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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303978104577364431361067606.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

 

MEXICO - RURAL WOMEN SUCCEED IN TRADITIONAL MALE ROLES

 

Jean Guerrero / The Wall Street Journal

After her partner departed, Leonor Fernández began to run the family's 2.5-acre coffee farm. Most men who migrate from Mexico never return.

 

SIERRA MAZATECA, Mexico - June 6, 2012 - Every year for the past decade, 200,000 Mexican men have left for the United States.

The result has been a steady reshaping of everyday culture around those left behind—usually forcing women to become breadwinners. And as the shift deepens, it is upending one of the long-standing cultural pillars here: the Mexican cult of machismo.

When coffee prices plunged more than a decade ago, Leonor Fernández's partner left the couple's home and their five children in this rugged mountain region of southern Mexico to work in North Carolina. At first, he sent back remittances, but then the money—and the phone calls—stopped coming.

"I think he started his life again over there. He forgot about us completely," says Ms. Fernández.

To survive, Ms. Fernández began to run the family's 2.5-acre coffee farm. She then organized more than 100 local coffee producers and began traveling seven hours in a shared taxi van to the nearest city of Oaxaca at least once a month to sell their coffee. Eventually, she was appointed head supervisor of Oaxaca's State Coffee Council. "At first you feel the whole world crashing down on you, but little-by-little you open up again and you become tranquil," she says.

 

As coffee's prices skyrocketed last year, Ms. Fernández took advantage. She purchased an extra hectare (2.5 acres) to grow coffee and upgraded her wardrobe, which had included mostly traditional indigenous outfits. Also last year, in a surprise, her former partner, Dario Pereda, returned and asked to be taken back. Ms. Fernández said no. "I feel freer this way."

Mr. Pereda says he didn't forget about the family, but often couldn't send back money because work was unstable.

Traditional gender roles aren't disappearing, and aren't about to. Men are still in charge of rural Mexico, with about 6.6 million employed in the agriculture sector during the 2010 census versus about 1.6 million women. Many women depend on remittances from their migrated husbands, who take the lead in the family business activities once again when they return. But in many cases, relationships have changed permanently.

Ms. Fernández's story isn't unusual. Most of the men who migrate from Mexico never return, according to the country's National Population Council. And many stop sending money back to their wives, the women say. Nearly 80% of remittances from migrants come from sons, not husbands, said Antonieta Barron, an economics professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University.

Women are now the main breadwinners in 1.19 million of Mexico's estimated 6.2 million rural households, a third higher than a decade ago. More than half of the people who participate in all of the Agriculture Ministry's farmer programs, including those that incentivize productivity through subsidies, are now women, up from only about 30% just four years ago.

And in the few cases where men do return from the U.S., they often take on a greater share of the household duties—at least temporarily—like washing dishes and cooking, which they were forced to learn while abroad, researchers said.

Even as net migration from Mexico has plummeted to zero, according to a study released in April by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center, thanks to changing demographic and economic conditions on both sides of the border, women continue to keep their newfound role in the rural economy.

Women are in charge of the corn crops in San José del Rincón, a poor rural community in the country's largest state, also called Mexico. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, says 80% of families in the food security program are headed by women due to migration.

Eulogia Lopez said she migrated to the city with her husband more than 20 years ago, but she returned to the farm without him, turned off by what she said was his indifference toward their children. She now coordinates community projects organized by FAO. "Sometimes these men want a submissive woman who will just sit there, and I'm not one of those," she said.

Women are slowly changing the rural economy. Ms. Fernández, the coffee producer, said she believed Mexico's organic coffee output is rising as women, who she says tend to be more environmentally conscious, enter the business.

After her partner disappeared, she obtained Fair Trade and organic certifications for her coffee and is helping her organization members get certified.

The Mexican government, through its popular cash-transfer program, Oportunidades, and private banks that specialize in small rural credits favor women.

Compartamos, a micro-credit bank, says 98% of its clients are women. Men, the bank found, are more likely to spend the money on activities like drinking alcohol.

"It's proved that women, when they receive money, dedicate their efforts to their families, whereas with men, there's the problem of vices," said Daniel Manrique, public relations director at Compartamos.

Irene Fructuoso Lopez, who lives in Oaxaca, a colonial city in Southern Mexico, said she can't rely on her husband to send back remittances from the U.S. But she has to feed her two kids. So when someone handed her a flyer about Compartamos recently, she decided to take out a $1,200 credit, and is now starting a tortilla business.

"I feel more independent, like I can fight for myself," she said, adding many women in her community have taken charge like her.

Rita Casimiro de la Cruz, a coffee producer in the state of Guerrero, won a national coffee quality competition called Premio Cosecha the year after her husband migrated to Arizona to find work. When he heard about her victory, he came back to their rural town to celebrate.

"I told him, 'we won a prize,' and he said, 'No. You won it,' " she said. With a quiet laugh, she added, "A woman can, too."