Revista Korpus 21 - Volumen 2 Número 4 - Sobre las olas del feminismo

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KORPUS 21, VOL. 2, NÚM. 4, 2022, 117-132 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22136/korpus21202272 TOWARDS A HISTORY OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE, MEXICO CITY (1920-1950) HACIA UNA HISTORIA DE ACOSO SEXUAL EN EL LUGAR DE TRABAJO, CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (1920-1950) Susie S. Porter orcid.org/0000-0001-8097-7521 University of Utah United States s.porter@utah.edu Abstract In response to the phenomenon of sexual harassment, feminists have taken to the streets, painted statues and public walls, and organized for change. This essay responds to the calls of Mexican feminist scholars for an approach to sexual harassment that takes into consideration the specificities of Mexican realities. The essay examines the conditions that shaped sexual harassment in the 1920s in Mexico City, taking into account the participation of women in the workforce, the cultural representation of working women, and legal, institutional, and cultural spaces that shaped the space within which women could speak out against sexual harassment. Keywords: Sexual harassment, work, feminism, Mexico. Resumen En respuesta al acoso sexual, las feministas han tomado calles, pintado estatuas y muros públicos, y se organizaron para el cambio. Este trabajo responde a los llamados de teóricas mexicanas feministas por un enfoque al tema de acoso sexual que atienda las especificidades de las realidades mexicanas. Examina las condiciones que dieron forma al acoso sexual en la década de 1920 en la Ciudad de México, tomando en cuenta la participación femenina en la fuerza laboral, la representación cultural de las mujeres que trabajan y los espacios legales, institucionales y culturales que delimitaron cómo se pronuncian contra el acoso sexual. Palabras clave: acoso sexual laboral, trabajo, feminismo, México. 117
SUSIE S. PORTER, TOWARDS A HISTORY OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE, MEXICO (1920-1950) Introduction In Mexico, almost twenty-seven percent of women who work outside of the home have experienced “some type of violent act, primarily sexual in nature and gender discrimination, including due to pregnancy”. Men sexually harass women across the workforce. Women employed in factories and maquiladoras are the most likely to suffer discrimination (24.75%), followed by public sector employees (15%). Single women are more likely to experience sexual harassment, though married women do as well. The majority do not report their aggressors, stating that they “didn’t think it was a big deal”, didn’t expect justice would be served, and feared retaliation. Indeed, of those who did report, a minimal number found justice (EN- DIREH (Encuesta Nacional sobre la Dinámica de las Relaciones en los Hogares), 2006; Frías, 2011: 351-356; Inegi (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía), 2017). Mexico is not unique: 41% of women who work outside of the home in the United States have experienced sexual harassment at work (Siuta and Bergman, 2019). Workplace sexual harassment is one of several types of harassment and gender violence that Mexican feminists have protested and organized to combat. Feminists have taken to the streets, graffitied statues and public walls, and they have organized for change. Mexican feminists have also studied and theorized the phenomenon as it plays out in Mexico. Anthropologist and political scientist Marta Lamas makes an important intervention in debates about sexual harassment in Mexico, arguing for an approach that attends to the specificities of Mexican realities (Lamas, 2018, 2020). She argues that the adaptation of theories and remedies external to Mexico can have deleterious effects. For example, in a country with high levels of impunity, the adaptation of punitive models of response is ineffective. Furthermore, Lamas argues that punitive models of justice have the potential to reinforce the machista culture that underlies sexual harassment and further stigmatize women’s sexual expression. This essay contributes to a Mexico-specific approach with an examination of the history of labor practices, legislation, and cultural symbols that shape our understanding of female bodies, sexuality, and the conditions of consent. This essay draws on Mexican sociologists and legal theorists who understand workplace sexual harassment within the context of the gendered construction of the workplace (Frías, 2011; Kurczyn Villalobos, 2013; Veláquez Narváez and Díaz Cabrera, 2020). The historical evolution of women’s place in the workforce laid the foundation for sexual harassment at work and women’s response to the same (Berebetsky, 2012). The essay examines the integration of women into the metropolitan industrial workforce of Mexico City in the early twentieth century and the boom in women’s employment in white-collar work in the 1920s. The work force was organized in such a way that men exercised power over women, at times in ways that historical actors defined as sexual harassment. Examples include women who worked in factories, on the streets and in municipal markets, and in the offices of Mexican Federal government. After tracing the contours of journalistic reports of sexual harassment, the essay then maps the history of legal and institutional spaces that have governed labor disputes and where, if anywhere, women could denounce sexual harassment. The spaces were few and far between. Labor law did not acknowledge sexual harassment let alone provide remedy. Women occasionally made mention of sexual harassment as supporting evidence in complaints over seniority violations or wage disputes, in factory inspection reports, and newspaper reports. The law placed much of the burden of proof on women themselves and left them defined by long-standing regimes of honor and shame (Nazzari, 1998; Lipsett-Rivera, 1998). It was, rather, in the feminist press where women made their clearest denunciations of sexual harassment at work. When in the 1920s women began writing publicly on the subject, they did so in the third person so as to protect their individual respectability 118
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Presentación SOBRE LAS OLAS DEL FE
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Revista Korpus 21 - Volumen 2 Número 4 - Sobre las olas del feminismo

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