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In recent times, poverty analyses and policies against poverty have incorporated women as a relevant factor. Nevertheless, some criticisms have been raised against them: first, most of the time, they have relied on an instrumental perspective which does not guarantee better conditions of gender equity; second, poverty analyses have generally become reactive tools that seek to compensate for a current situation, not to prevent it from occurring in the future. This paper therefore proposes to go beyond poverty analyses to identify distinctive features of households derived from social constructions that have an effect on vulnerability, particularly in households headed by women. We point out the importance of an analysis from a gender perspective in order to identify the features which make households more vulnerable to suffering or worsening their conditions of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how women in the state of Guerrero perceive and actualize their lives as impoverished persons. The purpose is to find out how these women experience their conditions of deprivation, how they perceive them and construct representations of them based on their experience as women and gender relations. By paying attention to the voices of impoverished women, one can identify the day-to-day processes of poverty that can deteriorate family and social relationships, but also act as powerful agents, generating creative strategies to mitigate the impact of real life conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]