Gender and ethnic labor discrimination in Mexico
Alicia Puyana Mutis and Cinthia Márquez Moranchel
Please cite the paper as:
Alicia Puyana Mutis and Cinthia Márquez Moranchel, (2022), Gender and ethnic labor discrimination in Mexico, World Economics Association (WEA) Conferences, No. 1 2022, Feminist Economics, Contributions and Challenges
It was a pleasure to read this paper, I really enjoyed.
I think a concept that might be useful for you to think about these two different causes of discrimination (indigeneity and gender) is “intersectionality”. It refers to the fact that the ability to exercise power or suffer oppression depends on belonging to multiple social categories. Thus, an indigenous, black, poor, disabled woman is in a much more vulnerable and oppressed situation than a white, western woman, even though both are at the same time in a situation of subordination with respect to white men.
In page 3, you mention a set of drivers that led to restriction on women’s social, political and labor participation. I would add to that set an inequality that is a reproductive vector of inequalities and I think the most important one to think about gender gaps: the unequal distribution of care duties not only between men and women, but also between households, the State and the community. Women bear with the almost totally responsibility on care duties just for being women, which impedes them to take good jobs, to ascend on their career, etc. At the same time, at a social level, care duties (which has a fundamental role in forming human beings functional to capitalism) are relegated to the private sphere of the household, with little participation of the State or the community in such a relevant work.
You mention the bias on reproductive work to women, but I think is a key element to take into consideration to think about inequalities. I would give it a more central role in the analysis.
Thanks for your comment, dear Agostina. I gave me a big push.
You are right about intersectionality and we, Cinthia and I, will certainly expand our analysis on it. Nevertheless the first objective of the paper is to signal that women are discriminated whatever the ethnic origin. To be a women is a sufficient condition to be discriminated. Once it is stablished the intensity of discrimination would vary according to ethnicity, social groups, regional allocation. It is interesting to explore why is the reason why Afro Mexican women suffer similar degree of discrimination as non indigenous and non African descendants. I would like to further discuss with you about it.
Dear Agostina, we appreciate your valuable comments. Indeed, although gender and ethnic discrimination can be approached from their intersectionality, our objective is to analyze the inequalities faced by women with respect to men for the total population and within each group according to their ethnic self-ascription. What you point out about women’s unpaid and care work seems very important to us; it is an element we referred to at the end of the last section but, as you rightly point out, its relevance as a key element in gender gaps needs to be highlighted, which leads us to rethink the explanation.