Gender and the Mexican Revolution: Yucatán Women and the Realities of Patriarchy

Notes

181 Abbreviations AGEY Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán FCE Fondo Congreso del Estado CHP Sección Comisión de Hacienda y Peticiones CIP Sección Comisión de Instrucción Pública FJ Fondo Justicia C Sección Civil M Sección Civil y Penal (Mixto) P Sección Penal FM Fondo Municipios FPE Fondo Poder Ejecutivo E Sección Estadísticas EP Sección Educación Pública FS Sección Fomento de Salubridad G Sección Gobernación GU Sección Guerra J Sección Justicia P Sección Población FPJ Fondo Poder Judicial JSS Libros Históricos de la Sección Junta Superior de Sanidad AHAY Archivo Histórico de la Arquidiócesis de Yucatán O Oficios ARCEY Archivo Registro Civil del Estado de Yucatán NARA National Archives and Records Administration of the United States, Record Group 59, Washington, D.C. RY La Revista de Yucatán VR La Voz de la Revolución Introduction 1 AGEY, FM Valladolid, caja 387, vol. 48, exp. 9, 1915; AGEY, FM Ticul, caja 79, vol. 79, 1914–20; AGEY, FM Valladolid, caja 387, vol. 48, exp. 12, 1915; AGEY, FM Valladolid, Notes 182 n n o t e s t o pa g e s 2 – 7 caja 387, vol. 48, exp. 4, 1915; AGEY, FM Valladolid, caja 387, vol. 48, exp. 3, 1915; AGEY, FJ, C, caja 977, 1915; AGEY, FM Valladolid, caja 387, vol. 48, exp. 18, 1915. 2 I am aware of the difficulty in reading historical texts as well as recent discussions surrounding the topic of the historical archive. See Mallon, “The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies,” especially 1506–9. 3 Alvarado, Mi actuación revolucionaria en Yucatán, 77. Also see Joseph, Revolution from Without, 108–9. 4 García Peña argues that the Mexican liberal reforms maintained the idea of the natural subordination of women to men in El fracaso del amor, 50. Also see Alvarado, La reconstrucción de México, 2:109–16. 5 Vaughan, “Rural Women’s Literacy and Education during the Mexican Revolution,” 106–7. 6 See Yuval-Davis’s work on women and nation, Gender and Nation. 7 See Kaplan, Crazy for Democracy. 8 Steve J. Stern, “What Comes after Patriarchy?,” 60. Also helpful is Stacey’s discussion of the differences between patriarchy and “post-patriarchy” in “What Comes after Patriarchy?,” and Vaughan, “Modernizing Patriarchy,” 194–202. 9 Besse, Restructuring Patriarchy; Caulfield, In Defense of Honor. 10 This study utilizes Scott’s definition of gender as a “constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and . . . [as] a primary way of signifying relationships of power.” Joan Wallach Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” 42. Also see Weinstein, “Inventing the Mulher Paulista.” 11 Generally, we can define patriarchy as a system of social, cultural, and political control where men exercise power and superior status over women in various aspects of their lives, including their labor and their rights within the family. See Steve J. Stern’s insightful discussion of patriarchy in The Secret History of Gender, 20–21. 12 As Varley notes, women as well as men could reinforce patriarchy within the home, as when mothers-in-law exercised control over their sons’ wives. Varley, “Women and the Home in Mexican Law,” 247. 13 Here I want to thank Florencia Mallon and Barbara Weinstein for their immensely helpful comments on the tensions between patriarchy and gender hierarchy/subordination . 14 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 3–11. McNamara also examines the transformation of patriarchy during the Porfirato in Oaxaca in Sons of the Sierra. 15 Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China, 261. 16 Steve J. Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 21. 17 Similarly, Besse analyzes the modernization of patriarchy under Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas in Restructuring Patriarchy, 202–3. 18 Stacey argues that one of the keys to the success of the communists in China was their ability to harness the patriarchal peasant family to the cause of the socialist revolution, demonstrating that the Chinese communists “saved” the traditional pa- n o t e s t o pa g e s 7 – 9 n 183 triarchal peasant family through their land reform and military recruitment policies during the 1920s and 1930s. Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China, 134–35, 156. Of course, Mexico’s agrarian reform also shored up rural patriarchy...