Título en español.

Abstract

The essay reviews the main articles of the Revista de Ciencias Sociales on women‘s employment and status, reproductive practices, and family structures and relations. These are analyzed with respect to their theoretical approaches to gender definitions, discussed in their historical context and reconceptualized according to the more recent tendencies and studies regarding these topics. During the past six decades, we moved from perspectives of modernization that suggested a progress towards a greater equity and broader social participation for women, to highlighting the tensions and limits accompanying the prevailing changes in social and family relations, including as a problem the discussion of overpopulation. More recent feminist, socialist, postmodern and other critical perspectives, have discussed gender and family relations in relation to power and hierarchical structures, underlining the unequal sexual division of labor, as well as gender subordination and violence. The increase in female headed households has been discussed as an alternative form of family organization.