Abstract

Based on an ethnography of a Latina/latino immigrant union, the author examines changes in gender inequality along five dimensions. Union renewal weakened the structural division of union labor, allowing women on staff to realize feminist values of leadership development in concrete goals. These changes made space for women members to engage in new leadership practices that undermined gender inequalities in interactions with men and empowered and politicized women at the individual level. Feminist values of caring for children, however, were not realized in specific goals thus limiting the leadership practices and politicization of women with children. The ethnography shows the need to move from the study of women and unions to an analysis of how gendered transformations intersect with economic restructuring and immigration within social movement organizations.