Professionalization, sexualization: when global meets local in the working identities of secretaries in Lima, Peru

This chapter explores a group of working women in Latin America who are rarely present in gender studies on development, work or identity. It describes secretaries and, more specifically, secretaries working in public administration. The chapter presents a description of the workings of the bureaucracy. There are certain idiosyncratic features associated with working at a Peruvian ministry. The new department heads will bring their ‘own’ staff or secretaries. Women with job tenure enjoy other secondary benefits, such as uniforms, optional free lunches or the equivalent in money or paid holiday. Bureaucracies are also renowned for the high degree of paper pushing from one desk to another and back again. The quest for professionalization is not one being fought on all fronts or by the majority of secretaries, but it is occurring in the name of them all. The discourse of global organizational change brings with it a new work ethic.