The history of feminism movement in Mexico - Research Paper Example

?Sur Lecturer Feminism The history of feminism movement in Mexico s back from over forty years from its inception. This feminism movement is linked inexorably to Marta Lama. Marta remained instrumental in the movement from its birth to the construction of radiant discourse on critical issues facing the rights of women including abortion and gender construction. From the years of the movement’s foundation, Marta has remained an organizer and a theoretician, inspiration and a change agent to most women. Women played a vital role in the Mexico’s feminism movement. The participants of the movement survived through a sudden expansion of expectations and intense social experience both as women and as citizens. The majority of women had the social and political commitments awakened. Even before the repression of the initial demonstration, some students already offered an opportunity of active participation to women in the social movement (Glenn 39). This paper seeks to discuss the feminist movement in Mexico and the nature of feminism in the novel Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. The feminism grew stronger and started to spread. Government officials even made focus on the men who were in the movement and discounted the role that women played in the movement. The government made men their major target during the October 2, 1968, crackdown and left women behind. This was an opportunity for women to keep active the movement. There were various women who spearheaded the movement and gave women the opportunity to participate and keep the movement alive. Other feminists like Rosario Castellanos headed a domestic strike by women in the United States. Others like Carmen Landa gave practical examples of how the feminist movement could transform the lives of women. Other authors like Laura Esquivel have written books on the same movements and detailed the consequences and role of women. The feminist movement was associated with various consequences which changed permanently the future of Mexico. Some of the notable changes were witnessed at the political level. The movement gave the citizens an opportunity to exercise a new democracy where they could use their own opinion to transform the society. The citizens lost trust in the government and would not live under the government’s conscious control completely nor tolerate the control itself. There were also some social changes that were witnessed due to the movement. The strict and unbreakable rules that people struggled to live under were no longer there. Due to this, more freedom of expression and action resulted without restrictions. Daily life was transformed by the newly formed ideas. Women were now allowed to fight for their rights by the new ideology of feminist; this increased women’s social participation by a notable degree. Women could become business people aside from performing the usual house chores and taking care of the children. This brings us to the views of Laura Esquivel in her novel Like Water For Chocolate. The novel narrates a story of Tita, a young girl, who had been longing to marry Pedro, her only lover in her entire life. She could not achieve this because her mother was upholding a tradition of the family that the youngest daughter was supposed to take care of the mother and not marry. Tita could only express her grievances while cooking. Although the contemporary Mexico had accepted specific values of feminism as well as women’s agility, the country is still identified with male concepts dominating the society and the role of women. Through the application of the female language, Esquivel has significantly challenged the womanhood sentimental. She has taken the Mexican traditional way of looking at women and then turned it around the heads of the people. This has portrayed women by male characteristics predominantly and branded men a weaker sex. She demonstrates this in the manner in which the domesticity has managed to show that it is antithetical to homes. This does not matter whether it is merely through false behavior, false words, or even false interiors. However, the sentimental in the belief of “happily ever after” has sweetened and trivialized homes in such a way that it has lost its initial meaning. This has also undermined what it means, in the contemporary Mexico, to be a woman. Mexican women have continued to fight in order to get their rights. They have done this to the extent that they assumed the roles of males, which resultantly led to their liberation. According to Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate (1989), Mexico’s tradition demanded that Tita’s marriage was forbidden and that her responsibility was to take good care of her mother to her grave. Culture has continuously dictated the roles of women and men in the society; she dies. In fact, it is viewed to be dishonorable for women to be alone without escorts in some parts of Mexico. Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate (1989) focuses on the female characters and depicts them via the roles of gender that are often associated with those of men, hence indicating them as violent and cruel (Esquivel 100). Mama Elena is depicted as an authoritarian, twisted, and tyrannical mother, who is known to use her powers to have her daughter’s future destroyed. She rules her own house with an iron fist and practically shows a cruel and heartless power. She is a professional when it comes to things like dispossessing, desolating, destroying, dismantling, and dominating among others (Esquivel 97). Esquivel has used gender roles that were normally identified with males in a family set up or households to describe the characters in her novel as indicated in the paragraph. Mama Elena also controls her children, and this can be seen in the manner in which her children receive her commands. For instance, the children spring to action whenever they hear the words “that’s it for today” (Esquivel 8). The children would not go against their mother’s wishes at any circumstance as that would lead to their mother disowning them. Mama Elena was also known for her cruelty apart from being tyrant. She suggested that Rosaura gets married to Pedro after turning Tita’s hopes of marrying her lover, Pedro. This shows how she treated marriage just like an arrangement between people. She even demonstrated her cruelty the way she had Tita cook by force in the wedding. Her inability to get married to Pedro due to her mother’s stringent rules that were predominantly male meant that she could not exercise any resistance to the violation of her mother’s strict rules. Such scenes were used by Esquivel in order to show how the conventional traditions and attitude are entrenched in the society of Mexico. She uses food to demonstrate how women suffer from rules they did not make and cannot have any control over. Through food, Tita understands, and she compares her physical and emotional state to dough when plunged into boiling oil (Franco 121). The brutal and violent experiences that Tita undergoes indicate the male brutality. For instance, Mama Elena exhibits characteristics that are normally identified in male characters and not women. At a closer range of the book, female characters are shown as stronger than men in the book. For instance, Pedro fails to confront Rosura and Tita’s mother on the issue of their marriage; however, Tita takes the initiative to confront her mother on the same. In the novel, Pedro and other men are indicated as weak, indecisive, and prone to jealousy. Pedro could not challenge the refusal of Tita’s mother and get married to the woman he says he loves so much, and marries Rosaura instead. He is also unable to consummate his own marriage. This shows his weak nature (Esquivel 52). The female characteristics are also seen in the male characters in this novel. For instance, Pedro is portrayed to suffer long enough waiting patiently for the woman he says he loves. He is also described as patient and nurturing. The same feminine characters are demonstrated by other male characters such as Trevifio, who deciphers recipes although he is a man, a job often seen as a woman affair. Sexuality, as shown in the novel, forms a significant part of the book. Tita acts as the love transmitter while Pedro remains a receiver. On the other hand, Gertrudis acts as the medium through which sexual messages passed to the lovers. This shows the inverse gender roles. The concept is also shown through the escape of Gertrudis with a revolutionary where, in brothel, she spends time so as to have her sexual needs satisfied in a parodic sexual roles inversion. This same notion is demonstrated by the ability of Gertrudis on the battlefield as well as by Pedro and Tita’s initial sexual encounter, which led to her loss of virginity (Esquive 158). Works Cited Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen . New York: Doubleday, 1992. Print. Franco, Jean. "Going Public: Rein habiting the Private." On Edge: The Crisis of Contemporary Latin American Culture. Ed. George Yudice, et al. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992. 120-121. Print. Glenn, Kathleen M. ‘Postmodern Parody and Culinary-Narrative Art in Laura Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate.’ Chasqui, 23. 2 (Nov. 1994): 39-47. Print. Read More