RESUMO
PIP: Mexico's peasant sector is undergoing great change as a result of the insertion of capitalist relations into areas that were previously remote. The traditional peasant subsistence economy has been displaced, and peasants have been forced to adopt a series of new strategies for survival, entailing proletarianization or selling of labor. Women in the community of San Nicolas Zoyapetlayoca, in the municipio of Tepeaca, have lived in a situation of poverty and precariousness for some time. Most of the population historically depended on the neighboring haciendas for their livelihood. Women and children also worked there, mistreated and without social protection. The lands that were distributed after the Revolution are insufficient to support the community, and most families must look elsewhere for employment. Incomes are insufficient to cover all the necessities of education, health, nutrition, and other aspects of life. Most women are educated no farther than the primary level. They spend most of their time preparing food, carrying water, washing clothes, caring for their children, and in other domestic chores. Some women work for wages as laborers, factory workers, or domestics. Rural women are disadvantaged by poor working conditions, insufficient education, low levels of health and nutrition, limited participation in social and political life, poor housing and lack of services, and frequently by their own attitudes of traditionalism or fatalism.^ieng