Gender Roles In Latin America

Whether in the past or the present, this is a country driven by two things: entertainment and capital. Women seem to be most attracted to the entertainment aspect, as demonstrated in Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek” through the “telenovelas”. Men on the other hand are attracted to capital, the more the better as seen in David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross”. Every addiction has a consequence however, and as Cisneros and Mamet both prove, when people are motivated by the wrong things, then they are doomed to fail. In Cisneros’s piece, “Cleofilas” is living a very tumultuous life because she had an image in mind when she came to the United States.

In several cultures, women are seen as archetypes more than men. The proposition of women are instantly idealized and glorified and instantaneously ignore the true complexity of a woman. Countless of these superficial images can be seen across various cultures where the societies within these cultures define what it means to be a female and what type of behavior is and isn’t acceptable within those parameters. The persistent restatement of these stories throughout these generations reinforces the gender system. Women who step out of the norm in these societies are then held punishable for their actions. Alicia Gaspar de Alba pinpoints the three archetypal roles that are given to the women in the Mexican and Chicana cultures. These are,

This essay will be discussing how gender is portrayed in the films Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) and Tacones Lejanos (High Heels), both directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The use of the theatre and performance, along with the audiences that come with it, enables these films to explore the manner in which gender is unstable. Gwynne Edwards writes that Almodóvar often pays tribute to the stage . Almodóvar dedicates All About My Mother “to all the actresses who have played actresses, to all women who act, to men who act and become women” , which is also relevant to High Heels. He uses the stage setting as a platform to show the instability of gender, not only on a physical stage but also in the characters’ lives: “The dialogue of his films has the cut and thrust, and very often wit, of stage plays. There are also soliloquies, and one of them – in All About My Mother – is even delivered to the audience from the stage of a theatre” . Russell Jackson suggests that this is done as a method for the characters to “find the sometimes onerous ability to deal with and describe their past, and to create a future in the face of death and desertion.” The character ‘La Agrado’ in All About My Mother as well High Heels’ Femme Letal (Letal), will be considered - both the manner in which they carry themselves throughout the film, as well as the their performances on stage. In the following paragraphs, I will illustrate how performance and the stage are vital in Almodóvar’s exploration

Josefina Lopez writer of the play and co-screenwriter of the movie “Real Women Have Curves” created two important characters, Ana and Carmen, to demonstrate real life issues in the Mexican-American culture. In the movie Carmen becomes the antagonist that constantly torments Ana. Several identities were pushed onto Ana, forcing her have to break through her family’s old-fashioned cultural beliefs as well as her community’s stereotypes. Ana remained resilient regardless of what her mother put her through which led to her own self-love and comfort.

The story describes the experiences of a young women named Cleofilas. She grew up with six brothers and had no mother. So therefore, she learned how to be a woman through watching telenovelas. She believes that to be a woman she only needs to find true love and have a “happily ever after”. Later she meets a man named Juan and they eventually fall in love and get married.

Young Chicana women typical expectations are to follow the parents’ rules. In the films “Mosquita Y Mari” and “Real Women have curves”, the young Chicana women resist these gender cultural norms. The resistance of these gender norms is not a challenge to others but away to voice the opinion that I am my own person and not somebody else.

In “Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Transvestite in the New World” by Catalina de Erauso, a female-born transvestite conquers the Spanish World on her journey to disguise herself as a man and inflicts violence both on and off the battlefield. Catalina discovers her hidden role in society as she compares herself to her brothers advantage in life, as they are granted money and freedom in living their own lives. Erauso decides to take action of this act of inequality by forming a rebellion, as she pledges to threaten the social order.The gender roles allotted to both men and women in the Spanish world represent the significance of societal expectations in order to identify the importance of gender in determining one’s position in the social order in the Spanish World.

How has gender inequality affected women in Latin American countries? Gender inequality has affected the women of Latin America in a multitude of ways, but it can be argued that the division of gender equality is extremely prominent when analyzing reproductive rights and health care access. Compared to countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, Latin America is far behind in terms of civil rights and reproductive rights. The lack of rights is not in question; women’s barrier to reproductive health can be seen through anecdotes and statistics. The question thus becomes, is there a definite answer to why these rights are absent? Factors concerning the absence of reproductive rights include cultural norms and religion, but the one that plays the biggest role remains the lack of female political leaders in Latin American countries. What exactly is it that is keeping Latin America behind other countries in terms of being progressive regarding reproductive rights? Women’s political absence in Latin America has shaped reproductive rights and health care services immensely.

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

The idea that a woman’s job is to be a wife and mother is old-fashioned, but not completely out of style. Though these roles require a great deal of talent, resilience, patience, love, and strength, to name a few, they are often underestimated or depicted as simple. Especially in modern times, many women in the United States who stay home to raise a family are viewed as anti-feminists, whereas women in Latin America are not criticized for similar actions. In recent decades, more Latin American women have started to break the mold, daring to be both sexy, and successful in the workforce, while remaining pillars of domestic life.

The roles of women in society has been greatly overseen in the last few decades but now are coming to a more perspective to people. In the early days women were seen as wives who were intended to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. They were not allowed to vote while men took care of having jobs and paying any bills that had to be paid. Latin America and Western Europe were a different region from 1750 to 1914 in matters of rate of industrialization, literacy rate as well roles. For the two diverse regions, the roles of women from Western Europe and Latin America still share some similarities while still having few differences.

Women of Latin American culture have incessantly ensued the potent gender roles that have become a social construction of their society over innumerable decades. The profound author of Insurgent Mexico, John Reed, imparts his experiences with the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution, like Pancho Villa, and was able to witness their culture and more specifically the roles these Mexican women were forced to render by their chauvinistic counterparts. This period of revolution, started to grant women new mantles usually reserved only for men, like participating in fighting for the success of the revolution; any preeminent changes would soon approach, but in the meantime Mexican society run by men enjoyed the regulated traditional

Freedom and equality are ideas this country has had for centuries that have evolved over time. In 1776, what Thomas Jefferson meant by “all men are created equal”, is that white males are dominant in society. Women are treated worse than men and slaves treated worse than women. People that weren’t of the “superior” race/gender of a white male were typically treated as if they were less. Women and African-Americans aren’t being treated as bad today, but they’re still being treated worse than the white males of society. Even today, when white males are typically the leaders of society, it’s not always race and gender that creates inequality; sometimes it’s money that creates the issue. Not just from past evidence, but from present

Women's sexual exploitation in Latin America is attributed to the gender-based social and economic inequalities that are so prominent in the societies where machismo is an accepted norm. In addition to this, many Latin American women experience a lack of economic resources, illiteracy, civil strife from political instability, and abuse within the home. All of this may force women to look for a better life and to escape their own, making them vulnerable to forces that can exploit their needs. With the the glamourized images of economic freedom in the Global North making their way onto television screens throughout the continent, it is not difficult to see how an impoverished and abused mother from Bogota can be coerced into a “waitressing” job

This week’s readings focused on the rise of women’s organization and feminism as it developed in Latin America especially Brazil and Argentina. The book has three primary sources, Maria Abella de Ramirez’s “Basic Plan for the Vindication of Women (1906); Ernestina A. Lopez’s “What Feminists Stand For” (1910), and Paulina Luisi’s “Call for the Solidarity of the Sexes” (1936), each of these primary sources several aspects of feminism and women organizers. According to each of these females the main power of women organizing for equality between the home and the domestic sphere. These the primary sources and considering additional analysis provided by this chapter’s secondary sources, we can tell that although rooting women’s power in the home