bs_bs_banner

Gender, Work and Organization.

doi:10.1111/gwao.12031

Vol. 21 No. 3 May 2014

Now, We Have the Same Rights as Men

to Keep Our Jobs: Gendered Perceptions
of Opportunity and Obstacles in a
Mexican Workplace
Krista M. Brumley
Drawing on extensive qualitative data at a Mexican-owned multinational corporation, this case
study investigates professional employees perceptions of changes to a prohibitive work policy
requiring women to quit working upon marriage and having children. Employees believed the
policy change meant working women were valued employees, but how this translated into
opportunity highlighted distinct views of the types of positions professional women could
occupy at the company, reinforcing sex-segregated job allocation. Whereas womens narratives
pointed to cultural resistance, mens narratives attributed the dearth of women in higher level
positions to their lack of professionalism and commitment to work. The work policy change only
guaranteed the right for women to work as the company modernized to fit the neoliberal demands
of the global marketplace. Now women faced the challenge of turning that right into career
advancement in a traditionally masculine-defined company. I argue that even with the policy
change, gendered discourses on women in professional occupations constructed and maintained
gender inequities in the workplace. This study contributes to the scholarly discussion on gendered discourses within the context of global restructuring by showing how mechanisms at work
maintain gender inequity in the workplace.
Keywords: gendered organization, women in management, organizational culture, Mexico,
work-family

Introduction

lobal restructuring has disrupted traditional notions of womens roles at work and in the family
throughout the developing world. Women increasingly participate in the paid labour market,
with much new employment in factory work, particularly in export processing industries (Caraway,
2007; Marchand and Runyan, 2000). Other women work in the informal economy (Lpez Estrada,
2001) or micro-enterprises (Benera and Feldman 1992; Osirim, 2003). Higher levels of education also
mean more opportunities in professional positions or data entry and service jobs in tourism (Denis,
2003; Gonzlez de la Rocha, 2006). Policies such as equal opportunity, equal pay, parental leave,
childcare and healthcare now exist in many countries (Hodson, 2000; Jelin, 1990). However, the
discourse of rights makes gender invisible through supposed gender-neutral social policies (Lister,
1997). Paid employment gives women more economic independence but does not exempt most from
the majority of household responsibilities (Menjivar, 2001).
Global restructuring has also complicated womens roles at work and in the family. In response to
massive financial bailouts, less-developed countries continue neoliberalist restructuring of their

Address for correspondence: *Department of Sociology, Wayne State University, 656 W. Kirby, 2228 Faculty Administration
Building, Detroit, MI 48202, USA; e-mail: kbrumley@wayne.edu

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

218

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

economies with an emphasis on deregulation, privatization and foreign investment. Partly as a

response to global marketplace pressures, governments have seemingly abandoned responsibility for
aspects of the welfare of their citizenry, making severe cuts to social services (Marchand and Runyan,
2000). Privatization has eroded childcare and other social welfare benefits, and workplaces demand
that employees prioritize work over family (Martin and Knopoff, 1997). Most women are in low
paying or temporary jobs, with few benefits and precarious working conditions (Fernandez-Kelly,
2008), and so absorb much of the cost (Acker, 2004; Chant and Craske, 2003). Their career mobility
remains slow or stalled as they are precluded from masculine-defined jobs and face employer
resistance to training because of expected workfamily conflict, and even forced pregnancy testing
(Jayasinghe, 2001; Villarreal and Yu, 2007). That organizations seek to maintain a competitive edge
sends the powerful message that profits, not workers and their families, are the priority, and reinforces corporate non-responsibility (Acker, 1998).
This article further problematizes these dynamics by investigating views of womens employment
in Mexico in the context of global restructuring. Data are drawn from a case study of a Mexicanowned multinational corporation, hereafter given the pseudonym BevMex, employing about 3000
workers in beverage production, bottling, printing, retail distribution, transportation, corporate functions and an on-site hospital. I examine employees perceptions of changes to a work policy, in place
for over a century, requiring women to quit working on marriage and pregnancy. Deriving initially
from the BevMex family-oriented philosophy, the policy was relaxed for professional women in the
1980s and 1990s, allowing them to work after marriage and having children. It was removed altogether in 1997 as part of a restructuring plan that sought to adapt to what was perceived by
management within the company as an increasingly global marketplace and liberalized environment
for the companys operation. Extensive qualitative data from in-depth interviews with management
and other professional employees pointed to a culture of global rights that fostered these changes.
This article describes the companys attempt to become modern as it confronts global competition. The article also contributes to the literature on women and work in less-developed countries in
two ways. First, I examine womens experiences in professional positions. Scholarship in lessdeveloped countries has arguably focused on working class or poor women, particularly their
experiences with work in the informal economy (Benera and Feldman, 1992; Menjivar, 2001), factory
work (Lee, 1998; Plankey Videla, 2012; Salzinger, 2003) or clerical and other service work (Denis,
2003). Middle- and upper-class women in professional positions are rarely considered (exceptions are
Ganguly-Scrase, 2003; Muller and Rowell, 1997).
Second, the article examines the complex articulations of gender in the workplace, recognizing
womens and mens perceptions of womens opportunities and obstacles after the policy change at
BevMex. At the time fieldwork was conducted, the removal of the marriage and pregnancy bar had
been in place for almost a decade and was formally established. Yet narratives of the ideal worker
revealed that women still faced social and cultural constraints at work. Mens narratives were found
to be salient, since it was still mostly men who made the rules that governed womens lives in the
company. The research also highlights the complexity of womens roles in the workplace, and the
company expectation that women should be able to handle both work and family. Women and men
described the policy change as significant because it gives women more opportunities and acknowledges their value. But interpretations of what work women can do after the removal of the barrier also
reinforces sex-segregated job allocation at BevMex. Moreover, whereas women and men agree there
are still barriers for womens advancement, they identify different obstacles for womens failure to
occupy decision-making and supervisory positions. Women point to cultural resistance, men to
womens lack of professionalism and commitment.

Gendered narratives: The ideal worker

It has been argued that the workplace remains structured to disadvantage women and some men
(Acker, 2004; Martin and Knopoff, 1997) despite the implementation of work flexibility and other
Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLES

219

workfamily policies (Moen, 2011). Women are often employed in jobs where they perceive that
management (and co-workers) will evaluate them as uncommitted (Williams, 2010). Research has
further underscored the way in which the goals of profit-making organizations retain centre stage in
organizational change initiatives (Ely and Meyerson, 2000a; Meyerson and Kolb, 2000) and that
employee resistance (Kelly et al., 2010) can leave the pace of change slow.
Persistent gender inequity in the workplace reflects and reproduces a cultural and socio-political
environment that institutionalizes expectations of women as caregivers and men as breadwinners.
Women are perceived as less rational than men, more expressive, unable to work long hours, less
committed to work, particularly if they are mothers (Kaufman and Uhlenberg, 2000; Peterson, 2007),
and are employed in lower paid, lower status positions (Guillaume and Pochic, 2009; Reskin and
Padavic, 1994; Williams, 1995). As a result, women often are not in positions that offer opportunities
to move up they have jobs rather than careers.
The concept of the ideal worker is socially reinforced through narratives, where narratives are not
just stories but construct and sustain all aspects of organizational reality (Ely and Meyerson,
2000b, p. 117). When employees describe long hours, face time and quick response to crises as
characteristics that yield status and rewards, they construct a work environment that requires devotion to work (Blair-Loy, 2003; Kelly et al., 2010). Narratives also expose the structure of relations
within the organization that shape employment trajectories (Kelly et al., 2010). The narrative of
women as embodying presumed natural caregiver instincts fails to account for how informal
practices give men more access to information and resources to gain valuable skills (Collinson and
Hearn, 1996; Davey, 2008). Evaluating heroic workers versus those behind the scenes confirms the
norm of valuing certain behaviours and positions (Ely and Meyerson, 2000a). Narratives are formidable because they evaluate current and past performances, and suggest expectations for future ones
(Cockburn, 1985; Kondo, 1990; Martin, 2003, p. 346). Such evaluations unfold when management
assesses women for blue-collar positions in Maquiladoras (foreign-owned assembly plants) based on
presumed feminine skills such as attention to detail and docility (Plankey Videla, 2012; Salzinger,
2004). Likewise, women with families continue to face barriers to advancement, remain in lower
paying jobs and control fewer resources (Blair-Loy, 2003; Kanter, 1977; Reskin & Padavic, 1994; Watts,
2009).

Women and work in Mexico

Inequities in the workplace are tied to womens expected roles in the family but they are not uniform
and must be understood in their cultural and socio-political setting. Women have always worked in
Mexico, but economic transformations over the past several decades have been influential in reshaping their roles. Mexicos state-led development strategy (19301976) under import substitution industrialization promoted industrial employment and provided extensive social rights (e.g., healthcare,
social security) and a family wage for industrial workers (mostly men). Lower-class women were
employed through the informal economy, reinforcing the model of men as breadwinners and women
as caregivers (Cravey, 1998). The Maquiladora programme, in the mid-1960s, accelerated womens
entrance into the formal paid labour market. In contrast to the industrial jobs created in previous
decades, workers rights were not guaranteed as the Mexican government accommodated foreign
interests. This employment was not compatible with household responsibilities, so many left on
marriage and pregnancy, leaving the labour force dominated by single women with a high turnover
rate (Salzinger, 2004). However, high turnover and poor conditions in the factories aside, the work
fostered independence and assertiveness that set the foundation for more women to enter the paid
labour market.
The Mexican economy transformed dramatically in the 1980s, when macroeconomic policies
shifted from import substitution to export-oriented industrialization. Businesses were privatized and
social services severely cut (Bank Muoz, 2008). Negative economic growth, a rising inflation rate and
decline in mens well-paid industrial jobs (Gonzlez de la Rocha, 2006; Portes and Hoffman, 2003)

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

220

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

accompanied womens increased labour force participation, mostly in the informal economy
(Fernndez-Kelly, 2008) or home-based work, allowing them to combine work and domestic responsibilities (Lpez Estrada, 2001). By the end of the 1980s, the economy had improved, giving optimism
that the neoliberal model would strengthen Mexicos global position. But, on the heels of the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the economy collapsed again. Wages declined and
social protections further eroded when businesses cut costs to maintain a competitive edge (Bank
Muoz, 2008).
Global restructuring in Mexico seems to have produced some benefits for women, such as job
opportunities in Maquiladoras, other foreign multinational companies (Fernndez-Kelly, 2008;
Villarreal and Yu, 2007) and high-tech production (Gonzlez de la Rocha, 2006). Womens paid
employment has steadily risen from about 18 per cent in 1970 to 33 per cent in 1993 (Muller and
Rowell, 1997). Forty per cent of women now work outside the home (INEGI, 2010a). Despite these
gains, inequalities persist. Domestic responsibilities for women have yet to be significantly affected.
Cultural expectations of womens work and anticipation of workfamily conflict perpetuate traditional gender roles (Brumley, 2013). Women tend to leave the workforce on marriage or pregnancy
(Muller and Rowell, 1997; Villarreal and Yu, 2007). While this is slowly changing among certain social
groups (Cerrutti, 2000; Chant and Craske, 2003), in 2007, 79 per cent of mothers in Mexico did not
work outside the home. With the average age of marriage 19 years, and the average age of a woman
at first live birth 22, Mexican womens employment history is often constrained before they have even
entered the labour market (CONAPO, 2009; INEGI, 2010b; Parrado and Zenteno, 2001).
The selective and limited entrance of women into the paid labour market in Mexico has mixed
consequences. The informal economy is precarious and offers no benefits or legislative protection,
whereas the formal economy provides social rights, including paid maternity leave with job security,
universal access to health care (IMSS), state-run childcare, access to the housing programme (INFONAVIT) and a pension. Other worker rights, including protection against sex discrimination and equal
pay for equal work, are rarely enforced (Bank Muoz, 2008; La Botz, 1992). Maternity leave is
regulated women must leave their job six weeks before their due date and return six weeks after
birth. Workplaces do not offer flexible work arrangements, and the education system exacerbates the
difficulty for women to work. Free childcare is only from birth to age four. Schooling is in morning
and afternoon sessions, so parents must pay for private childcare, only feasible for middle and upper
income families. Lower classes and the poor rely on family members.

Research context and method

BevMex was founded in 1890 in the northern state of Nuevo Len, known for its heavy industry in
cement, iron and glass. A local group of industrialists, led by the BevMex CEO, paved the way for
early industrialization by promoting a spirit of innovation, hard work and adaptability in the workplace (Pozas Garza, 1993). BevMex has grown exponentially, comprising 18 beverage production and
four bottling facilities, employing about 79,000 in Mexico. It also has locations in eight Latin American
countries. The managerial style is paternalistic, but workers gained, as they received benefits like free
on-site healthcare and home loans long before most others in the country. Corporations in the region
mostly reduced or eliminated employee benefits as they became more active in the global market.
BevMex retained its programmes and benefits because of company growth and management commitment to social development.
My objective in a larger case study of BevMex was to explore how workers understood and
experienced workplace changes over time, particularly following NAFTA. During 212 years of fieldwork in 20052007, I interviewed 86 employees at all levels, engaged in participant observation and
reviewed the company magazine. Interviews were conducted in the employees office or in a conference room. The interviews were in Spanish, lasting from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I conducted all the
interviews, and a native Spanish speaker transcribed the recorded conversations for data analysis.
Transcription was done during fieldwork and concluded shortly after I left, using pseudonyms to
Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLES

221

protect employees identities. Open and focused coding techniques were used (Emerson et al., 1995)
to identify emergent themes on womens workplace opportunities at BevMex generally, specifically
the marriage and pregnancy policy and the effects of its repeal. (I use the word policy for the
prohibitive workplace practice because workers spoke about it as a company policy, though it was not
a formal written policy.)
The data in this article come from interviews with employees in the administrative arm of BevMex.
Women line workers who left because of the restrictive policy were replaced by men. At the time of
my fieldwork, no women worked in the beverage facility, two in bottling, and six in printing. Because
I was interested in understanding womens opportunities after the policy change, I focused on
sections where women, at least theoretically, could obtain employment and advancement. Of the 68
interviews with white-collar employees, 46% were women (n = 31). Women were younger, 80% under
age 45, compared to 30% of the men. All but one of the men were married and all but two had
children, whereas 36% of the women were married (n = 11) and 29% (n = 9) had children. Half the
women, compared with a fifth of the men, had been employed less than 10 years. Both had a high
level of education; more than two-thirds had at least a bachelors degree. Women were underrepresented in positions of decision making; 23% of women (n = 7) versus 40% of men (n = 15) were
supervisors or managers. Women were concentrated in mid- to lower level positions as coordinators
(n = 14) and administrative assistants (n = 10). Some men were coordinators (n = 22); none were
administrative assistants.

Gendered opportunities
Like other Mexican companies, BevMex restructured to meet the demands of the global marketplace,
including labour reduction and new labour processes and technology (Brumley, 2010). The new
business culture, characterized as efficient, collaborative, responsible and competitive, necessitated
workers with higher skills and ability to adapt to new processes. When I asked employees what they
thought the changes meant for women at BevMex, they described the policy shift that gave women
the right to work after marriage and children. George, a manager, recalled this change: It was an
interesting evolution because starting in 1995, we began to orient to a new global culture of rights for
women; it gave value to women. Echoing managements interpretation, employees thought it was
because BevMex needed to update, new ideas, or new ways of thinking. These narratives
expressed the policy change as part of the process that BevMex felt necessary to meet the demands of
a global marketplace.

Value for working women: Women help develop the business

Women perceived the policy change as a shift in the value associated with working women. Pamela,
a supervisor, explained this view:
Before the policy change, I think most people thought it was more important to give work to men
rather than women; so there were certain differences with salaries, the housing benefit, and with
everything. They said that it was men that should work and that women should be at home; a
woman should not take the place of a man. This is part of it. But, the other part is that the company
has always been very paternal, very traditional and it considered that it was best that the woman is
home with her children.
The environment Pamela described revealed a gendered workplace with entrenched ideas about
roles that reinforced separate spheres for work and home. She also highlighted a differential reward
system, suggesting mens work was more valued and important than womens. The policy reversal
was a re-evaluation of the role women could play at BevMex. In Pamelas view, it signified that the
company no longer saw women as competition for mens work, but valued them and the work they
did. Nelly, another supervisor, described this as a marriage with the company; [since] there is no

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

222

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

reason to compete with men, but we should complement their work. Other women spoke about the
change as revolutionary in that it had the potential to change womens professional aspirations,
giving value to women in allowing wives and mothers to work.
Men also believed the policy change showed that BevMex valued working women and saw them
as an integral part of the new business outlook. Irvin, a manager, described womens roles as not just
secretarial, but they are the shadow of management. Their duties were recast as important to the
company as they dont just answer phones and make coffee. The job title changed from secretary to
administrative assistant and entailed new duties and greater responsibility. Whilst hierarchical differences remained between administrative assistants and management, Irvins characterization was
that women now played a crucial role in the success of their bosses. Isaac, a coordinator, explained
that women are now a major determinant in the business because they are intelligent; women help
develop the business and its viability externally. In this way, men reframed women at work as an
important aspect of business, not least since BevMex sought to present an enlightened vision of work
for women to the international community.
Overall, women and men in this study regarded the policy change as giving women value at
BevMex because wives and mothers now had the right to work. Women interpreted this shift as a
fundamental cultural change that reconsidered their potential. Men too recognized the enormity of
the change and suggested it reflected respect for working women because their work had been
reinterpreted as an important asset for the company. However, the mens narratives also suggested
differences in the kind of work women can do at BevMex. Irvins evaluation of woman as the shadow
of management implied differences between womens and mens jobs that reinscribed the notion
that women are best suited for work that supports their male supervisor. The policy change was an
important step in disrupting traditional ideas of women at work and home, but questions remained
as to the extent to which it challenged entrenched company notions of the ideal worker with no (or
few) familial responsibilities.

Jobs: Everywhere there are women ... but only in some positions
The employees frames of womens value translated into distinct views of the positions available for
women at BevMex. Their narratives expressed value for working women, but their evaluation of the
positions women could occupy differed, based on gender and occupational status. The vast majority
of women in mid to lower levels thought there was opportunity for advancement if they wanted it,
whereas men and women in upper levels articulated opportunities for only women who were like
men. Women administrative assistants and coordinators believed there were no limits on their
development, and that being a women is not limiting because everywhere you turn, there are
women. Lolys, an administrative assistant, explained how she saw the workplace for women:
I remember when I first started here [1995], there were many young women that did not marry
because the policy did not permit you to marry; if you did it was adios. Now, we are married, we
have kids, a husband, and we continue working. This is great because they let us grow and develop
and they continue to give us benefits. Its more, there are women working here that are not just
secretaries, now there are many professional women as well. And, women participate in the
company cooperative council. Really, we have won a lot.
Orietta, another administrative assistant, now saw different prospects as a woman at work:
When I started [1991] I met many retired women that never married because they needed their job
to help their family economically, but now women have the opportunity to develop. I want to move
ahead and focus on my career. I just completed my bachelors degree and this means I am not stuck
as a receptionist.
These women saw the new opportunities at BevMex as suggesting parity of positions between
women and men. All administrative assistants and most women coordinators regarded the shift in
Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLES

223

policy as evident in the increased visibility of women in a variety of positions and were hopeful the
policy change would bring new career opportunities.
However, a few women coordinators saw limited opportunities for women to hold positions in the
corporate division. They recognized the increased visibility of women, but said men occupy the most
important positions. Their opinions echoed those of women supervisors and management. All the
women in upper level positions recognized that working women were more valued and there was
some opportunity, but said that there remained obstacles to advancement to more senior positions. As
Gabriela, a manager, expressed it: there is still a lack of women in decision-making positions and
women can only get to a certain level and cannot advance too much. Mirelle, a supervisor, concurred:
the advancement of women is limited in some areas. These women stated emphatically that the key
to moving up at BevMex was to become a man.
The men, regardless of occupational level, agreed that womens job opportunities were only in
certain areas. They equated womens right to work as an opportunity, rather than a right to advance
a career. Men talked about the presence of more women, but in outsourced or temporary positions
such as cleaning crews and student interns. Lucas said he had seen a lot of changes [...] now there
are more women, but added: Well, they are interns, but they give them a lot of opportunity.
Without access to a position attached to a career ladder, there was little expectation that such women
could advance their career.
Other men who talked about womens visibility focused on typically feminine positions, such as
nurses in the on-site hospital and administrative assistants. There were women doctors in family
medicine and psychology in the BevMex hospital, but only 10 of the 70 doctors were women.
Augustin, a supervisor, saw the balance was shifting but recognized that:
The convention is changing; there are more women than men in medicine. In the future, there will
be no other option, you hire a woman [doctor] or you hire a woman [doctor]. Curiously, the
medical council is all men, but in the company overall, women have developed importantly, have
been given more opportunities, jobs that were exclusive to men have been opened to women.
The men I interviewed pointed to new opportunities for women in certain positions, but mostly
associated with lower level helping or caring jobs, suggesting that BevMex may value the work
women do, but as womens work. Augustin clearly indicated there were more women, but not in
positions of authority such as the medical council.
Only a few men interpreted the policy change as creating opportunities for womens advancement
beyond feminine-type positions. Victor and Adrian, both coordinators, believed womens opportunities had changed because women were only secretaries and now women can be executives,
managers and directors. These views were the exception. Rarely in my interviews did men suggest
women could advance out of feminine positions, and when they did, they stressed how women were
not different from men. Ricardo, a manager, exemplified this perspective:
I think that men or women, single, married, widowed or without children all have responsibilities
outside of work. I am here from 8:00 to 6:00 to fulfil my assigned work and in exchange I receive
compensation. If the personal problems are that big that it impedes me from doing my work, then
I am writing my own future. I dont want to say that a married woman with children has more or
less rights, or more or less opportunities than a single woman, they are the same. You have to fulfil
your job responsibilities, but we are not that inflexible either. If your kid gets sick and you have to
leave, okay, but not every day. Women have been given value as professionals and the test is that
there are women executives.
Ricardo suggested women could move up the hierarchy as long as they proved themselves, where
career advancement was predicated on long hours and visibility. Prior to the policy change, there was
an expectation that womens jobs were a short-term activity whilst waiting to start a family. At the
time of my fieldwork, however, the few women in supervisory and management positions were often

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

224

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

the first or only woman in that division, and hardly any were mothers. This scenario strongly
indicated that the masculine ideal worker prevailed.

Gendered obstacles
The opportunity for women to work after marriage and family was phased in earlier for women in
mid- to upper-level positions, but not until the change was instituted across the board in 1997 did
women believe they had the right to choose work and family. At the time of my fieldwork the policy
had been in place for almost a decade, but there were still few women in supervisory and decisionmaking positions.

Obstacles for advancement: You have to show you can do it

All the women in upper level positions described how the right to continue working did not
necessarily translate into career advancement. There were significant obstacles, and job segregation
continued. They talked about having to prove they were capable and willing to make sacrifices. Irela,
a manager, talked about her adjustment at the company:
When I started [2002], I was the first woman to have the position. I was really concerned that I
would not be accepted, and I would be rejected. I would try to talk to a group of male co-workers
and they would close off. Five years ago they were closed to women, now no, slowly over time we
have demonstrated that work does not have sex, if the person is capable they can develop professionally. I think that if a woman shows results and that she can dominate the position, her male
co-workers will start to open their minds and the work environment is more open.
Irela was still the only woman manager in this division ten years after the policy changed. Veronica,
also in management, reflected on her struggle to demonstrate she was serious and committed:
Credibility was difficult. I was a pioneer of many things. Not the first woman in management, but
the first young woman. I felt really observed and studied to see if I could do it. After about a year
in management, I married and became a mom. I was the only one married with children. That year
was difficult too and I really felt observed by the entire world. I think people were watching, Can
she do it or cant she do it? Would I resist or would I quit? After a while people came up to me and
asked, How do you do it? But, later they began to ask if I was going to have another baby and
when I finally said no, I felt the pressure lift again.
Irela and Veronicas stories described having had to work harder than men to prove they were
capable: their perception was that men evaluated women differently, particularly for Veronica, not just
as a woman manager but as a mother.
Demonstrating capability for advancement also meant women needed the right skills to show
legitimacy and commitment. Ana, a manager, explained:
From the beginning you have to be a very capable person and up to par with the latest techniques.
You cannot be asleep because there is competition and in the case of women I feel that you have to
do even more. You can move here, but you have to show that you can do it and whatever you are
lacking, you better obtain it so that you can show you can do it.
Even when women showed they were capable and attained positions in the higher ranks, they did not
get the respect that accompanied the title when held by a man. As Carmen, a coordinator, reflected:
Women do not have the same authority or power that male managers do, but maybe because the
woman has been here for a long time, she will get respect, but not the money or the power. Tanya,
also a coordinator, offered a direct comparison: Being a man is synonymous with respect.
Women also had to show they were willing to make sacrifices. Carmen revealed that sacrifice was
about being like a man, not a great manager, and expressed it as thus:
Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLES

225

Today there are four top women out of 220 top men and all of them, with the exception of one are
husbandless and childless. There is respect for the women that have sacrificed their own personal
life to get far. The company has advanced, but there are not necessarily more women in roles of
authority and leadership positions. I think it does not take a great woman manager to get to the top,
but a woman who works like a dog and sacrifices her life to get to the top.
Because women were still not expected to have careers in Mexico, the few in higher professional
positions at BevMex highlighted how they had to prove themselves and felt subject to scrutiny. Few
women had been able to advance: Gabriela, a manager, described what the company was like when
she started in 1993: I was the only married woman in a position of decision making. Today I am still
the only woman manager in this section of the company. Like Irela, Veronica, and Ana, Gabrielas
experience showed that integrating women at BevMex would be a lengthy process. Their narratives
revealed that the policy change only guaranteed women the right to work, not that the barriers in
BevMex had been lifted so that women could advance.

Obstacles for advancement: Women lack a spirit of professionalism

Many of the men interviewed echoed the womens belief that womens talent has to be more
exceptional to be given the opportunity. Yet while women interpreted the obstacles as mens resistance, men interpreted them as womens lack of skills and professionalism. The men based their belief
on the legitimacy of gendered job segregation, believing that women did not achieve advancement
because they did not have the right skills such as higher education and knowledge of English. Raoul,
a manager, described the transition:
The change has been that there is the option to hire the best talent, whether it is male or female. I
think the other change is that we now have a transformation that includes everyone for women,
it means married, single, single moms, women in top executive levels. The option is open; there is
no limitation. If women work and develop themselves, then tomorrow there will be more women
here. I think that in terms of overall competence, talented women should have the same opportunity as talented men.
Raoul recognized there were few women in management or other supervisory roles. He argued
this would change if women obtained the necessary talent, skills and knowledge, measured in part
by women making better choices in their education by selecting the sought-after disciplines such
as finance, engineering and business administration. He felt that women often did not choose these
programmes to build a professional career; they were in college to meet their husband and bide
their time until they married (mientras me caso). Management assumed that it was womens lack of
commitment that made them unprofessional, a view confirmed, as they saw it, through managers
everyday interactions with women at work. As Oscar, a manager, explained:
My last two secretaries were pregnant. I see that, on the one hand we have to educate women, make
them more professional, and understand responsibility. Everyone has the right to make their
decisions that come with consequences. But just because you are a mom, I am not going to let you
leave early. If you can [because you are done for the day], okay, but if not, then no. We have to
achieve better balance in Mexico because women lack a spirit of professionalism that we see in the
US, for example, where women are better able to organize their life.
By equating pregnancy with unprofessionalism, Oscar ascribes womens potential for inclusion at
work as dependent on alignment with particular workplace norms of responsibility, whilst simultaneously overlooking BevMexs lack of flexible work arrangements that might have facilitated their
inclusion on terms more favourable to the women.
Ezequiel, another manager, further explained why reducing job segregation was difficult:

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

226

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

We are trying to promote women to management and other positions in higher levels. We have
many more women now, but there are very few at the management level. In fact, we have none at
the top level of management, but there are some in the second tier of management. There are
women in important positions, such as the woman who is the director of strategic planning in the
beverage division and in the areas of public relations and in communications as well. Every time
we need to fill a position, there are always three candidates, and at least one must be a woman who
is truly competitive for the position. But, it is difficult because there are not a lot of women
candidates. Mexican culture still thinks that if the woman is working then there is less work for
men. But, in the universities there are more women; there are majors where it is 50/50, but in others
not yet. There are brilliant women that can hope to advance in their career in the company, and in
five years I think we are going to see even more women.
Ezequiel stressed that as more women studied disciplines required by BevMex, there would be more
potential women candidates, and that there was space for women in supervisory or decision-making
positions, directly tied to certain skills, knowledge and talent. Yet his comment also echoed
entrenched expectations in Mexican culture of resistance to women at work. Intertwined with managerial evaluations of womens poor choices was mens acknowledgment that Mexican culture shapes
opinion on roles for women and men at work, and how change might be supported. Oscar expressed
it thus:
Mexico has to organize to assist working mothers. School ends at 2:00 p.m. and few stay open until
5:00. This complicates womens lives to become professional and say I can stay; I have nothing that
is getting in my way. What does a woman do if she does not have her mom or sister to help?
Suddenly, you think that Mexican society lacks the tools to prepare women on the one hand, but it
is also the women as well.
Men managers attributed the dearth of womens advancement to their lack of skills, knowledge and
commitment. Their interpretation was that women hold themselves back and lack the willpower to
develop professionally, as Renato, a coordinator, stressed, Women do not ask for an opportunity.
However, in a workplace setting that offered few examples of women managers balancing work and
family, most would find it difficult to imagine that career advancement was something they could ask
for. The policy change had not challenged larger gendered norms.

Conclusion
This article has explored womens and mens perceptions of changes to a prohibitive work policy
requiring women to quit working after marriage and pregnancy at a Mexican-owned multinational
corporation. Employees believed the policy change meant working women were more valued at
BevMex, but opinion polarized on obstacles to womens advancement: men highlighted barriers with
women themselves whilst women pointed to mens resistance. These voices complicate the narrative
on womens right to work at BevMex. The company justified restructuring as an aspect of modernization in the face of an increasingly competitive global corporate marketplace. Employees explained
the restructuring as a fundamental shift in business outlook, including the use of new technology, and
shifting labour processes centred on a concern for functionally flexible, adaptive workers (Brumley,
2010). Coupled not least with concerns on the part of senior management to be mindful of external
perceptions of the company, BevMex reshaped its employment practices to facilitate the further
inclusion of women workers, leading ultimately to the 1997 withdrawal of the prohibitive work
policy. Yet, as the article has suggested, there were limits to womens inclusion. The employees I
interviewed referred to a new culture of global rights. Whilst the removal of the marriage and
pregnancy bar created the appearance of a level playing field for men and women at work, a further
effect of its removal was to mask the structural dynamics of gender inequity (Acker, 2004) by
reinscribing managements view that womens lack of advancement was a consequence of the choices
Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLES

227

that women made. BevMex management made a business case for womens inclusion, claiming their
intelligence helped develop the business and its viability externally. However, women who sought
seniority were under intense pressure to organize their life in accordance with managements notion
of the ideal worker, one who puts work first, works long hours and is always visible (Blair-Loy, 2003;
Kelly et al., 2010; Watts, 2009).
Employees I interviewed believed the right to work indicated that they were valued employees.
Women in lower level positions believed they had opportunities for advancement and remained
hopeful that they were not stuck as receptionists. Women in higher level posts also believed
working women were more valued and that there had been some increase in opportunities for
advancement. However, all women in supervisory and management positions and mid-level women
in the corporate division stressed that their options were limited. Their view was that positions of
authority were mostly mens domain. Men too indicated that women were valuable and more visible
but defined this value as limited, most often to temporary jobs with no opportunity for career
advancement: men had positions of authority and women had jobs that supported the work of men
(Reskin and Roos, 1990; Williams, 1995). Whilst such gendered discourses did not relegate women
solely to the factory (Salzinger, 2003, 2004), one effect was to limit womens inclusion largely to
subordinate roles.
The research at BevMex aligns with findings elsewhere that narratives construct and maintain
gender inequality in the workplace (Ely and Meyerson, 2000b; Martin, 2003); that women experience
exclusion, hostility and harassment in masculine-dominated settings (Eveline and Booth, 2002;
Prokos and Padavic, 2002; Watts, 2007); and that challenging feminine norms by seeking career
advancement (Kanter, 1977; Miller, 2004) can lead to vilification and hostility (Powell et al., 2009).
Narratives of the ideal worker produce gendered discourses of work that perpetuate stereotypical
explanations of why women do not achieve promotion. The women at BevMex identified very real
obstacles to advancement. Corroborating other research, BevMex women similarly described the
challenge of gaining acceptance by men (Miller, 2004; Powell et al., 2009), where acceptance was
dependent on attachment to a long hours work culture, having limited familial responsibility
(Coronel et al., 2009; Peterson, 2007) and where demonstrations of sacrifice marked ones commitment to work. Exposing managerial narratives illuminates these womens experiences in the workplace. Managers argued the removal of the marriage and pregnancy bar gave them the freedom to
hire the most qualified employee now that women were no longer excluded, but their assessment of
the right worker still emphasized the ideal worker narrative. Womens stalled careers were seen by
managers as the result of lack of ambition, knowledge and ability to put work first, wherein men
managers sought to hire and promote those most like themselves (Bird, 1996; Martin, 1996; Miller,
2004; Watts, 2009). Similarly, motherhood but not fatherhood, remained a key stumbling block to
career advancement (Peterson, 2007), important since all but one man at BevMex was married and all
but two had children.
Contrary to the narrative that women are not committed to work, my findings illustrate that
women took pride in their work when they talked about becoming more than a secretary or
receptionist, although combining work and family meant displaying devotion to work alongside
devotion to family (Blair-Loy, 2003). Segregated work at BevMex serves to reaffirm the message that
men are the legitimate occupiers of decision-making positions. As research elsewhere has pointed out
(Bird, 1996; Williams, 2010), men too can face critique if they do not subscribe to a narrow view of
mens roles, or be overlooked for promotions and wage increases.
The BevMex case offers insights into the interplay of global restructuring and neoliberalism
together with local cultural norms and practices that shape womens expected role of motherhood
and their experience of work. The only thing the BevMex policy change guaranteed was the right for
women to work after marriage and children. Women are encouraged to work, but are tracked into
jobs defined as womens work or face a mandate to be like a man to succeed. By exposing the
persistence of gendered narratives, the article has built on the work of scholars who demonstrate that
despite greater social emphasis on gender equity, the ideal worker continues to be equated with
bottom-line interests of the organization (Acker, 1998; Ely and Meyerson, 2000a; Kelly et al., 2010).

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

228

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Acknowledgements
This article was originally presented at the Gender, Work and Organization conference in Keele in
2010. The author wishes to thank the participants for valuable feedback on the conference paper.
Many thanks also to the employees who graciously gave their time and shared their stories, and to
Heather Laube for comments on earlier drafts. I would like to thank the journal editors and the
anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

References
Acker, J. (1998) The future of gender and organizations: Connections and boundaries. Gender, Work & Organization, 5,4, 195206.
Acker, J. (2004) Gender, capitalism and globalization. Critical Sociology, 30,1, 1741.
Bank Muoz, C. (2008) Transnational Tortillas: Race, Gender, and Shop-Floor Politics in Mexico and the United States.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Benera, L. and Feldman, S. (eds) (1992) Unequal Burden: Economic Crises, Persistent Poverty, and Womens Work.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Bird, S. (1996) Welcome to the Mens Club: Homosociality and the maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. Gender
& Society, 10,2, 12032.
Blair-Loy, M. (2003) Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Brumley, K.M. (2010) Gender, class, and work: The complex impacts of globalization. Advances in Gender Research,
14, 95120.
Brumley, K.M. (2013) It was like a revolution: Womens perceptions of workfamily practices at a Mexican
Multinational Corporation. The Journal of Family Issues, forthcoming, doi: 10.1177/0192513X13478909.
Caraway, T.L. (2007) Assembling Women: The Feminization of Global Manufacturing. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
Cerrutti, M. (2000) Intermittent employment among married women: A comparative study of Buenos Aires and
Mexico City. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 31, 1943.
Chant, S. and Craske, N. (2003) Gender in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Cockburn, C. (1985) Machinery of Dominance: Women and Men, and Technical Know-How. London: Pluto Press.
Collinson, D.L. and Hearn, J. (eds) (1996) Men as managers, managers as men. London: Sage.
Consejo Nacional de Poblacin (CONAPO) (2009) Principales indicadores de Salud Reproductiva. Available at:
http://www.canapo.gob.mx (accessed 3 April 2010).
Coronel, J.M., Moreno, E. and Carrasco, M.J. (2009) Workfamily conflicts and the organizational work culture as
barriers to women educational managers. Gender, Work & Organization, 17,2, 21939.
Cravey, A. (1998) Women and Work in Mexicos Maquiladoras. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
Davey, K.M. (2008) Womens accounts of organizational politics as a gendering process. Gender, Work & Organization, 15,6, 65071.
Denis, A.B. (2003) Globalization, women, and (in)equity in the south: Constraint and resistance in Barbados.
International Sociology, 18,3, 491512.
Ely, R.J. and Meyerson, D.E. (2000a) Advancing gender equity in organizations: The challenge and importance of
maintaining a gender narrative. Organization, 7,4, 589608.
Ely, R.J. and Meyerson, D.E. (2000b) Theories of gender in organizations: A new approach to organizational
analysis and change. Research in Organizational Behaviour, 22, 10351.
Emerson, R.M., Fritz, R.I. and Shaw, L.L. (1995) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Eveline, J. and Booth, M. (2002) Gender and sexuality in discourses of managerial control: The case of women
miners. Gender, Work & Organization, 9,5, 55678.
Fernndez-Kelly, P. (2008) Gender and economic change in the United States and Mexico, 19002000. American
Behavioral Scientist, 52,3, 377404.
Ganguly-Scrase, R. (2003) Paradoxes of globalization, liberalization, and gender equality: The worldviews of the
lower middle class in West Bengal, India. Gender & Society, 17,4, 54466.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. (2006) Vanishing assets: Cumulative disadvantages among the urban poor. In
Fernndez-Kelly, K. and Shefner, J. (eds), Out of the Shadows, pp. 97124. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press.
Guillaume, C. and Pochic, S. (2009) What would you sacrifice? Access to top management and the worklife
balance. Gender, Work & Organization, 16,1, 1436.
Hodson, B. (2000) Gender and Citizenship in Transition. New York: Routledge.

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY AND OBSTACLES

229

Instituto Nacional de Estadstica y Geografa (INEGI) (2010a) Poblacin econmicamente activa. Available at: http://
www.inegi.org.mx (accessed 25 March 2013).
Instituto Nacional de Estadstica y Geografa (INEGI) (2010b) Indicadores de demografa y poblacin. Available at:
http://www.inegi.org.mx (accessed 25 March 2013).
Jayasinghe, D. (2001) More and more technology, women have to go home: Changing skill demands in manufacturing and Caribbean womens access to training. Gender & Development, 9, 7081.
Jelin, E. (1990) Women and Social Change in Latin America. London: Zed Books.
Kanter, R.M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
Kaufman, G. and Uhlenberg, P. (2000) The influence of parenthood on the work effort of married men and women.
Social Forces, 78,3 93149.
Kelly, E.L., Ammons, S.K., Chermack, K. and Moen, P. (2010) Gendered challenge, gendered response: Confronting the ideal worker norm in a white-collar organization. Gender & Society, 24, 281303.
Kondo, D. (1990) Crafting Selves. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
La Botz, D. (1992) Mask of Democracy: Labor Suppression in Mexico Today. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Lee, C.K. (1998) Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Lister, R. (1997) Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives. New York: New York University Press.
Lpez Estrada, S. (2001) Work, gender, and space: Womens home-based work in Tijuana, Mexico. In Menjivar, C.
(ed.) Through the Eyes of Women, pp. 17298. Canada: de Sitter Publications.
Marchand, M.H. and Runyan, A.S. (2000) Gender and Global Restructuring. London: Routledge.
Martin, P.Y. (1996) Gendering and evaluating dynamics: Men, masculinities and managements. In Collinson, D.
and Hearn, J. (eds) Men as Managers, Managers as Men, pp. 186209. London: Sage Publications.
Martin, P.Y. (2003) Said and done versus saying and doing: Gendering practices, practicing gender at work.
Gender & Society, 17,3, 34266.
Martin, J. and Knopoff, K. (1997) The gendered implications of apparently gender-neutral theory: Rereading Max
Weber. In Larson, A. and Freeman, R.E. (eds) Womens Studies and Business Ethics, pp. 3049. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Menjivar, C. (2001) Through the Eyes of Women. Canada: de Sitter Publications.
Meyerson, D.E. and Kolb, D.M. (2000) Moving out of the armchair: Developing a framework to bridge the gap
between feminist theory and practice. Organization, 7,4 55371.
Miller, G.E. (2004) Frontier masculinity in the oil industry: The experience of women engineers. Gender, Work &
Organization, 11,1, 4773.
Moen, P. (2011) From workfamily to the gendered life course and fit: Five challenges to the field. Community,
Work & Family, 14, 8196.
Muller, H.J. and Rowell, M. (1997) Mexican women managers: An emerging profile. Human Resource Management,
36,4, 42335.
Osirim, M.J. (2003) Carrying the burdens of adjustment and globalization: Women and microenterprise development in urban Zimbabwe. International Sociology, 18,3, 53558.
Parrado, E.A. and Zenteno, R.M. (2001) Economic restructuring, financial crises, and womens work in Mexico.
Social Problems, 48,4, 45677.
Peterson, H. (2007) Gendered work ideals in Swedish IT firms: Valued and not valued workers. Gender, Work &
Organization, 14,4, 33348.
Plankey Videla, N. (2012) We are in this Dance Together: Gender, Power, and Globalization at a Mexican Garment Firm.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Portes, A. and Hoffman, K. (2003) Latin American class structures: Their composition and change during the
neoliberal era. Latin American Research Review, 38, 4182.
Powell, A., Bagilhole, B. and Dainty, A. (2009) How women engineers do and undo gender: Consequences for
gender equality. Gender, Work & Organization, 16,4, 41128.
Pozas Garza, M. (1993) Industrial Restructuring in Mexico: Corporate Adaptation, Technological Innovation, and Changing Patterns of Industrial Relations in Monterrey. San Diego, CA: Center for U.S.Mexican Studies, UCSD.
Prokos, A. and Padavic, I. (2002) There oughtta be a law against bitches: Masculinity lessons in police academy
training. Gender, Work & Organization, 9,4, 43959.
Reskin, B. and Padavic, I. (1994) Women and Men at Work. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Reskin, B.F. and Roos, P.A. (1990) Job Queues, Gender Queues: Explaining Womens Inroads into Male Occupations.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Salzinger, L. (2003) Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexicos Global Factories. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Salzinger, L. (2004) From gender as object to gender as verb: Rethinking how global restructuring happens. Critical
Sociology, 30,1, 4362.
Villarreal, A. and Yu, W. (2007) Globalization and womens employment: The case of manufacturing in Mexico.
American Sociological Review, 72,3, 36579.
Watts, J.H. (2007) Porn, pride, and pessimism: Experiences of women working in professional construction roles.
Work, Employment & Society, 21,2, 299316.

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

230

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Watts, J.H. (2009) Allowed into a mans world meanings of worklife balance: Perspectives of women civil
engineers as minority workers in construction. Gender, Work & Organization, 16,1, 3757.
Williams, C.L. (1995) Still a Mans World: Men Who Do Womens Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Williams, J.C. (2010) Reshaping the WorkFamily Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.

Volume 21 Number 3 May 2014

2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd