Women, Work Policies Latin America

Women, work, and politics
Women have been influential in Latin America through out the same time that they were influential in the rest of the world. Places like in Argentina were groups such as Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo were very influential in the history of the country. These women stood in this plaza with pictures of their loves who the military had taken away from them. The government respond to them calling them crazy since they would appear there day after day claiming for a respond as to where have their loved ones had gone. The result of this pressure was then later seen in the transition from the dictatorship to the democracy it then transformed to. This was not the only time women placed themselves in the history in Latin America. One example of these was the Mexican women working in the maquiladoras. This was a movement which was looking for equal rights for women in Mexico in the workforce. The movement has managed strikes to create a better working environment and bigger wages.
Throughout the last century women were able to change the point of view of their gender to be more productive to society rather than just a reproductive member of society and a stay home mother. The laws that were applied to give women a voice has changed also the way business is now conducted and even incorporating women in political roles. But before all this occurred in Latin America, there were first important moments in history that lead up to these freedoms for the female gender. Women had different roles when the first conquistadors came to America as some were slaves, whores, or family members. Before this the Aztecs and the Incas saw women of inferior degree than men as they were not able to do the hard labour that it required to build and cultivate at the same strength that men did. Most women in the colonial period were consorts or wives to replace the European women they could not have. At first this was approved by the Spaniards to mix the races but then they saw it as a threat to the Spaniard race.
During the nineteenth century Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico allowed women to attend schools and universities. This was only available to the families that could afford the tuitions. Although they were allowing women to study it was not the same when it came to working. Most women would have had a very hard time finding a job in the middle of this century. The same countries, excluding Chile, elaborated their rights and allowed women to obtain a job during the twentieth century, but males still had the preference of the employees to get the job. Women at the beginning held a huge portion of the workforce in manufacturing but closer to the middle of the century this changed. Women were also present in the history of independence as they took on arms against the Spaniards whom watch terrified as these amazons like women came towards them in the battle field. Women such as Policarpa were involved in the political movements of independence (Colombia).
When women were introduced into the office workforce, they were only allowed to do so until they were married and/or had children. They were expected to only work in an informal sector if they were already married and needed the money to sustain their house hold. These created some trouble with hiring since there were a lot of discriminatory dismissals. These levels were sustained for the majority of the last century since the laws allowing women to work were not as updated as in other regions in the world. The introduction of women into the workforce in Latin America had its major impact in the 1960’s. This is when most of the women were allowed to work and when they tried to make the most out of the new rights that were implemented. Then the percentages increases throughout the region as women went from 20% in the work force to 40%. It is curious to see that during the time when women went to there was a decrease in the economy in the area. It is not a correlation from one another but the curiosity still remains to show that these economies dropped during this period (1960s to 1970s).
Women have now a strong place in politics as we can see in the present day there are two female presidents in two of biggest countries in the region as it is in Argentina and Brazil. Women have always being influential in the politics of Latin America but now more than ever before. Although it has a new face now, women involvement in politics was not always seen. Activist groups demanding rights for women would often not be shown to the public through the media to not give them importance. These movements either feminist or mix-gender were crucial later on in the forming of the constitution and the rights for all members of society. The roles of reproduction have been changed and women have now become more than a house wife but they have evolved into a new breed of independent gender that with different characteristics have been able to perform and in some cases surpass the task that males have performed previously. Although in Latin America it is still not as liberal when it comes to women leaving their homes to work, it is an increasing matter. The culture of the region is that women are still very maternal in comparison with other regions of the world such as Europe or North America. This is not due to a lack of laws that allow women to take a place in a working environment, but rather they are making the choice to be stay home wife’s which in other place you will not see since women would want to take full advantage of this freedom that they now have of choosing their paths in life that they did not have before.