However, indigenous forms of political organization are often idealized in the discourse of both male and female
activists (see Marichuy in Marcos 2003: 273 –4; Regino and Robles in Marcos
2003: 275; Rufina in Mejı́a 2008: 487). Even among the Zapatistas’ Transitional Rebellious Government and Boards of Good Government,3 women’s
progress has been slow, as admitted by Mercedes Oliveira (in Rojas 1999:
330 –7); Zapatista women and men (Elena in Bonfil et al. 2008: 134; Roel in
Bonfil et al. 2008: 135); and the well-known Zapatista spokesman, subcomandante Marcos (in Millán 2008: 223 –5).
THEORETICAL APPROACH
Scholarship on Mexican women’s participation in municipal politics is relatively new. Research has focused on women’s independent, grassroots organizations, because the State was considered authoritarian and antidemocratic
(Fernández 2003). In the mid-1990s, as the Mexican government started to
move towards more democratic procedures, Fernández (1995) called feminists
to take more seriously women’s electoral behaviors and roles in formal politics.
Evidently, the first effort was a numerical one: how many women have ruled
a Mexican municipality? Shortly after the question was asked, Massolo (1998)
showed that the percentage of female mayors (3.5 per cent) had not varied in a
decade (1988 – 98). More recent data offer a similar picture: in 2006 and 2011,
respectively, only 3.9 and 5 per cent of all mayors in the country were women
(Massolo 2007; Martı́nez 2011).
The next questions asked, were concerned with the kind of municipalities
ruled by women. How relevant are they, both politically and economically?
The answers were uncontroversial. ‘Municipal female mayors often rule
small towns’ (Dalton 2003: 90), because ‘women are “naturally” assigned to
the marginal and the less important’ (Massolo 1995: 139). More than half of
the municipalities ruled by women between 1995 and 2002 had less than
20,000 inhabitants (Barrera and Aguirre 2003; Fernández 2003).
Scholars have characterized the socioeconomic profile of female mayors.
They are usually single, educated, career-oriented and cosmopolite (they have
lived outside their municipalities) (see Barrera 1998, 2003; Sam 2002, 2003;
Rodrı́guez and Cinta 2003; Briceño 2007). The few available comparisons
with men are striking: in 1995, 39 per cent of male mayors in the country
had college degrees, as opposed to 55 per cent of female mayors (Espinosa 2003).
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At a more theoretical level, research has analyzed the obstacles faced by
women when participating in formal politics, their ruling styles and attention
to gender issues, their chances of developing a political career and their family
relations while in office. Political parties and community forms of control
(gossip, personal attacks) appear as important gender gatekeepers (Dalton
2003; Cerva 2008). Female mayors take advantage of gender-sensitive programs in order to advance women’s rights in their municipalities, but such
programs are often nonexistent (Sam 2003; Briceño 2007). Single female
mayors are more likely than married ones to pursue political careers, since
these latter often resent their double burden and feel guilty for ‘neglecting’
their families (see Álvarez 1998; Hidalgo 2000; Martı́nez 2002).
Ethnicity issues are quite recent in the literature. Research conducted in
Oaxaca and Chiapas has described the CAP system as discriminatory on the
basis of gender and marital status. Only heads of households (married men
and single mothers) can access community land, attend assemblies and
assume municipal posts. The CAP system reproduces gender inequality by
denying citizen rights to most adult women (Bonfil 2002; Rasgado 2004).
However, scholars have identified some of the factors changing this situation:
political mobilization, social organizing, male migration and women’s
increasing access to formal education (see Dalton 2005; Bautista et al. 2007;
Morales 2007; Vásquez et al. 2007; Zafra 2009). In 60 per cent of Oaxaca
CAP municipalities, women can vote and hold government positions, albeit
at very low rates: only 8.5 per cent of all CAP municipalities have female
councils (Velázquez 2003).
Using the theoretical insights of La Barbera (2009), this article discusses the
elements of the CAP system that need to be changed in order to advance
gender equality. Drawing on various concepts proposed by Black, Chicana,
Postcolonial and Islamic feminists, this author proposes the concept of intersectional gender ‘to express the idea that gender is inherently made up by class,
race, ethnicity, and culture that – working together – simultaneously shape
gender in a non-predefined way’ (La Barbera 2009: 82). The concept allows
us to locate women’s experiences in a specific time and space, thereby understanding ‘the inequalities suffered by women within minorities, taking into
account the structures of subordination within subordinate groups’ (La
Barbera 2009: 82).
Minority women speak from a ‘locationality in contradiction’ because of the
multiple social categories that simultaneously shape their experiences. They
are not ‘insiders’ nor ‘outsiders’ of a particular culture, but rather ‘in/outsiders’. Being at ‘the borderland’ of their own culture gives them a position
from which to analyze social reality, raise new themes and make new questions
visible. The ‘multiple consciousness’ of minority women is based on the fact
that their oppression is not only linked to gender, but rather connected to
‘an inextricable web made up by race, ethnicity, culture, religion, sexual
orientation, social class and economic situation’ (La Barbera 2009: 15).
These women problematize dichotomies such as tradition/modernity, where
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the first is synonymous with patriarchy and the second with gender equality.
They elaborate new perceptions of their gender identities and cultural patrimonies in order to show how both can be accommodated in plural societies.
Inspired by the spirit of the Zapatista National Women’s Law of 1995, indigenous women in Mexico are redefining both tradition and modernity. They
have distinguished between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ traditions, the first being those
that ‘do not harm anyone’ (San Cristóbal Women’s Group in Millán 2008:
232) and the second those that ‘diminish our dignity’ (Proposals of Indigenous
Women to the National Indigenous Congress in Hernández 2002b: 3). Indigenous women have broadened the notion of autonomy in order to include not
only indigenous rights, but also women’s control over their bodies, economic
independence and political rights (Rojas 1999). They continue to ask the
Mexican state for agrarian rights, credit, income-generating opportunities
and educational, health and housing services. Influenced by many philosophical traditions, including feminism, they are building a unique perspective
that clearly shows the dynamism of culture and tradition and the complex
nature of their oppression.
Following this line of thought, the article examines the different actors that
undermine women’s authority when ruling a CAP municipality. The mayors
have identified the elements of their culture that they would like to change
in favor of gender equality. In La Barbera’s (2009) words, they experienced
their political institutions as in/outsiders, at the borderland of their own
culture. As a result, they developed an insightful multiple consciousness that
allowed them to make new questions visible.
WHAT IS THE CAP SYSTEM?
The electoral code of Oaxaca was amended in 1995 to legalize the CAP system
and for the second time in 1997, in order to prohibit the intervention of
political parties in municipal electoral processes. These amendments were
followed by the Law on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Communities
passed in 1998 by the local congress (EDUCA 2010). Oaxaca has the largest
amount of indigenous peoples in the country (1,091,502 individuals belonging
to sixteen ethnic groups). It is also the first state to legalize indigenous forms
of self-government.
The CAP system lies on three major pillars: assembly decision-making power,
tequio (unpaid community labor) and escalafón (traditional promotion ladder).
In order to be recognized as a CAP municipality, local authorities have to
acknowledge the community assembly as the main body for decision making
and post designation. The Constitution of Oaxaca considers tequio an expression
of community solidarity that must be preserved (Hernández and López 2004).
Failure to participate may involve social sanctions, including the loss of citizenship rights (Saldaña 2007). Finally, the escalafón consists of a series of ascending
posts4 making up the council, which is the political body authorized to discuss,
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plan and carry out government actions. The number of councilmen/councilwomen varies depending on the municipality’s size. The promotion ladder is
seen as a school for politics, since people are expected to undertake more
complex responsibilities as they ascend the ladder up to the mayoralty.
All CAP municipalities receive from the Government of Oaxaca a yearly
budget that varies according to their number of inhabitants. Mayors decide
how to use it by consulting with the assembly and discussing with the
council, although they must align with state government regulations. The political ties of some mayors with the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)5
may bring additional money to the municipality. During the twentieth century,
the PRI acted as state and political party at the same time, and party committees were equivalent to escalafón positions. There was a ‘perfect symbiosis’
between the State, the PRI and community leaders (Recondo 2007: 81). Even
after the 1995 reform, dominant groups continued to be linked to state and
PRI power, with dissidents usually resorting to the Partido de la Revolución
Democrática (PRD) (Hernández-Dı́az and López 2007). In some municipalities,
elections are ‘local projections of the competition between the PRI and the
PRD’, where two slates of different colors (since the logo of the party cannot
be used) compete against each other (Recondo 2007: 324).
The interviewed women belong to five different ethnic groups: Zapoteco;
Mixteco; Mixe; Chocholteco; and Mazateco. The two largest ethnic groups
in Oaxaca (Zapotecos and Mixtecos)6 contribute ten female mayors. Their
municipalities are small (the average number of inhabitants is 2,373 people)
and scattered in rural areas. Eleven municipalities have negative growth
rates due to outmigration; accordingly, fourteen have ‘high’ or ‘very high’
degrees of marginalization (measured by the lack of access to proper transportation, housing, educational and health services). Women’s illiteracy rates are
higher than men’s in all municipalities. These figures parallel national data on
indigenous peoples. ‘Monolinguism is larger among the female population,
school attendance is larger among men [and] the proportion of women
without schooling doubles that of men’s’ (INEGI 2006: xxi).7
WHO ARE THE INTERVIEWED WOMEN?
Women were interviewed in their home communities or elsewhere (the cities of
Puebla, Oaxaca, Mexico) with an open-ended questionnaire during the first
half of 2009. All interviews were transcribed, coded and systematized using
the ATLAS Ti program. In November 2009, I discussed preliminary results
with the women as a group. In May 2010, I got together with them again for
a gender training workshop. In the meantime, I visited their municipalities
several times. This participatory approach allowed me to constantly confront
my views to the women’s. The permanent dialogue with them resulted in the
analysis presented here. I am using their real names since I was authorized
by them to do so (Table 1).
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Table 1 Female mayors in Oaxaca, 1996– 2010
Triennium
Name
Municipality
1996– 1998
1999– 2001
1999– 2000
1999– 2000
1999– 2001
2002– 2003
2002– 2003
2002– 2003
2002– 2003
2002– 2003
2002– 2004
2005– 2007
2005– 2007
2005– 2007
2007– 2010
2008– 2009
2008– 2010
2008– 2010
2009– 2010
No female mayors were elected
Sofı́a Castro Rı́os
Elsa Lara Mendoza
Fabiola Gómez Garcı́a
Estela Reyes Ortiz
Rosa Hernández Luis
Herminia Celia López Juárez
Genma Abigail Morán Morales
Tomasa León Tapia
Cecilia Lucrecia Sánchez Castro
Adela Isabel Sandoval Pérez
Francisca Cruz Garcı́a
Isabel Mari H. Herrera Ramı́rez
Carmela Barrera Fermı́n
Irene Hernández de Jesús
Gloria Rojas Solano
Martha Sara Pereda Hernández
Rafaela Hernández Chávez
Balbina Hernández Dı́az
Not applicable
San Carlos Yautepec
San Martı́n de los Cansecos
Santa Cruz Mixtepec
Santa Catarina Tayata
Santa Catarina Lachatao
San Pedro Molinos
San Pedro y San Pablo Tequixtepec
Santiago Yolomécatl
San Agustı́n Tlacotepec
San Idelfonso Villa Alta
San Pedro Yucunama
Santa Marı́a Camotlán
Santiago Astata
San Pedro y San Pablo Ayutla
Guelatao de Juárez
Santa Cruz Acatepec
Tlalixtac de Cabrera
La Trinidad Vista Hermosa
Fourteen women have technical or college degrees, an education level way
above Oaxaca’s average for adult women (five years of schooling) (INEGI
2010). Most of them left their home communities to pursue their studies.
They completed their degrees thanks to the support of their families, the
Catholic Church and/or government scholarships. The most usual profession
is that of teaching: eleven have careers in elementary, high school or university teaching. Two are lawyers and one is an architect. The four women who
do not have either technical or college education have elementary or high
school diplomas as well as informal training in nursing, homemaking or
business administration.
Women became mayors at an average age of 47, with a wide range between
the youngest one (28) and the oldest one (67). Their average age at the time
of the interview was 54 years old. Seventeen have indigenous origins, but
fourteen have lost their mother tongue. Even so, they feel strongly about their
indigenous identities. Thirteen define themselves as indigenous on the basis of
culture rather than biology or language. They emphasize family values, religious
fiestas, ancestral knowledge and a shared territory and history.
As can be seen, the eighteen female mayors have high levels of formal education and a history of outmigration to pursue their studies. They arrived at the
mayoralty after long professional careers that, at least for some periods of time,
took place away from home. They have lost their mother tongue, but they feel
strongly about their indigenous origins. These characteristics make them quite
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a unique group of women. They have been standing at the borderland of two
cultures for a long time, shifting from one to another as a permanent way of life.
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WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES WITH MUNICIPAL POWER
All eighteen women were the first female mayors in their respective municipalities. Nine stayed in office, six did not and three were still ruling at the time of
the interview. Considering that the sample includes all the women who have
ruled a CAP municipality since the system was legalized, the number of
women who did not complete their term is quite high. This section analyzes
the role of different political actors in hindering women’s administration. I
have divided these actors into two: internal and external. The first include
indigenous men in council positions and/or with the power to mobilize political groups in the community. The external actors are political parties (mainly
the PRI), the Ministry of the Interior and the local chamber of deputies.8
Internal Troubles, or Tradition Fights Nontraditional Women
Most women reported the existence of one or more council members who
refused to go along with the group’s decisions and threatened to destitute
the mayor ‘in the next assembly’ (Estela).9 The most difficult characters were
the treasurer, who refused to sign documents and checks, and the trustee,
who boycotted all initiatives. Rosa, Gloria and Martha Sara also complained
about their work burden, indicating that male council members conceived
women’s time as completely elastic and accessible. ‘When they [the councilmen] start to drink’, says Martha Sara, ‘they leave it all to me’.
Other men caused problems at assemblies. Fabiola mentioned a man who had
wanted to be a mayor for a long time. He started to organize people in order to
block her work. Similarly, a group of enemies stopped construction machines in
order to obstruct Herminia’s government’s initiatives. In four cases, this kind of
action turned into gender violence. Interestingly, men organized the scene for
women to exercise physical violence against the female mayors. Fabiola was
kidnapped for twelve hours, received anonymous threats and suffered physical
violence when ‘one of the men hit my son, and the women took advantage of
the opportunity to grab my purse and hit me’. During one community assembly,
Herminia’s ‘brother stood up . . . pulled my hair . . . his daughter arrived and
grabbed me by the arms and hit me’. Elsa was kidnapped ‘the entire day and
night’, with her husband as one of the kidnappers along with their 8-year-old
son. She received written anonymous threats and was close to physical abuse:
‘once, a man raised a machete to attack me’. Genma was accused of being
‘arrogant’ and was afraid for her life. People close to her would tell her, ‘if
you come back, you will get killed’.
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‘In Times of Trouble, Nobody Wants to Get Involved’: The External
Actors
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Eight women are PRI sympathizers, if not militants. Four acquired political
capital by mobilizing women and peasants through PRI structures. However,
this same political party was responsible for their dismissal. Already at the
mayoralty, Genma was asked by a PRI congressman to include two people
in her council. She refused, but was unable to rule and was expelled from
power. The same PRI congressman that caused problems to Genma pushed
for a touristic project that caused suspicion among the people of Molinos, Herminia’s municipality. Elsa faced PRD opposition in Cansecos, and when the
situation was unmanageable, the PRI withdrew its support because her municipality was not ‘profitable in terms of votes’. ‘Where is the support of the PRI,
if one is a PRI member?’ bitterly asks Genma. Elsa has the answer: ‘in times of
trouble, nobody wants to get involved’.
Three of the six dismissed mayors sought help at the Ministry of the Interior
and/or the chamber of deputies in order to remain in office; they did not get it.
At the Ministry of the Interior, Fabiola was told that leaving her post was ‘the
best decision . . . if you stay, these people will not stop bothering you. They
already got it into their heads.’ Herminia received similar advice from the
same congressman who pushed for an unwanted touristic project in her municipality. The suggestion given to Herminia drew her back to the private sphere:
‘your family needs you. Your husband needs you even more’ (Herminia).10
When describing her situation to a congressperson, Cecilia was told ironically,
‘you surely wanted to rule’. In the three cases, the institutions and/or people
expected to offer the women the means for their permanence in power did
exactly the opposite. No support was available to them when most needed.
DECONSTRUCTING BOTH TRADITION AND MODERNITY
As already seen, women’s government experiences were shaped by a series of
problems with internal (indigenous men in positions of power) and external
actors (PRI members, Ministry of the Interior, congressmen). Their short time
in office (three years at most) adds to a whole lifetime experience as in/outsiders. This section discusses the ways in which women redefine the political
culture that shapes the CAP system of Oaxaca.
Tradition Unquestioned? The CAP System from Women’s Perspectives
Just like most women feel strongly about their indigenous identities, they also
defend the indigenous autonomous project. They value the power of the
assembly to determine the use of the municipality’s budget; they believe
that tequio ‘is very beautiful’ (Tomasa)11 and ‘the only way to keep public
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works going’ (Estela).12 The escalafón system is also treasured in that it helps
people acquire government experience. Mayors are expected to ascend the
ladder, thereby ‘filling in knowledge’ and ‘filling in the ego’ (Cecilia).13
However, none of these elements go unquestioned. From their very important
frontier, the mayors redefine the three main pillars of the CAP system.
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Assembly Decision-Making Power
As women whose authority was permanently questioned, the mayors did not
enjoy assembly leadership. Assemblies ‘must be firmly endured’ (Francisca);14
they ‘should be handled with sanity and equilibrium’ (Rafaela).15 Others worry
about the idea that assemblies can decide on some important justice matters.
Herminia, who was physically attacked during an assembly, refers to state
and national legal frameworks that must not be overlooked. ‘People . . . want
to continue imparting justice according to their own law . . . in our country
there is a law that must be respected and applied, and I am sorry if they live
in a CAP municipality’ (Herminia).16
The traditional ways of dealing with domestic violence further exemplify
this matter. Community practices attempt to reconcile the battered woman
with her aggressor. This situation worries Irene: ‘even if the women complain,
they are not paid attention to’. Presently ‘justice is not being done’ and CAP
municipalities need to abide to national or state laws that ‘really protect children and women’.
Female mayors are also concerned by the fact that assemblies are maledominated. While in office, some of them organized the women in sewing,
baking and gardening courses offered by government institutions. Even
though these activities ended up reproducing traditional gender roles, they
made the women more visible, both socially and politically. The simple fact
of having a female mayor increased women’s presence in assemblies and
their confidence to speak up.
Tequio Obligations
Tequio activities are assigned according to the gender division of labor. Men
carry out ‘heavy’ activities (digging, planting), whereas women do what is suitable to their gender (cooking, sweeping and cleaning).
Women’s contribution to tequio is not acknowledged. This is no minor
thing. In the rare case that a woman arrives to the mayor’s office, her authority
will be questioned and she will be unable to make people participate in tequio
activities. Some female mayors have challenged gender stereotypes associated
with community labor and have succeeded in leading tequio activities. When
Rafaela was nominated for the mayoralty, men complained: ‘how are you
going to carry the cross on Good Friday? How are you going to the trail?’17
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Once a mayor, she did carry the cross and went to clear the land. ‘I still have a
scrape . . . I slipped, as many men have slipped . . . on Monday at nine . . . I was
already here, working . . . a man told me: mayor . . . it was possible!’
Escalafón Procedures
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Female mayors dislike the fact that the escalafón has been designed for men
because it involves traditional male positions (i.e. police man, police chief,
trustee), all of them performed in the public sphere. The good news is that
women have found a way around it. Of the eighteen mayors, only three have
an escalafón history. The rest were chosen as mayors on different grounds:
they were valued for their professional background (i.e. lawyer, architect), demonstrated community leadership as teachers or nexus with the PRI. In this changing
context, some female mayors challenge the need to go through the escalafón in
order to become a mayor. For Elsa, the most important question is: ‘can s/he
do it? Why not? If s/he can be a mayor once and for all, just let him/her.’
Pending Issues of Modernity: Political Parties and the Educational
System
Just as female mayors challenge the three main pillars of the CAP system, they
also question two important elements of the modernization project: political
parties and the educational system.
The Role of Political Parties in the CAP System
PRI-affiliates or sympathizers received resources directly from the state governor and were able to invest in various projects (building a new high school,
auditorium and irrigation unit; restoring twelve churches, buying tractors,
ambulances and police cars). By contrast, Carmela and Isabel, both associated
with the PRD, faced enormous difficulties to access additional programs and
resources. Carmela’s main opponent was close to the state PRI government
and created a parallel power to obtain resources (i.e. tractors) while she was
busy preparing projects that were never approved. Isabel bought heavy
machinery by constantly visiting government offices. ‘Come back in eight
days, come back in fifteen days . . . after so much insistence . . . they said ok,
we are going to give you what you want so that you stop bothering us.’
Many female mayors admit that political party intervention in CAP municipalities has transformed local processes. They accuse political parties of
dividing small communities: corrupting local authorities; cheating poor
people in order to gain votes; imposing candidates and agendas; and withdrawing support when a community is no longer profitable in terms of
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votes. What changes is the party being blamed for these wrongdoings, with PRI
sympathizers attacking the PRD and vice versa. Those who were expelled from
office emphasize the need for indigenous autonomy to be respected, arguing
that political parties ‘want us to continue fighting’ (Genma).18 Others believe
that remaining neutral in terms of political party preferences is essential
both to stay in power and to preserve the CAP system: ‘As a public servant I
am at the service of everyone’ (Isabel); ‘I never favored one particular party’
(Carmela).19 Both Isabel and Carmela stayed in office.
To be fair, however, it must be said that obtaining resources from the PRI
governor is not easy. Women had to loudly interrupt public events in order
to make themselves noticeable in front of the governor: ‘I interrupted the
event and told him, “governor, once you said that you would govern from
the regions, and governing from the regions involves investing in education”’
(Sofı́a).20 In similar circumstances, the governor told Cecilia: ‘don’t scream at
me, we are in front of the TV congress camera’. To which she replied: ‘that is
precisely the reason why I am screaming at you’. Neither the PRI nor the PRD
supported the eight female mayors who had political aspirations beyond the
municipal mayoralty (a local chamber seat). Four received offers to become
a candidate, but only Sofı́a formalized it and became a deputy.
Thus, political parties are in great debt with the female mayors. In their
nation-wide study on indigenous women’s political participation, Bonfil
et al. (2008) report similar malaises: political parties cause community divisionism and violent conflicts; they use people for electoral purposes.
However, women acknowledge that political parties cannot be avoided. They
prefer to have a different relationship with them: ‘you may join a party, but
you have to work for everyone’. This anonymous testimony (in Bonfil et al.
2008: 167 – 8) is strikingly similar to the ones found among the Oaxaca
female mayors.
Female Access to the Educational System
Not surprisingly, our group of highly educated female mayors treasure formal
education and favor the need to professionalize the municipal administration.
Interacting with external agencies in order to get financial resources is an
increasingly valued skill (Dalton 2005; Zafra 2009). ‘Mayors need orientation
on project elaboration’, says Irene. Similar opinions are expressed even by
those who do not have technical or college studies, such as Martha Sara and
Rosa. However, educational institutions are in great debt with indigenous
women. Heminia and Cecilia worked as domestic workers in Mexico City
from a very young age. Estela, the daughter of a single mother, stayed in
school thanks to the financial support of her elder brothers and sisters, the
same thing that Adela did for her younger siblings. Genma and Irene finished
junior high school thanks to the support of the Catholic Church. Most women
worked and studied at the same time.
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Verónica Vázquez-Garcı́a/Gender, Ethnicity and Indigenous Self-Government
325
The mayors value the positive role that formal education can play in
women’s lives, including increasing their access to municipal posts.
However, they know from experience that access to education requires a
major effort and remains as an unfulfilled dream for most indigenous
women in the country. These women are part of an overwhelming minority
that needs to be increased. Carslen (1999: 16) is right when she states that
indigenous women’s lack of formal education is a major barrier to CAP
government positions and that the educational system is ‘far from solving
the problem of gender discrimination’ vis-à-vis indigenous women.
CONCLUSIONS
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This article has examined the experiences of eighteen female mayors with the
highest position in the municipal power structure. They constitute a unique
group of women in various ways: they are very well educated; they make
up less than 2 per cent of all mayors per triennium; they studied and
worked in urban settings. They are real in/outsiders of their own culture
and their borderland location has become a way of life from which they permanently question the dominant dogmas of both tradition and modernity.
This unique group of women has equally unique experiences with municipal
power. They are politicians rather than activists. If any, their loyalties are with
political parties rather than with women’s organizations. In this sense, their
arrival at the mayoralty was a lonely process and one-third were removed
from office.
The most difficult actors for women to deal with while in power were: (1)
indigenous men in council positions; (2) indigenous men able to mobilize political groups; (3) state PRI members, who imposed candidates and agendas; (4)
the personnel at the Ministry of the Interior and some deputies, who advised
the mayors to leave their posts even though they had been elected according
to CAP norms. Women were let down by their own communities (the first
two actors) and the larger political society (the other two). In Espinosa’s
(2009) words, both tradition and modernity failed them.
Fortunately, women’s troubled experiences with power have allowed them
to devise new perspectives for the institutions that play a role in CAP municipal politics. Women question the three major pillars of the CAP system: assembly decision-making power; tequio; and escalafón procedures. In so doing, the
women undo idealized notions of political traditions that sustain gender
exclusion. They reconstruct the ‘imaginary community’ (Hernández 2007) to
which they belong in order to make it more gender-inclusive. At the same
time, women question the intervention of political parties in so-called autonomous municipalities, asking for a new relationship with them. They separate
personal militancy or political preference from the public servant’s duty to rule
in the benefit of the whole community. Additionally, women favor female
access to formal education and participation in professionalized municipal
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administration, while also acknowledging the enormous efforts that need to be
done in order to increase women’s access to formal education and politics.
This exercise is very much in line with the Zapatista Women’s Law that
brought indigenous women to the Mexican political scene in the mid-1990s.
Female mayors pose demands at two different levels: their own communities
and Mexican state institutions. The novelty of their vision lies on the fact
that indigenous political institutions are often idealized for their tendency to
share work and activities, monitor those in power and allow access to municipal posts on the basis of social prestige. By discussing the perspectives of the
tiny percentage of women who have been mayors in Oaxaca since the CAP
system was legalized, this article has shown that both indigenous and state
political institutions need to be revised from a gender perspective in order to
truly guarantee equality between men and women within indigenous collectives and Mexican society in general.
The article has captured the experiences of all the women who have ruled a
municipality in Oaxaca, a state that stands out for two reasons: it has the
largest population of indigenous peoples; it was the first one to sanction indigenous forms of self-government in the country. As such, the article makes an
important contribution to an increasing literature on women and municipal
politics in Mexico. Ethnicity appears as a major factor in the analysis.
Women are supportive of the indigenous autonomous project, but they do
not write blank checks to their male colleagues. They are part of a dynamic
culture that provides them with a strong sense of identity, but they are critical
of some elements of such culture. As women who have survived and even
thrived as in/outsiders of their own culture, they have made notorious progress in the task of shaping and redefining gender equality in the indigenous
self-government project of Mexico.
Verónica Vázquez-Garcı́a
Department of Rural Development, Colegio de Postgraduados,
Campus Montecillo
Carretera México-Texcoco Km. 36.5, Montecillo
Texcoco 56230, Estado de México, México
E-mail: [email protected]
Notes
1
The demands posed to the Mexican state include the right to work and receive a
fair salary; access to education, health and nutrition. The demands for the indigenous collective comprise the right to choose whom to marry and how many children
to have; to remain single; not to be battered nor raped; to occupy office; to participate in the Zapatista military structure in conditions of equality (Rojas 1999).
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Verónica Vázquez-Garcı́a/Gender, Ethnicity and Indigenous Self-Government
327
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
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9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
See the Women’s Revolutionary Law and the Zapatista National Referendum in
Rojas (1999); for Latin America, see Arboleda (2005); Calfio and Velasco (2005);
Ranaboldo et al. (2006); Meentzen (2007); Macleod (2008).
Gobierno de Transición en Rebeldı́a and Juntas de Buen Gobierno.
Topil (police man); mayor (police chief); regidor (councilman/woman), sı́ndico
(trustee), presidente (mayor).
The PRI ruled Mexico for seventy-one years (1929 – 2000).
There are 377,936 Zapoteco and 245,755 Mixteco speakers in Oaxaca.
There are 636,720 monolingual indigenous women in the country, compared to
271,083 men. Only 31.7 per cent of indigenous girls finish junior high school,
compared to 35.9 per cent of boys (CDI and INMUJERES in Támez 2007).
The Ministry of the Interior (Secretarı́a General de Gobierno de Oaxaca) is expected
to intervene in CAP municipalities when governability conflicts arise. The chamber
of deputies has the mandate to declare ‘disappearance of powers’ (desaparición de
poderes) when problems become unmanageable and a new government is needed.
Interview with Estela Reyes Ortiz, 30 July 2009.
Interview with Herminia López Juárez, 26 April 2009.
Interview with Tomasa León Tapia, 25 April 2009.
Interview with Estela Reyes Ortiz, 30 July 2009.
Interview with Cecilia Sánchez Castro, 14 July 2009.
Interview with Francisca Cruz Garcı́a, 18 July 2009.
Interview with Rafaela Hernández Chávez, 27 April 2009.
Interview with Herminia López Juárez, 26 April 2009.
Limpia de brecha (clearing up the land) is an activity aimed at preventing the invasion of communal lands by bordering communities.
Interview with Genma Morán Morales, 29 April 2009.
Interview with Carmela Barrera Fermı́n, 10 July 2009.
Interview with Sofı́a Castro Rı́os, 27 April 2009.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the financial support of the INMUJERES/
CONACYT Fund, grant 94777. Naima Cárcamo, Neftalı́ Hernández and Zaira
Hipólito transcribed the interviews and helped to organize the research activities described in the article.
Notes on contributor
Verónica Vázquez-Garcı́a obtained her PhD at Carleton University, Ottawa,
where in 1996 she was awarded a Senate Medal for ‘outstanding academic
achievement at the graduate level’. Presently she works as a Full Professor
at the Department of Rural Development, Colegio de Postgraduados, Campus
Montecillo, Mexico. She has published extensively on gender issues in the
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Mexican countryside. Her most recent research focuses on rural women’s
experiences with municipal politics.
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