Ryan Bailey Patterson's 'Resistance And Resilience'

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,

During the Mexican Revolution, Mexico as a nation torn in many directions, people gave up simple farming lives to take up arms against causes that many of them did not fully understand. Gender roles during the period in Mexico were exceptionally degrading towards women. Having little more rights than slaves and treated as trophies or property more than human beings, women role in society was nothing near that of a man’s. In The Underdogs, Mariano Anzuela highlights the issue of gender roles by continuously illustrating the punitive role of women and their mistreatment. Augmenting Anzuelas work with citations from Oscar Lewis and Stephanie Smith will paint a picture of the degrading gender roles for women during the Mexican Revolution. Highlighted points brought up by Azuela are how men speak with and treat women, women’s place in society, and general disregard for women’s feelings.

With this came a patriarchal movement with the anthem “Yo soy Chicano” and an ideology of “Chicano = Machismo”. Women within the Chicano movement were afforded one of three roles: mothers, nuns or whores. They were not allowed self determination. This stemmed from the idea that men were the ones that were rising against oppression, when in fact women “broke their shackles and stabbed the spirit of injustice when confronted in the fields by a shotgun, when bloodied on the streets”, when constructed under the violence of “Anglo/chauvinism or Chicano machismo.” The transition from Chicano to Chicana was in protest of previous marginalization and a step towards representation and manifestation. (I Throw Punches, Chabram,

Before World War II, the Mexican American community had a very rich history in the United States; also they were suffering racial, economic and educational segregation. They still were foreigners in a land that once belonged to them. The women had a very specific part in this community´s development.

Negotiating Conquest is a scholarly work written by Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, which analyzes women 's roles in history, and discusses how the political system has affected their roles. It covers the period between the 1770 's to the 1880 's, the periods before and after American Conquest. Likewise, this book is divided into two sections, chapters 1-3 discusses "Women in Spanish and Mexican California," and chapters 4-6 discusses "Women in American California." This work analyzes the major ideas present within each period and how it affected women 's roles and power. The time and effort put into this book, is something that the author enjoyed, calling it a "labor of love." Overall, she then claims that her purpose in writing this work is to, "honor and recognize woman of all ethnic backgrounds, social classes, and regions, who established households, nurtured and reared families, and rose above personal adversity in societies that often ignored, overlooked, and rendered them invisible."

Machismo, or male chauvinism, is a concept that characterizes many Latin American male behaviors, most importantly those associated with masculinity and pride. This concept, most likely introduced to New Spain by Spanish conquistadors who embodied these traits, was then adopted and integrated as a part of Mexican culture going forward. Because of male masculinity prevailing over feminine traits during the 17th century, misogyny and the oppression of women became a norm in Mexican culture. Struggling to be valued in Mexico, women turned to literature and art to voice their opinions and expose the machismo in Mexican culture. Through literature and art, is where feminism in Mexico arose and is continually strengthen in. This paper will discuss the ways in which Mexican feminist literature and art over time have exposed and challenged machismo, misogyny, and the Mexican patriarchy since the Spanish Conquest.

The Chicano movement was a movement that inspired thousands of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans to boldly take a stand against discriminatory oppression. For years, the Chicano movement fought for Mexicans’ rights. However, the movement failed to recognize that its women were an oppressed group that also needed to be heard by the gringos and their system. The women were oppressed triply through race, class, and gender. Chicanas not only had to fight the American system that worked against colored minorities, but they had to fight to earn respect from Chicanos whose traditional machista mentality hindered the movement altogether. Women were a central part to the Chicano movement that aided in the movimiento’s success. Although Chicanas fought

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

Anzaldua identifies as a part of an emerging new mestiza consciousness and community, which strives to move beyond simple dualistic thinking and endeavors to “act and not react” This important contradiction lies at the heart of Anzaldua’s analysis. “From this racial, ideological, cultural, and biological cross-pollicization, an ‘alien’ consciousness is presently in the making — a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands.” (Anzaldua, 1987, 420). Anzaldua’s proposition of the new consciousness mediates social relations, revolutionary social change, and its wider relevance to feminist theory through discussions of the Borderlands and its implications for ‘identity.’

In general those who live in Ciudad Juarez know about the recurring murders over the past decade involving women. Despite of that there are still millions that are oblivious to this occurring or choose to ignore it. It also gets less talked about comparing to other issues occurring around the world. Those who choose to talk about the subject eventually give up because they saw no immediate results or any progress at all. As stated before some chose to ignore the issue because they felt it was the easy way out and had fear of their own lives as well. Especially, the residents of Ciudad Juarez were in fear to speak of it because they felt they would put their lives endangered. However, to truly understand the severity and seriousness of this subject like many other issues you need to have some idea of how and why it started and the history or facts surrounding the issue. That is why the main focus is finding the factors that may have contributed to the recurring murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. Moreover, the effects of the murders on the victim families, the public in general, and the city. Also finding if there were any motives behind the murders of the women. Lastly, finding if there are any solutions for the murders to come to an end, any way to deter people from doing it, and has there been something done in the past decade to tackle the murders from happening again.

During an interview, he is asked why he believes these atrocities are happening, and he says it, “is that Juárez is not ready for the liberated woman… [it] is, ultimately, a Catholic context… The woman are being sacrificed to redeem men for their inability to provide for their families” (252). His views contain an excuse for the despicable actions of men in the community, as if it is the women’s fault for needing to take the jobs offered by American corporations and subsequently being murdered for this patriarchal

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

The Guerilla Girls are a women’s activist art group. They are masked women who came together to make change in the world of art and women’s involvement in society. GG emerged in 1985 and still are active today in New York after 30 years of the emergence of the group. The Guerilla Girls used posters with real statistics to show awareness of sexism in the art world and the discrimination of women in politics as well as in the mass media. The Guerrilla Girls spread awareness of sexism in art, discrimination in politics and the mass media through their workshops, performances, and posters.

Border town, is a place where money and power speak louder than human rights, where corruption plays a huge role. The maquiladora industry’s owners do not offer any sort of protection for their workers, and as a result every female worker puts her life in jeopardy daily. The industry’s owners are more concerned with themselves, and do not provide any sort of security for their female employees.

In her essay “Claiming the Public Space: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo,” Susana Torre discusses the ability of a small group of women to effectively appropriate an important urban space in Buenos Aires in protest of the government’s practices of political suppression and forced disappearances during the mid-1970s and early 1980s. In doing so, Torre argues, these women were able to shed their marginalized political and social status and alter broader perceptions of symbolic public space, with their very presence in the Plaza de Mayo recasting them as transformative subjects with a substantive political voice. Through creative tactics of resisting and subverting police instructions and laws against public assembly, the mothers of the “disappeared” were able to attract international media attention while maintaining a symbolic presence in the plaza, with their iconic white kerchiefs serving as an “architecture evolved from the body.” Citing the work of Henri Lefebvre, Torre further posits that the women’s bodies were able to actively produce a new public space by “introducing direction, rotation, orientation, occupation, and by organizing a topos through gestures, traces, and marks.” Ultimately, Torre uses the example of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to frame a broader argument for the increasingly vital role of social action, access, and appearance in the production of public space, with the ability to recast urban spaces through occupation and performance representing a