Soldaderas and the FSLN

• I found these articles to be some of the more interesting that I have read in this class. This is probably because the logistics of warfare are always interesting to me.
  
• I was surprised to find that women played such an active role in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, both as soldaderas and as combatants. I disagree with the statement brought up in class that "camp follower" is a derogatory term. Camp followers have been a part of warfare since time immemorial; for example, the peltasts of Greece were usually made up of helots or servants of the wealthier hoplites. As evidenced by the article, they play a crucial role in the tactical success of a military force, especially considering the example given by the Zapatistas. They were highly effective in Morelos, but on extended operations they were less than stellar due to the lack of soldaderas.
• The topic of female soldiers was interesting to me; however, items such as this always seem to be approached from the perspective of exoticness, they are talked about simply because they were uncommon, rather than being part and parcel of the armed forces. I did find it interesting that they were used more frequently towards the end of the conflict; however, this is due to the massive loss of male soldiers rather than a change in perspective.
• The article on the FSLN painted them too positive of a light from a feminist perspective; however, the author does make sense when she speaks of the fact that the Revolution had to consolidate itself against the Contras and the possible military intervention of the U.S. They did subjugate female issues in the interest of the Revolution, but that does not excuse that fact especially when considering that around 30% of the military of the FSLN were women. This shows that they had not only an interest in the Revolution, but also an investment as well. Their betrayal (although that may be too strong of a word) by the Sandinistas, as well as their absence from the peace negotiations rings of the disenfranchisement of the Mexican Revolution from the campesinos and indigenous that participated in it.
  

Frida Kahlo

• Frida is an interesting character to study. I have always been interested in her paintings; however, he journal leaves a bit to be desired. This is logical considering that she was not writing it for public consumption. When I read through her journal, I noticed that a lot of her writing was directed towards Diego. It seems that their relationship soared from great highs to great lows.
• One thing about her work is that it seemed very self-centered. I do not mean that in the sense that she was selfish, but that she was the theme of many of her paintings. She stated that she painted herself because she was the subject she knew the best, but it does seem a little self-centered to me. I do admire the fact that she created her own enigma, but I do find Diego Rivera's work much more appropriate and revolutionary because he tried to capture Mexico in his murals "tal como es".
• When I was watching the movie I did not think that the scene with her and Trotsky was real; I believed that the director was simply taking artistic license. I looked it up, and as I'm sure you are aware, it was true! That is absolutely incredible! She garnered a lot more respect from me because of that action. It also made me reevaluate my thoughts about her; if she was sexually, emotionally and spiritually appealing to him, then she must have been doing something right.
• I must say, I was not impressed with her poetry. A lot of it seemed random, especially the stuff in the beginning of the journal. She just put random words on the page; that is not poetry. It is like arguing that the picture below is art: it is not. It is a toilet.
• Car, bike, people, road, animal, death, smog, journey. This is not poetry. They are words. Then again, she was not famous for her poetry, but for her paintings, so perhaps I should not judge so harshly.
  

Eva Perón

• One of the most difficult things to decide about Evita is whether or not she was a feminist. She did subjugate her own beliefs to Juan's, but I do not believe that she did that simply because he was a man, rather because she believed in what he had to say. Her indepenedence always strikes me as her most feminist aspect, but then she states that a proper woman should be at home. Maybe the problem is that I am positing my own modern view on her, when that is impossible; however, feminism did exist, but the world had not seen the Second Wave that rose in the 60s.
• One thing that I do not understand is the treatment of her body. I understand what she represented, especially to the proletariat, but I do not understand the fetishization of it. Perhaps that is my own ethnocentric view, but I find it morbid.
  
• One thing that I do believe is that Evita definitely was after the bourgeoisie. This is especially evident in her frequent criticisms of the class, as well as her assumption of the role of the charity organization that was typically reserved for high-class women. Not that I think that there is anything wrong with that, but I do agree with some of the Black Myth that if she would have toned down her rhetoric, Perón would have been more successful in Argentine politics.
  
• The Revolutionary Eva was the only version of her that I could bring myself to agree with. I believe that she herself truly identified with the proletariat, but perhaps not the extent that they believed. She seemed to view the world in Marxist terms, despite the fact that she was most assuredly not a Marxist.
  

Carmen Miranda

• Carmen Miranda is a easy to figure to categorize. Did she play up cultural stereotypes or was she simply trying to make it in a market that did not allow deviation from the norm? These are not mutually exclusive ideas; both can be true.
• I completely understand the Brazilians rejection of her. She parodied their culture and she was not even Brazilian, she was Portuguese! Imagine if "Larry the Cable Guy" (for whom I wish nothing but evil because he is guilty of the worst sin that man can commit: making people dumber than they already are) performed in Europe and was considered the an example of American culture. Even rednecks would hate him then! She also betrayed them by being a musician in Brazil, but then moving to the U.S. and doing exploitative films that betrayed her country and her identity.
  
• I do not understand how the Brazilian people could reject her, but that thousands came to her funeral. Why would they pay respects to this Malinchista? She sold out to gringos in order to make a quick buck. In my opinion, any attempt to paint her in any other light (as the movie did) is foolish at best. She was a tool of American imperialism, a tool of the Good Neighbor policy. The movie tried to show her as having some control over her roles by threatening the producers that she would drop her accent. First, I believe that this is false because although she was one of their biggest money-making stars, they could have replaced her quickly. Second, if it is true, what a phony! Adopting a fake accent in order to fit into American perceptions of what a Brazilian should speak like.
• She betrayed her gender and her race by playing sexually provocative roles, but still taking second banana to the American, usually blond, starlet. As the article stated, she was only acceptable as an object of desire, but never as a woman. She was lusted after by her opposites in movies, but never achieved commitment from her American counterparts. All that she had was her sexuality, nothing more.
• Miranda was a burlesque fool. That was the only role that she was able to play successfully. Is this a reflection on the audience's preferences or her own lack of talent and intelligence. In my opinion, it was both.
• Sorry that this is a bit more negative than other posts, but I really despise Miranda. I think it is important to study her for what she represents, but she must never be admired. She is the definition of a Malinchista.
  

Rivera-Garza and "Tales of Two Women"

Rivera-Garza

• Psychology is not a science that I put a whole lot of credit in; I believe that there are two trends currently: 1)Overdiagnose everything. Especially things such as ADHD and depression. Your kid acts out too much in class? It's because you haven't disiplined him enough. Life didn't turn out the way you thought it would? Join the club! I am not trying to discount true mental illness, such as REAL ADHD and REAL clinical depression, but in my completely uneducated and uniformed opinion, the vast majority of people are simply diagnosed with these "problems" because: 2)Psychiatrists seem to want to prescribe a pill for everything. The reason is two-fold: because medicating someone is much easier than actually treating someone and, most importantly, doctors get PAID with incentives to medicate people; they make money from it. Sorry, that kinda got a little off topic.
  
• Behaviorism has its merits, but that did not arise untill Skinner in the 40s. As evidenced by this article and Freud's writings, along with others, it illustrates the sexual bias that most men had at the time, even the intellectuals. Although Freud had some good ideas, concepts such as "penis envy" show his bias and the inherent bias in Psychology at the time. This article shows the biases as well: if a women is promiscuous then she suffers from "moral insanity", but I did not see any evidence of any men who were diagonsed with the same condition because they were promiscuous. This double-standard continues today, albeit not necessarily in psychology.
  
• I thought this article gave the women in the asylum too much credit for social change, although some of the women wrote letters and such, the article seems to imply that people did not really take them seriously.

"Tales of Two Women"

• Aha, here's an article to my liking!
• According to the rules of the Codigo Duelo, this fight did not consitute as a duel (Esperanza was unarmed). The author makes the arguement that two men fighting a duel over a women would not have been punished as severely as she was, but she was, in fact, a murder. However, I do not disagree that if a similar situation had happened to a man, the punishment surely would have been less severe.
• I wonder, although this is impossible to tell, if María was truly remorseful for their actions or if she regretted what she did due to the punisment she recieved.
  
• In my opinion, she should not have been punished so severely. Her defense was solid for the time: her honor had been called into question. Her method was the problem: she should have challenged her to a duel, rather than murdering her.
  

Angela Batallas

I chose to write about the Batallas article because I found it much more interesting than the Sáenz one.

• I found this article one of the more interesting ones of the readings.
• The first thing that I admired about Batallas was the amount of courage that it must have taken to assert herself as a member of a doubly-oppressed class: a female slave.
  
• The second, and probably most interesting from a political view, was her likening of her disenfranchisement, both as a slave and as the plaintiff in a failed contract, as an assault on the new republic itself. This sets the stage for an ideological crisis of freedom and slavery. How can the freedom of the new republics be true if does not mean freedom for all? She used this argument to her advantage in her case. As the article states, "Did those fighting tyranny have the right to tyrannize others." Unfortunately, such reforms were tardy in coming.
  
• Bolívar himself was an abolitionist, he decried slavery as useless and uneconomical, and freed his own slaves in 1821 as on a condition of military service.
• Idlefonso's relationship with Batallas is difficult to interpret. To me he seemed as a youth, unaware of the consequences of his tryst with a member of the lower class. I do not believe in love, but he did seem to care for her. This is evidenced by his treatment of her at the begininng of their relationship; he did not coerce her into a relationship and even waited for a few weeks before he propisitioned her. His behavoir during the trial puzzles me. Perhaps he was threatened with his inheritence or something of that nature when Batallas pressed for her freedom, or perhaps he was offended that a female slave would flaunt her independence and their "dishonorable" relationship so freely.
  

Sor Juana

Sor Juana is one of my favorite figures in Latin American History. She is one of the few intellectuals of the time, and the only woman. In her letter "La Repuesta" she makes some interesting points:

• Her use of Biblical passages to defend what she saw as an assault on intellectualism by the Catholic Church. She is told that because of her pursuit of knowledge, she will condemn herself to hell. She thinks that this is interesting because "I am the executioner and the martyr".
• One of my favorite quotes by Sor Juana is in this passage: "If Aristotle would have cooked stews, he would have written more". I like this for several reasons: it is a defense of her, as she puts it "feminine art" that women have no other option or choice to practice. Sor Juana was an accomplished alchemist and chemist; most of her knowledge, as she puts it, comes from her experiences in the kitchen.
• Socrates said, "The only thing that I know is that I know nothing". Sor Juana puts a humorous twist on this, implying that in order for someone to be a great fool, he must speak many languages in order to be a fool in them as well!
• One thing that struck me throughout the letter is her humility. She is constantly referring to herself as not being worthy of salvation or as an ignoramus.
  
• "What a strange madness: to exhaust yourself more by removing credit than by adding it". This statement sums up the entire letter which is a defense against persecution by the church: I spend more time trying to be humble and not to upset the hierarchy of things than working on my own works.
• One of my favorite parts of this letter is where she apologizes to her lady, Filotea de la Cruz, for addressing her in the "tú" form, rather than the "usted" form.
  

Sor Juana, in my opinion, is one of the most tragic figures of colonial times. She is obviously remarkable intelligent, evidenced by her use of the classics and the Bible in her defense. She was miles above contemporaries. However, despite all of this, she was marginalized by the Church and her fellow nuns; hence the tragic tale of women in Latin America. How much do you think that society would have been advanced if she were allowed to actually speak her mind and be a pure, humanist intellectual?

Virgin de Guadalupe

• I personally revile the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe for two reasons: it gives people false hope and it represents marianismo and female subjugation. False hope is fairly reasonable, the article even states that the "miraculus image" was probably copied by a local indigenous person. Yet people pray and cry and tithe to the church rather than seeking true salvation which is the acceptence of the fact that one day you will die. You won't live on forever. Celebrate now, instead of praying to some imaginary "big brother" in the sky. That's my problem with religion: it takes the human out of humanity. Everything that happens is due to someone or something else. "Oh, I cheated on my wife. The devil tempted me. Jesus will forgive me." This is simply absolving yourself from the blame of your misdeed, or "sin". Or "I got that promotion at work, God must have heard my prayers", when instead you got that promotion because you worked hard, God has nothing to do with it! Religion takes the human element out of all of our actions, whether "good" or "bad". Sorry, I got a little of track here.
• The Virgin of Guadalupe also represents marianismo and female subjugation. She is often portrayed and perceived as the "ideal" woman. Submissive unto the male figures in her life (God, Jesus), she is saddened for her son's suffering, just as the marianista weeps while she prays for the sins of the men in her life. Although it cannot be denied that not everyone views her in this light (e.g., during the War of Independence the revolutionaries affixed her image to their banners), she represents subjugation of women by men and religion.
  

Re-rethinking Malinche

• I have conflicting opinions on Malinche, so the following points are me trying to play both sides of the argument. What is stated here is not necessarily how I feel about the subject.
  
• Malinche must be vilified. True, in the overall context of her role in the Conquista she may have been a woman simply trying to survive, but the indigenous peoples of Latin America must never forget the atrocities committed upon them by the Europeans. Attempting to justify her actions is similar to saying that tribal leaders in Africa were simply "trying to survive" by selling their captured to European slave traders. Or forgiving white police officers beating a black man by saying that they are simply "part of the system". She must vilified because she represents European/Mestizo dominance to the indigenous peoples of Latin America. Instead of betraying the Europeans, she translates for them and saves their lives on more than one occasion.
  
• Malinche was simply acting in her own best interests: survival. Even though she was the mouthpiece of Cortez, she had no choice in what she said. The Spaniards would have killed her and found another Malinche. As Octavio Paz puts it, she is truly la Chingada, the violated one. Mexico, and the rest of Latin America for that matter, were born out of the violation of the indigenous peoples by the Europeans. Although some might disagree, I believe that Malinche should be viewed as a racially unifying force in Mexico simply because she represents the racial and cultural synthesis of Mexico: la chingada (Malinche and the indigenous peoples) and el chingón (Cortez, the Spainards).

Catalina de Erauso

• I wish that I could have read this book in its original Spanish, I might when I have the time! In the translator's notes, Steptos talks about how she would refer to herself in masculine and feminine forms. I am courisous as to when she would do that.
• One thing that shocked me about this account was the amount of violence that she committed. She killed three men over being called a cuckold. I was glad to learn in class discussion that I was not the only one who was a bit incredulous about HOW violent she was.
• This does shed an interesting light onto gender roles at these times. She was obviously more comfortable in in men's clothing, but was that because she enjoyed being perceived as a man or because she enjoyed perceiving herself as a man? Or perhaps both? One thing that I find interesting is that she gained widespread acceptance after her true sex was found out. Spain under the Counterreformation was not exactly a bastion of progressive thought. I would think that she would have had a harder time finding acceptance. Perhaps it was because she "retained her virginity" as she told the pope.
• Was Erauso a lesbian? There are hints of it in the reading, when she "rubs the inside of a girl's leg"at the enragement of her father. I cannot help but feel that particular line must be mistranslated or perhaps there is a colloquial meaning in Spanish or Basque that escapes English translation. She may have had little to no sexual preference at all, preferring violence and vagabondage instead.
• One thing that I find interesting was that she was not fighting for woem's rights or equality for women, although by besting many men in combat she may have helped popular perceptions at the time.
  

Journal Entry 1

• Marianismo, the female component of machismo, is a very interesting topic. In my opinion, it is a reflection of male dominance of females in Latin American culture with the perception of the Virgin Mary as the female ideal. It is a sad yet stalwart viewpoint that reflects the suppression of females. Although the reading talks about it being more prevalent in Latin America, I believe that one could trace it roots to the Reconquista of Spain. In those days it was far more common for a woman to lose a husband or a son in battle due to the ongoing state of warfare for 700 years in the Iberian Peninsula.
• One thing that is interesting in the differences between Latin America and Spain is the etymology of language. If I may be a bit crude, I find it interesting that in Spain a common colloquialism is “hijo de puta”, or son of a bitch, whereas in Latin America (especially Mexico) the more common saying is “hijo de la chingada”, or, literally translated, “son of the fucked one”. One can easily see the metaphor in the Conquista of the New World by Spain and its subjugation of the Latin American indigenous population.
• Although this may sound sexist, I do believe that male-based warfare has its roots in biology for the simple reason that a MAN is necessary for reproduction, but MEN are not; meaning that the loss of part of the male population in warfare does not necessarily mean as great of a loss in reproductive capabilities as it would if the same amount of women were lost in warfare. I am not saying that this is morally correct or not chauvinistic, but simply biology; however, with the advent of population control in many western societies, this reasoning for the exclusion of women from combat no longer holds up.