Journal
Chapter 2. JULY .rtfd/TXT.rtf
Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Introduction to Women in Latin America Chapter Goals To introduce a general discussion about women’s social position from a historical perspective, exploring women’s “invisibility,” patriarchy, and feminism. To explore women in Latin America understanding that women are integral part of historical, political, economic, and cultural developments in the region. To understand that women in Latin America as elsewhere in the world are a diverse group of different social classes, ethnicities, and racial backgrounds. To discuss the role of the United Nations, the Declaration of Human Rights as a preamble for Chapter 3. Introduction During the course of this book, you and I will engage in a fascinating learning experience. We will learn about women in Latin America. In general, women have been apparently absent from history. What we know today about the past was apparently done by men, being women invisible in the historical making of human beings. Stop for a while and think. Is this true? Have been women passive actors in the political, economic, cultural, and social developments? If your answer is yes, you urgently need to engage in this learning experience. And if your answer is no, I will invite you to think about the reasons of women’s invisibility. One reason is the fact that although women are integral part of global societal development, history has been written by men. For example, most social scientists such as Plato, Aristotle, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hegel, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Jürgen Habermas, and Jacques Derrida among others are men. However, women have fought for inclusion, education, citizenship, and legal and health rights throughout the course of history. From ancient history to present times women have defied their “natural vocation” that is home and family or the private sphere and fought to be equal partners with men in private and public spheres, to be equal members of society. Examples of these women are found from east to west and from north to south of the globe. Open Box Here ________________________________________________ Women Transcending History and Geographies in the Fight for Equality The following list provide few examples of women’s contribution to societal developments around the world Hypatia the head of the platonist school in Alexandria, Egypt in the fourth century, revolutionized the field of mathematics and astronomy. She was labeled a Hellenistic pagan and killed by a Christian mob. Christine de Pazian wrote the book “The Book of the City of Ladies” in 1405. In this book de Pazian advocated for women’s rights to be educated, to be able to live and work independently, to participate in public life, and be masters of their own fate. Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695) advocated for women’s rights to education being herself impeded of attending school. She was a writer, philosopher, master of Greek logic, proficient in many languages but her life and talent was silenced just because she was a woman. Sojouner Truth was an African American abolitionist and women’s rights activists during mid nineteenth century. Her famous speech “Ain’t I a women delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention places Truth as a feminist pioneering women’s equality and African American civil rights. Evangelina Rodriguez the first woman to obtain a Medical Doctor degree from the University of Santo Domingo in 1911 was an advocate for women’s health rights. After finishing a specialty in Gynecology and Obstetrics in Paris, France, she developed programs on sexual education, STDs prevention, and family planning in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Rodriguez opposed the tyrannic regime of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and as a punishment she was deprived of her job and properties, and dying Pschizophrenic and homeless. _____________________________________________________________________ end box here “Women’s invisibility” can also be explained by patriarchy. The perseverance of patriarchy also known as sexism is key in the continuation of women’s subordination. Patriarchy is a set of beliefs that assign men power over women. In the United States for example, a University of Michigan survey revealed that more than two-third of women agreed that the most important family decisions should be made by the man of the house (Stephanie Coontz). This perception has changed through the times. The United States women’s movement, women’s education, women’s insertion in the labor force among other factors have substantially changed past perceptions of gender inequalities, although some believe that the gender revolution has hit a wall and women still need to go another long way to stall patriarchy (Stephanie Coontz). In other regions of the world women are still defined as mothers, wives, and household “employees” (cleaning, cooking, taking care of children and husbands) while men are the breadwinners, decision-makers, and disciplinarians. Yet as in the United States, women of the world are also fighting to destroy gender barriers. Open Box Here Sex, Gender, and Inequality Women and men are biologically different. These difference includes the primary sex characteristics that are present at birth (i.e. the presence of specific female or male genitalia) and the secondary sex characteristics that develop later (facial and body hair, voice quality, and so on). One must take into consideration that these biological characteristics differ considerably among individuals. Some people are born as hermaphrodites (having both male and female genitalia). Other people are transxesuals who feel that the sexual organs they were born with do not conform with what they believe their sex should be. Gender on the other hand culturally defines ways of acting as male or female that become part of an individual’s personal sense of self. Women and men learn about their gender identity through the process of socialization where group of people or agents of socialization (family, school, the community, mass media, peer groups, religion, etc.) influence a person’s gender identity and develop according to cultural norms of “masculinity” or “femininity.” In this process of socialization men and women are programmed to behave in accordance to a patriarchal system. The unequal treatment of men and women is directly related to gender roles. The roles assigned to men and women are related to amount of money, prestige, power, access to opportunities, equal pay for equal work, freedom, and body control. Process of gender socialization and the social construction of gender roles varies from one culture to another. The work of anthropologist Margaret Mead showed how gender roles varied from one culture to another. Gender roles are also challenged by women’s education. The example of Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, a defender of women and children human rights in Iran and awardee of the 2003 Nobel Prize, illustrates how education can be weapon against women’s oppression. Political participation is also another way to challenge traditionally assigned gender roles. The actions of the mothers of the disappeared in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s elevated the status of women in the region. These examples show that patriarchy is not a static notion oppressing women throughout history and geography. __________________________________________________________________________ The fight for women’s rights that defy patriarchy extended into present times. During late 19th and throughout the 20th century women became fierce activists for educational, political, cultural, sexual, reproductive, employment, and health vindications. During early twentieth century the suffragist movement (the right to vote) was a very important example of women’s struggle to be part of society in equal terms with men. As a continuation of the struggle, during the 1970s, a group of feminist intellectuals started to explain social dynamics with a “gender eye.” Afterwards, colleges and universities started to open women’s studies programs and departments that contributed to the reformulation of theories oriented to place women as important agents in historical developments. Further the United Nations started to target gender inequalities organizing the women’s decade in 1970, creating the United Nations Fund for Women-UNIFEM, implementing different programs to insert women as equal members of society, and enforcing the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women-CEDAW. Latin America was also the scenario of the struggle to transform women from objects to subjects (Rosalin Delmar). From late nineteenth century to the 1960s, Latin American women created feminist organizations such as the International Feminist Congress, meeting in Argentina and Mexico in 1910 and 1916 respectively. These organization agenda was oriented toward three major vindications: gaining women’s suffrage, protective labor laws, and access to education. The struggle for the right to vote took most of the first half of the twentieth century as it is shown in the following chart. Chronology of the year women in Latin America Gained the Right to Vote Country Year Right to Vote was granted Ecuador 1929 Puerto Rico 1929 Brazil 1932 Cuba 1934 Bolivia 1938 (Municipal level) 1952 (National Level) El Salvador 1939 Dominican Republic 1942 Guatemala 1945 Venezuela 1946 Argentina 1947 Mexico 1947 (Municipal Level) 1953 (National Level) Chile 1931 (Municipal Level) 1949 (national Level) Colombia 1954 Nicaragua 1955 Peru 1955 Honduras 1955 Paraguay 1961 ================================================================ Feminism in Latin America was in the hands of middle class women until the 1970s when working class women engaged in the mother’s of the disappeared movements, soup kitchen, and popular health movements. Concomitantly, middle class women following the United Nations declaration of the Decade of the Woman started to organize the Feminist Encounters or Encuentros Feministas Latinoamericanos. These encounters were essential in linking United Nations efforts to narrow the gender gap and Latin American women’s agenda. One of the most important achievements of the encuentros was to propose to the United Nations an international day to protest violence against women in honor to the brutal assassination of the Mirabal Sisters in November 25,1960 by the Dominican Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. The United Nations approved this international celebration in 2000. Today, the world commemorates the lives of the Mirabal Sisters and repudiates all forms of violence against women on November 25. Today Latin American women continue their feminist struggle through Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) demanding women’s rights, women’s research, resources to provide for women’s health, and becoming watchdogs for the fulfillment of United Nations CEDAW policies by their governments. Open Box Here Definition of Feminism ________________________________________________________________________ Sonia Alvarez a well recognized Latin America social scientists defines feminism as an act to transform social roles assigned to women while simultaneously challenging gender power arrangements and advancing claims for women’s rights to equality and personal autonomy. In transforming social roles and challenging gender power, Latin American feminists involve in individual and collective actions in the following fields: women's legal rights (rights of contract, property rights, voting rights); for women's right to bodily integrity and autonomy, for abortion rights, and for reproductive rights (including access to contraception and quality prenatal care); for protection from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape; for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; and against other forms of discrimination.Feminism has been seen as a western/white middle class creation however women of all races have also contributed to the feminist discourse and advocacy. For example, Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech to American feminists included African Americans in the discussion (Bell Hooks, 2010). The insertion of African Americans into the feminist discourse accelerated in the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement in the United States (Bell Hooks, 2000). Third World women have also brought new ideas about gender differences and women’s equality. The work of Gloria Anzaldua and Cherri Moraga has been essential to understand the position of Third World women. The works of African Americans and Third World women have contributed enormously to relate women's experience of inequality relates to that of racism, homophobia, classism and colonization. (Maggie Humn, 1992). =============================================================== Women, Diversity, and Inequality in Latin America Uros People I spent a day among the Uros who live in manmade floating islands in the Titicaca Lake located in the heart of Los Andes Mountain Range in South America. There, ate corn soup and fired trout, played with children with cold burn cheeks, and socialized with women and other community members although most of them spoke Aymara and not Spanish. Holding an ancestral culture the Uros build their islands with bundles of dried totora seeds that host from five to ten families. Looking at the women weaving reeds and cotton into beautiful art crafts while holding the babies in their backs I felt I was in the center of earth saluting Pacha Mama. A Rural community in the Dominican Republic Yet the memories of the Uros were diametrically different from my observations in the Southwest of the Dominican Republic, a country sharing with the Republic of Haiti the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea where as the poet eloquently evoked “ the sea is always near and the mountains are never far.” In the rural south of the Dominican Republic the houses, the weather (Tropical), people’s skin color (From the darkest to the lightest skin colors), and language spoken (Spanish) were different. The people of Latin America are of different races and ethnicities. For example, the Uros people are Native Americans of Aymara descent while in the Dominican Republic people are descendants of the European colonizers, African slaves, Tainos, and many other ethnic groups arriving into the country in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries such as Chinese, Arabs, Jews, African Americans, Haitian, and people from the English-Speaking Caribbean. In many other Latin American countries Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans blended culturally and genetically forming a hybrid continent. Yet racial diversity has been translated into inequalities. Indigenous and blacks have been treated unfairly on the basis of skin color and ethnic background. However inequalities are also based on social class differences, being indigenous and blacks the poorest in the social pyramid. To these social barriers, one must add gender inequality that place women below men but also establish inequalities among women. In Latin America as in other regions of the world women are of many colors, ethnicities, and social classes placing them different scales in the social ladder and establishing major inequalities between women in the upper ranks and women at the bottom of the ladder. Each of these social groups have initiated their own struggles for women’s rights. For example, working class women organized to fight for human rights violations in Latin America, a struggle that allowed them to see the world with gender eyes. Middle class women organized to fight for women social, political, and economic status. Yet both struggles encountered in many different instances throughout Latin America. For example, during the 1990s when the United Nations was pushing for the implementation of CEDAW, women of different social sectors such as peasants, working class, lawyers, educators sat together to elaborate gender inclusive laws (women’s insertion in education, reproductive rights, prevention and penalization of violence against women, property rights among others) and to propose ways of enforcing and disseminating these laws. A General Discussion on Human Rights Failure to respect human rights is constant in Latin America and women have been central in the struggle for human rights. We will engage in the nature of human rights struggle staged by Latin American women in the next chapter but before I want to introduce you to the concept of human rights and the United Nations. The United Nations was created in 1945 and subsequently proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. According to this declaration, human rights are defined as international norms that help to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses, including inalienable rights to life and freedom. F. D. Roosevelt understood that this declaration was founded upon four essential human freedoms: “ In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941 It is disturbing that even today human rights violations are a constant in Latin America. Examples of these violations include: sex trafficking of hundreds of thousands of women and children, femicide (killing of women just because they are women like the case of Ciudad Juarez), domestic violence (alarming increase of domestic violence throughout L.A.), forced sterilization (Peruvian and Guatemalan indigenous groups), ethnic genocide (the last massacre against indigenous people happened in Baga, Peru in 2010), police brutality among others. Latin America has also been the location of severe human right violations during the second half of the twentieth century which is the focus of the next chapter.