Social And Cultural Limitations In Colonial Latin America

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

When the Spanish and the Portuguese established the colonies in the Americas, not only did they bring their material culture of technologies, clothes, cuisines, architecture, crops, and animals but they also brought their intellectual traditions such as that of honor. The history of colonial Latin America gives many questions related to the understanding of honor. The culture of honor during this period of time was pivotal as it provided a set of values that organized society and individual lives. Legal codes, social gatherings, seating arrangements were all mixed in with cultural meanings, which helps define status within a system of honor. Honor is also seen within fiction produced from the colonial Latin American period with the production of work such as Don Juan Tenorio and Don Quixote. These dramatic works glorify the chivalric tradition of honor, romanticizing it and creating a flattering fiction that the elite of colonial Latin America found convenient to strive for. Literary critics and cultural historians have studied the structure honor code of this period closely and in this book it can also be seen that honor can be irrationally inflexible, cruel and especially oppressive toward those of lower class, “tainted” lineage and female gender during this time. In this book, The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America, scholars Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett Rivera take on the difficult but exciting task of trying to define the idea and

Since the discovery of the new nation, society has made prominent changes in the definition of women’s duty. Women, similar to black slaves, were known as second-class citizens and did not have rights because of their gender and place in society. They were excluded from

Domingos Ãlvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World tells the story of Domingos Alvares, an African healer practitioner who was taken as a slave from West Africa and was sold to a Brazilian master twice, then later was transported to Portugal for an Inquisition conducted by the authorities of the Holy Office. This text was written by James H. Sweet, a scholar of Africa in the Atlantic World in the History Department of the University of Wisconsin. Sweet tells the story of Domingos in ten chapters using many illustrations

Race and gender have not only shaped the lives of people, but the history of colonial Latin America as well. The hierarchical system in colonial Latin America was that people of whiter skin enjoyed more privilege (white privilege as a category of whiteness) and more power than people of darker skin. In terms of gender, men were seen as superior to women. The issue of racism developed since colonial times, where people of darker skin were the ones who have been oppressed by people of lighter skin, one example of this was slavery. Interestingly, in colonial Latin America, one’s race and gender were not just based on skin color or on biological sex. Instead, colonial Latin Americans placed people into categories used different criteria, as either ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘black’ or ‘white.’ These criteria ranged anything from where one was born, to one’s physical appearance, or even to the amount of money one was willing to pay to get to move up to a higher class. Essentially, race and gender came down to class in colonial Latin America. That meant that if you had more money the “whiter” you seemed and if you were a woman the more “feminine” you would be. Class is intertwined with race and gender and they informed one another. However, race and gender have created significant systems of power in Latin America by intersecting with its economic, political, and social projects. In particular, they have intersected with Brazil’s, Haiti’s, the Dominican Republic’s, Cuba’s, Puerto Rico’s

In contrast to a boy, school is not a requirement but helping their mothers is more useful and important than getting educated. In general, the female literacy rate is higher than that of men, but in countries where there are more rural areas it is the opposite as is the case of some Central American countries. Many solutions can be implemented to help these families attend schools but the government opposes.

Women in Latin America have played a large part in social movement on the past number of decades. Latin American women are engaging with organisations led by women who are struggling for rights as workers in trade unions, as homemakers and housewives in settlements, and as

This excerpt discusses the inequalities that women faced in the ninetieth and twentieth centuries. Some of the key issues focused on include the legal status, employment, and political rights of women in this era. This excerpt also explains how women living in this era were made to feel weaker than men in society. Also, some of the reform movements that women participated in to gain equal rights are briefly summarized. The original writing was published in the Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia in 1994 and 1995. While the contents of the excerpt are not current, it still provides valid and scholarly information. The excerpt was published by the Women’s International Center, a non-profit organization that strives to assist and educate troubled

South America is a primary example of a setting in which colonialism led to the infusion of two distinct cultures, becoming one through time. The potential of economically valuable areas lead colonizers to become intertwined with the culture of indigenous populations in South America. The Spanish first came to South America in search of gold and later with hopes of taking advantage of the natural resources again through the rubber industry. As the transformational period of colonization took place, two cultures came in contact. They both perceived their cultures as distinct and separate entities, complete cultural opposites with distinctly different lifestyles of subsistence. Both began contact with

The women is only fit to take care of children doing laundry and making sure the house is clean and comfortable. Women is always culturally devalued and considered as sexual objects either privately or publically with a threat for sexual and domestic violence. But women ‘s growing opportunities are taken as evidence that the “woman’s problem” are fixed, by disregarding the problems still associated with female inequality. Unknowingly the stereotypes are used, depicting females in a negative way and drawing the conclusion that men are more important and influential than women. Family traditions are passed down to each generation considering that males are the head of the households and females simple housewives.

Historically, the production of historical narratives have been lacking in the perspective of the indigenous population. What historical silences do newer narratives fill, and why and how do they do this? The historiography previously encompassing Colonial Latin America has focused on the European perspective, on the Conquest as having been a smashing success for the Spanish, and of the native population getting dismantled, broken-down and wiped out. What this essay will seek to prove is how recent scholarship has filled the silences left by past narratives.

How have women’s rights changed over the course of history? Throughout the four stories, ‘Another Evening at the Club’ ‘Leavings’ ‘Same Story, Different Ending’ and ‘Story of an Hour’ we hear the tales of women in many different cultures, time frames, and of different ethnicities, yet they all have similarities about their stories. The women showcased in these stories have been repressed, and taken advantage of in some way. They were all forced to conform to social and cultural standards. Women dreamed of leading bigger lives, lives full of adventure and freedom.

The final section I want to discuss is on “Femicide”, a well-known concept filtered throughout the social and cultural norms in Latin America, Central America, Mexico and more, that has been a major trend in poor treatment towards women and girls (Weil, 2016). Femicide or Feminicide had been defined at “the assassination of women for reasons associated with their gender” (Wilson, 2013). It has been labelled as the most extreme force of violence based on gender equality. There is a consistent amount of reports of women being violently attacked, sexually assaulted and murdered strictly do from their gender (Weil, 2016). We will look at the imbalance of power of the sexes in the political, social and economic sphere to suggest immediate changes

Over the centuries, women have been a never ending argument to society. And those incharge of society have always been men. Men’s argument with women has always been the same argument. Are women even as smart as men? Can women handle what men can handle physically and mentally? Can they? Or can’t they? Women have been classified as property to fathers as well as husbands, brothers, and uncles through history. Being “property” meant that what the men or man says, goes. Female oppression has changed drastically throughout time, but still lingers. In this story, we see how greatly affected the main character is because of female oppression in its prime; during the late 18th and early 19th century. Which was the main cause for her losing touch with reality.

As a child, I had always believed that there was only one difference between girls or boys, one of them has cooties, besides that I had always thought of them as equals. As I grew out of that young and venerable age, I slowly started to realize that even in first world countries, women were being oppressed. They weren’t seen as equals, simply because of their gender, not because of experience or knowledge, just because they are women.