Female Presidents in Latin America

has taught at Princeton and worked in the U.S. State Department. She continues work on public

“The Myth of the Latin Women” was writing by Judith Ortiz Cofer, a women born in Puerto Rico. Ortiz is a person who seems really Passionate about this specific subject. “The Myth of the Latin Women” points out the many stereotypes Latin women go through in their day to day lives. The things that upsets Ortiz is that there are so many people who are not a Latin background that don’t realize the importance of this issue. The main purpose of “The Myth of the Latin Women” is to get people to understand that their words will hurt someone and Ortiz convey this throughout the essay with the use of logos, ethos and pathos.

supported her husband and supported the Congolese people and wants them to be able to be free

Women in Latin America were expected to adhere to extreme cultural and social traditions and there were few women who managed to escape the burden of upholding these ridiculous duties, as clearly shown in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. First, Latin American women were expected to uphold their honor, as well as their family's honor, through maintaining virtue and purity; secondly, women were expected to be submissive to their parents and especially their husbands; and lastly, women were expected to remain excellent homemakers.

The perception of inequality was evident in the colonial Spanish America, man belief that women were lacked in capacity to reason as soundly as men. A normal day for European women in the new world was generally characterized by male domination, for example marriage was arranged by the fathers, women never go out except to go church, women didn’t have the right to express their opinions about politic or society issues. Subsequent to all these bad treats European women try to find different ways to escape from man domination and demonstrate their intellectual capacities, for example women used become part of a convent, write in secret their desires and disappointments, and even dress as man to

On the national level, no woman has ever been elected to the presidency or vice-presidency. Only once in the nation’s history has a major political party even nominated a women to the ticket. In 1974, Walter Mondale made New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro his running mate. They lost in one of the worst routs in presidential election history. At the cabinet level, there have been 486 people to have headed a federal department, only 21 have been women, (Gendergap, p.2). The first woman cabinet secretary was Frances Perkins, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Commerce, in 1933. Currently, there are three women running cabinet departments, Janet Reno the Attorney General runs the Justice Department, Donna Shalala is the head of Health and Human services, and Madelaine Albright is the secretary of State. Albright is the highest ranking woman in the history of the executive branch. The president is also responsible for the nominations of ambassadors. Helen Eugiene Moore was the first female American ambassador, when in 1949 she was assigned to the Danish Embassy. For the election of 2000, several prominent women have been mentioned as possible presidential or vice-presidential candidates.

When women are placed in these positions of power the past has shown that women empowerment allows for the growth for the upcoming generations. This investment that countries can make by allowing for the growth of the education of women would be exactly that, an investment. The growth that countries would experience would allow that country to excel into a caring society. As well, the impact that women have had on society is not limited to the political realm but can also be translated to the economic sense. When placed

In the 1930, Puerto Rican women were fighting for childcare, maternal care, birth control and control over their reproductive rights (Colon & Ortega, 1998). To make matters worse, Puerto Rican women were used like lab rats. They were blamed for the poverty that existed, In 1937, the government passed Law 116, which allowed permanent sterilization, here in the United States and Puerto Rico as well. It was intended to control the rapid growth in population and unemployment. They called this, “la operacion” (Colon & Ortega, 1998). Many women were deceived in getting tubal ligation, hysterectomy, birth control pill, EMKO, IUD and Depo Shots, not knowing the procedures, side effects or that the changes could be permanent (Colon & Ortega, 1998).

Feminist, Eva Maria Duarte de Peron, started a “twentieth-century revolutionary movement” (Murray 206) in her country of Argentina. At the time, her husband was the president of Argentina. As the first lady of Argentina, she made it her duty to make a change for the country while her husband was in office. Her revolutionary ideas were based off of “nationalism and socialist ideology” (Murray 206). The ordinary women of Argentina were her target group for improvement.

Before Juan Perón could be elected as president, he needed to be promoted and Evita Perón used her skills in the media to introduce Juan Perón to the public as the prime candidate for the Presidency of Argentina. At age 16, Evita had quit school and began her career as an actress and soon after that took on a second job where she became a radio

Eva Perón was, and still is, considered one of the most important and influential political figures in South American history.

A women's role has changed tremendously and is making its greatest impact in our society today. Many years ago, women's contribution to society was limited and controlled by men. Women are standing tall and are playing a major role in many important areas. Women's role has changed at an accelerating rate and have part in areas such as Politics, Professional Training Jobs, Medicine,Business and Law. Formerly they were not part of any political matter, but they have advanced in many aspects. For example, women have attained power and have been growing in political office.

From 1991 to 1998, she served as Vice-President of the Democratic League, from 1991 to 1994 as the Federal Minister of Women and Youth, from 1994 to 1998 as the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety . On the issue of illegal contributions to the CDU, she took the lead in breaking the line with Kohl and succeeded in resolving the contradictions with the mentor in the

Women are underrepresented in political offices at the national and local levels. Currently, only 17 women serve in the United States Senate out of 100 seats and only 16 percent of the United States House of Representatives are female. Why is this a problem? Legislatures, the House of

Now in our society, women are always involved in many important events or issues. As we can see on the news that there are many women joining global decision making conference, for example, Global Health Conference, The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, etc. Women can make decision and the representative for the country. Just like Michelle Obama, The First Lady of United State, she can follow Obama to nearly all of the business trip or conference trip. She can talk to the First Lady in that country or the resident of that city. She can really help her husband and improve the image of the country. Not only United State, many president from other countries would like to bring their wife with him and help him out,