JANE BAYES is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of Gender, Globalization and Democracy at California State University, USA. She is author/editor of six books including Gender, Globalization and Democratization (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001) and Globalization, Gender, and Religion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). PATRICIA BEGNÉ is a Professor of Law in the School of Law at the University of Guanajuato in Guanajuato, México, where she has taught since 1980. She has also practiced law and serves as a consultant to law firms in the U.S. Her publications include MujereS. (2004) and Women and Law in the State of Guanajuato (2003). LAURA GONZALEZ is currently the Director of the University of Texas at Dallas Angel Palerm Field Station based in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, USA. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Anthropology both at the University of Texas at Dallas and at Mountain View Community College, a campus of the Dallas Community College District. Her publications include Respuesta Campesina a la Revolución Verde en el Bajío [Peasant Response to the Green Revolution in the Bajío Region] (1992) and Political Brokers, Ejidos, and State Resources in Guanajuato, Mexico (1996), both published by the Social Science Research Centre at the Universidad de Guanajuato. LOIS HARDER is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton,Canada. She has written extensively on women and politics in Canada, including the book State of Struggle: Feminism and Politics in Alberta (2003). Her current research focuses on welfare reform in Canada and the United States.