History 472 – Women, Sex, and Inequality in Latin America

Although the Mexican state had previously established laws regarding the regulation of legal prositution in largely urban settings, the Mexican Revolution produced widespread violence and displacement which encouraged migration to urban centers exacerbating the number of women whom utilized sex work as a means of establishing economic security for themselves and their dependents. Often times it was long established norms and not exceptional wartime conditions, such as the practice of sending young women to urban centers to work as domestic servants, which exposed women to the dangers of being sexually assaulted, debased, and subsequently abandonded by their families for exhibiting sexual experience. Without economic security and with a minimal education and a limited skillset, many women turned to sex work in brothels, cabarets, dance halls, and hotels. In these emerging spaces, women forged new communities and families with other women whom experience similar socioeconomic conditions and create networks of solidarity. These women consistently combatted the assertions made by the state and physicians concerning the “anti-nationalistic and unrevolutionary” nature of their work by asserting that the sex work women were engaging in was vital to the nation since they weren’t simply sex workers but mothers and daughters whom put “them(selves) at risk of abuse, violence, and disease to protect their children, Mexico’s future workers, and leaders” (Bliss, p.167).

By contrast, the piece concerning Amelio Robles’ transition and subsequent life demonstrates how the Mexican Revolution allowed for individuals to create new identities for themselves in the chaotic fires of revolution. Born a cis-gendered women and previously Emilia, Emilio Robles was able to successfully transition in the eye of the wider public through because Emilio performance of 19th century Mexican masculinity “exaggerated the masculine values exalted by the civil war” (Cano, p.45). The area where Emilio seemed to find people intent on “revealing” his past identity as a ciswoman seemed largely relegated to his hometown, though Cano describes well the ways in which Gertrude Derby projected her own expectations and desires of revplutionary processes and what they meant for cis women onto Robles’ experiences as a transgendered male. Despite the revolutionary period producing opportunities for Emilio Robles to come into his identity as a man, expressions of gender or sexuality which did not reenforce predominant understandings of masculinity or feminity found more difficulty in finding acceptance, as was the case for Manuel Palafox, one of the main intellectuals of Zapatismo whom was dismissed as “a poor devil of the wrong sex” incapable of “be(ing) called a friend to those of us who are real men” due to his homosexuality (Cano, p. 45).

The newly independent states formed out of Bolivar’s wars of independence in the early 19th century were established by liberal intellectuals influenced by ideas emerging from the enlightenment which drew from western models like the French revolution in order to facilitate their introduction into the “modern” world and break away from the Spanish colonial past. These states produced consitutions with the intention of transforming themselves from colonies to nation states and from royal subjects to citizens. Despite the creole elite’s dependence on the support of female, afro latino, and indigenous populations for the success of the wars of independence, the hierarchical structure of the Latin American state which emerged continued to resemble that which existed throught the colonial past. In this context Arlene Diaz’s piece analyzes public debates which emerged out of the potential execution of Vicenta Ochoa, a pregnant woman accused of murdering María de la Cruz, a samba female slave, and stealing her possessions.

The response mustered by males in Caracas was to come to Ochoa’s defense on the basis of her motherhood, with a flyer discussing the topic stating that Ochoa’s execution would be of no use because it woukd only generate sympathy for the women being executed and disgust towards the state carrying out the execution (Díaz, 42). Due to the inheritence of Spanish understandings of women being fragile and in need of defense alongside the custom of having had double legal standards for men and women, men in newly independent Caracas concluded that the execution of Ochoa would be a barbarous act that would set back to their nation’s efforts to “modernize”. Unsurprisingly, any sympathies which may have emerged out of men to come to the defense of Ochoa, a presumed white women, failed to do so for María de la Cruz, a samba female slave.

Ochoa’s response herself was to illuminate the sympathies that her case was produced, but when her appeal failed her final effort was to put forth that she was pregnant. Díaz describes the public support for Ochoa after her pregnancy is made public as “an implicit understanding that women’s reproductive capabilities were private property that society had a duty to protect” (45). This seems to be an interesting synthesis of both pre independence Spanish understandings of women as weak and having to be protected and the “modern” enlightenment’s understanding of the sanctity of private property. This seems to be how they overcome “the conflict between the constitutional dictum of equality before the law and a call for continued protection based on women’s sex” (Díaz 46). The commuting of Ochoa’s execution for exile is evidence of the strength given to arguments which fought in defense of women’s motherhood (or appeared to) despite the recent societal changes that had been stimulated as a result of the wars of independence and the liberal reforms of the 1830s.

Dr. Gauderman’s “The Authority of Gender: Marital Discord and Social Order in Colonial Quito” delves into the various methods that women used in the colonial city of Quito to challenge the abuses they experienced at the hands of their husbands. In highlighting the differences between ecclesiastical or criminal courts, Dr. Gauderman stresses the decentralized organziation of the Spanish colonial state, as opposed to the widely disseminated models of patriarchies which explained family and state organizations as dominated by the singular familial patriarch. The legal status of women as having material property interests associated with that of her family’s larger material interests is a significant contrast to the legal status of women in the colonial United States, where husbands were legally recognized as the sole authority over the family’s resources. Despite these two avenues being available to women in colonial Quito, the church appears to be largely in effective when in pursuit of a divorce, with not very many women utilizing this avenue and with few attempts resulting in actual divorces. The mandates that women be secured with a “trusted person” throughout litigation processes which can take up to two years in the example of doña Rafaela limits the use of these legal avenues to women of significant financial means. It is interesting to see the effectiveness by which women were able to get the state to punish men for for being unfaithful or even the legal recourse available for mistresses of married men. I don’t believe the ineffectiveness of the church to grant women’s requests for divorce and the state’s willingness to respond to women’s requests to punish husbands for various reasons is due to the church or the state disliking or favoring women, but rather once the church agreed to a divorce it lost significant authority over the lives of those individuals while the state only had authority to gain over society by accepting the requests of women. That result is not surprising in the context of the competing bodies if authority within the Spanish colonial state.

Not Just “Another Woman”: Femicide and Representation in Guatemala by Paula Godoy-Paiz is an article writenn for The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthology in 2012, which is a scholarly journal published by the American Anthropological Association. The article is the result of “12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2007” (p.91) done by Godoy-Paiz in Guatemala City, using various methodologies with the intention of studying th eemerging phenomenon of femicide. Godoy-Paiz establishes the origins of the concept of femicide as arriving to the Guatemalan context due to the international exposure given to high rates of femicide for women in Ciudad Juarez, Mx (p.96). After laying out the historical development of the concept of femicide in Guatemala City and the role of various sectors of society, such as activists whom struggle against femicide or the press which makes a banality out of the daily violence experienced in Guatemalan society, the article’s main intention is to humanize or give face to the “body counts” which are often focused upon by the international press and human rights organizations. Godoy-Paiz does this by utilizing the conversations and interviews she’d established with Doña Celeste, an indigenous woman whom Godoy-Paiz came to know through the institution Fuerzas, which offered “social work, legal, medical, and psychological services to women in situations of abuse, as well as assistance to relatives of murdered women” (p.89). Doña Celeste’s daughter, Lorena, was a victim of femicide in 2003. Godoy-Paiz is able to use the relationship she’s established with Doña Celeste to provide a different picture of the effects of femicide in Guatemalan society to that presented by the media by discussing the ways in which Lorena’s death resulted in the need for her sister, Verónica, to withdraw from school and later reenter but continue to struggle and the difficult struggle of Doña Celeste and her husband Mario in finding and identifying their daughter’s body, and the subsequent impunity of her killer.

It is impressive that the organization for the advancement of LGBTT rights in Argentina has reached the point of establishing inclusionary spaces such as the all trans high school Mocha or the establishment of Association of Argentine Transvestites, later split into the Organization of Transvestities and Transsexuals of Argentina and the Association to Fight for Transvestite and Transsexual Identity. The spaces, material solidarity, and community produced by both the school and these organizations is incredibly valuable, particularly when the hyper visibility of transwomen makes them frequent victims or violent attacks and murder, with a dismal life epectency projected at 35 in Argentina. My best friend has been transitioning as a transwomen over the last two years and it has taken until recently for her to begin to find the necessary resources she needs, one of which is simply a space that provides the sort of community described in both the school and the organizations (I sent her links to these readings haha). One thing that has surprised both her and I throughout her transition, that is also mentioned as a roadblock for trans organizations in Argentina, is the coldness she has experienced from some trans-exclusionary feminists and a lesbian that she works with, it was harder for her to grapple with than the sort of transphobia she’d expected from straight cismen from the beginning. I do believe that the further implementation of the gender neutral language that Natalia Mira received a lot of attention for using on television serves as a powerful vehicle to begin normalizing the varieties of gender indentities which have always existed and to begin to transition away from the dominance of the gender binary. I don’t think people should care about the opinions of the Royal Spanish Academy nor should they be invested in maintaining the purity of a language that was a colonial imposition at the expense of trans people. It is a shame that the revolutionary projects of the 20th century weren’t more competent vehicles in the advancement of rights for all gender and sexual identities, though not to excuse the shortcomings of these political projects, but the Cold War context probably produced a more singular focus on wars of national liberation against imperialism and the national bourgiousie and then the establishment of a non-capitalist model of development while likely facing immediate sanctions and destabilization efforts. Although I don’t see why these revolutionary states couldn’t just remove anti-LGBTT+ laws at the same time, the political revolutions which took place in the 20th century were not capable of reforming society from one day to the next, there still needed to be the “revolution after the revolution”. That is, all the necessary continual grassroots organizing amongst the masses in order to enact a cultural revolution and truly transform a society and not just it’s political and economic institutions. It does not surprise me that these political projects fell short of many expectations, the ideal conditions to develop them never existed and likely never will. In the context of Nicaragua’s tumultous 20th century, that something like El Sexto Sentido could be successfully produced is impressive but not surprising, especially considering it was filmed in Nicaragua, with Nicaraguan actors and protagonists, using local Nicaraguan vocabulary and aired in a market otherwise saturated with foreign TV programming. As the article noted, it was “pura Nicaragüense.” This appears to be an effective vehicle to, at a minimum, begin household conversations about gender and sexuality which can leader to larger societal discourses. The combination of things like the success of El Sexto Sentido, the growing acceptance of gender neutral language, and the growth of more effective trans organizations appear to paint a potent picture for change despite much progress to be made and the dismal state of transwomen in Latin America presently (a life expectancy of 35 in Argentina is hard to get out of my head). P.S., like is described was a belief amongst some Nicaraguans, when I was in high school playing football one of my teammates confidently asserted to everybody that sex between two men was only a homosexual act for the one being penetrated, while I understand the logic is derived from how gender roles are understood to be performed, I found it as laughable then as I do reading it now.

Mala Thun’s “Political Inclusion and Representation of Afrodescendent Women in Latin America” fits well with Julia Zaldívar’s piece from last week about the Colectiva Matamba and the mobilization of Afro-Colombian women. Thun accurately states that, “To the extent that women have interests in common, it is by virtue of a shared social position, not a common identity.” As a result of women having experienced life in a variety of social positions, there can emerge drastically different analysis of what demands should be made of the state and society in order to improve the condition of women. The Afro-Colombian women written about in the piece by Zaldívar had no use for the mainstream (white) feminists’ appeals of having been limited to domestic spaces and wanting to participate in the labor market, by contrast having spent several centuries as slaves and subject to a entirely different set of socioeconomic conditions. Those Afrodescendent women that get elected to positions of political office in Latin American states are challenged with the multifronted effort of representing the diverse communities and constituencies which typically consists of securing material benefits from the state in order to develop infrastructure and economic opportunities as well as fighting to change a political arena where Afrodescendent women are grossly underrepresented. Despite this being accurately represented as a dual front for Afrodescendent women in electoral politics, an argument can be made for an overlap of the two fronts, for if work is being done to ensure that Afrodescendent women, a significantly marginalized sector of Latin American societies, is being actively represented in the political arena and having their needs fought for, than one could presume that the hegemonic groups of society’s right to competent government representation would be reinforced not undermined. The work done by Afrodescendent women involved in both grassroots political organizations and electoral politics serves to continue to shift the norms of whom is considered in the state’s policies and in discourses about women or Afrodescendent populations, ensuring that both are not centered around white women or Afrodescendent men, as has often the case.