Gender Revolution in the Latin America - Research Paper Example

Gender Revolution in the Latin America Introduction In the 20th century, the Latin America experienced problems relating to economic development and ties with superpowers of the economic societies as did the third world countries. Their economies fully reliant on the political and social frameworks of the Western countries led to economic dependency. Dependency on the Western economy in exports and investments subjected the Latin American economy to fluctuations in the global system. In order to gain social justice, autonomy of culture and economic security, the Latin Americans adopted foreign ideologies in addition to formulation their indigenous responses. Preservation of status quo in Latin politics and economic expansion provided social justice amidst the political crisis. Few revolutions contributed to significant political changes in the 20th century owing to major alterations in economic and social matters. Revolution in the Latin America States arose subsequently to two major occasions which include the Mexican Revolution and the World War I. Despite other nations maintaining the status quo through this major events, the Great War caused realignment of economies of nations and disrupted the economies of the region. Prior to the war, Europe exported Latin American agrarian revolution products and, as a result, demand for the products kept rising. After the World Wars, the Latin American economy slowed and unending political unrest made a better deal of the region. Heavy and uncontrolled immigration led to alarming rates of population growth. As a result, the urban regions experienced high rates of congestion and therefore increased social problems. As If that did not serve to destabilize the countries, the region arose to the emergence of a newer and dominant super power, the United States. Unrelenting economic problems in Latin America brought down military governments to the control of the civilians. The resultant human torture and massacres and political killings in the region grabbed the international attention which in turn reinforced the concept of natural law in human rights. However, differences in political opinions and cultural opinions made the enforcement of the law are quite hard due to different interpretation of components of human rights. Changes in the Latin America society took place gradually over the 20th century. The changes took place because ethnicity, economic class and gender remain influential. Revolution to political power The status of women and their rights changed over time in three phases in the fight to political power. First, the history of Sandinismo saw the end of the Anastacio Somoza dynasty which reigned with nepotism ties. Women proved to be essential in the fight to revolution. Their cries of suffering and oppression greatly contributed to the fall of the Somoza regime. The assassination of Sandino in 1934 sparked a movement championing for improved social conditions for the majority. The Sandinistas who comprised of male and female and young and old started a guerilla war in overthrowing the government. Owing to the predefined gender responsibilities for women, women mainly held domestic chores, and they developed ideologies in religion. In order to enable movement of women during the war, the leadership explored into the domicile lifestyle of women. Therefore, women abandoned their lifestyle to join a more male dominated platform. Unity and egalitarianism saw to it that even women took up leadership roles in the mountains owing because all individuals lay susceptible to being killed. After the war, reversed roles in gender as female revolutionaries arose. Sandinistas promoted breastfeeding for infants, legalized maternity leave, and eliminated the distinction of legitimate children born in wedlock from the illegitimate ones born out of wedlock. The Nicaraguan legislative body, The Council of State, gave rise to the national women’s forum which promised better articulation of women’s matters as well as adequate representation of women. Unfortunately, these promises did not come to pass, and women fell short of validity from the public. The feminists thought that created a shift of social ideologies from machismo and sexism resulted in inequality and necessitated a radical change. Second, during the National Assembly in the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) regime, the then president of Nicaragua sought legitimacy for his threatened regime, the societal norms diminished as political strategies gained passage. Consequently, the women forum lacked autonomy it needed since the attention of the Nicaraguan administration under Daniel Ortega drifted from women matters to that of maintaining calm in the political realm. Third, a decade after the Ortega regime efforts to revive women’s forums did not yields any success. Instead, services that the government funded such as the women’s health care ceased to be free. Political shifts in Nicaragua eventually strangled the progress previously made by women’s organizations and the status of women diminished yet again. Historians use the term categorization to refer to periods of time within which particular events took place. Karen Kampwirth gives categorization of women in revolution in her book Women in Guerilla Movements. In her book, Karen attempts to address reason for Nicaraguan women to join Sandinista and Contra movements. First, she notes that a personal factor like women’s attachment to the history of revolution, as well as religious experiences, drove them to rebellion. Also, neglect of the government to acknowledge relentless efforts of women sparked a radicalization amongst them. Finally, she notes other issues as urban migration and socioeconomic factors such as single-headed households (Kampwirth, 3). Mass migration of single parent women affected all the factors as mentioned above. Aside from religious motivation and urgency for constitutional rights, these women lay susceptible to recruitment into the movements. Though she fails to recognize the impact of social class in the recruitment and the support from the social sector, it is clear that women the movements voluntarily. Another piece of literature that bears the same insight includes a film named Memorios del Fuergo (Memory of Fire) done by a Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano. The trilogy, originally done in Portuguese in 1982 plays in three phases, the first one being the birth volume which runs from the creation until the seventeenth century. The second one, faces and masks, runs from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The third phase, the century of the wind debuts the XX century. This trilogy mainly debuts the story of women who joined the movements and disappeared forever. This shows the struggle which women underwent in Latin America just to acquire liberalization. 20th century Latin American revolution The incapability of liberalism to provide solutions towards the societal setbacks became clear. The Great Depression led to coups in 12 different countries. Foreign investors departed, and demand for exports reduced and the liberal governments failed to address economic dysfunction and employment. In the 1930s, the middle class indulged in politics exceptionally in alliance with the reigning military government. Marxist and communist societies sprang up in defiance of the belief in Western democracy. Peru, whose population mainly constituted of the Indians, saw the uprising of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) led by Victor Raul in 1924. APRA party gained its motivation from the Mexican Revolution, nationalism and socialism as well as Mussolini’s fascism. In Argentina, a coup led to the downfall of the Radical Party in 1929 in the middle of the collapsed economy. In 1943, Juan D Peron emerged as the leader of the military against the stronger labor movement. Peron gained popularity by supporting demands of the workers. He also empowered his wife, Eva Duarte to be his envoy among the blue-collar workers. Peron ruled in the favor of the Argentinians. He nationalized the foreign companies and embraced the industrialists and the workers into his government. Although a coup overthrew his reign due to failure to address the economic problems, Peron’s populism survived all through the military regimes until 1973 when he became president. In depth, the role of women in politics in the region encountered slow change. In 1929, Ecuador granted women the right to vote. Other regimes remained adamant till the 1950s. Due to their ties with the church, reformers feared for conservative political force if women acquired power. Stereotypically, women ought to focus on the domestic duties. Feminist movements secured the right to vote amidst the male prejudice in the Latin America regimes. Historically, women participated in the revolution from its inception. They did so through publishing in the opposition press, participating in strikes and joining the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) in defiance of Porfirio Diaz’s regime (1876 – 1911). Women in Argentina started feminism long before the Peronist administration. In 1928, the Socialist Party supported the first ever female suffrage bill. These women focused more on female activism and not feminism. The latter suggested a disliking for male counterparts while as the former embraced femininity and leadership. In Cuba, revolution and female liberation go hand in hand. Fidel Castro embraced the leadership of women even in his guerilla regime. The Castro regime denounced the use of women as decorative figures, assets or accessories. Castro’s government even encouraged women to embrace literacy and step out of the traditional roles. Therefore, selected women from the rural areas enrolled for education to learn writing, sewing and reading so that they could take the revolution back to the villages. The established agrarian laws of reforms enabled ownership of land and membership in cooperatives for the women In defiance of the already established gender equality in Cuba, Nazzari opposed the Family Code in the new constitution. The Family Code allowed for men and women to share the domestic chores whereas women gained recognition to be among the paid unskilled laborers. In addition, women acquired recognition to take up political responsibilities. So as to spread the implications of its ramification, the Nazzari regime publicized their ideologies through films like Portrait of Teresa. On the contrary, participation of women in labor registered an increase. In 1961, Paraguay became the last country in the Latin America to grant women the right to vote. According to Margaret Power-author of Right-Wing Women in Chile- women generally constituted the fundamental activists campaigning against socialism through the group Poder Feminino (PF). In this regard, the new opposition movement was referred to as the Mujeres Por la Vida (MPLV). Factors that contributed to their participation include the allegiance of the women to the Catholic Church. Both the PF and MPLV constitute different forms of feminist movements. PF concentrated to the middle class as it upheld traditional roles while MPLV focused more on class and egalitarian efforts. Efforts of mobilization and persuasion seemed while as the techniques employed by the women in the right-wing significantly affected the success of the left. However, the aim of the two campaigns differed immensely in that hoped to do away with democracy while as the other hoped to regain democracy. Democracy in Chile prevailed since 1932 until 1973. Through this period, the society learnt to embrace conservative ideologies as installed by Allessandris through establishing a coalition with female supporters in the right-wing. Between 1958 and 1973, the conservative force established resilient campaign against Allende the Socialist candidate. Right-wing women drafted a strategy to keep Allende away by coming up with a Scare Campaign in 1964. Prior to this, these successively brought Fidel Castro to power. In an attempt to defame Allende, these women created propaganda to be aired on radio and distributed in pamphlets and they dubbed it operation Pedro Pan. The propaganda warned mothers against the Socialist regime that it would snatch them of their children and take them to the US. Later, it became known that the campaign, organized by the right-wing women served to protect the right-wing women and their positions in the society. The involvement of these women in the two eras portrayed divergent motivations. In reference to the March of the Empty Pots and Pans, Power notes in her book that “…the women left the private world of the home behind and went into the streets; they did so as mothers and not as political actors…” (Power, 152). The women refrained from associations with the politics of the time since it betrayed their beliefs which suggested that women ought to be solely mothers. Among the left wing, femininity and parenthood lacked in their agenda in addition to them parading s MPLV. Often, in history, women gained recognition during occasions of a struggle after which they are lessened. Finally, sovereignty in the women’s movements act as a comparative tool. The heavy reliance of the PF on the military regime deteriorated the overall degree of the struggle. 21st century Latin American Revolution Successive regimes which progressed social reforms, female activism and feminism came to power in Chile, Paraguay and Argentina through democracy over the years. Chile’s government and that of Argentina are both headed by women namely Michele Bachelet and Christina Fernandez de Kirchner respectively. Across the globe, women suffer subordination to their male counterparts in various platforms which include political, economic, social and domestic avenues. In the Latin America region, women enjoy constitutional rights that conceal them from such forms of discrimination. According to the organization composed of unconventional capitalist democracies-the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)-women in Latin America face minimum gender discrimination as compared to their counterparts in non-OECD states like Asia and Africa. The Latin America women have ownership rights, family codes and physical integrity thus lower rates of gender discrimination. However, the facts do no suggest satisfactory equality among the Latin America just that they enjoy benefits not experienced in Asia or Africa. Property rights authorizing ownership of resources by women guarantee that Latin American women can own property like land. In addition to that, high literacy levels in the region at 90% of the population depicts prioritization of education in both male and girl child. As witnessed in Cuba, reproductive rights for the women serve as an indicator of the practice of women’s rights. Up to date, abortion takes place legally despite the religious campaigns against abortions run by the Roman Catholic Church. Nicaragua, in a move to abridge women’s rights, outlawed abortion except in the situation where the mother runs a risk of losing life. Within the Latin America region, dynamic women’s movements progressively struggle for the rights of women since the 20th century through oppressive regimes to the present. Participation of indigenous women in politics created significant gains to a particular political framework. For instance, Bolivia’s revolution, revolution in Cuba and voting in the president of Venezuela Hon. Chavez. Although numerous women movements exist in the region, tensions exist in these movements just as in other movements in the world. These movements prioritize different objectives, needs, orientation and they unite based on social class. For the same reason, movements of European-descended women lack synchrony with those of indigenous origin. However, despite the lack of unity, Latin American women relish the benefits of both realms. In Cuba, the population received health care and abortion services for free. For this reason, maternal mortality and infant mortality in the country register the lowest statistics at 34 per 100,000 and 6 per 1,000 respectively. Here, the constitution grants cultural, political, social, economic and familial rights with the men. It also forbids discrimination on racial, nationality or religious grounds. Further provisions in the Family Code passed into law in 1975 support these rights. Through a non-governmental organization dubbed the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the government ensures that every facet of the society promotes equality. In Venezuela, the largest base of voters that saw President Chavez into the position constituted of women. These women also form the biggest proportion of supporters of Chavez’s programs as witnessed in 2004 when they marched in the streets in opposition to the U.S backed coup. The Venezuelan constitution fully supports women in that it acknowledges housework as a productive activity economically and thus authorizing benefits of social security to the housewives. President Chávez established the National Institute for Women (NIW) in harmony with the Law of Equal Opportunities for Women by a presidential mandate in 2000. The institute educates women on defending and expanding the social, political, and cultural rights they have attained. It serves as an overseer for the government in addition to being a strategy for teaching women the concepts regarding their rights, and how to report violence. Additionally, Banmujer, the Women’s Development Bank of Venezuela, the only national bank of its kind, which gives small, low-interest business ventures loans to women for startup. Also, development programs known as “social missions” meet the social and economic needs of women since 2003. These needs include adult learning and education, nourishment and food distribution program and free healthcare clinics predominantly in areas of lower economic status. Such programs promote the standard of living considerably, thereby contributing to a 27.6% drop in poverty rates since the start of the programmes. In 2007, Mexico legalized abortion during the first trimester and drafted a policy that placed women-only bus in the streets in order to curb sexual harassment of women. Other valuable measures put forward include promoting equality in childcare by granting paternity leave for men to participate in it. Gender, alongside race, nationality and social class constitute the primary variables of differences across societies. Gender, as shown by feminist analysts, defines socially constructed responsibilities which vary from time to time and place to place and needs to be understood in its wider context. The study of gender in Latin America began just recently in the 1960s and 1970s thus making it a young field. Also, research and literature on gender in the region emerged slightly just over four decades ago. The earliest form of literature in this region illuminated women as an underrepresented group in social and historical platforms. Later, focus drifted to gender as a social relationship that could result in inequality. Inequality in gender may be portrayed in power bestowed on the men or women in different social spheres. As more literature focuses on women than on men-with the argument that the men received significant attention in the former eras-masculine identity and experience receive attention from the vantage point of view. History of the Latin America purports that masculine and feminine identities and gender relations may vary from one part of the world to the other. Some analysts argue that male supremacy in the region infiltrated into the society subsequent to the colonialism. On the other hand, other analysts maintain that women embraced the availability of greater opportunities than they would ever know in the precolonial times due to westernization. The postcolonial period of in the region faces variant interpretations regarding the most recent centuries of urbanization, globalization and capitalist development. Significant contributions of work reflect on the previous decades of political, economic and social transformation bearing in mind the withstanding inequality, education, changes in communication, production, exchange and new social movements. Fueled by the rebel movements comprised of women and the growing numbers of scholars in humanities, research on Latin American Women focused on family, women and religion in the colonial era. These researchers partly did their work as they search for possible origins of inequalities that occur in the contemporary day. By contrast; national studies of the Latin American women focused on the participation of women in economy, politics, and family. This is in contrast to the objective of determining and documenting contributions of women in social change in the Caribbean and Latin America in platforms such as education, suffrage and female employment. After the cold war, the North American scholarship in the 1990s made the study of gender and women a micro section of the broader historiographical apprehension with cultural, economic and political development in the Latin America syllabus. Therefore, the history of women became ubiquitous in the modern Latin America scholarships. Drawing and art on extensive archival research often established important empirical basis and questions concerning the historical constructivism in inequality in gender. Where interests of race, gender and class coincide, different orientations erupt about what to fight for. Movements of indigenous women who constitute 60% of the Caribbean and Latin American population, was significant in transforming the politics of the region. Works Cited Babb, Florence E.. "Gender in Postcolonial Latin America". In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Latin American Studies. 26-Sep-2014. . Hutchison, Elizabeth Quay. "Women in Modern Latin American History". InOxford Bibliographies Online: Latin American Studies. 26-Sep-2014. . Kampwirth, Karen. Women and the Guerilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba. University Park: Pennsylvania University State Press, 2002. 1-43. Kampwirth, Karen. Women and the Guerilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba. University Park: Pennsylvania University State Press, 2002. 1-43. Kampwirth, Karen. Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas. Ohio: Ohio Univ. Press, 2004. Print. MEMORIAS DEL FUEGO: Women and Revolution in Nicaragua. Dr. Jenny Murray and Laura Tomaselli. Brooklyn, NY, 2014. Film. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=1&cad=rja&u act=8&ved=0CCEQtwIwAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kickstarter.com%2Fprojects %2F182573130%2Fmemorias-del-fuego-women-and-revolution-in-nicarag&ei=9v0kVMXIJcfRygO_iILQBw&usg=AFQjCNFzCnELm2H0n6XdeGKpDr3hMzCfpw&sig2=fI-6K60Ut_NmD_fjuq8_0A&bvm=bv.76247554,d.bGQ Mitchell, S E, and Patience A. Schell. The Women's Revolution in Mexico, 1910-1953. Lanham [Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Pub, 2006. Print. Retrato de Teresa. Dr. Pastor Vega. Writers: Ambrosio Fornet, Pastor Vega. Cast: Idalia Anreus, Miguel Benavides, Samuel Claxton. IDP, Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos (ICAIC), 1981,Film. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1cad=rja&uact=8&ved0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0076619%2F&ei=igElVPVBw-rJA9TLgMAH&usg=AFQjCNHiRk5QWRV2hoUwI4-FJ7z1kiT3A&sig2=b-lKh1xwZcWS20e2qDtbA&bvm=bv.76247554,d.bGQ Read More