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Patriarchy on the Line: Labor, Gender, and Ideology in the Mexican Maquila Industry. bySusan TianoReview by: Patricia A. WilsonAmerican Journal of Sociology, Vol. 101, No. 3 (Nov., 1995), pp. 762-764Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2782005.

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AmericanJournal fSociologytradeunionism n authoritarianrazil: varied,complex, nd mostly on-servative. n spiteof its title, he book is as much about thepoliticsofaccommodations it is about thepolitics f thepossibleunder militaryrule.Commendably,Maybury-Lewis's ook also departsfrommuch of therecent ocial movementiterature ith ts focuson identityo the exclu-sionofstrategy,o center n thepolitical esourcesnd political nviron-ments fmovementsnunderstandingheir mergencenddevelopment.However,he misses n opportunityo engagemoreexplicitlywith thatpartof thesocial movementiterature hatdoes stress he mportance fpoliticalresources nd strategy. his omission s a missedopportunityfor both the subfield f Latin American ocial movements nd forthetheoreticalocial movementsiteraturehathas come out ofEurope andNorthAmerica.As longas theopportunityor ross-fertilizationftheo-ries nd casesis not seized nstudies uch as this ne,Latin Americanistsmaycontinue oarguethattheuniqueness f Latin American onditionswarrants he continued solationof theoretical pproachesadopted intheregion,whileadvancedindustrial ountryheoristsmaycontinue ooverlook hecontributionshat tudies fsocialmovementsndevelopingand authoritarianountriesmaketo the iterature.This criticismotwithstanding,he PoliticsofthePossible s an admi-rableachievementnd a significantontributiono theburgeoningitera-ture n LatinAmerican ocial movements nd tradeunionpolitics nderauthoritarianegimes.t is certain oappeal to thosewithbroad nterestsin peasant mobilization, atin Americanpolitics,trade unions, socialmovements, nd to anyonewho has marveled at what the relativelypowerless an achieve under remendousdversity.Patriarchy n theLine: Labor, Gender,and Ideology n the MexicanMaquila Industry.By Susan Tiano. Philadelphia:Temple UniversityPress,1994.Pp. ix+260. $44.95 (cloth); 18.95 (paper).PatriciaA. WilsonUniversityfTexas,AustinSusan Tiano's central uestion s whether hemaquiladora ndustry asincreasedmalecontrol ver women's ives nnorthern exico or, on thecontrary,as offered omen desirableworkforceptionnot previouslyavailable. Based on interviews onducted n 1983 and 1984 with 124womenmaquilaworkersnMexicali,Mexico,Tiano concludes hatnei-therextremes correct, ither bjectively r in the eyesof the womenworkers hemselves.Tiano admitswith eeming eluctance hat hegrowth f formal ectoremploymentor women n northernMexico over the last few decadeshas resultedn a structuralnd cultural ransformationhathas allowed762

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Book Reviewswomenmore ptions ogetoutofthe houseand more eewayto structurecareers, ust as theindustrial evolution n theUnited Statesprovidedgreater ptions orwomen. She regrets o report here s very ittle on-sciousness mong womenworkers hemselves f male domination ndexploitationn themaquila industry.n fact,mostof thewomensee themaquila industrys a desirable mploymentption.One ofTiano's important mpirical ontributions,ased on employerinterviews,s that employers hemselves ave matured n theirview ofthe maquiladora worker.First,noneof themconsider maquila-gradeworkers o be at the bottom f the abor market adder. The term ma-quila-grade, s used by employers,s a compliment. econd,while thepreviousprofile f an ideal maquiladora employeewas a single,youngwoman, nexperiencednd malleable, majority femployers ave be-gun to recognize he value of older, skilled and more stable women,especially hosewho are married r are responsible or children.Theauthor aments hatnot ll employers aveyetmade this ttitude hange,and even when hey o, theywill stillbe looking t thewoman'sdomesticrole n hiring nd promotion ecisions.The author's reviewof the adademic literature n maquiladoras isexceptionallyhorough et succinct,making tquiteuseful s a readingfor courseson the global economy nd the sociology f development.Much ofthe iteratureeview,however,was conducted fterher field-work was completed, o thatrecent esearchdoes not inform he fieldsurvey.For example, he treats heelectronicsector s a homogeneouswholerather handividing t intohigh-technd low-tech ubsectors smanyof us do now.Some readerswillobjectto theauthor's mprecise se oftheMarxistterms, elativendabsolute xploitation,o meanwhether rnot decentstandard f iving s afforded. he terms ctually efer o the method heemployer ses to appropriate reater alue from heworkers, uch asimproved echnology n the one hand, versus work speedups, longerworkdays,esspay,and so on, on theotherhand. The majordrawbackof thestudy,however, s the use ofsurvey ata that s over a decade old(1983-84) withno updated replicationf thesurvey.Nevertheless,heauthorhas made a painstaking fforto be statisti-callyand analytically igorouswith the data she has. As a result, hefindsmixed vidence hat upports omeaspectsof thepatriarchyhesisand someaspectsoftheopportunityhesis.Whilefair nd balanced,heranalysis eads to conclusions hatare, on thewhole,notvery xciting.am leftwonderingwhetheress extreme heses would have been moreuseful.While Tiano's book is basicallya successful ffort o gain accept-ance in academiccirclesfor ntractable ualitative ssues about the roleof women n thelabor force, am disappointed hat she optedto buyinto cademia'sdemandsfor hescientific ethod. would much ratherhave readthe tories f ust 10 of hewomen nterviewed-storieswritten

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AmericanJournal f Sociologyin such a way that could know thewomenas humanbeingsratherthancross-tabulatedata bits.Only then ould feel reallyunderstoodsomethingbout theobstaclesthe womenfacedat homeand at work,the optionstheyperceived, he trade-offsheyhad to make, and thepathstheyfinally ook. Onlythen could I beginto putmyselfn theirshoes.Hidden in theHome: The Role ofWagedHomework n the ModernWorld-EconomyyJamieFaricelliaDangler.Albany- tateUniversityof New YorkPress,1994.Pp. ix+225. $49.50 (cloth); 16.95 (paper).GayYoungAmericanUniversityJamie Faricellia Dangler builds an argumentfor the assertionthatindustrialhomework-rediscovered n the 1970s and 1980s-in theUnited States is not an anomalous formof productionbut ratheran integral lement f theworkings f theglobaleconomy.By adoptingthe dual frameworkf the genderdivisionof labor in the householdand in the externalabormarket, he offers gendered nalysisof thelinkbetweenmacrolevel conomicpatterns nd the activities f indi-viduals to provide daily needs. Nothingshort of transformationfthe genderdivisionof labor and sweepingchanges n women's capa-cityto take jobs in a broadenedrangeof paid alternativeswill solvethe homework roblem, Dangler asserts.Thus, homeworkremainsa creative trategy or women and an attractive roduction ptionforcapital.Dangler'sworkrepresentsn additionto the scholarship ocusedonthequestion:Whereare women n the worldsystem?See KathrynB.Ward, ReconceptualizingWorldSystems heoryto IncludeWomen,in Theoryon Gender/Feminismn Theory, ditedby Paula England[New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 993]). For all its merits,however,aweaknessexists n the analysisof theimpactof thegenderdivisionoflabor operatingn theworld economy o createthe contradictionsorwomen nherentn industrial omework.As Danglerherself rgues n acritique f labormarket egmentationheory, akingforgranted ome-thing hatneeds tobe explained imits heexplanatoryowerof an argu-ment. n makingherargumentbout therole of ndustrial omeworknthe modernworldeconomy, anglerfocuses nsufficientnalytic tten-tiononthehousehold.Recognizinghathouseholds ontain omplex ela-tions nd aremore hansimply itesof thegenderdivisionof abor canrefine nalysis imed at connectingmacrolevel hangeswithmicrolevelsituations. cholarswhosework focuses n the mpacton ThirdWorldwomen ofmacroeconomicolicies-for example,structuraldjustmentprograms-have become keenly ware of the need to open the black764


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patriarcado en la línea Wilson