Prominent Women In Latin America

A biographical listing of approximately 90 prominent Latin American women.

In the seventeenth century, Catalina de Erauso, at age sixteen a renegade Basque nun, escaped from her convent and traveled to the New World, eventually reaching Peru. She became an outlaw and a crossdresser with a price on her head. Yet she ended her days absolved by both the King of Spain and the Pope, the latter of whom granted her permission to dress as a man for the remainder of her life. The Nun Ensign passed her final years guarding silver shipments on the Mexico City-Veracruz highway. The life of the Nun Ensign highlights not just her extraordinary life but also the opportunities seized by women in colonial Latin America. This book profiles the Nun Ensign and nine other women of colonial Latin America, offering an alternate method for understanding the region and its history. The ten figures span different ethnic, geographic, occupational, and class backgrounds. Through their stories, the reader comes away with an enriched understanding of colonial Latin American history.

This collection of essays illuminates the experiences of pre-20th-century Latin American women....There is surprisingly rich information about Indian and black women....The diverse patterns of family roles and sex polarizations, trends in the feminist movement, and women's political participation are themes of significant importance in the essays. A welcome contribution to women's studies and to Latin American history, especially since there is little available in English covering this.

Spanning from independence to the present, this book introduces readers to the history of modern Latin America through the experiences of ten notable women. Each biographical chapter includes an overview of the era, providing a fresh perspective on Latin American history.

Biografieën van de volgende Latijns Amerikaanse vrouwen: Malinche, Inés de Suárez, Catalina de Erauzo (The nun Ensign), Inés de la Cruz, Policarpa Salavarrieta (La Pola), Leopoldina van Habsburg, Mariana Grajales, Gabriela Mistral, Eva Perón, Tamara Bunke (Tania).

" Sánchez Korrol considers the shifts in women's roles between the 1880s and 1930s and accompanying societal transformations.

"Straightforward and brief biographical sketches of 29 women including Doäna Marina, Juana Inâes de la Cruz, Manuela Sâaenz, and Leopoldina of Brazil"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Women are gaining ground as presidents of Latin America. Women leaders in presidential systems (particularly women directly elected by the public) were generally limited to daughters and wives of male executives or opposition leaders. With the election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile, these traditional patterns appeared to be shifting. This book asks: what conditions allowed for a broadening of routes, beyond family ties, for women in Latin America? Do women presidents of Latin America use their powers to enhance women’s representation? While providing valuable insight into the big picture of women in presidential politics throughout Latin America over the last several decades, this book more closely analyzes four women presidents gaining office since 2006: Michelle Bachelet (Chile) Cristina Fernández (Argentina) Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica) and Dilma Rousseff (Brazil). It assesses the paths and impacts of Latin American women presidents and scrutinizes the ways gender shapes both aspects. No other scholar has offered such an in-depth analysis of the paths and actions of women presidents of Latin America. As such, this book offers important contributions to the gender in politics literature. Its multi-methodological approach consisting of original data collection from field work and in person interviews of political elites and experts combined with an analysis of a host of secondary sources including media articles and public opinion data makes this work exceptionally comprehensive. Its findings are applicable to those studying women, gender, and politics as well as comparative politics, Latin American politics, and leadership studies.