ABSTRACT
Just as Peru was a highly unequal class society, it was also a profoundly patriarchal one; men enjoyed considerable privilege and power with respect to women. Moreover, just as class was modified by growth and mobility, so also was gender. These processes were not independent of one another, for class relations played an important role in shaping and re-shaping gender inequality in Peru. In turn, gender contributed to the construction and consolidation of social classes. It was manipulated by different classes and ethnic groups as part of the stratification process, e.g. the consolidation of property, the acquisition of labour market advantage, the preservation of status, etc., and was itself changed in the process. The reciprocal influences of class and gender were the product of a wider set of links between family, the economy, and political power. Family and kinship were important for the control and transmission of property (large estates as well as peasant plots), the organization of peasant and informal production, the recruitment of labour in the formal labour market, the acquisition of housing and the consolidation of life styles and access to political office and the distribution of public services.
