Part five talks about the pursuit of Latina liberation. The main goal is to demolish the stereotype of the "passive Latin woman." Elizabeth Martínez talks about many Latina leaders, one of them is Micaela Bastides. For those who don't know, she was an Inca who led the revolt against Spain's rule in the eighteen century, along with her husband Tupac Amaru. As Gutierrez said: "In Mexico, many women helped to launch and later participated in the Mexican war of independence from Spain (from 1810 to 1821) and the Mexican Revolution."
Martínez also recalls how the Mirabal sisters from Dominican Republic, known as "the butterflies", gave their lives to end the long Trujillo dictatorship. Nowadays, the day they were assassinated in 1960: November 25, is commemorated all over Latin America as the Day Against Violence Towards Women. And Rigoberta Menchú, a Mayan from Guatemala who is an activist and also became the first indigenous person to win the Nobel Price for peace. The author recalls that Rigoberta lives on as a symbol of defiant survival.
I'm telling all these because the question is: Why do we usually hear all the brave stories about male heroes? Example : César Chávez. I don't have anything against him, but Martínez is right when she writes that many times, even within our own race, we as Hispanics, Latinos, Chicanos or Chicanas, give little or no credit to the merits of women...as if it is our obligation to protect others, as it is in our true nature. I now started thinking about one of her statements: "Mexican women and Chicanas have been confronting male supremacy during the past 25 years."
Also, she mentions the lesbian Latinas liberation. The author says that they would have stayed in the closet longer without the national women's movement which encouraged them to come out. How important was, is and will be the role of women in the society!
When she talks about working women there was a formula that the author mentioned that got my attention: The corporate strategy: hire them young, suck out the best of their energy, exploit their inexperience as workers as they fear of angering the boss--then toss them aside like so many rag dolls when they become pregnant, injured or "trouble-makers."
This is so true! Especially with maquiladora women. But I understand that these bosses, who are abusers, also abuse from the economic need of these women, most of all. I think that is one of the main reasons why they get themselves get exploited like that, and not because they don't realize that they are being abused...they just need to feed their families.
As a woman, these parts of the book reached very deep inside of my consciousness and my unity to fight for women respect and rights grew! My respect to all the women who fought throughout history!
No comments:
Post a Comment