Abstract

PEREZ VILLAR, María de los Ángeles  and  VAZQUEZ GARCIA, Verónica. Familia y empoderamiento femenino: ingresos, trabajo doméstico y libertad de movimiento de mujeres chontales de Nacajuca, Tabasco. Convergencia [online]. 2009, vol.16, n.50, pp.187-218. ISSN 2448-5799.

Empowerment can be defined as women's ability increment to widen their life options and make their own decisions. It can be looked at in three dimensions: personal, close relationships and collective. Several studies have pointed out the uneven advancement in these dimensions and women's greater difficulties to transform the close relationship dimension. This paper analyzes three issues of such dimension: women's possibilities to manage their own income; their ability to negotiate their domestic workload; and their freedom of movement. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 women who compose the Regional Fund of Chontal Women from Tabasco (Fondo Regional de Mujeres Chontales de Tabasco). A family typology was constructed in order to analyze these three issues according to each family's composition and life cycle. Results evidence women's ability to negotiate changes in income management and freedom of movement, but not in the redistribution of their domestic workload. In the concluding section, the paper discusses these findings and compares them to those obtained in similar works.

Keywords : empowerment; family; indigenous women.

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