Page 275 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

2052 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

from the absence of change after women were granted changes. Women’s suffrage did not cause a significant
the vote.The majority of women in both countries seem- change in Latin American societies in part because
ingly were not won over to reformist or radical platforms women who did vote supported the status quo and were
in women’s issues. Despite changes in the law, men did subservient to the politically conservative Catholic
not accept women as political and economic equals.The Church. No large-scale shift in attitudes took place in part
biggest disappointments for women were in the inability because no concerted effort took place to join economic
of feminist groups to redress the inequalities in marriage. and educational change for women with the right to vote.
The drawbacks inherent in legal changes were clear Because suffrage came so late and because it failed to
when the Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass in the institute real change in women’s lives in Latin America,
United States in 1923 and again during the last quarter few people would have predicted the emergence during
of the twentieth century. The unlimited optimism of the the 1970s of women’s movements that were important
Victorian era was squelched by the inability to achieve in destabilizing military regimes. In addition to agitating
equal rights in the legal arena. politically, women’s human rights groups, feminist
groups, and organizations of poor urban women began
Political Variations: to cooperate.
Latin America In Argentina, for example, women who previously had
Although Latin America is close to the United States in never involved themselves in politics and did not define
geographical terms, the differences in political, racial, and themselves as feminists stepped onto the political stage to
economic structures have influenced the development of protest the loss of their husbands and family members,
different sorts of feminist concerns. In Latin America known as “the Disappeared”—people whom military
women’s movements cannot be separated from the con- regimes regarded as enemies. The attention that the
text of military authoritarianism and the struggle toward women’s testimony received from the press around the
political freedom. world affected military rule.
Many people do not realize that women in Latin Other feminist groups were formed by women from left-
American nations have been active in political move- ist parties who were frustrated by the failure of the left to
ments in the past, and often those people who study take women’s issues seriously.They agitated for women’s
Latin American politics discount the interaction of issues as well as for the end of military dictatorships.
women with politics, but it was historically important. By the late 1980s the most striking aspects of the
Feminist newspapers played an important role in dis- women’s movements in Latin America were the contri-
seminating ideas as long ago as the nineteenth century in butions the movements made in overthrowing military
Brazil. Since the mid-twentieth century urban life has pro- dictatorships and in reconstructing civil society. By the
vided a backdrop for networks of neighborhood women end of the twentieth century this experience in coopera-
agitating for better services and lower consumer prices. tion led many people to concentrate on issues of class
Women participated in strikes and joined political parties and race; poor women developed the organizational
even before they had right to vote, which came much skills to combat sharp cutbacks in state spending, and
later than in the United States or in Britain; Ecuador was women’s demonstrations forced political leaders to
the first Latin American nation to grant women’s suffrage change course.
in 1929, although it did not possess a liberal democratic
tradition, and Colombia was the last Latin American Postcolonialism and
nation to grant women’s suffrage in 1957. The suffrage Culture: South Asia
movement in Latin America produced uninspiring results. South Asia shows that social justice and equality in fam-
As in the West, it was led mainly by middle-class women, ily life cannot be culture free. Unlike women’s movements
and it aimed to produce reform rather than radical social in Euro-America, women’s movements in India and sur-