Women of the Andes: Patriarchy and Social Change in Two Peruvian Towns

Susan Bourque and Kay Warren’s Women of the Andes is an excellent example of the importance of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches to Latin American and Women studies. Focusing on the small towns of Chiuchín and Mayobamba, located six hours or more from coastal Peru, the authors illustrate “the processes of change which though uniquely manifested in each Peruvian town, share generalized directionality with other rural communities” (p. 3). Specific data on the experiences of women and men in these communities are tied to a broader methodological framework that emphasizes the “interconnections of sex role stereotyping, sexual division of labor and institutionally structured access to crucial resources” (p. 212). As a result, the work sheds considerable light on key questions currently raised in Women studies—the issue of women’s culture and the significance of separate spheres, the relationship between class and sex, the importance of female networks and strategies developed to combat subordination, and “the meanings of sexual differentiation for the participants within a cultural tradition” (p. 211). In addition, the notions of modernization and structural dependency are reassessed as they “relate to social change and sexual subordination” (p. 181). Women of the Andes should be read widely for it is an indispensable interpretive model for contemporary research in a variety of fields.