Gender modernization: the middle class in Hermosillo, Sonora, 1940-1980

Abstract

The article documents and analyzes the unequal effects of economic modernization on men and women in the middle class of Hermosillo, Sonora after 1940. The first part of the essay describes the ideology and practice regarding gender in Hermosillo prior to the onslaught of modernization. It is argued that although the dominant gender ideology hierarchically separated the sexes and confined women to a subordinated domestic sphere, it was continually being challenged by the structure of production which frequently involved men and women and was located in the home. The second part begins by documenting how economic modernization altered the structure of production in Sonora and transformed the middle class labor market. These changes initiated the professionalization-salarization of the middle class which separeted work from the domestic sphere and led to women's isolation as reproductive workers in the home.