Engendering revolution : women, unpaid labor, and maternalism in Bolivarian Venezuela / Rachel Elfenbein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elfenbein, Rachel, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poor women--Venezuela--Social conditions.

Poor women.

Poor women--Venezuela.

Women--Political activity--Venezuela.

Women.

Unpaid labor--Venezuela.

Unpaid labor.

Feminism--Venezuela--History.

Feminism.

Venezuela--Politics and government--1999-.

Venezuela.

Venezuela--Social conditions--1999-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (284 pages)

Place of Publication:

Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press, [2019]

Summary:

In 1999, Venezuela became the first country in the world to constitutionally recognize the socioeconomic value of housework and enshrine homemakers’ social security. This landmark provision was part of a larger project to transform the state and expand social inclusion during Hugo Chávez’s presidency. The Bolivarian revolution opened new opportunities for poor and working-class—or popular—women’s organizing. The state recognized their unpaid labor and maternal gender role as central to the revolution. Yet even as state recognition enabled some popular women to receive public assistance, it also made their unpaid labor and organizing vulnerable to state appropriation. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, Engendering Revolution demonstrates that the Bolivarian revolution cannot be understood without comprehending the gendered nature of its state-society relations. Showcasing field research that comprises archival analysis, observation, and extensive interviews, these thought-provoking findings underscore the ways in which popular women sustained a movement purported to exalt them, even while many could not access social security and remained socially, economically, and politically vulnerable.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables and Images

Acknowledgments

Glossary of Abbreviations and Terms

INTRODUCTION The Unpaid Labor and Suffering of the Women Undergirding the Bolivarian Revolution

CHAPTER 1 Out of the Margins: The Struggle for the Rights to State Recognition of Women’s Unpaid Housework and Social Security for Homemakers

CHAPTER 2 Between Fruitless Legislative Initiatives and Executive Magic: Contestations over the Implementation of Homemakers’ Social Security

CHAPTER 3 State Imaginations of Popular Motherhood within the Revolution: The Institutional Design of Madres del Barrio Mission

CHAPTER 4 Regulating Motherhood in Madres del Barrio: Intensifying yet Disregarding the Unpaid Labor of the Mothers of the Bolivarian Revolution

CHAPTER 5 In the Shadows of the Magical Revolutionary State: Popular Women’s Work Where the State Did Not Reach

CHAPTER 6 Mobilized yet Contained within Chavista Populism: Popular Women’s Organizing around the 2012 Organic Labor Law

CONCLUSION Imagining a More Dignified Map for Popular Women’s Unpaid Labor and Power

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-1915-8

OCLC:

1269268339