Women and Change(Chapter 10 Presentation)

Chapter 10
Border Women’s NGOs and Political Participation in Baja California
This chapter analyzes female political participation through the study of the social movement in the Mexican State of Baja California.
The feminist movement is diverse and involves people from different social classes, rural and urban origins, and from different occupational sectors.
Because of Mexican Women’s movements three general varieties of feminism have developed in Mexico.
1. Historical Feminism include middle-class women who emphasized women’s subordination, and centered their fight on domestic work, abortion, sexuality, and violence.
2. Popular Feminism is dominated by women from popular but low-income sectors who face poverty and marginality and are in vulnerable economic situations.
3. Social Feminism organized by NGO’s. This group focuses on women of the popular sectors. They institutionalized their movement.
Feminism and Participation
Main goal: To participate in design of public policies related to violence, reproductive health and associated issues.
This participation has helped the women because they have:
• Feminism has expanded the concept of politics to include everyday struggles for survival and a change in power relationships in all spheres of social life.
• Women’s demands for citizenship expanded informal means and modes of social action.
• Influence in policy making, centering women’s problems within the public agenda and developing alternative policies.
• Women are establishing relationships of power with public authorities, demand and negotiate resources, counteract public decisions, resist, and negotiate and exert influence.
• Mexican Women’s NGO’s define their political participation through their involvement in advocacy and policymaking.



NGO’s means Non-governmental Organization.

NGO’s is defined as social and political actors who resolve their specific needs through alternative models of social relationships and for representing their interests in political life.
Goals
The social movement of women’s NGO’s has had a strong presence in Baja California since the 1990’s.
The goals for NGO’s are to
• Define women’s rights
• Increase women’s political participation
• Influence in public

Differences
• Ngo’s have differences in their specializations, some have overlapping aims that create disagreements and they also compete for political resources and networks.
• Not all NGO’s have the same political resources they consider themselves as advocates with some influence in public policies and laws.
Challenges
• NGO’s face the challenge of providing continuity to programs and policies that they promoted.
• They have to target groups such as judges and physicians to show more resistance to gender perspective.
• They need more efficient use of strategic planning tools that will continue to build an agenda that focuses on local problems such as:
o Women’s opportunities to access education
o Labor rights of maquiladora workers, Indigenous women, agricultural women workers, domestic workers, and working children
• They face ongoing challenges of promoting a new gender culture based on equity.


Achievements
• Contribute to civil society by promoting a gender dimension to public policies, institutions, and local governments.
• Because of demands and actions of NGO’s, local governments have assumed the defense and protection of women and other vulnerable groups in their discourses.