Rogoberta

Rigoberta Menchu addresses the role of women in Quiche society and devotes several chapters of her narrative to gender issues. I, Rigoberta Menchu is not about women in Guatemala society, but any discussion of race, class, and politics must naturally include gender as a matter of course. More important than gender to Rigoberta Menchu is the abuse of power. In her narrative, Rigoberta Menchu focuses on the ways wealthy business owners and ladinos in Guatemala abuse their power and privilege by exploiting and dehumanizing the indigenous population. Moreover, Rigoberta Menchu depicts the indigenous Mayan culture as being inherently gender egalitarian. For example, women drink at parties just like the men do. "That is something incredible in these towns," the author notes, "because it's not only the men who want to let themselves go and forget about their problems for a while…It's not unusual to see our women drinking," (206)....
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