Women in Central America: Development, Gender, and Change

Overview of Central America's Social and Economic Context

Central America is the region linking North America and South America — specifically, the nations connecting Mexico to South America. These countries tend to attract the attention of the American public when there is a perceived threat to peace, as during the era when Nicaragua was a war zone, when Noriega was ruling Panama and was then removed by force, or when rebel groups have taken action in the region. The business community takes more notice of Central America as a part of the world to be tapped for resources and as a market for goods. However, this is also a troubled region, long marked by poverty, unemployment, political turmoil, and social attitudes that much of the Western world considers regressive. The region is also overwhelmingly Catholic and therefore governed in large part by religious attitudes fostered by the Church.

In such an atmosphere, the role of women is complicated. On the one hand, women are not granted the same rights as men and are treated by both the Church and society in a paternal fashion. On the other hand, many women in these societies work side by side with men in the fields and in some urban work settings, though they tend to be underrepresented in higher-level positions, in business, and in the professions. More and more analysts are recognizing, however, that women in Central America may be key to bringing about meaningful change in the future.

Much of Latin America has been described for some time as resting on social structures that developed as a result of dependency theory. The dependency of the developing world on the advanced capitalist nations has been used to explain the economic and social-class formations that emerged in Latin America, and it also helps explain the structure of trade, technology, and investment between the developed and the developing world (Topik 554–555). At one time, many of these countries were seen as dependent because of the actions of Western companies such as the United Fruit Company, a corporation that controlled banana plantations in Central America and that placed its own economic interests above those of the region's people. Such exploitation benefited these companies while doing little for the people of Central America, leaving them in poverty and saddled with governmental structures more accountable to American businesses than to their own citizens. Today, Western oil companies continue to take advantage of many indigenous peoples in areas such as Latin America, contributing to environmental damage and exploiting local resources without helping to build an economic base that benefits the local population.

Dependency Theory and Historical Underdevelopment

For most of the twentieth century, the economy of Central America was tied to coffee. The state of labor from that era to the present has remained largely unchanged, as described by one observer:

"Work begins at an early age; the pace is intense and exhausting; salaries are low and inadequate; conditions are so hazardous that it is not difficult to imagine the exploitation endured; and in both cases, despite formal differences, the difficulties encountered in carrying out basic bodily functions are brought to light. It seems that the past and present are very much the same." (Sainz 2)

The later period referred to here is the era of globalization — a process that has altered but not eliminated Central America's dependency on the developed world.

Women's Role and the Impact of Development Policy

Historically, Central America was ruled by oligarchs until the recession of 1929 and its aftermath. Because of the resulting shifts, the primary-export model based on coffee and bananas was redefined through the diversification of agricultural and livestock products and, later, industrialization. The economy moved toward modernization while the political sphere moved toward authoritarian regimes, which in turn curtailed much of that modernization (Sainz 3).

Women have taken on a greater role in Central America by choice, perceiving that the existing paternal model was failing and that women and children — as well as men, in different ways — were being exploited by the system. In the 1980s, there was a notable increase in women's organizational activity and the development of a new political agenda for women. Many states in Central America have perpetuated gendered policies that disempower women (Staudt 4). While there are differences in how women have been treated across the various countries of the region, in general women had no direct role in the process of state formation and consolidation. Male control over women was a central feature of the laws and policies that were established.

The bureaucracy today is responsible for a broad range of tasks that fall under the heading of development, including education, family planning, and health, as well as agricultural issues, industrialization, and the accumulation of capital. Development often shows an urban bias, and developing nations frequently display the widest gaps between rich and poor. These inequities appear not only between rural and urban areas but between women and men as well. Development has been seen to carry certain negative effects for women: "it displaces their labor, strips them of past rights, and entrenches legal male control over women both in the family and the state. Such generalizations have now been modified with greater recognition of and attention to national historical specificity, mixed gains for women (such as absolute increases in life expectancy and literacy), indigenous cultural sources of subordination, and contradictory patterns" (Staudt 6).