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231 afterword The relationship between gender and law in Mexico has to be understood within the context of “bourgeois law,” the legal concepts and practices that developed in eighteenth-century Europe. Although sometimes presented as a coherent set of ideas and practices, bourgeois law is a language of argument, riddled with contradictions (Fitzpatrick 1992; Kristeva 1991; Macpherson 1962). I will discuss some of these to consider their implications for gender justice in Mexico. I will repeat the obvious, but do so because generally accepted truths affect us most when they remain unexamined (Bourdieu 1977). I will restate what we all know but need to keep in mind when analyzing specific instances of law. I borrowed Evgeny Pashukanis’s (1978) term bourgeois law (rather than the term liberal law) because I want to emphasize historical connections between capitalism and legal systems in which “men” make laws to protect “the rights of man” (Collier, Maurer, and Suárez-Navaz 1995). The most important rights concern security of property and persons. When “men” demanded the right to create their own laws (rather than submit to laws of divinely ordained kings), they wanted to protect property owners’ rights to use and dispose of properties without fear of physical violence (Macpherson 1962). Feminists have long observed that the “rights of man” were, in fact, the rights of men (Pateman 1988). The man that eighteenth-century philosophers imagined was the owner of enough productive property to support himself and his dependents. Over time the category man has expanded, as workers, slaves, women, indigenous peoples, disabled people, etc., have demanded equal rights. But those who are not independent property-owning men continue to have difficulty realizing the promise of equality. Because “equal rights” were articulated in opposition to monarchical status privileges, those who differ from “equal men” face the contradictory task of Thinking about Gender and Law in Mexico JANE F. COLLIER Afterword.qxd 4/7/07 11:20 AM Page 231 demanding both “special” and “equal” rights. Feminists demanding equal rights soon discovered that most women neither can nor want to be like the competitive, selfish, autonomous man of bourgeois law. Rather, women prefer family-friendly policies that allow mothers to participate in political and economic activities. Whereas women may enjoy equality as long as they forgo family responsibilities, many rightly resent men’s ability to enjoy both family life and the independence granted those who “earn” their own way. Similarly, indigenous groups demanding equal rights find that their desire for cultural preservation may prevent their realizing “equality” based on European assumptions of personhood. Faced with having to demand “special” rights to avoid sanctions for being different, women and indigenous peoples appear to be arguing both for and against “equal” rights. Children are women’s problem. Because children need care, women can never realize the bourgeois ideal of the autonomous, rights-bearing man. Nor can they pay caretakers. Consequently, unpaid child-minders are usually condemned to economic dependence on someone who does earn money. The inventors of bourgeois law imagined that property owners would support the household dependents who lived and worked with them. But the idea that men would support dependents did not disappear when wages and salaries replaced property ownership as the basis of wealth. Drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights assumed that working men would support their families when writing that “Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity” (art. 23). However tempting it may be to view laws protecting male-headed families as reflecting religious values, such laws are as integral to secular bourgeois law as are those mandating gender equality (chapters by Ortiz-Ortega, and Szasz, this volume). Both capitalism, which pays only for goods that enter the market, and bourgeois law, which grants equality only to autonomous individuals, must ensure that those who cannot support themselves are provided with food and shelter.1 Religious groups may demand legal protection for male-headed households , but activists for secular causes such as fair wages and land reform also argue that workers and peasants also need resources to support their families (Baitenmann, this volume). Bourgeois law commonly handles inequalities through two mechanisms— protecting individuals’ right to choose, and emphasizing the public/private distinction . The central contradiction of capitalism, the class inequality that coexists with equal legal rights, is commonly portrayed as resulting from choices made by free individuals negotiating private contracts. Although propertyless individuals have to...

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