Women and the environment in rural Mexico

Abstract

Rural women in Mexico live in deteriorating environmental conditions. Do they care? Are they more interested than men in helping to stop this degradation? What knowledge of the environment do rural Mexican women have? Section One analyses some Western views: the eco-feminist movement which sees women as equivalent to nature and both as subordinates of men, the Western historical and anthropological literature on women and nature and selected writers who see women as saviours of the Third World. In Section Two it is demonstrated that it is difficult to know if Mexican women care about the environment or even what they know, because there is little published information. A partial answer may be inferred from what is known about their work. Rural Mexican women's work is the best proof of their environmental knowledge; their roles and work are examined and the causes of their absence from the literature are discussed. The literature review was supplemented by field work in four communities of south-eastern Mexico. This established that these women vary in their approach to natural resources, and that this approach is much influenced by their culture and by themselves as individuals. Some have very substantial knowledge. The fieldwork supported the view that women's relationship with the environment is highly specific by place, time, culture, class and other factors, but there is still some continuity in attitudes to the environment among women, perhaps in their role as "carers".