Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America

Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America. Edited by Vivienne Bennett, Sonia Dávila-Poblete, and María Nieves Rico. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 2005. 264 pp. $27.95.

This book represents an important contribution to a growing subfield of feminist scholarship. Moving beyond a focus on the traditional policy areas normally associated with women and politics, the authors bring a gender analysis to bear on the “politics of water” in Latin America. Not only is this a policy issue not usually linked to women's rights, but, as the editors argue, even the national-level women's policy agencies created in many Latin American countries have overlooked the way gender discrimination impacts the heightening water crisis facing much of the region. Nevertheless, they maintain that “the right to water underpins all other social rights” (p. 15) and that “a gender perspective is not only possible but essential for effective water management” (p. ix).