First Feminist Congress Analysis

The First Feminist Congress took place in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, which had attracted over 600 delegates. The First Congress was the first feminist movement in reaction to the living conditions and state of the women living in Mexico. What was addressed were the main issues as seen by the Mexican women of their society, oppressing them by secondary means. An example is education being the identifying cause, the lack of, and the repercussions of the lack of education as the secondary cause.
Thus the primary goal of the congress was to address the significant concern of education. An issue that was addressed and called for was for the sexual education of women. This education would be to educate women about their bodies and what occurs during
It called for both men and women to be educated about the origins of men and religion. They proposed that federally funded universities are to provide a university extension or seminars for the education of these origins. The purpose of the religious education is to establish the root causes of the institution of the patriarchy and the hierarchy established by religion, which oppresses women. The great majority of Mexico is Roman Catholic, in the church there exists a great disparity between the sexes. The primary members of the church are males, the trinity, the emphasis of the holy beings, are all masculine. The priest as also males, to represent Jesus Christ, with no ability for females to presume these positions of power. Disciples of the messiah, were also masculine. Only few female figures have a strong representation in the church, the primary one being that of the Virgin Mary. Even then if you extend to outside the Roman Catholic church to other branches of religion, in most women do not have a great role, over all. So to educate women of the oppression stemming from the origins of religion and men, you being to break down the oppressions founded upon women by the church and start to equalize men and
Resolutions for such matters concluded that women’s education should be “derived from the manual arts” to be practical and hands on. While citing the example of women learning to be mothers by means of replicating the home atmosphere. According to the delegates the education should be inclusive of other sources of curriculum such as art, literature, medicine and pharmacology. The reasoning is that women would be good at pharmacology since they have a delicate hand fit for administering drugs and prescriptions. Medicine was reasoned that women often times feel uncomfortable being seen by males and to open the field up would allow women more opportunities to be seen by a doctor and not perish at the hands of an illness that could have been taken care of easily. Family medicine is also brought up as a fine role for women due to their natures as mothers. Ideas of women's roles outside motherhood empowers her to be independent. However, the delegates also addressed that it is as important that women do not forget their primary role as women, to be mothers and she should learn these domestic tasks to perfection. All of this is accordance to the UCLA M159A course reader