Nora Nagels, Françoise Montambeault, Bringing Women Back into the (Collective) Kitchen: The Case of the Ley de comedores sociales in Mexico City, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2025;, jxaf044, https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxaf044

Abstract

Women’s participation in informal and collective carework in Latin America has had ambiguous effects on their access to extended citizenship rights, from which they have been traditionally excluded. In this paper, we examine the case of the 2009 Ley de comedores sociales in Mexico city, which institutionalizes the pivotal role of women as administrators of the community-based comedores comunitarios (community kitchens). Drawing from insights from the literatures on women’s citizenship in Latin America and on gender analysis of social policy, we look at how the policy framing shapes women’s everyday citizenship practices and, in turn, their access to formal citizenship rights. We argue that, because of its regendering nature, Mexico City’s policy has had a very limited effect on women’s access to formal social and political rights. Our argument draws from two complementary qualitative methods: policy content analysis and a series of in-depth interviews with women administrators of the comedores.