Women's Rights In Latin America Essay

Traditionally in Latin American culture, women did not have the same rights as men. This is because in Latin America is ruled by patriarchal cultures in which men are in control and women are treated as if they are second class citizens. This is a mentality that many Latin American countries around the world have towards women. Women did not revolt against this until the 20th century when woman’s suffrage and social movements became more prominent and women demanded the rights that men had. Some of these rights included rights to work outside of being a housewife or tailor, rights to equal education as men, and rights to vote. Many women in Latin America are still fighting for rights such as human rights laws and abortion, and are consistently
battling cultural repression that encourages men to be violent towards them. Women in Latin America are not granted the same rights as men at birth and as a result are treated unfairly in socioeconomic and cultural situations where they should be given an equal opportunity to be successful and independent. Throughout the 1920’s, woman’s rights activists around the world became prominent in their push for equal rights with men.
In North America the equal rights amendment were passed and Latin American woman’s rights activists wanted to achieve what Americans women’s rights activists have and push for these rights because they would not come on their own. This was controversial during that time period because social reformers were worried that gaining political rights might lead to negative consequences in terms of worker rights that were implemented to protect female workers from discrimination. A large portion of success in woman’s rights and laws movements were in the 1930’s and 1940’s because of the many suffrage movements that took place and gave women the right to vote in countries such as Uruguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Cuba. This was large gain in the rights of women in Latin America. In countries such as Cuba and Domincan Republic, these voting laws were short lived because dictators such as Raphael Trujillo and Fidel Castro came to power and democratic voting became irrelevant in the presence of dictatorships. Under dictatorships communism became the primary government and voting rights of both men and women are irrelevant due to the fact that the dictators always won elections without strong
opposition. Woman’s rights in the workforce was a major issue in Latin America because women were not able to get the same job opportunities as men. If they did manage to get a job however, they would receive much less pay for the same job because employers did not feel obligated to pay them the same wage they would pay a man. Bertha Lutz, an important diplomat and politician during the 1940s worked towards making woman’s rights recognized and wanted to promote the power of women in Brazil and Latin America. As a feminist in Latin America she passionately spoke against the way women were treated throughout her lifetime. She saw advancements European and American woman made in their movements and wanted to replicate this in Brazil, especially towards equality in wages as well as rights in the workforce such as maternity leave. This is a massive issue that has not been fully attended to within the modern Latin American world. This is because in modern Latin America women do not receive the same pay that men do. This is known as the wage gap and although the gap did decrease since the 1950’s, it is still a long way from being completely equal for women in 2015. Andres Openheimer from the Miami Herald wrote about these inequalities of pay in her newspaper article about women’s rights in Latin America, A New Push for Women in Latin America in which she included harrowing statistics about employment for women. “While 80 percent of Latin American men are part of the labor force, only 50 percent of women in the region are part of the labor force.
While only 12 percent of men in Latin America don’t have any personal source of income, the percentage among women is of 33 percent. In Guatemala, the percentage of women without any personal income is 41 percent, in Bolivia 39 percent and in Venezuela 34 percent. The fact that so many women are economically dependent makes them more vulnerable to all kinds of abuses, including violence. While Latin American and Caribbean countries had five women presidents at the end of 2013, and there has been steady progress in women’s political representation in the region’s congresses and judicial systems, 13 Latin American countries and five Caribbean nations saw a decline in the number of women in their cabinets compared to their previous governments’ cabinets.”
This oppression in woman’s rights in Latin America hurt women from having an equal opportunity as men in terms of political power. Women are at a severe disadvantage over men in terms of leadership, meaning that women who are equally or more qualified to men counterparts in the workforce will not get the job. Women are not given the same opportunity to learn in fields other than sowing and
housekeeping.
An important topic in Latin American woman’s rights is “El Machismo” in Latin American culture. This is common in Latin American countries and it is glorification of masculinity, encouraging males to shy away from sensitivity and femininity. This is because there is glorification of men and the patriarchy and a blatant disrespect towards women. Feminists in Latin America use “El Machismo” in order to criticize the patriarchy in Latin America, as well as the gender relations within their communities. This term came to be in the 1960s and 1970s against male oppression towards women. El Machismo is represented by Junot Diaz in The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a novel that helps represent Dominican culture. In the novel, the main protagonist Oscar is kind and sensitive towards women but is constantly being told to disrespect women because it is in line with Dominican Culture. After being rejected by a girl, his mother encourages him to beat her for disrespecting him. His friend Yunior extends this mentality even further when he states that it is due to the lack of a father figure to teach him how to be a man.
“It wasn’t just that he didn’t have no kind of father to show him the masculine ropes, he simply lacked all aggressive and martial tendencies,” (Diaz, 15)
The reason this is an important topic is important to woman’s rights in Latin America is because forcing young men to grow up and become violent and aggressive towards women is wrong. It is unfair for women to be considered lesser to men. This prevents women from getting equal rights with men because their rights will not be respected if they are considered lesser to men. In modern Latin America women are still fighting for equal rights. Abortion in Latin America is considered wrong and sinful. This is a problem because if a woman is raped or has a baby that they cannot raise financially, they will be forced to raise the baby and become financially devastated. According to Michelle Oberman, Professor of Law at Santa Clara University women in Latin America face extreme adversity in regards to abortion laws. In her