If asked to name the most important women in Mexican history, Malinche (the guide and translator for Cortez), the writer and poet Juana Inez de la Cruz and the insurgent Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez come readily to mind. But the names of the women who blazed the way for the feminist movement here in Mexico are more difficult to recall.
Since the Conquest, women have had to fight the notion that they belonged in the home and nowhere else. The custom was brought over by the Spanish and further inculcated by the Catholic Church. The teachings of the monks were insidious in fostering a discriminatory attitude toward women. In the beginning, they were strongly discouraged from even learning to either read or write.
But after the establishment of the Republic in 1824, and with the ensuing advent of liberalism, education for women was promoted by several courageous and determined voices. Between 1861 and 1887, many schools were open just for females. In 1891, a law was passed that made primary education obligatory for both sexes, and thirteen years later the Sociedad Protectora de la Mujer, the first feminist organiza-tion, was founded and directed by Maria Sandoval Zarco. This soon inspired the formation of other such groups.
The women of Mexico's lower classes quickly became involved in a different type of political activity. Throughout the nation, labor strikes were breaking out in textile factories. At one plant, a woman named Lucrecia Toriz wrapped herself in the Mexican flag and boldly confronted the strike breakers. Soldiers were called to the scene, but were so awed-struck by Toriz's courage that they joined with the striking workers.
Her indomitablity would set the mold for many of the women who followed her. Some years later, Juana Gutierrez Mendoza was jailed and then exiled by Porfirio Diaz for "rebellious behavior." Her main crime had been the founding of the Benito Juarez Club in Chihuahua, an organization, which today might be likened to a human-rights group. But two years after her exile, she returned to Mexico and took up the fight for fair treatment of the men and women who worked in the mines of northern Mexico.
In 1903 Juana Gutierrez was again imprisoned. But when the Revolution broke out, she was freed and immediately joined with the insurgents. Later, riding in Villa's famed Army of the North, she would become its first woman colonel.
As the battle for liberty burst into flames, women became more politically active. In 1910, when Madero proclaimed the Plan de San Luis Potosi and summoned the people to arms, thousands of women answered the call and joined to fight alongside their men. These women were called the "Soldaderas" and the "Adelitas," and their heroism would later become the stuff of legend and song.
Just as World War II forever altered the image of women in the United States, so too did the Revolution change that of the women in Mexico. In the years that followed the conflict, women were to win many battles in one state after another, Chiapas was the first to grant them the same rights as men. Yucatan and Tabasco soon followed suit.
At the national level, General Lazaro Cardenas was the first president to make a public commitment in favor of women's liberation. In 1934, he formed a women's division of what is today the PRI, and soon thereafter Soledad Orozco Avila became the first woman ever elected to the Chamber of Deputies.
World War II interrupted the movement. But afterwards, President Avila Camacho appointed a woman to head an important division of the Secretariat of interior, and named another woman as the Ambassador to Colombia. Finally on October 17th, 1953, women were granted the full right to vote and to be elected to municipal office.
As the feminist movement has spread, it has also deepened.
Today it is no longer regarded the exclusive province of educated women. There are various organizations which work with the poor, teaching them to read and write, while making them aware of both their legal rights and the various birth control options, which for the poor and un-educated Mexican woman, are limited. Thus the large majority of them continue to silently bow to the rules of a macho society. Their time, however, will someday come.
