Claudia Serrano Madrid¹

The situation of poor women during the economic crisis has been extensively analyzed. Some studies have collected the life histories of poor women, while others focus on analyzing family survival strategies and the role women play in developing such strategies. Still other studies analyze collective strategies, such as neighborhood movements in which women also participate and often lead.

The bulk of these studies focus on the role which women have played in responding to the crisis, the skills they demonstrate, and their ability and potential to carry out both productive and reproductive activities—to combine the private sphere of the home with the public sphere of their community. This article examines the role women play in carrying out activities which are not traditionally considered female activities but which women have undertaken in response to the economic crisis. The article also attempts to identify changes in values and cultural norms that have occurred as men and women carry out new activities or give up old roles as a consequence of unemployment and their precarious economic situation.

In 1983, within the context of a strong economic recession which created unemployment rates as high as 80% in outlying, poor neighborhoods of Santiago, we carried out a study designed to analyze the impact of unemployment on the poor family.² One of the most interesting results of the study was our finding that women were capable of confronting the crisis in new ways. Using imagination and inventiveness, they were able to generate new income for their families and stretch existing though scant resources to assure that their families were fed.

Women's response to the crisis contrasted sharply with the role men played. Men remained essentially unable to respond to the breakdown of their traditional role as providers for the home. They responded to the crisis and unemployment by working in sporadic jobs, often in the informal economic sector, that had little to do with their profession or specialty, or by participating in emergency public works programs run by their municipalities.

Five years later, in more favorable economic conditions, we revisited seven of these families. Women continued to engage in activities outside their traditional domestic roles, and, in fact, had increased their participation in such activities. This had much to do, no doubt, with the continuing social and economic emergency, but it also reflected a real change in and redefinition of family roles and responsibilities within the poor family.

Keeping this in mind we want to look in more detail at how women relate to their work outside the home, to their increased social and community participation and to the impact of their new activities on relationships with their partners and their children.

women and work

1. young women workers

Women's work outside the home is not valued among the low-income population. To the contrary, women are expected to remain in the house caring for children and performing domestic chores while the male, head of household, works outside the home earning income for the family. In fact, most women prefer not to work full time or to take jobs which require them to leave the home. This is primarily because poor women don't have access to adequate day care for their children, and because the employment they can find is poorly paid, arduous and unsatisfying. Among the women we interviewed these obstacles were decisive in their decision to leave jobs upon marrying or cohabiting or upon having children.

In all cases, raising small children made it impossible for women to work outside the home. Men did not want their wives or partners to work and preferred, to the contrary, that the women remain in the house to take charge of the children and attend to their husbands' needs. Among the women we interviewed, three had worked prior to marriage as factory workers, one was a seamstress in a private company, another worked in a bakery and another worked in the kitchen of the Calvo Mackenna hospital cafeteria.

"I am the oldest of 4 children. I left my house when I was very young. I went to work and didn't worry about my family anymore. Later I got married and now don't work. I quit working because my husband was very machista. He had a good job and I didn't need to work, and he didn't like my working."

- Isabel

"I continued working until Carola was 2 years old, because I liked to work and was able to bring her to work with me. I wanted to continue working... I never neglected my husband. Later I stayed at home. I never lacked anything. He was paid on Fridays and bought all kinds of things. I never had problems.

- Julia

Not all women totally interrupted their work activities upon marrying or having children, however. Once they married, some women carried out small jobs in their homes to help out financially.

"When I was single I worked in a factory. After I married I worked in the house, doing sewing. I really hated it, because I was alone and had no contact with anybody. It was so bad that when I left the house to drop off my work, after 3 or 4 days inside, the sun hurt my eyes. Although I always took care of the house, I always worked. When I had just recently married and we were not well off, I took in laundry."

- Irma

2. the first paid work in response to the crisis

In spite of the obstacles they faced in trying to work outside the home, women, confronted with the economic crisis, began to initiate income-earning activities to complement the little that their partners could bring home through odd jobs or participation in Emergency Employment Projects of the municipalities. Women became involved first in activities such as knitting workshops and in home-based work, such as laundry and sewing. For example, Irma, one of the women we interviewed in 1983, joined the craft workshops of Conchali (a low-income neighborhood of Santiago). She had worked earlier doing seamstress work at home. At the same time, Irma was tending a vegetable cart that her husband carried every morning to the market.

Silvia, another women we talked to, used to be in a satisfactory economic situation. We interviewed her, however, when her husband had been unemployed for more than one year. The income that the family was receiving came from the sale of meat products. Silvia's husband bought the interior parts of animals from a friend of his and Silvia then sold them in the neighborhood. Silvia also participated in a knitting workshop.

3. paid activities five years later

The employment women generated for themselves during the years of crisis reflects the material and socio-cultural restrictions which they confront. The jobs are part-time, for a few days a week, and are generally carried out at home or in the neighborhood. Today, even though in some cases men have found stable work or, at least, stable work in the informal sector, women have permanently taken on new responsibilities for generating family income. Two women are working as maids several days a week. Others have become more proficient in their knitting activities and another works in a municipal job, planting family gardens.

• The importance of earning their own money

The women, with one exception, don't derive enjoyment from their work. Generally, their jobs are unsatisfying and physically demanding. But the work does give women some independence from their husbands and the freedom to make choices and spending decisions.

"I pay the electric and water bills. I work. I work for the municipality. I make about 3,000 pesos a month (about US$ 10.00)."

- Julia

Question: "I see that you have bought some furniture during the past few years."

Rebeca: "Yes, with money from my knitting."

• Work as a refuge from marital problems

In two cases in which the marital relationship had deteriorated within the past five years, work outside the home was central for the women, a release from an oppressive situation. In two cases the women's partners had becomes involved with other women. For them, in particular, therefore, the home was no longer, as before, the first and most important thing in their life. They now seek emotional refuge in their work.

"He made me so sad, but no more. I feel independent because of what happened. I am happy here (in the knitting workshop); the only thing that makes me happy is to go out; I am bored here in the house. I spend a lot of time at home, and when he doesn't want to come home, he doesn't and that makes me...."

- Silvia

"Roberto began to stay out all night, he started to drink more and treated the children badly when I was here. When I wasn’t home, he was fine, but when I was he treated them badly as a way to pressure me. A couple of times I was going to leave it all, but later I thought about it. Even though Roberto didn't help much in economic terms, socially the relationship helped me a lot. But then I thought to myself, 'Roberto isn't going to change, he has always liked the life he leads; he's going to continue the same thing and I'm not going to be shut up in the house. That's the only thing I'm going to achieve and I don't want to stay and now I don't think there's anything I can do'."

- Isabel

women and social participation

In addition to the paid work which women do, there are a number of social and community activities in which they participate with interest and satisfaction. Already in 1983 we found significant interest in groups, workshops, short courses, etc. in which women could engage in a positive process of personal growth. Through these activities, women discovered the importance of relationships and friendships, learned and educated themselves, and increased their self esteem. Perhaps the most important element of these activities was that they enabled women to leave their homes and everyday problems behind, share their experiences, meet other people, and develop a life outside of the family.

During the five years between the first and second stages of our study, we were able to corroborate the importance of this social participation for women. Two women participated in courses to be health trainers, another was president of a neighborhood Center for Community Development, another two became members of new craft workshops and one took several training courses which enabled her to hold an important job in organizing of the craft workshops of Conchali.

"Yes, I am working. I am a Health Trainer, or at least I have a diploma to be a Health Trainer. We have a health group and took one course a year. I did it because I like to help people. When I finished my course to be a trainer, they gave me a blue bag with a diploma in it, a small plaque and a uniform."

- Julia.

"I have been taking a class in first aid. They offered to let me take the course and I took it."

- Irma

"I got a scholarship to take a class in Labor Social Sciences. The course lasted two years. The students were from different organizations and cooperatives."

- Isabel

"During the past year I was president of CIDECO. I participated many hours there. There were classes to learn parenting skills and that type of thing".

- Emilia

the impact of women’s activities on the household

What happens to the household when women work outside the home? What tensions does a woman feel in performing a double role—the maternal-domestic role and the personal-work role?

conflict caused by leaving children

Although women appreciate their economic independence and find in their activities outside the home an opportunity for growth, all this is not positive. Women working outside the home become tremendously fatigued because they must also continue to act as the pillar of the household, even though in some cases female children help with the housework.

How do women resolve the conflict and at what cost? First, it should be emphasized that children of the women we interviewed are older, making it easier for women to work outside the home. The obstacles are greater for women with small children. In such cases day care centers are of great help and are widely accepted and demanded by all the women with small children. Sometimes women leave older children alone or with a neighbor. In some cases, older siblings care for younger ones. Whatever the solution, however, women manage to arrange childcare so that they can leave the home to work. Interestingly, this creates tension and overwork, but not guilt.

In the 1983 study we found that women understand their work outside the home as a new, appropriate part of their traditional role of protecting and caring for their children. They leave home to work in order to provide for their children. At the same time, they begin to meet new people, initiate new activities and learn to value themselves. This doesn't change the fundamental fact, however, that their main responsibility is caring for the family, and that outside work enables them to carry out this responsibility.

The women we interviewed, with one exception, worked part-time. Their experiences working outside the home were not homogenous; in some cases work was a joy; in others, the work required women to make tremendous sacrifices.

"I called my boss, Alicia, and she told me to come to work. He (my husband) said, 'How can you go to work with the baby like this and all of that.' I breastfed her, and told him, 'Look, you have to give her a bottle with milk twice a day, and the other things she needs until I come back' Then he said, 'How can you think of leaving?' He got angry, but I went to work and continued working, but... Well, I think he understands me, but he told me it was too great a sacrifice for me and the baby. He said, 'You are hurting yourself and the baby at the same time.' Then, well, I talked with my boss and told her I was going to work only three days a week."

- lnes

"I left the house with the idea that I was going to work 10 hours a day and I was going to be paid for all that and in addition I was going to knit as much as I knit now. I said to myself 'I am going to earn a good salary and everything will be great.' I looked for someone to care for the children and began to work. She was a friend of mine that lived in the "Ultima Hora" neighborhood, a young girl, but good. I began earning 8,500 pesos and offered her half of what I was going to earn, 4,000 pesos, because I was going to knit too, and with that I would have enough. But then I had problems because the girl became pregnant and had to quit working and I began asking friend after friend to look after the children so that I could work".

- Isabel

the couple: cultural change?

After suffering the first blows of the economic crisis and witnessing the changing roles of women, men no longer are playing the role of the openly machista head of household. It is not possible to know whether the husbands of the women we studied liked having their wives work because they were not interviewed for this study. But based on the observations of the women we talked to, it is possible to infer that the men would prefer that their wives not work. It is clear that neither men nor male children assist with household chores. They don't, however, prevent their wives from working or harass them for doing so.

In only one case had a marriage ended as a consequence of the woman working outside the home. It is difficult to generalize from this case, however, because Isabel, the woman involved, had profoundly internalized the goal of developing herself as a person and had assumed more and more responsibility outside the home.

"He wanted me to be at home more. It wasn't that he demanded that I stay at home, or told me I couldn't work; but he started to pressure me to stay at home in subtle ways. I had become accustomed to working, to managing my money, to being independent. So I played dumb, and kept working."

- Isabel

The experience of Isabel was not repeated in other families; the new activities were generally not a source of tension. This is because women have been able to coordinate their maternal role with their other activities. They don't ignore their husbands and don't make a display of their independence, thus minimizing the possibilities for conflict.

The studies we carried out showed the changes in work roles and responsibilities that the economic crisis has caused. Although we can draw no firm conclusions from the study, we can suggest a hypothesis, namely, that culture and customs have changed as a consequence of the new activities in which women are involved. No longer are women submissive and reverent before their husbands. Women have discovered and adopted new attitudes, skills and ways of relating to others. They have demonstrated to themselves that within the context of their everyday lives there is a possibility for personal development which doesn't prevent them from carrying out their traditional responsibilities in the home. Instead they have assumed new responsibilities and taken on new roles.

This change appears to be a permanent one. The fact that women work and have their own income has given women independence and provided them with a refuge from problems and failings in other areas. The work they carry out is, at the very least, one thing that is their very own. Thus, women won't be returning to where they were a few years ago. They won't forget the experiences they have had during these difficult years, nor will they give up the self esteem and autonomy they have gained.