Class and Gender Roles: Narratives of Highly Skilled Mexican Women Migrants in Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores gender role experiences interconnected with class among women of Mexican origin who have migrated to metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on qualitative research data from twenty middle high-class and upper-class high-skilled Mexican women, and using an intersectionality prism via Anthias’s translocational positionality, we argue that the personal journey of highly skilled Mexican women’s migration/mobility and located adaptation brings changes to their social class/status and gender role identities. We attempt to ascertain how and why they re-evaluate, challenge, or renegotiate their Mexican class privileges, roles as professionals and as women, and how those roles relate to Australian social ordering. Their experience narratives highlight that most go through challenges in this renegotiation. From the participants’ point of view, some have renegotiated roles within their family units. At work, some feel recognized as professionals in a space which enables them to develop a deep sense of agency and make independent choices.