In 2014, the Area of Gender: Rural woman at the Rural Development Graduate Program in Colegio de Postgraduados reached 20 years of existence. This research area was promoted by Dr. Emma Zapata Martelo, who has an academic career of more than 30 years and is Professor and Researcher at Colegio de Postgraduado, Campus Montecillo, Estado de México. I want to take this opportunity to give well-deserved recognition to Dr. Emma Zapata Martelo, who is a very important pillar of gender studies in México, and to whom I express my great admiration and deep gratitude for her great effort and tenacity in her professional career as researcher and professor, and who despite having to face challenges on her path, continues to advance in this initiative. Dr. Zapata belongs to the National Researcher System, Level III, and to the Mexican Academy of Sciences. She has received several national and international distinctions; among them, the International Award in Developing Countries, given by the Justus-Liebig University from Giessen, Germany; the National Award María Lavalle Urbina, and the State Award in Science and Technology in the Area of Social Sciences and Humanities in 2010. Numerous articles of her authorship have appeared in national and international journals, with themes related to rural women, public policies, empowerment, women’s organizations, rural work, among others.

This book, titled “Contributions of Gender Studies to Rural Development”, was coordinated by Dr. Emma Zapata Martelo and M. in Sc. Rosario Ayala Carrillo, researchers in Colegio de Postgraduados, Campus Montecillo, and is product of the research exercise that has the purpose of contributing to the construction of knowledge about the issues, rediscovering their contributions and outlining strategic fields in research, public policies, and other actions around overcoming the problem of gender inequalities. The work is divided in two parts: the first corresponds to the talks presented within the framework of the commemoration of 20 years in the Area of Gender: Rural Woman, while the second presents the state-of-the-art in different themes that have been addressed in different theses in this research area, carried out by women and men students from Colegio de Postgraduados where the results are discussed from the gender perspective.

The book presentation was in charge of Dr. Emma Zapata Martelo. During it, she spoke of the background and academic struggles that gave rise to the creation of the Area of Gender: Rural Woman at the Rural Development Graduate Program in Colegio de Postgraduados. In addition, she mentioned that this material is offered with the aim of creating new visions on such a transcendental theme as equality and equity between genders, promoting different points of view than those exposed in this book and enrichening the studies of those who wish to tackle these themes. In addition, it allows us to move through the academic reflections of those who elaborated the theses, visualizing themes that need to be explored in the future and to delve into strategic fields of research.

The book’s introduction was written by Beatriz Martínez Corona. In it, the background of the specialty are detailed as well as the challenges faced by it, among which the following stand out: 1) resistance to gender transversality in the curricular design of graduate studies; 2) elimination of sexist language or exclusion of the feminine sphere from institutional culture; 3) reproduction of traditional gender patterns or stereotypes in teaching; 4) prejudices regarding the scientific rigor of this type of studies; 5) aspects present in academic life and in the relationship between professors in the institution; and 6 ) issues that have been addressed through institutional efforts with the participation of some women researchers in the area with actions directed at certification in the Gender Equity Model (GEM).

In the first chapter, titled “Women in election positions in México: Municipal women Presidents during the second decade of the 20th century”, Dalia Barrera Bassols presents a comparison of the panorama of access that Mexican women have to municipal presidencies between 2000 and 2014. The author mentions that among the obstacles and weaknesses that need to be overcome the following stand out: 1) discrediting campaigns towards women in public positions or who aspire to them; 2) resource scarcity; 3) economic pillaging by outgoing authorities, and even, financial bankruptcy in a municipality; 4) mocking the women; and 5) discrediting in terms of their ability to govern.

In the second chapter, “Body, Spirit and Nature in studies of gender and environment”, Ivonne Vizcarra Bordi and Ana Gabriela Rincón Rubio reflect upon the theoretical and methodological perspectives that have guided the research regarding gender and nature studies, as well as rural, indigenous and environmental research work. They speak about experiences in daily life of complete towns that have been ruled by their customs, cultural values, worldviews, and human experiences in relation and communion to the divine and everything that surrounds them. The authors present critical and Latin American ecofeminism as a radical anti-patriarchal hermeneutic attitude that seeks to propose a new belief, inclusive and capable of totally reconstructing from the method of suspicion and from a different epistemological basis: ecosophy, which is characterized in turn for being an inclusive cosmological vision.

In the third, “Gender inequalities and survival of rural women in México: The case of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus”, Austreberta Nazar Beautelspacher, Benito Salvatierra Izaba, Lucrecia Hernández Pilicastro and Emma Zapata Martelo address the theme of rural women’s health. The authors contribute to clarify some of the inequalities in rural women’s health and between settlements of different size, for mortality indicators. They reflect upon the lack of comparative information in the theme of health that allows analyzing the inequalities and social determinants of this process and the role that gender relationships have in rural women’s health, including nutrition, violence, infectious and chronic diseases, among others. They address the case of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, which is a chronic disease that requires periodic medical attention for its control and entails expenses that limit the access of rural women to quality health services. They point out that if there is a true aspiration to achieve better health condition, higher survival, and better life quality for the rural population, the efforts to decrease gender and socioeconomic inequalities should be redoubled.

In the fourth chapter, “Challenges of true inclusion in the 21^st century: The pending agendas of indigenous women. 20^th anniversary of the Area of Gender: Rural Woman at Colegio de Postgraduados”, Paloma Bonfil reflects upon the fast and sharp transformation of contemporary indigenous societies in México, which is reflected particularly in the new generations, and the conditions of exclusion, marginalization and poverty in this sector of the population, which creates a need for performing research to generate public policies from the evidences that impede achieving equity and democracy, encourage conflict and halt social development. The author mentions that the studies that originally analyze women’s conditions are important inputs to document in a critical and sustained way the contributions made by indigenous women to the reedition of cultures and the terms of relation of their peoples with society and the national state. She presents a critical questioning of the concept of identity, showing its particular dynamism from processes that affect rural societies, such as migration, urbanization and, in general, modernization. The author shows the need to develop complex and combined interpretations of identity, for that is where the indigenous feminine practices and discourses are produced, where the impacts of schooling, migration, work experience, material and cultural consumption, and access to productive resources converge in new proposals for social life and renovated future expectations for indigenous women that affect the whole of the collectives.

The second part of the book begins with the fifth chapter, titled “Studies of indigenous masculinities in México and Latin America, contributions by Colegio de Postgraduados”, where Rufino Díaz Cervantes carries out an exploratory exercise on the studies that have been done regarding indigenous masculinities in México and Latin America. Its discussion and contributions revolve around the epistemological, theoretical and empirical contributions in the understanding of rural, peasant and indigenous masculinities, highlighting their contributions to reveal, understand and act on the problem that patriarchy, heterosexism and neoliberal capitalism set out in the conditioning of subjectivities and practices of “being a man” within indigenous contexts in their relationships with other men and women, and the possibilities suggested in the management of gender equality and the recognition of indigenous gender diversities.

In the sixth chapter, “Gender and education: Contributions from Colegio de Postgraduados”, Emma Zapata Martelo and Rosario Ayala Carrillo approach the emergence of gender studies in higher education, as criticism to the traditional theoretical positions that had ignored or distorted the life of women or ignored their contributions to knowledge. The authors analyze some policies that have advocated the universal coverage of education and the transformations of inequity. The difficulties to promote education with a gender perspective stand out, as well as the stereotypes and institutional gender culture. They reviewed theses that address the themes of discrimination, unequal competition, which affect the professional, work, family and economic life of women; work segregation because of the internalization of stereotypes, social learning reflected in the role of the teacher, and school desertion that affects more women than men, among others.

In the seventh, “Research contributions and agendas on the study of feminine empowerment at Colegio de Postgraduados”, Rufino Díaz Cervantes and María Esther Méndez Cadena analyze eight theses and approach the theoretical and conceptual framework of feminine empowerment of rural and indigenous women. They analyze the discourse of feminine empowerment and development, their absences, presences and partialities in the management of gender equality. They mention that empowerment refers to a wide and complex process of changes in the subjectivities of the gendered being, of the structures and social relationships; in general, it speaks about deep transformations in the paradigm of life and coexistence.

In the eighth one, “Gender studies in rural women’s organizations and enterprises in México”, Rufino Díaz Cervantes reviews 27 theses and explores the participation of women in the various contexts influenced by neoliberal globalization, but also by their insertion into paid work and the struggle to become acting subjects. He analyzes the gender perspective and relational character in understanding organizational and enterprise processes of rural men and women, where the organization is proposed as a means to manage productive projects, enterprises, microfinancing, and with the final aim of seeking to cover the practical and strategic needs of women. The organization is seen as an important part of the development process and the social organizations, whether formal or informal, have diverse meanings, interests and purposes. The finality is that, through their organizations, they become managers of their own development and can break the patriarchal order, satisfying their strategic needs, and that this is reflected in citizenship where women are present, that is, guaranteeing their participation.

In the ninth, “Gender, environment, rural women and natural resources”, Beatriz Martínez Corona analyzes 22 theses that address the relationship of women with natural resources. Among the theoretical positions we find environmental feminism, gender, environment and development (GED), and feminist political ecology; in all of them the sociocultural and structural aspects stand out from gender relations in environmental spaces. The author highlights that among the contributions of gender and environmental studies in Colegio de Postgraduado, there are the following: a) knowledge and understanding by gender that are included in multiple aspects of daily life and in the maintenance and protection of ecosystems; b) environmental rights and properties, including property, resources and spaces; c) women participation in collective struggles over the resources to produce. Most of the studies underline the position of disadvantage that women have in terms of access, use and control of natural resources, and makes visible the traditional knowledge and conditions of change if the conditions of disadvantage were to revert.

In the tenth, “Migration and gender, approaches from Colegio de Postgraduados”, María del Rosario Ayala Carrillo and Emma Zapata Martelo approach the theme of migration. The authors analyzed nine theses, with an emphasis on rural communities with small populations. The observations were centered on domestic groups, needs for income, lack of work in their places of origin, and forms of organization in their activities inside and outside the home with the exit of one or more members. In several of them the vision in centered on the women and the concept of feminization of migration is referred to. They mention that through the gender perspective, situations can be identified that women and men experience when one of the members of the family group migrates, since the consequences, whether positive or negative, depend on the gender of whoever goes and whoever stays.

In the eleventh, “Gender violence: Diverse perspectives”, María del Rosario Ayala Carrillo and Emma Zapata Martelo analyze six thesis that approach the theme of violence: five have a gender perspective and one lacks it. The authors mention that, although violence has existed in all societies, and has been addressed from different angles, there is no consensus in its definition. In general, it refers to the power relationships by which one person forces another to do what he/she wants, using coaction, threat or other means; it is present in the quality of violent and the use of force under any circumstance. The studies carried out about violence, from the point of view of feminism and the gender perspective, consider violence as a social phenomenon framed by the constitution of identities and gender inequalities, as well as by the devaluation of the feminine. In the theses reviewed by these authors the causes of violence are addressed, as well as types, risk factors, myths about it, consequences for people who suffer it, and the models that have been used to study them; there is also discussion about the role of international agencies in the construction of public policies to offer a solution to this phenomenon.

In the twelfth and last chapter, “Gender studies in development policies and programs for rural women in México”, Miguel Ángel Ayala Mata and Hermilio Navarro Garza analyze six theses; four have as an axis agrarian policies to integrate women and the concept of gender and development, one is located in the theme of policies for population and women’s wellbeing, and another in policies of population and rural women’s wellbeing. The authors perceive public policies as a process in which initiatives are intermixed from social organizations and government instances in which the practical needs of women are inserted and, in some cases, also strategic needs. They mention that the theses they analyzed are clear examples of what happens in public policy at the national level, showing difficulties that have been faced while implementing the gender perspective in different public policies, and that the results of those policies are not being reflected in the improvement of women’s situations and living conditions. On the contrary, far from benefitting women, some policies have meant more work, responsibilities, and even violence for them.

In general, the book is very interesting and I highly recommend it, since as Zapata mentions in its presentation, it constitutes a contribution for the new generations to consider how far we have come with some gender studies and their contributions to rural development, the paths down which it is necessary to advance and the themes that should be included and proposed in future research.