Assumptions of the traditional income poverty measure have strong implications not confirmed by the evidence, but this measure is still widely used in gender poverty analysis. We explore the boundaries of the gender analysis of monetary poverty based on the currently available information (household surveys for 16 Latin American countries). Our results indicate that departing from the conventional methodology has more influence on women than men, worsening female indicators. Households emerge as crucial venues for income support for low income partnered women and for women with no access to any income, whose autonomy is seriously compromised due to this fact.