As research on women has progressed, we have learned that there is no uniform relationship between level of economic development and women's labor force participation. We have also discovered that women have not been and are not as passive and subservient to men as cultural constructs, literature, and discourse convey. Although women in the 19th century worked, like 20th century women in most of the world, they earned less than men. The feminization of poverty is not new. It also proves to be persistent, even when women produce for the global economy and even when men's work evolves around their wives. Women's active role in the economy is not rooted in feminism. Nor is it the result or basis of "liberation." Rather, it typically is grounded in social, economic, and political necessity. By becoming more involved in the public sphere, by becoming more active in civil society and the communities where they live, women throughout Latin America are helping to bring about change. For the revolutionaries in Cuba, “the revolution accomplished many of their goals: capitalism was abolished and socialism was installed, eroding class distinctions and eliminating private property, the working conditions improved, women’s rights improved, labor unions were recognized, the military became more modern and advanced, political order was restored, and the status of the country improved from dependent to independent”(Alexander, 76). For the people of Cuba, therefore, the revolution can be viewed as a success, but for America, the result was a failure. Latin America is one of the poorest and underdeveloped sections of the world. Because of this fact, it is difficult for its nations to compete and thrive in the world market with modern nations as they struggle to industrialize and improve their status. Cuba's progress towards equality for women “can be summed up in a few eloquent statistics. In 1953 Cuban women made up only 19.2% of the workforce, but by 1999 this figure had increased to an impressive 43.2%. Today 60% of university graduates are women and of these 49% are science graduates. As for medicine, traditionally a bastion of male domination, no less than 74% of the graduates are women”(Berbeo, 24). Women in pre-Revolutionary Cuba had “achieved a more respectable status vis-à-vis men than women in any other Latin American country, with the possible exceptions of Argentina and Uruguay”(Alexander, 82). With regard to political rights, Cuban women received the vote in 1934.
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
Over the past few decades, research on women has gained new momentum and a great deal of attention. Susan Socolow’s book, The Women of Colonial Latin America, is a well-organized and clear introduction to the roles and experiences of women in colonial Latin America. Socolow explicitly states that her aim is to examine the roles and social regulations of masculinity and femininity, and study the confines, and variability, of the feminine experience, while maintaining that sex was the determining factor in status. She traces womanly experience from indigenous society up to the enlightenment reforms of the 18th century. Socolow concentrates on the diverse culture created by the Europeans coming into Latin America, the native women, and African slaves that were imported into the area. Her book does not argue that women were victimized or empowered in the culture and time they lived in. Socolow specifies that she does her best to avoid judgment of women’s circumstances using a modern viewpoint, but rather attempts to study and understand colonial Latin American women in their own time.
In the novel “Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha” the author and anthropologist L. Kaifa Roland describes her journey in Cuba and the different people she encounter with that describe to her the life of a citizen in Cuba. Throughout her stay in Cuba, Roland describes the different situations people go through in Cuba economically and gender wise. She also mainly describes “La Lucha” which in the book is identified as the struggle people face and go through every day in order to get by in Cuba economically. However, the thing that caught my attention the most in the book was how women get mistreated and seen by people differently. Through my paper I am going to be discussing how women in Cuba get discriminated not just by their color or where
Since the revolution, men and women in Nicaragua had digressed from their traditional expectations and behaviors of gender roles. Moving away from machismo, men started focusing on bettering their country, helping themselves by getting an education are generous with his friends and even contributes towards the household chores which would have never been acceptable before the war; men did not believe in women’s work at all it. The traditional woman ended up changing more drastically. First, they began to voice their opinions and started becoming more aggressive as Dona Flora proved to us. They were forced into fitting men’s shoes by becoming the breadwinner of the family, while trying to be mother still.
The function of women in politics, the economy, and communal events in American society moved significantly from the pre-Revolutionary war era to the early beginnings of the 20th century. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, women were looked upon as being “subordinate to males” and so as a result women were affected by the laws and regulations forced upon them by men. It was almost as if it was a woman’s right, to get married, have kids, and live out the obligation of being a thorough wife and mother. Because the government was mainly ruled and controlled by men, it was often that women didn’t have the lawful rights, for example the power to vote or be in possession of property.
I was once told I had the world in my hands by my vice principal. The reason for his statement was because I was a Hispanic young woman with above average grades, and my involvement in extracurricular activities. Why was being a Hispanic young woman so much more special? This is where the harsh reality set in; Hispanic women have the tendency to not achieve their goals.
At this point, the difference perspective in ideology and political action has divided the women movement into some feminism types; socialist, Marxist, radical, liberal and many others. While liberal feminist focus their struggle for equality on civil, economic, and political rights, and education, the feminist socialist and Marxist believe women 's oppression is “the product of the political, social and economic structure within which individuals live.” (Tong, 1998: pp.94). Although some other people suppose that the feminist Marxist and socialist is quiet different, but both of them believe the source of women oppression are capitalism and patriarchy. The Marxist feminism is rooted in 19th century thinker such as Marx and Engels, whether
The first wave of Feminism during between 1848-1920, aimed to gain women the right to vote and the right to birth control. (Senft, 2001). In other parts of the world, only some countries allowed women to take part in politics. For example, the closest country to Latin America is the United States of America, women were given the right to vote in 1920. However, during this time, many women in Latin America were to remain at home to do housework and look after their children, which maintain the traditional role of a woman in a household. However, it is not until the 1960s the effects of the Feminist movement reaches Latin America and women get the right to vote (Shayne, 2007).
This paper will explore why, for women of all kinds, the revolution against Diaz became a popular cause. It will also explore how various groups of women worked for revolutionary forces, why women of all classes were disappointed by their lack of progress, and how these groups of women were very separate from one another. Lastly, it will explore the post-revolutionary life of women in Mexico.
Today, nothing remains of the former social role of women. Nearly all professions are open to women. The numbers of women in the government and traditionally male-dominated fields have dramatically increased. More women than men earn bachelor’s degrees. Many women's groups still prevail and are major political forces. Although the two movements hoped to achieve different things and used different tactics, they still came together to gain women’s rights and have achieved more than anyone would have ever anticipated.
Women in Latin America were expected to adhere to extreme cultural and social traditions and there were few women who managed to escape the burden of upholding these ridiculous duties, as clearly shown in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. First, Latin American women were expected to uphold their honor, as well as their family's honor, through maintaining virtue and purity; secondly, women were expected to be submissive to their parents and especially their husbands; and lastly, women were expected to remain excellent homemakers.
Through the 20th century, the communist movement advocated greatly for women's’ rights. Despite this, women still struggled for equality.
Gimenez, Martha E. "Capitalism and the Oppression of Women: Marx Revisited." Science & Society 69.1 (2005): 11-32. ProQuest Central. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. .
The passage of time allows for great change in the world. Given enough time, a desert can become a sea and a plain can become a mountain if the conditions are right. Human society can be compared to these natural phenomenon in the idea that society can have radical changes given the right forces and allowed enough time. This can be seen in the great revolutions of the world such as the Industrial Revolution, an economic boom, the American Revolution, a political movement, and the Civil Rights Movement, a social revolution. The focus of this research is how the feminist movement has been and is viewed but the American public and how it has affected the economic and social standing of women in the past three generations. Through the interviews of Patricia Santangelo, Barbara Santangelo, and Larissa DePamphilis, this investigation hopes to analysis the differing views on feminism, gender roles, and educational and economic opportunities for women in the generations of the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y.
The biggest transformation in economic terms was the introduction of producing goods not for the local community, but for exports. Women were placed in the textile industry due to previously conceived notions of gendered labor. As a result, in order to pay the tributes that the Spanish forced men to pay, women had no other choice but to enter the workforce where the only jobs available were in the textile industry . So now, women were made to perform specific, gendered labor not for the household, but for the Spanish market economy. These examples are just a few from a plethora that demonstrate how colonialism impacted gender norms and roles through the extension of the Spanish political economy, and the ways in which women’s lives were predominantly negatively impacted, as opposed to men. While Andean men were afforded some rights, they still were forced into a new political regime that drastically affect their gendered sphere, but that were granted more autonomy due to their gender and the preexisting Spanish gendered norms that were brought in during