Paper Summary:

Nearly a decade ago, academic attention was being given to understanding the central role that women have played in the economic and political changes occurring in Latin America. The books currently under review demonstrate the broadening scope of literature on women in the region. Scholars continue to analyze the roles women play in political change, but an increasing number of academics are studying how women are affected by those changes in political and economic regimes and by state institutions. The paper shows that, in a sense, the causal arrow now moves in two directions rather than one. A predominant research question in the late 1980s and early 1990s was, how do women's movements influence democratization processes? The works reviewed in this paper demonstrate that scholars have now adapted their query to reflect the changing political systems of Latin America: how does a transition toward democracy affect women and women's organizations? Or, how can these democracies be altered or fine-tuned to be more hospitable to women?

From the Paper:

"This subordination inhibited women from becoming political and being viewed as such by others. Diane Mitsch Bush and Jean Franco Mumme's contribution to the Nazzari volume, "Gender and the Mexican Revolution," echoes this idea. Their case study confirms the hypothesis that gender issues become subordinated to broader objectives within revolutionary movements. Movimiento de mujeres en Centroamerica offers further insights into the tensions between a woman as an individual political actor and the collective women's movement in Central America. This book is a must for anyone planning to do research on women in Central America."

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