IX Southern Labor Studies Conference:
Labor and Free Trade.
October 26-29, 1995, Austin, TX

ABSTRACT
This paper analyzes political discourses of the state and municipal elections in Jalisco last February, and the various ways they represented female identity in association with the household, family and motherhood. This hegemonic conception of wome n was especially prevalent in the PANista discourse. In the PRIista speeches one finds more common a bid to include women as supporters of existing political institutions -- "libertad, sí". A third representation was most commonly found in the di scourse of leftist opposition parties, such as the PRD or PVEM. Their feminist demand that women might participate politically in ways that recognized their gendered needs takes this discourse to the level of 'libertinaje', beyond the established 'doxa' (Bourdieu 1991). Yet, consistent with the workings of hegemony, even these resistant discourses articulated elements of the very hegemonic discourse they resisted.
A neoliberal State would not in theory base citizenship on social differences; despite different social identities, citizens are supposed to be on equal footing politically. Gender should not effect a citizen's political subjectivity. What matt ers is the ability to compete as an individual in this new modern economy, and to earn the right to participate politically. Women who compete successfully in existing structures can gain a voice as individuals. The hegemonic construction of female iden tity though, seen in both the interviews conducted by the author and in the political discourses heard during the campaigns, excludes women from the political arena by positioning them in a figurative 'patria potestad', a private, off-limits area, though suitable as training ground for future citizens.
Some of the male politicians were open to representation of female identity more consistent with a gender-neutral neoliberal ideology. This second type of female identity is represented in my title as "libertad sí", as an assent to incorp orating women into existing political structures. While it is not counter-hegemonic, in that it does not challenge the structure of power, it does expand for individual women the opportunities to become incorporated into state institutions. The paper al so examines the discourse of female politicians. The PVEM gubernatorial candidate asserts a primal identification between female identity and ecological politics, a gender-based platform calling for radical changes in the economic development models prop osed by the PRI and the PAN, and hence incorporates some aspects of the radical political libertinaje. The PRD female politicians emphasize women's strength, and suggest other possibilities for female identity in the political arena, and for women's poli tical participation. Yet both still justify that entry into politics by emphazing its consistency with maternal female identity. Women can better social conditions for their children, and for the "bien común" or common good, through their role as mothers, the essential educators of future citizens.
The type of female identity most fitting of the term "libertinaje" as used in this paper, is that which is most clearly counter-hegemonic. It is represented in the political discourse's of women who demand changes in existing structures. Actual women who have traits that correspond to this ideal type include members of the feminist group "Mujeres en Medios de comunicación", many of them also members of the PRD. They demanded that the state government of Jalisco establish the Secretariat for Women. Their proposal offered an alternative to the neoliberal approach of merely expanding the numbers of women in politics, but not changing political discourse and practice in ways that meets women's needs as economically and socially constituted .
As we know, the PANista men swept most of the races, winning the governor's seat along with the four municipal presidential campaigns. Three women are now among the 37 representatives to Jalisco's State Congress, two from the PRI and one from the PA N. Not surprisingly, the feminists lost. On International Women's Day, many of these same women from the PRD, along with other women's groups, planned a celebration at the women's prison. Their goal was to join voices with the most silenced women. Th e organizers invited Joann Novoa Nossberger de Cárdenas, wife of the newly elected Governor "Beto" Cárdenas; her visit offers a demonstration of the State's 'symbolic violence' (Bourdieu 1991). Instead of affirming the potential for constru cting a counter-hegemonic female identity that might broaden it to include a wider range of practices than only the familial, she gave a speech that appropriated the day's focus on female solidarity, stressing the essential maternal identity all women sup posedly share. Her gifts to the women living in the prison drove the point home further: they all received roses, but the First Lady focused more on those who were mothers, giving them toys and diapers for their children. The incarcerated women literall y did not have 'libertad', but as another brand of libertine they too were 'free' to conform to the hegemonic female identity.