Since the mid-1980s, a dramatic opening in Mexico's political and electoral processes, combined with the growth of a new civic culture, has created unprecedented opportunities for women and other previously repressed or ignored groups to participate in the political life of the nation. In this book, Victoria Rodríguez offers the first comprehensive analysis of how Mexican women have taken advantage of new opportunities to participate in the political process through elected and appointed office, nongovernmental organizations, and grassroots activism.

Drawing on scores of interviews with politically active women conducted since 1994, Rodríguez looks at Mexican women's political participation from a variety of angles. She analyzes the factors that have increased women's political activity: from the women's movement, to the economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s, to increasing democratization, to the victory of Vicente Fox in the 2000 presidential election. She maps out the pathways that women have used to gain access to public life and also the roadblocks that continue to limit women's participation in politics, especially at higher levels of government. And she offers hopeful, yet realistic predictions for women's future participation in the political life of Mexico.

• Introduction
• The Feminization of Mexican Public Life, and a Note on Methodology
• Chapter 1: Participation, Representation, and Democracy: How the Personal Becomes the Political for Women in Contemporary Mexico
• Chapter 2: The Social, Economic, and Political Identity of Mexican Women: Negotiating Private and Public Spaces
• Chapter 3: The Women's Movement in Mexico: From Suffrage to the Institutionalization of Gender
• Chapter 4: Women in Public Office: Building Alliances, Getting Things Done
• Chapter 5: Women and the Electoral Process: Shifting Gears in the Mexican Political Machine
• Chapter 6: Reframing Mexican Democracy: What Does the Future Hold for Women?
• Notes
• Bibliography