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.