Ecotourism is lauded as a path toward sustainable development and women’s empowerment in rural areas around the world, but little is known about how gendered expectations shape its processes and outcomes. This paper employs an in‐depth qualitative case study of a female‐only ecotourism cooperative in rural Mexico to investigate how local gender dynamics influence women’s opportunities to benefit from ecotourism development. Findings show that women’s family and work commitments prevent their ability to devote the resources and energy necessary to make the cooperative successful. In this context, women are first expected to be wives and mothers, and to fulfill the substantial daily expectations associated with those roles. In addition, most women work outside the home. This leaves little time or energy for a “third shift” as ecotourism entrepreneurs running their own cooperative. Women put their own interests and goals on the back burner, because of the demands of the first two shifts. If ecotourism is to empower women, localized gender structures must be understood and addressed. Overlooking these challenges can mean that ecotourism projects, even those specifically aimed at empowering women, may only further burden women and reinforce gender models that perpetuate inequality.

中文翻译：

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第三转变？妇女生态旅游合作社的性别与赋权

人们称赞生态旅游是在世界各地农村地区实现可持续发展和增强妇女权能的途径，但人们对性别期望如何影响其过程和结果知之甚少。本文采用了墨西哥农村地区一家女性生态旅游合作社的深入定性案例研究，以调查当地性别动态如何影响妇女从生态旅游发展中受益的机会。调查结果表明，妇女的家庭和工作承诺阻碍了她们投入使合作社成功所需的资源和精力的能力。在这种情况下，首先要期望妇女是妻子和母亲，并要满足与这些角色相关的日常日常期望。此外，大多数妇女在家庭外工作。随着生态旅游企业家经营自己的合作社，这几乎没有时间或精力进行“第三次转变”。由于前两个班次的要求，女性把自己的兴趣和目标放在了后面。如果生态旅游要赋予妇女权力，就必须理解和解决局部的性别结构。忽略这些挑战可能意味着，生态旅游项目，即使是专门旨在增强妇女权能的项目，也可能只会进一步给妇女增加负担，并加剧使不平等现象长期存在的性别模型。