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12 Respect, Discrimination, and Violence indigenous women in ecuador, 1990–2007 mercedes prieto andrea pequeño clorinda cominao alejandra flores gina maldonado In the 1970s illiterate indigenous women in Ecuador received the right to vote, a right that years later would open the way for their active participation in indigenous movements. Indeed, by the 1990s indigenous movements, with significant participation by women, besieged centers of state power as the country experienced a growing economic and political crisis.1 This public presence initially took the shape of an uprising that paralyzed much of the country and led to lengthy negotiations, with “native peoples” and nations demanding respect for their rights. As a result, the rights of indigenous peoples were recognized, both in the Constitution and in the creation of intercultural public policies in the fields of health, education, and the administration of justice. An extensive bibliography examines the nature, strategies, and achievements of the various stages of indigenous movements. However, this literature has been by and large blind to the relevance of gender as well as to the participation of women in the process of indigenous revitalization. While the country has been shaken by the voices of indigenous peoples, white and mestizo women— especially educated urban women—have lobbied for the inclusion of their agendas and interests in public debate. It is within this context that we pose the following question: how has the subject of indigenous women been treated inside these concurrent movements? The evidence points to divisions between the women’s and indigenous movements, and this problematic is the focus of our essay. Women’s groups have found it difficult to build solid bridges with indigenous women.2 In many cases, indigenous leaders, both men and women, openly reject an agenda centered exclusively on women or on gender relations, arguing external or imperialist meddling (Morocho 1998, 223–224) or the potential for division in the politics of indigenous peoples. However, within the indigenous movement itself, there are efforts—albeit strained—to create a women’s agenda in the midst of the 203 struggles for recognition as peoples and as nations. Analysts have interpreted this complex game in various ways. Some have read it as a counterresponse to the homogenizing state discourse on femininity and masculinity (Radcliffe 1993) or as an effort to combat gender discrimination by assigning new meanings to the traditional roles and values ascribed to women (Cervone 2002). Others have seen it as a strategy to postpone dealing with women’s issues to strengthen the struggle for the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights or as an expression of the masculine power that controls the indigenous renaissance (Minaar 1998). And—from a perspective that deserves our attention—it is plausible to view it as part of a process leading to an “indigenous feminism” aligned with the multiracial and postcolonial models critical of white Western middle-class feminism (Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996; Mohanty 1986, 2003). This essay emphasizes practices and statements by Kichwa women from the Ecuadorian highlands, confirming that feminism is not a single, universal language to express gender inequalities and the interests of women. The search for new codes in the struggle against ethnic and racial inequalities is palpable. Indigenous women have begun declaring themselves feminists in recent years (Reuque 2002; Sánchez 2005) and in Ecuador are constructing autonomous spaces for themselves, articulated around the Consejo Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas (CONMIE; National Indigenous Women’s Council), whose members work for gender equity within the framework of the rights of native peoples. These various trends clearly attest to the existence of factors that have prevented the alliance between the women’s movement and indigenous women. The divisive factors include different constructions of gender relations and of relations between individual and community, racism and discrimination, and class status. We argue, therefore, that these disagreements are the result of the specific articulation of gender, class, and ethnicity, expressed in the notions of respect, discrimination, and violence. These divisions merit further analysis, given the pronounced economic and social marginalization of indigenous women in Ecuador (Larrea and Montenegro 2005). Like other indigenous women in the region, they endure profound disadvantages in their access to public and societal resources, particularly in terms of educational opportunities and health services. The Gender Division of Labor and Gender Ideologies Various studies have argued the existence of gender relations particular to indigenous Andean societies, both in terms of the gender division of labor and gender ideologies . This literature emphasizes the flexibility of...

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