Resumen de Women teachers of post-revolutionary Mexico: feminisation and everyday resistance
The reflections presented in this article include the process of incorporating women teachers into schools during the post-revolutionary period in Mexico. From one standpoint, women teachers lived in a state of ambiguity throughout this period because they were seen as symbols of national reconstruction following a war that left more than one million people dead. From another standpoint, they were victims of political and gender violence in a country that had not yet been pacified and was experiencing deep divisions between the armed Catholic groups that fought against the government. The process of the feminisation of Mexican teaching is approached through an analysis of the socio-professional conditions of rural teachers around the period of 1924 to 1945. There are a range of sources that were used for this research, including oral and documental. The collection of records of rural teachers from the Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública are important in terms of a regional study that was done in the Valle del Mezquital as well as in a current national study. After reviewing over three thousand teacher files, I have been able to verify that many of these women were empowered and conscious of their significance in the national identity. They took advantage of the situation to obtain gender work benefits, which included equal wages to men, pregnancy leave regardless of marital status or age and uninterrupted contracts. This mobilisation by women teachers throughout the entire country was unprecedented in the professional history of Mexican women workers. These teachers fought many daily battles, both individually and collectively, to maintain their jobs, by writing letters to the head of the Rural School Department, sharing their stories and the injustices they experienced in their daily lives. Nonetheless, it is notable that for the first time, a collection of female voices can be found in the teacher files; these women did not want to keep quiet, and they reflect a desire to participate in social change for themselves and their communities
