nuevas TRENZAS informs
june 2013 N° 16
Constructing New Identities? Gender and Education in Peruvian Young Rural Women’s Life Projects Patricia Ames Instituto de Estudios Peruanos The objective of this study is harnessing a better understanding of rural girls and rural young women’s growing insertion process in the education system. In order to accomplish this, we examine how this collective places schooling and education at the centre of their current life strategies and future aspirations. Throughout this study, it is maintained that high educational aspirations of both girls and their families are not only related to the desire of overcoming poverty and marginality, but also to the desire of overcoming oppressive gender relations that many experiment. Likewise, it has been found that the range of female roles available for today’s young rural women affects their identity formation as well as life strategies. Finally, it has been found that this process is not only an individual one; it is also related to inter-generational agreements, family projects and shared common senses regarding the changes needed to improve young rural women’s life, revealing a significant transformation in rural and indigenous households. The Peruvian Context: Unequal Opportunities in Young Women’s Lives As in Latin America in general, the situation of Peruvian women has changed rapidly over the last five decades due to the process of modernization, more access to education and health systems, as well as to the increase of opportunities for political participation. However, these fast changes are not simple: some are only fragile accomplishments, others face resistance and a series of contradictions surrounds them. In the Peruvian context it has been found that these changes do not affect all women equally. This varies according to diverse factors such as social class, ethnicity and area of residency. Among the distinctive features of the current context, it is found that gender violence still prevails. On the other hand, an increase of women’s participation in politics, in economic life and education has been observed. These changes affect urban and rural women in different degrees. In comparison to the latter, the former are the most benefited. Regarding education, however, it is observed that in the last decade younger generations of rural women have increased their presence in schools. Within this collective, it is important to distinguish between young rural indigenous women and young rural women. Even if both groups overlap, they are not the same. Most of the indigenous population lives in rural areas, in spite of an increasing proportion that lives in urban centers. However, among young rural women there is a percentage of non indigenous women, even if their families share similar life situations and disadvantages. Narratives of Progress: An Approximation for Exiting Poverty Case studies were approached over the base of three different scenarios that showed similar results. It was found that the boys and girls contemplated in this study value higher education and their current and future. They constantly highlight the relationship between education and their current and future well-being. For them, accessing higher education and
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achieving the qualification of “professionals” is synonym of “being someone in life”. Education is therefore related to the objective of “being a professional”, something that young people (and their parents) associate to the possibility of having a better life and escaping poverty. As it has been pointed out, education is perceived as key, both for men and women, for escaping poverty. However this desire is stronger among young women and their mothers who also see higher levels of education as a path for escaping oppressive gender relations and for avoiding being economically dependent on men. This attitude represents an important change in rural and indigenous households. Among the case studies, three types of representative cases that further illustrate the attitudes mentioned before were found. The first is the case of Eva, who from going to primary school in her community transferred to an urban secondary public school where she was discriminated for being indigenous and rural. In spite of this marginalization, she continued attending this school, because in the measure that it was urban it was perceived as an institution of better quality. It is important to point out that Eva’s mother works at home as well as in the family parcel, and she wants something different for her daughter. Eva’s determination for studying, in spite of the difficulties she encounters in school is related to these desires. Here, a strong bond of inter-generational communication appears, as well as an agreement regarding education objectives in Eva’s family that as in other cases it is not located a personal level; it is part of a family project. However, in spite of being a shared project, schooling may also imply some tensions that are difficult to manage. While Eva resists the discourse of inferiority by pursuing an education that helps her “move forward”, she reproduces this discourse when relating to other young women more attached to their indigenous traditions. Eva’s behavior must be situated in the context of a schooling system that has historically offered a national identity and citizenship to indigenous populations but in exchange of them abandoning their own ethnic identity, which is marginalized or excluded from the very beginning of primary school. On the other hand, Maria does not only respond to her individual choices, possibilities and preferences; she is inscribed within shared aspirations, arrangements that involve her extended family and mid and long term family projects. Unlike the first case, marriage appears as a potential obstacle for achieving her own goals. Maria’s mother takes care of the home, works in her parcel and sells beauty products. Maria helps her with household chores and working in the parcel, but her mother has different aspirations for her daughter, such as higher education. She acknowledges that because they are poor, it might not be able to afford Maria’s higher education, but she is determined to making her daughters finish, at least, secondary education, something she was not able to do, as she only got as far as completing the first year. Luz, the last case study, contrasts with both the cases of Eva and Maria, because she goes to a prestigious public secondary school in the city and she does not work in her family’s parcel but on her parents’ weaving workshop. While she is proud of knowing how to use all the machines in the workshop and to sew; she wants to finish secondary school and go to university for pursuing a professional career such as accountability or administration. Getting married and having children is not necessarily part of her future plans. Luz’s role model is her aunt: a young professional and single woman. It is not an anonymous idealized role model but someone with whom Luz has a close and affective relationship. In Luz’s vision of her future life as an adult, marriage appears again (as in the case of Maria’ mother) as a potential obstacle for a women’s development or personal progress. Gender violence in the life of married women and the control exercised by their partners might be related to Luz’s resistance to put marriage at as the axis of her plans, even if she does not discard the possibility of getting married. Conclusions Young rural women’s identities and elections are changing significantly, creating new ways of being and new aspirations. Rural girls, young rural women’s and their mothers’ perspectives analyzed here question traditional “subject positions” available to rural women, expanding the youngest generation’s horizons.
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New discourses and practices that prioritize education over early marriage and motherhood are emerging, not only as a result of an external imposition but as a response to social and economic change. These changes are also a response to oppressive gender relations, in which men still maintain great control over their female partners’ decisions and actions. Like so, women identify education as a path to assure a greater autonomy and economic independence, rejecting the high control level that men exercise over their lives. The poor quality of public schools, particularly of rural schools, is well known, it may difficult access to higher education or limit young rural women’s capacity to finish university, without the appropriate support or tutoring. Given the lack of a scholarship program for young people from poor backgrounds, extremely vulnerable to any unforeseen event, young women may go back home to contribute to contribute to their family economy. In this sense, the same factors that threaten them for completing secondary (limited resources, starting a family) still prevail and may interrupt young women’s educational trajectories. Ultimately all this makes extremely important to understand better the changes in the needs and perceptions that these trajectories point out for offering young women resources and structural possibilities that young women as well as their families are actively looking for. This effort implies acknowledging not only their desire for overcoming poverty but also their demands for better ethnic and gender equality, in the economic, social and education fields.
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