Intersecting Inequalities

In this provocative study of poor women's organizations in Peru in the 1990s, Jelke Boesten raises most of the fundamental issues of transnational feminism and development facing the world today. Focusing on reproductive rights, domestic violence, and poverty relief, Intersecting Inequalities examines some of the ways in which women's local organizations in the global South, particularly in Peru, have wrestled with authoritarian and violent governments, tangled with women's national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and faced down mates and other family members who wanted to maintain existing social relations. Avoiding easy answers, Boesten points to some of the successes and pitfalls in seeking health care, freedom from violence, and adequate food supplies to show how women's groups can promote either progressive or right-wing political policies. This gripping book is a must-read for historians of transnational feminism, policy makers, leaders of NGOs, and others hoping to create new institutions to solidify social citizenship and justice for women around the world. --Temma Kaplan, Rutgers University, author of Crazy for Democracy: Women in Grassroots Movements and Taking Back the Streets: Women, Youth, and Direct Democracy. ""Intersecting Inequalities is an innovative, nuanced exploration of women's organizations and state policy frameworks in contemporary Peru. By using the lens of intersectionality to frame her study, Boesten provides us with a remarkable account of how gender, race, ethnicity, and class intersect to (re)produce marginality in the lives of indigenous and mestiza women as they interact with public institutions, NGOs, and even feminists. Her interdisciplinary approach challenges the very foundations of traditional social science fields and begs us to ask pressing questions about how neocolonial societal institutions and neoliberal policy processes continue to stratify Latin American societies and create irreconcilable differences among women--the supposed beneficiaries of modern feminism."" --Amy Lind, University of Cincinnati. As the only male head of state to address the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, Alberto Fujimori projected an image as a promoter of progressive policies to improve the condition of women, especially the poor, in society. And indeed the Peruvian government did pursue such policies during his tenure in such areas as poverty relief, population control, and domestic violence. These policies are used as case studies in this book to examine the relationship between gender/race/class/ethnic divisions and the state in its project of nation-building. This investigation reveals that policy meant to further womens development and emancipation often reproduced the marginality it was supposed to fight and depicts the strategies women developed to negotiate with and challenge the state.