Month: December 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/latin-america-feminism.html

The News article I have chosen is titled Latin America’s Radical Feminism Is Spreading by: Vanessa Barbara

The article goes on to explain the many protests going around Latin America in nations such as Chile , Brazil , Argentina, and more that a occurred at the start of  the year of 2020.These protests that started in Chile, went on to spread throughout the whole world by women and people in support of women’s rights everywhere . One of the major key elements of the protests was to stop violence against women by attacking politics and power. The protesters would gather in front of court houses to perform a dance and chant of “Un violador en tu Camino,” which translates to “a rapist in your path.”

“The lyrics describe how the state upholds systematic violations of women’s rights, through institutions such as the judiciary and the police. It’s not just that members of those institutions simply disregard the complaints — looking the other way, doubting the victims — but that they are often the perpetrators themselves. “This oppressive state is a macho rapist,” the chant goes(Barbara).”

These protests that started in Chile spread around the world because violence against women is something that is done throughout Latin America as well as around the world. One could argue that policies are worse in Latin America than in The United States. “According to the 2020 Global Gender Gap Report, the largest gender disparity in the world still lies in the sphere of political empowerment.”

What can be sad about these protests, is that it echoes a recurrent outcry of gender imbalance that has been echoed throughout the history of Latin America. One early example of women being oppressed by the patriarchy is that of their relation to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church regulated colonial times, and with the regulation , the Catholic Church set up restrictions for women to control them .Reading material an educational like was used to control women and prevent them from overpowering males.

“A multiplicity of pseudo-scientific works published during the nineteenth century allowed for the perpetuation of the view of women as eternally ill, threatened constantly by the physiological discomforts that came with birth, the female body appearing in religious dis – course “like an enemy of the soul and an obstacle to salvation.” The excessive impressionability, exaggerated sensibility, and overdeveloped imagination that characterized women set them up for mental alienation and, in this manner, the excessive reading of novels might send them into states of hysteria, which in the nineteenth century was considered the illness par excellence of the “weaker sex.” Given its anatomical origin, the situation was accepted as a nervous illness that was generally produced among women living disorderly, vice-ridden lives or from the lack of work (Wood,119).”

With this enforcement  of women being the weaker sex, it has left a lasting effect that had been seen to structure policy later on. Another  example of women being oppressed is during the populist movement. In the 1940s, in Argentina, women’s participation was vital to the populist movement at the time. Women in Argentina were granted the right to vote , and took advantage of opportunities during the movement. One conflicting factor during the movement was that of Maria Eva Duarte de Peron. Eva Peron was the first lady of Argentina, and was the face of Peronist feminism. During the populist movement, in order to gather support for her husband, Eva Peron called for women to come together and take action, but to stay within the grounds of traditional feminine ideals of self-sacrifice(Wood,192).The idea of women sticking to self-sacrifice in order to support men is contradictory to the feminist movement. The fact that the oppression of women has been seen throughout early colonial era, the populist era, and even in current day highlights that issues against women has been rooted in history and must be changed. The article explaining the women’s rights movements throughout Latin America is a sign that institutions must change in order to promote gender equality.

Problems in Modern Latin American History : Sources and Interpretations, edited by James A. Wood, and Anna Rose Alexander, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/baruch/detail.action?docID=5743856.
Created from baruch on 2020-12-10 13:07:52.

feminism.html

   In this article, Rafael Bernal of The Hill presents attestations from top economic official and president of the IBD Maurico Claver-Carone, who suggests that the bank’s primary focus is in fostering economic prosperity and security in Latin America. Claver-Carone believes that the key towards healing Latin American economies is through good, quality job creation with a focus on funding “small-medium sized business[es] owned by [women]” (Bernal). The author goes on to further express that US stability is tied to Latin American stability in that a stable economy should lead to lower rates of crime and immigration to the United States. 

   This article fails to acknowledge the lasting impact of neoliberal reforms in Latin America and how they have affected the region’s economic and political stability as a whole. Laissez faire capitalism and neoliberalism became the dominant economic system during the 1980’s and 1990’s as two powerful world leaders, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, sang the praises of a freer world market. This individualist economic view was exported to Latin America through ideological crusaders such as Chile’s Chicago Boys and US economist Milton Friedman, men that challenged the dominant dependency theory and instead advocated for a free market system.

   After success in Chile, a Latin America largely skeptical of authoritarianism and imperialism slowly began to adopt the new system dubbed the Washington Consensus. This system deregulated markets, opened the economy with low trade barriers, increased foreign investment, and cut social spending in hopes of achieving a free-enterprise economy and libertarian spirit. The system enjoyed years of success in the region but the cracks of neoliberalism ultimately revealed themselves to the public and now the system continues to heighten individual suffering in the region. 

   According to William I. Robinson, “neoliberal adjustment programs have resulted in a fall in popular consumption, a deterioration of social conditions, a rise in poverty, immiseration and insecurity, heightened inequalities, social polarization, and resultant political conflict” (Problems 276). Neoliberalism in Latin America was an attractive policy in the ‘80s and ‘90s but by the turn of the century, political instability and polarization, violence, and poverty have skyrocketed. The assumption that job creation and small business investments can address the souring laissez faire economic system and increasing violence in Latin America is short sighted and redundant. Friedman’s suggestion that “acute mystery and distress” can be combated through neoliberal reforms and traditional capitalist systems have failed as the needs of the poor go unchecked and social unrest and instability increase. 

   In recent years, the region has experienced instability by way of inefficient economic reform that prioritizes big business in budget spending, infringements on democracy by neoliberal and authoritarian populist leaders, growing rates of hunger and malnutrition, and now the economic impact of COVID-19 on a region in which limited social spending takes a toll on vulnerable populations. A history of extractive economic systems, rise and fall of social revolutions, and the influence of free market systems have created a social and economic problem in which neoliberal reformists will find that the solution is more complex and complicated than bolstering the economy. 

Works Cited

Bernal, Rafael. “Top Officials Stress Job Creation as Key to Latin American Economic Development.” TheHill, The Hill, 17 Nov. 2020, thehill.com/latino/526267-officials-stress-job-creation-for-latin-american-economic-development.

Problems in Modern Latin American History : Sources and Interpretations, edited by James A. Wood, and Anna Rose Alexander, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/baruch/detail.action?docID=5743856.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-racial-identity-black-white/2020/11/15/2b7d41d2-21cb-11eb-8672-c281c7a2c96e_story.html

Terrance McCoy and Heloisa Traiano’s Washington Post article, “He Grew Up White. Now He Identifies as Black. Brazil Grapples with Racial Redefinition,” implies that shifting racial identity is a new construct in Brazil.  During Brazil’s making as a nation, people always shifted their racial identity, and sometimes they did so in vastly contradictory ways. McCoy and Traiano are wrong to suggest this is a new phenomenon.

Brazil has the largest population of people of African descent outside of Africa. White colonists imported the most significant number of enslaved Africans to Brazil, and they did not abolish slavery until 1888. The early Portuguese settlers, predominantly men, routinely raped African and indigenous women, creating a mulatto population. “From their first contact with women of color, the Portuguese mingled with them and procreated children of mixed race” (Freyre 168). Throughout Brazilian slavery, miscegenation was common, and today Brazilians commonly accept racial identity as something fluid. In contemporary Brazil, Black people make up a racial majority, yet they are the most marginalized and politically underrepresented.

McCoy and Traiano’s article examines how political candidates identify racially in Brazil. They find that “More than a quarter of the 168,000 candidates who also ran in 2016 have changed their race, according to a Washington Post analysis of election registration data. Nearly 17,000 who said they were White in 2016 are now mixed. Around 6,000 who said they were mixed are now Black. And more than 14,000 who said they were mixed now identify as White” (McCoy & Traiano). I argued that the Washington Post oversimplifies the issue of Brazilian racial identities. Brazilians have always claimed a mixed racial identity. According to historians, “Portuguese colonies in tropical America became, in their demographic composition, hybrids of European, Indian, and later, African [sic]” (Freyre 166). Thus, for many contemporary Brazilians, they consider themselves not a race but rather just Brazilian. Consequently, skin color is just the skin color and not tied to any understanding of one’s race.

Today, Brazil’s marginalized Black population has become more politically vocal.  Perhaps the protests against racial injustice in the United States have awakened this Afro-Brazilian voice. Ideologies of Black power has empowered Afro-Brazilians to become vocal about the disparities they face from their government. “In Brazil, which still carries the imprint of colonization and slavery, where class and privilege are strongly associated with race, the racial reconfiguration has been striking” (McCoy & Traiano). According to McCoy and Traiano, Brazilians are now redefining their identities.

In conclusion, Brazilians are not redefining their identity, but rather have always been fluid with how they racially categorize themselves. In the Washington Post article, the politicians who changed their racial identity multiple times did so to maintain or obtain power. Their behavior is not a new phenomenon. People in Brazil have always opted to change their racial identity to benefit themselves socially, politically, and economically. These politicians are merely continuing historical continuities of racial identity in Brazil. Racial identity is about power, not just skin color. Brazilians once saw Blackness as a political weakness, but today they see it as social capital and a benefit.

Terrence McCoy, H. (2020, November 19). He grew up White. Now he identifies as Black. Brazil grapples with racial redefinition. Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-racial-identity-black-white/2020/11/15/2b7d41d2-21cb-11eb-8672-c281c7a2c96e_story.html

Problems in Modern Latin American History (Latin American Silhouettes). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Despite what Bernie said, Fidel Castro’s economic legacy will be one of failure – but not perhaps quite as catastrophic a failure as his many detractors would insist. The Cuba of the 1950s was not some sort of golden age, though officially the country was as rich as Italy in terms of GDP per capita, that wealth was unevenly distributed, while forty percent of the population did not have proper jobs. For the rich it might indeed have seemed a paradise, but for the majority of public services such as, health and education, they were practically non-existent as life was extremely tough. That, after all, was why Castro’s revolution had such popular support.

When he took power in 1959, Fidel Castro chose, or was pushed, into conflict with its largest export market, the United States. The distant Soviet Union could buy Cuba’s principal export, sugar, at guaranteed prices. It could give other forms of economic and technical aid. But it also helped seduce the fledgling revolutionary leaders into imposing a command economy rather than a market-driven one.

In reality Cuba had little choice but to follow the economic model of its new benefactor, and to reject that of the West. In the context of the Cold War this did not seem as odd a course as it does now. Many economists at the time believed that the Soviet command economy could at least be a match for Western market economies in terms of overall growth and had the further advantage of a fairer distribution of income. It was after all another thirty years before the Soviet Union itself collapsed, and its economic system with it.

Defending Fidel Castro’s economic management became even harder after the collapse of the Soviet empire at the end of the 1980s. Subsidies essentially stopped. Russia no longer took the sugar crop at guaranteed prices. GDP fell by one-third in the early 1990s. There was famine – though there is a debate as to just how desperate that was. The response of the regime was to liberalize the economy in modest ways. US dollars became legal tender for a while, farmers were allowed to sell any surplus over and above their official quotas, and tourism was also encouraged. Some modern foreign cars were imported, enabling the battered 1950s American vehicles to be retired.

Matters had recovered a little. Fidel Castro himself acknowledged that there had been mistakes. But – this shows his narrowness of vision – as the economy improved through the late 1990s and early 2000s, many controls were re-imposed. Pursuing the revolutionary purity of a command economy was more important than allowing people to have higher living standards.

Since he stepped aside for health reasons, allowing his brother Raúl Castro to take charge, there has been a gradual loosening of economic controls. From 2008 ordinary people were allowed to have mobile phones. For anyone outside Cuba it seems nothing short of astonishing that people did not have phones before that.

As a result of the reforms led by Raúl Castro, the economy has boomed. And that, in a way, points to the saddest element of his brother’s economic legacy. You can understand in the context of the revolution and the US response that Cuba would head down the command economy path. To persist after the collapse of communism in an economic system that was proven not to work, to make reforms then reverse them, shows not only a lack of any comprehension about economics but huge arrogance in the face of hard evidence. It took the quiet orderly approach of Raúl Castro to demonstrate the failings of his more charismatic brother.

nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/bernie-sanders-fidel-castro-florida.html

Works Cited

Dawson, Alexander. Latin America since Independence : A History with Primary Sources, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/baruch/detail.actiondocID=1779185.

Problems in Modern Latin American History : Sources and Interpretations, edited by James A. Wood, and Anna Rose Alexander, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/baruch/detail.action?docID=5743856.