Arts and Humanities Commons^™

For Love Or Money: Labor Rights And Citizenship For Working Women Of 1930s Oaxaca, Mexico, Sandra K. Haley

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This project examines the ways in which gendered discourses were strategically deployed by working women in their own interests during the years of Cardenismo. One result of this activism is the fluorescence of a number of court cases in the capitol of Oaxaca in south-central Mexico, Ciudad Oaxaca de Juárez. Hundreds of working women sued former employers between 1929 and 1938, which were unusually high numbers not seen before or since. Offenses cited include nonpayment of wages, firing without sufficient cause, and “other offenses” – usually quite juicy in the details.

The majority of the women worked as household domestic …