ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a reflection on two crises: the Great Depression of the 1930s and the debt crisis that has bedeviled Latin America since 1982. It examines similarities and differences in their respective impacts on gender and on women's roles. There are, of course, important differences between the 1930s and the 1980s, both within the region and in the relationship of Latin America to the world economy. These dismal economic tendencies have coexisted with important political changes. The crisis in the 1980s, like that of the 1930s, seemed to intersect with—rather than cause changes in—women's labor participation and political behavior. On the broadest level, women were already responding to developments that had made their lives more difficult: the civil wars in Central America, the military governments of South America, and the effects of economic stagnation.
