Man is the head of the Family, Woman Runs the House. Urrutia. Dr. Blumenfeld has presented her research at numerous academic conferences, including theCaribbean Studies AssociationandFlorida Political Science Association, where she is Ex-Officio Past President. While there are some good historical studies on the subject, this work is supplemented by texts from anthropology and sociology. Most are not encouraged to go to school and there is little opportunity for upward mobility. Her analysis is not merely feminist, but humanist and personal. Sofer, Eugene F. Recent Trends in Latin American Labor Historiography. Latin American Research Review 15 (1980): 167-176. The way in which she frames the concept does not take gender as a simple bipolar social model of male and female, but examines the divisions within each category, the areas of overlap between them, and changing definitions over time. In 1936, Mara Carulla founded the first school of social works under the support of the Our Lady of the Rosary University. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986. Latin American feminism, which in this entry includes Caribbean feminism, is rooted in the social and political context defined by colonialism, the enslavement of African peoples, and the marginalization of Native peoples. Official statistics often reflect this phenomenon by not counting a woman who works for her husband as employed. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Dedicated writers engaged with the Americas and beyond. Future research will be enhanced by comparative studies of variations in gender ideology between and within countries. Prosperity took an upswing and the traditional family unit set idealistic Americans apart from their Soviet counterparts. In reading it, one remembers that it is human beings who make history and experience it not as history but as life. In a meta-analysis of 17 studies of a wide variety of mental illnesses, Gove (1972) found consistently higher rates for women compared to men, which he attributed to traditional gender roles. If La Violencia was mainly a product of the coffee zones, then the role of women should be explored; was involvement a family affair or another incidence of manliness? The constant political violence, social issues, and economic problems were among the main subjects of study for women, mainly in the areas of family violence and couple relationships, and also in children abuse. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. The main difference Friedmann-Sanchez has found compared to the previous generation of laborers, is the women are not bothered by these comments and feel little need to defend or protect their names or character: When asked about their reputation as being loose sexually, workers laugh and say, , Y qu, que les duela? R. Barranquilla: Dos Tendencias en el Movimiento Obrero, Crafts, Capitalism, and Women: The Potters of La Chamba, Colombia. It shows the crucial role that oral testimony has played in rescuing the hidden voices suppressed in other types of historical sources., The individual life stories of a smaller group of women workers show us the complicated mixture of emotions that characterizes interpersonal relations, and by doing so breaks the implied homogeneity of pre-existing categories.. Women's experiences in Colombia have historically been marked by patterns of social and political exclusion, which impact gender roles and relations. The book goes through the Disney movies released in the 1950s and how they reinforced the social norms at the time, including gender norms. Cohabitation is very common in this country, and the majority of children are born outside of marriage. Your email address will not be published. While women are forging this new ground, they still struggle with balance and the workplace that has welcomed them has not entirely accommodated them either. Since women tend to earn less than men, these families, though independent, they are also very poor. Most union members were fired and few unions survived., According to Steiner Saether, the economic and social history of Colombia had only begun to be studied with seriousness and professionalism in the 1960s and 1970s. Add to that John D. French and Daniel Jamess assessment that there has been a collective blindness among historians of Latin American labor that fails to see women and tends to ignore differences amongst the members of the working class in general, and we begin to see that perhaps the historiography of Colombian labor is a late bloomer. With the introduction of mass production techniques, some worry that the traditional handcrafted techniques and styles will eventually be lost: As the economic momentum of mens workshops in town makes good incomes possible for young menfewer young women are obligated to learn their gender-specific version of the craft. Thus, there may be a loss of cultural form in the name of progress, something that might not be visible in a non-gendered analysis. While pottery provides some income, it is not highly profitable. in contrast to non-Iberian or Marxist characterizations because the artisan occupied a different social stratum in Latin America than his counterparts in Europe. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997, 2. Her work departs from that of Cohens in the realm of myth. This focus is especially apparent in his chapter on Colombia, which concentrates on the coffee sector.. The body of work done by Farnsworth-Alvear is meant to add texture and nuance to the history of labor in Latin American cities. The author has not explored who the. He cites the small number of Spanish women who came to the colonies and the number and influence of indigenous wives and mistresses as the reason Colombias biologically mestizo society was largely indigenous culturally.. The supposed homogeneity within Colombian coffee society should be all the more reason to look for other differentiating factors such as gender, age, geography, or industry, and the close attention he speaks of should then include the lives of women and children within this structure, especially the details of their participation and indoctrination. We welcome written and photography submissions. Latin American Women Workers in Transition: Sexual Division of the Labor Force in Mexico and Colombia in the Textile Industry. Americas (Academy of American Franciscan History) 40.4 (1984): 491-504. For Farnsworth-Alvear, different women were able to create their own solutions for the problems and challenges they faced unlike the women in Duncans book, whose fates were determined by their position within the structure of the system. The small industries and factories that opened in the late 1800s generally increased job opportunities for women because the demand was for unskilled labor that did not directly compete with the artisans., for skilled workers in mid to late 1800s Bogot since only 1% of women identified themselves as artisans, according to census data., Additionally, he looks at travel accounts from the period and is able to describe the racial composition of the society. It is true that the women who entered the workforce during World War II did, for the . According to Bergquists earlier work, the historiography of labor in Latin America as a whole is still underdeveloped, but open to interpretive efforts., The focus of his book is undeniably on the history of the labor movement; that is, organized labor and its link to politics as history. The press playedon the fears of male readers and the anti-Communism of the Colombian middle and ruling classes., Working women then were not only seen as a threat to traditional social order and gender roles, but to the safety and political stability of the state. Womens identities are still closely tied to their roles as wives or mothers, and the term las floristeras (the florists) is used pejoratively, implying her loose sexual morals. Womens growing economic autonomy is still a threat to traditional values. As did Farnsworth-Alvear, French and James are careful to remind the reader that subjects are not just informants but story tellers. The historian has to see the context in which the story is told. The book then turns into a bunch of number-crunching and charts, and the conclusions are predictable: the more education the person has the better the job she is likely to get, a woman is more likely to work if she is single, and so on. Throughout the colonial era, the 19th century and the establishment of the republican era, Colombian women were relegated to be housewives in a male dominated society. I would argue, and to an extent Friedmann-Sanchez illustrates, that they are both right: human subjects do have agency and often surprise the observer with their ingenuity. They explore various gender-based theories on changing numbers of women participating in the workforce that, while drawn from specific urban case studies, could also apply to rural phenomena. Education for women was limited to the wealthy and they were only allowed to study until middle school in monastery under Roman Catholic education. In La Chamba, there are more households headed by women than in other parts of Colombia (30% versus 5% in Rquira)., Most of these households depend on the sale of ceramics for their entire income. I would argue, and to an extent Friedmann-Sanchez illustrates, that they are both right: human subjects do have agency and often surprise the observer with their ingenuity. This distinction separates the work of Farnsworth-Alvear from that of Duncan, Bergquist, or Sowell. The workers are undifferentiated masses perpetually referred to in generic terms: carpenters, tailors, and crafts, Class, economic, and social development in Colombian coffee society depended on family-centered, labor intensive coffee production., Birth rates were crucial to continued production an idea that could open to an exploration of womens roles yet the pattern of life and labor onsmall family farms is consistently ignored in the literature., Similarly to the coffee family, in most artisan families both men and women worked, as did children old enough to be apprenticed or earn some money., It was impossible to isolate the artisan shop from the artisan home and together they were the primary sources of social values and class consciousness.. The book begins with the Society of Artisans (La Sociedad de Artesanos) in 19th century Colombia, though who they are exactly is not fully explained. Sowell attempts to bring other elements into his work by pointing out that the growth of economic dependency on coffee in Colombia did not affect labor evenly in all geographic areas of the country., Bogot was still favorable to artisans and industry. Since then, men have established workshops, sold their wares to wider markets in a more commercial fashion, and thus have been the primary beneficiaries of the economic development of crafts in Colombia. There is a shift in the view of pottery as craft to pottery as commodity, with a parallel shift from rural production to towns as centers of pottery making and a decline in the status of women from primary producers to assistants. Historians can also take a lesson from Duncan and not leave gender to be the work of women alone. Explaining Confederation: Colombian Unions in the 1980s. Latin American Research Review 25.2 (1990): 115-133. Most of the women who do work are related to the man who owns the shop., Womens work supports the mans, but is undervalued and often discounted. Bolvar Bolvar, Jess. Sibling Rivalry on the Left and Labor Struggles in Colombia During the 1940s. Latin American Research Review 35.1 (Winter 2000): 85-117. There is room for a broader conceptualization than the urban-rural dichotomy of Colombian labor, as evidenced by the way that the books reviewed here have revealed differences between rural areas and cities. This focus is something that Urrutia did not do and something that Farnsworth-Alvear discusses at length. Unfortunately, they also rely on already existing categories to examine their subjects, which is exactly what French and James say historians should avoid. They were taught important skills from their mothers, such as embroidery, cooking, childcare, and any other skill that might be necessary to take care of a family after they left their homes. Again, the discussion is brief and the reference is the same used by Bergquist. She received her doctorate from Florida International University, graduated cum laude with a Bachelors degree in Spanish from Harvard University, and holds a Masters Degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the University of Connecticut. Sowell, The Early Colombian Labor Movement, 14. The research is based on personal interviews, though whether these interviews can be considered oral histories is debatable. Each of these is a trigger for women to quit their jobs and recur as cycles in their lives. What has not yet shifted are industry or national policies that might provide more support. gender roles) and gender expression. Many have come to the realization that the work they do at home should also be valued by others, and thus the experience of paid labor is creating an entirely new worldview among them. This new outlook has not necessarily changed how men and others see the women who work. For the people of La Chamba, the influence of capitalist expansion is one more example of power in a history of dominance by outsiders. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. One individual woman does earn a special place in Colombias labor historiography: Mara Cano, the Socialist Revolutionary Partys most celebrated public speaker. Born to an upper class family, she developed a concern for the plight of the working poor. She then became a symbol of insurgent labor, a speaker capable of electrifying the crowds of workers who flocked to hear her passionate rhetoric. She only gets two-thirds of a paragraph and a footnote with a source, should you have an interest in reading more about her. Talking, Fighting, and Flirting: Workers Sociability in Medelln Textile Mills, 1935-1950. In The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers, edited by John D. French and Daniel James. The book, while probably accurate, is flat. New work should not rewrite history in a new category of women, or simply add women to old histories and conceptual frameworks of mens labor, but attempt to understand sex and gender male or female as one aspect of any history. Writing a historiography of labor in Colombia is not a simple task. Given the importance of women to this industry, and in turn its importance within Colombias economy, womens newfound agency and self-worth may have profound effects on workplace structures moving forward. Duncan, Ronald J. She finds women often leave work, even if only temporarily, because the majority of caregiving one type of unpaid domestic labor still falls to women: Women have adapted to the rigidity in the gendered social norms of who provides care by leaving their jobs in the floriculture industry temporarily., Caregiving labor involves not only childcare, especially for infants and young children, but also pressures to supervise adolescent children who are susceptible to involvement in drugs and gangs, as well as caring for ill or aging family. Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela. Duncan, Ronald J. Crafts, Capitalism, and Women: The potters of La Chamba, Colombia. Gender Roles in 1950s Birth of the USA American Constitution American Independence War Causes of the American Revolution Democratic Republican Party General Thomas Gage biography Intolerable Acts Loyalists Powers of the President Quebec Act Seven Years' War Stamp Act Tea Party Cold War Battle of Dien Bien Phu Brezhnev Doctrine Brezhnev Era These themes are discussed in more detail in later works by Luz G. Arango. The Development of the Colombian Labor Movement, Pedraja Tomn, Ren de la. It is possible that most of Urrutias sources did not specify such facts; this was, after all, 19, century Bogot. It is not just an experience that defines who one is, but what one does with that experience. Dulcinea in the Factory: Myths, Morals, Men, and Women in Colombias Industrial Experiment, 1905-1960. both proud of their reputations as good employees and their ability to stand up for themselves. is considered the major work in this genre, though David Sowell, in a later book on the same topic,, faults Urrutia for his Marxist perspective and scant attention to the social and cultural experience of the workers. In the space of the factory, these liaisons were less formal than traditional courtships. French, John D. and Daniel James, Oral History, Identity Formation, and Working-Class Mobilization. In. of a group (e.g., gender, race) occupying certain roles more often than members of other groups do, the behaviors usu-ally enacted within these roles influence the traits believed to be typical of the group. In La Chamba, as in Rquira, there are few choices for young women. Keremitsis, Dawn. Bergquist, Labor History and its Challenges: Confessions of a Latin Americanist.. In the 1950s, women felt tremendous societal pressure to focus their aspirations on a wedding ring. The data were collected from at least 1000 households chosen at random in Bogot and nearby rural areas. The data were collected from at least 1000 households chosen at random in Bogot and nearby rural areas. could be considered pioneering work in feminist labor history in Colombia. The number of male and female pottery workers in the rural area is nearly equal, but twice as many men as women work in pottery in the urban workshops. In town workshops where there are hired workers, they are generally men. This book is more science than history, and I imagine that the transcripts from the interviews tell some fascinating stories; those who did the interviews might have written a different book than the one we have from those who analyzed the numbers. Vatican II asked the Catholic Churches around the world to take a more active role in practitioners' quotidian lives. Arango, Luz G. Mujer, Religin, e Industria: Fabricato, 1923-1982. Friedmann-Sanchezs work then suggests this more accurate depiction of the workforce also reflects one that will continue to affect change into the future. A 1989 book by sociologists Junsay and Heaton. (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997), 298. Women also . Any form of violence in the Junsay, Alma T. and Tim B. Heaton. Gender Roles Colombia has made significant progress towards gender equality over the past century. . For purely normative reasons, I wanted to look at child labor in particular for this essay, but it soon became clear that the number of sources was abysmally small. Employment in the flower industry is a way out of the isolation of the home and into a larger community as equal individuals., Their work is valued and their worth is reinforced by others. The assumption is that there is a nuclear family where the father is the worker who supports the family and the mother cares for the children, who grow up to perpetuate their parents roles in society. Duncan, Ronald J. The red (left) is the female Venus symbol. Dr. Blumenfeld is also involved in her community through the. The value of the labor both as income and a source of self-esteem has superseded the importance of reputation. Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Indeed, as I searched for sources I found many about women in Colombia that had nothing to do with labor, and vice versa. It is possible that most of Urrutias sources did not specify such facts; this was, after all, 19th century Bogot. Labor History and its Challenges: Confessions of a Latin, Sofer, Eugene F. Recent Trends in Latin American Labor Historiography., Crdenas, Mauricio and Carlos E. Jurez. "The girls were brought up to be married. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997, 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Unions were generally looked down upon by employers in early twentieth century Colombia and most strikes were repressed or worse. . French, John D. and Daniel James, Oral History, Identity Formation, and Working-Class Mobilization. In The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997), 298. The number of male and female pottery workers in the rural area is nearly equal, but twice as many men as women work in pottery in the urban workshops., In town workshops where there are hired workers, they are generally men. Bergquist, Labor in Latin America, 277. war. Leia Gender and Early Television Mapping Women's Role in Emerging US and British Media, 1850-1950 de Sarah Arnold disponvel na Rakuten Kobo. They are not innovators in the world of new technology and markets like men who have fewer obligations to family and community. Dr. Friedmann-Sanchez has studied the floriculture industry of central Colombia extensively and has conducted numerous interviews with workers in the region. Colombias flower industry has been a major source of employment for women for the past four decades. The book begins with the Society of Artisans (, century Colombia, though who they are exactly is not fully explained. It is difficult to know where to draw a line in the timeline of Colombian history. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Labor Issues in Colombias Privatization: A Comparative Perspective. Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 34.S (1994): 237-259. andLpez-Alves, Fernando. The Ceramics of Rquira, Colombia: Gender, Work, and Economic Change,1. There is some horizontal mobility in that a girl can choose to move to another town for work. Pedraja Tomn, Ren de la. A man as the head of the house might maintain more than one household as the number of children affected the amount of available labor. Like!! Women as keepers of tradition are also constrained by that tradition. Female Industrial Employment and Protective Labor, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Pedraja Tomn, Women in Colombian Organizations, 1900-1940., Keremitsis, Latin American Women Workers in Transition., Mujer, Religin, e Industria: Fabricato, 1923-1982, Farnsworth-Alvear, Ann. https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/south-america-colombia-labor-union-human-rights-judicial-government-corruption-paramilitary-drug-violence-education. Rosenberg, Terry Jean. Required fields are marked *. I specifically used the section on Disney's films from the 1950s. Sibling Rivalry on the Left and Labor Struggles in Colombia During. While they are both concerned with rural areas, they are obviously not looking at the same two regions. He looks at a different region and that is part of the explanation for this difference in focus. R. Barranquilla: Dos Tendencias en el Movimiento Obrero, 1900-1950. Memoria y Sociedad (January 2001): 121-128. Figuras de santidad y virtuosidad en el virreinato del Per: sujetos queer y alteridades coloniales. Raisin in the Sun: Gender Roles Defied Following the event of World War Two, America during the 1950s was an era of economic prosperity. The Ceramics of Rquira, Colombia: Gender, Work, and Economic Change. Assets in Intrahousehold Bargaining Among Women Workers in Colombias Cut-flower Industry, Feminist Economics, 12:1-2 (2006): 247-269. andPaid Agroindustrial Work and Unpaid Caregiving for Dependents: The Gendered Dialectics between Structure and Agency in Colombia, Anthropology of Work Review, 33:1 (2012): 34-46. According to the National Statistics Department DANE the pandemic increased the poverty rate from 35.7% to 42.5%. This may be part of the explanation for the unevenness of sources on labor, and can be considered a reason to explore other aspects of Colombian history so as not to pigeonhole it any more than it already has been. Keremitsis, Dawn. The main difference Friedmann-Sanchez has found compared to the previous generation of laborers, is the women are not bothered by these comments and feel little need to defend or protect their names or character: When asked about their reputation as being loose sexually, workers laugh and say, Y qu, que les duela? The value of the labor both as income and a source of self-esteem has superseded the importance of reputation. Throughout the colonial era, the 19th century and the establishment of the republican era, Colombian women were relegated to be housewives in a male dominated society. Assets in Intrahousehold Bargaining Among Women Workers in Colombias Cut-flower Industry,, 12:1-2 (2006): 247-269. andPaid Agroindustrial Work and Unpaid Caregiving for Dependents: The Gendered Dialectics between Structure and Agency in Colombia,. Gender Roles in Columbia in the 1950s "They knew how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artifical flavors and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements." Men- men are expected to hold up the family, honor is incredibly important in that society. The same pattern exists in the developing world though it is less well-researched. Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), ix. This roughly translates to, so what if it bothers anyone? . What has not yet shifted are industry or national policies that might provide more support. My own search for additional sources on her yielded few titles, none of which were written later than 1988. Sowell, David. Activities carried out by minor citizens in the 1950's would include: playing outdoors, going to the diner with friends, etc. As a whole, the 1950's children were happier and healthier because they were always doing something that was challenging or social. Oral History, Identity Formation, and Working-Class Mobilization. In, Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers, Lpez-Alves, Fernando. Policing womens interactions with their male co-workers had become an official part of a companys code of discipline. Fighting was not only a transgression of work rules, but gender boundaries separat[ed] anger, strength, and self-defense from images of femininity., Most women told their stories in a double voice,. While he spends most of the time on the economic and political aspects, he uses these to emphasize the blending of indigenous forms with those of the Spanish. As did Farnsworth-Alvear, French and James are careful to remind the reader that subjects are not just informants but story tellers.. The book, while probably accurate, is flat. Divide in women. Many have come to the realization that the work they do at home should also be valued by others, and thus the experience of paid labor is creating an entirely new worldview among them., This new outlook has not necessarily changed how men and others see the women who work. Arango, Luz G. Mujer, Religin, e Industria: Fabricato, 1923-1982. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. [12] Article 42 of the Constitution of Colombia provides that "Family relations are based on the equality of rights and duties of the couple and on the mutual respect of all its members. Bergquist also says that the traditional approach to labor that divides it into the two categories, rural (peasant) or industrial (modern proletariat), is inappropriate for Latin America; a better categorization would be to discuss labors role within any export production., This emphasis reveals his work as focused on economic structures. This idea then is a challenge to the falsely dichotomized categories with which we have traditionally understood working class life such as masculine/feminine, home/work, east/west, or public/private. As Farnsworth-Alvear, Friedmann-Sanchez, and Duncans work shows, gender also opens a window to understanding womens and mens positions within Colombian society. In spite of this monolithic approach, women and children, often from the families of permanent hacienda workers, joinedin the coffee harvest. In other words, they were not considered a permanent part of the coffee labor force, although an editorial from 1933 stated that the coffee industry in Colombia provided adequate and almost permanent work to women and children. There were women who participated directly in the coffee industry as the sorters and graders of coffee beans (escogedoras) in the husking plants called trilladoras..