Annotated Bibliography, Gender Relations in Colonial Times and Further, Latina America and Mexico

8/6/2019 Annotated Bibliography, Gender Relations in Colonial Times and Further, Latina America and Mexico

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Silverblatt, Irene (1987 ) Moon, Sun, and Witches. Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru . USA: Princenton University Press.

“This book examines the complexities of interplay between political hierarchy and

gender. It explores how empire building transformed gender ideologies as the Incas,

followed by their Iberian conquerors, strove to dominate the Andes. It unravels how

ruling groups manipulated the ambivalence of gender images to buttress (sostener) their

political control while native peasantries, also playing on gender’s ironies, challenged

and resisted imperial authority. Thus, this book holds that the problem of power and its

insinuation into cultural forms is central to historical process. Accordingly, gender

systems—metaphors as well as conduits for the expression of power—stand out as

pivotal to the creation of, and challenge to, social class (Silverblatt, 1987:xix).

Silverblatt criticizes the functionalist approach in anthropology which studied

peasant communities as if they were ‘traditional’ bounded enclaves existing

independently of the class structures that formed them. They trivialize social change—

reduced either to ‘modern’ elements that penetrate traditional boundaries or to structures

that serve the needs of impinging (afectando) state institutions. She also criticizes

structuralist stances that search for human universals. Both, functionalist and

structuralist approaches diminish both the conflicting social relations that inform

cultural meanings and the historical process that produce them. It is very important

about Silverblatt’s account, she sees at the historical processes that produce or shape

social relations which inform cultural meanings. Silverbratt talks about some

structuralist studies that have considered historical process and have studied complex

societies experiencing social change, even though she criticizes them. She says that

structuralists have favored “cold’ or timeless peoples as their subjects. Eric Wolf is one

of the critics of those approaches along with Anderson, Diamond and Thompson.



Thompson for instance has spoken out against an uncritical alliance between history and

anthropology, they underlie social processes and divorce features of human life from

their social contexts. Furthermore they minimize human agency and political

dimensions of change. Silverbratt mentions Todorov’s (1984) work about the Spanish

conquest of Mexico and says that he used a structuralist/semiologist methods for

analyzing cultural forms as systems of meaning, analyzing the Spanish conquest of

Mexico as a conflict between competing communications systems, however his work

minimizes the relations and forces of power that must be taken into account in any

analysis of colonization. Structuralist method, by abstracting myths from their

sociopolitical context, loses important dimensions of power and history which inform

them (Silverbratt, 1987: xxiii).

Silverblatt also points out that ethnohistory, as an anthropological subfield, had its

origins in the study of North American Indians. In the 1960’s, ethnohistorians

incorporated themselves as a society whose objective was to study the cultural history

of the world’s peoples (Silverblatt, 1987:xx).

“The Spanish could understand the world they conquered only through the categories

and perceptions that their culture provided” (Silverblatt, 1987: xxii)

“The same intellectual tradition that refused colonial peoples a place in history denied

women theirs” (Silverblatt, 1987:xxv). For Colonialists Indians were a preeminently

colonial creation and women in much the same light: both were dependent, Childlike,

incapable of autonomous, responsible action. Spanish expectations regarding the nature

of civilization—some of which were shared by colonized indigenous chroniclers—

assigned peculiar characteristics to women that presupposed their inherit impurity and

their inferiority to men (Silverblatt, 1987:xxvi).



After criticizing functionalist and structuralist approaches in anthropological studies and

pointing out the nature of Spanish and some Indian chronicles on colonization,

Silverblatt recognizes that in the last twenty five years mainstream social sciences have

been challenged by those whom dominant theory excluded as marginal and whom

Western society defined as “other”—blacks, the Third World, ethnic minorities,

laboring people, women. While women’s displacement from social and historical

process has been questioned, our understanding of gender has swelled (inflamado).

So, Silverblatt makes this important statement: “Gender systems legitimize what it

means to be male or female, and we now are aware that gender ideologies overflow

male and female identities to infuse the fabric of social life, they permeate much of

human experience, extending to our perception of the natural world, the social order,

and structures of prestige and power” (Silverblatt, 1987: xxvi).

Silverblatt also criticizes the transculturality of women’s subordination. This critical

stance, she says, is inspired by Marxist thought and compels us to see gender as a

highly complex social construction. Firmly planted in historical process, the study

of gender would not only encompass reproduced and transforming definitions of

masculinity and femininity (and their ramifications throughout social experience)

but would embrace a critical awareness of the emergence of gender as category of

social analysis (Silverblatt, 1987:xxvii). Changes in the position of women are

inseparable from the profound transformations in political economy spurred by the

formation of social class. Contemporary Marxist tradition also privileges the articulation



of gender relations and power. (Silverblatt takes this from Engels in The Origin of the

Family, Private Property , and the State.

(I am thinking that it can be used to critics the work of Gutmann in his book “the

meaning of being a Macho in Mexico city, since he does not make very clear the

relation between the transformations in political economy and the changes in the

position of men and women in society).

Silverblatt is concerned also for the adding women to social studies, she says “The

object of our inquiry is not merely to increase the information we have about women in

other societies, just as it is not, to continue Wolf’s concerns, solely to increase the

information we have about the lifeways of colonized peoples” (Silverblatt, 1987:xxvii).

Silverblatt is interested in researching how the interpretations of gender changed as the

Incas dominated not only Andean politicoeconomic relations, but cultural system of

meaning. Gender could be a metaphor for both Complementarity and hierarchy in the

Andes. Not surprisingly, the Incas picked gender ideologies both to mask their control

over others and to create relations of domination (Silverblatt 1987:xxviii).

“Andean people interpreted the workings of nature through an ideology of gender

Complementarity. Male and female interdependent forces were also ancestor-heroes and

ancestor-heroines of the mortals whose gender they shared. The Incas claimed to be

children of the god and goddess whom they had made the most powerful in the Andes.

The Incas manipulated popular structures of gender complementarity and parallelism to

coax (engatuzar) the unprivileged into acquiescing (conformarse) in their loss of



autonomy (Silverblatt, 1987: xxviii). Gender ideologies were also ideologies of

hierarchy. They expressed rank and ordered internal community divisions. Not

surprisingly, the Incas took this frame of gender to construct imperial relations. As

political relations supplanted kinship, gender became the trope through which power

was expressed and articulated; gender became a form through which class relations

were actualized. The formation of class transformed gender distinctions into gender

hierarchy. Spanish gender ideologies, as foreign to Andean people as peninsular

economics and Catholicism, were implanted in Peruvian soil. They, too, were intrinsic

to the formation of colonial Peru (Silverblatt, 1987:xxix) Women of the Inca nobility,

privileged by Spanish, could take advantage of the new property relations of colonial

Peru. But all native women witnessed the erosion of the deeply rooted traditions that

had ensure them autonomous access to their society’s material resources. Peasant

women, at the bottom of the colonial hierarchy, suffered this loss the most (Silverblatt,

1987:xxix). Men were considered innately more suitable to public life by the Spanish.

Their values, imposed on the colonies, favored men as society’s representatives,

administrators, and power brokers. The few women who held public office were the

exceptions who proved that strictures of class took precedence over norms of gender in

colonial politics. They were also sad reminders of an Andean past when structures of

gender parallelism allowed women control over their own political and religious

institutions. This book unravels how the colonial regime, which tended to recognize

men as the legitimate representatives of polities, and patrilineal modes as the principal

means of succession, undermined customary Andean gender chains of dual authority

(Silverblatt, 1987:XXX). Women fought back and their resistance became manifest in

the emergence of Andean “witchcraft”. Spanish clerics claimed that the most dangerous

of all witches were poor, natives women. Catholicism was the ideological arm of



colonial rule. The Spanish, in this sense, provided native women an ideology of

rebellion. Andean women played a crucial role in the defense of their culture

(Silverblatt 1987: xxxi).

Indian Women of Early Mexico

Kellogg, Susan (1997) “From Parallel and Equivalent to Separate but Unequal.Tenochca Mexica Women, 1500-1700” In: Schroeder, Susan; Stephanie Wood, andRobert Haskett (eds.) Indian Women of Early Mexico , USA: University of OklahomaPress: 125-143.

In this article Kellogg traces the changing legal and social status(es) of Mexica

women, especially non-elite women, from the late pre-Hispanic period to the beginning

of the eighteen century . While their overall status did decline, she shows that this

decline was complex. Kellogg uses the concept of gender parallelism which has proven

useful in helping to understand the organization of gender roles in pre-Columbian

civilizations. Much of what Kellogg says in this article applies to the experience of

Nahuatl-speaking peoples across the Valley of Mexico (like Tlaxcaltecan women).

Related to the late pre-Hispanic period, Kellogg asserts that gender roles and

relations were compounded of both complementary and hierarchical relations.

Complementarity was expressed in a variety of ways: genealogy and kinship, labor

and work, and politics and religion. They were expressed through parallel structures of

thought, language, and action, in which males and females were conceived of and

played different yet parallel and equally necessary roles (Kellogg, 1997:125). Kinship

system was rooted in a cognatic descent system, in this kind of system genealogically

based claims and rights to kin group membership, property, or positions of authority are

rooted in the establishment of an individual’s place in a line of descendants in which

men and women are considered to be genealogically and structurally equivalent. This

system was based in part of the recognition that both the mother and the father

contributed fluids—again, equally necessary—that formed a fetus. Cognatic descent

units were known as the Nahuatl term tlacamecayotl in which descendants trace

membership back four or five generations, and this helped to structure households,

marriages, and neighborhood groupings through which, property ownership, work

relations, ritual practices, and political activities all took place. Under this system bothwomen and men could acquire property through inheritance. Men and women



held equivalent inheritance rights in three distinct categories of property: houses,

land, and movable items . Male and females siblings inherited property owned by their

fathers and mothers. Sara Cline has observed that ‘women’s control of property does

not appear to have been a post-conquest innovation. However, women’s ability to

activate their inheritance rights to land may have been constrained by the

tendency of the eldest male in a sibling group to act as a guardian for the group

and by scarcity of land as a resource . Women’s access to property, allowed them to

function somewhat autonomously of their husbands. The property that women

brought into marriage was kept separate from that brought to the marriage by

men and the Mexica distinguished between those household goods that belonged to

men and those that belonged to women. Women also had access to space within

domestic house structures, probably with sleeping and work areas separate from

men’s (Kellogg, 1997:127). Women’s productive activities were organized somewhat

apart from their husbands’ control both within and beyond the household. Women had

extra-household labor which was a source of economic independence. Women did

activities within the household as well as outside the household. In the household these

tasks were: cooking, cleaning (which had both sanitary and religious implications)

caring for children, marketing, spinning, weaving, and carrying out the daily round of

household rituals. Outside the household they worked in palaces, temples, markets,

schools, and crafts-workers’ organizations. Women served as priestesses, teachers,

merchants, healers and midwives, professional spinners, weavers, and embroiderers.

Thus women –like men—provided labor necessary to sustain their households and to

fulfill their households’ labor, tribute, and ceremonial obligations.

Because of their property rights and labor contributions, adult Mexica women were

considered to be autonomous and not the dependents of men. Codex Florentine (book 4)

is revealing in this regard.

[Mucho dependía del día en que habían nacido porque había la creencia de que el dia de

tu nacimiento marcaba tu destino en la vida, así había quienes nacían con Buena fortuna

y quienes ya sea hombres y mujeres nacían con la capacidad de destruir su buena

fortuna por no hacer caso a sus responsabilidades]



Women’s labour was highly valued by the Mexica (Kellogg, 1997:129).

Women’s access to property was reinforced by immediate post-conquest social

conditions and these property rights partly underlay (ser la razon fundamental de) their

legal status and jural independence in the early colonial period. Women’s labor was also

likely valued in this very war-oriented society because women—whether noble or

commoner—often had to manage households and productive activities in the absence of

the men. Not only were women bearing and caring for children, large amount of their

time must have been spent in extra-household, “productive” (as opposed to

“reproductive”) labor for households and crafts groups that had to both feed their own

members and meet the increasing demands of palaces and temples” (Kellogg, 1997:129)

One way women might have met all the demands placed on them was to buy

prepared or semi-prepared food, called tianquiztlaqualli , in the market place. An

enormous number of cooked foods, many of which were meat or fowl with a variety of

seasonings, were available in the market place. Even when men went off to war, the

food supplies appear to have been provided primarily through the markets and not by

women of individual households. Women were not only vendors they were

administrators as well, it was in the market place, but women also held administration

positions in the cuicacalli , or song houses, which were part of the Royal Palace or

attached to major temples.

The existence of parallel structuring of male and female barrio ( neighborhood)

leadership roles is further suggested by Duran in his chapter in the “schools of dance”.

This parallel structuring did not include higher levels of administration or governance,

where positions were held by men. Women were also excluded from warfare and the

warrior hierarchy. Yet even at the highest levels of the state and governance there was a

linguistic gender parallel made. The ruler of the Tenochca Mexica was referred to as the

Tlatoani and his second-in-command and closest adviser was called the cihuacoatl (woman serpent). It was also the name of a female deity who was associated with the



“rain-moisture-agricultural fertility” complex of deities identified by H.B. Nicholson,

this person would not replace a tlatoani who died but she could substitute the tlatoani at

ceremonial occasions. The tlatoani himself was spoken of in a way that suggests that he

carried male and female qualities or at least paternal and maternal responsibilities. Thus,

he was frequently described metaphorically as the parent, as the father and mother, of

his people” (Kellogg, 1997:131).

Gender parallelism as an organizing theme can also be discerned in the religious

realm. The major deities of sustenance, dedicated to maize, salt, and maguey were all

female as was one of the water deities who was the wife of Tlaloc the other major water

deity. Other female gods represented earth and fire.

“Temples had individual male and female priests called Tlamacazque and

cihuatlamacazque respectively. The cihuatlamacazque lived in temples and helped carry

out calendric rituals. Infants girls were offered by their parents to the calmecac , the

school for elite youths, to become priestesses, though relatively few women remained as

such for their whole lives, in contrast to male priests. Women in religious service were

trained by priestesses who oversaw their education and well-being. Male held the

highest-status priestly positions and carried out human sacrifice, but women helped

prepare sacrificial victims” (Kellogg, 1997:131).

La Mujer antes, durante y después de la conquista

Landa de Pérez Cano, Concepción (1992) La Mujer Antes, Durante y Después de laConquista México: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Comisión Puebla y Centenario

A finales del siglo trece aparecieron otros grupos venidos del norte, del lugar delas siete cuevas, Chicomoztoc. Algunos se situaron mas allá de los volcanes, dandoorigen a los señoríos de Tlaxcala y Huexotinco , celebre por el papel quedesempeñarían durante la conquista.

El ultimo grupo nómada venido del norte fue el de los aztecas o mexicas,encontraron a pobladores en el valle con quienes compartían la lengua y después deinnumerables vicisitudes pudieron establecer en 1325 la ciudad de México-Tenochtitlan, en 1428 lograron su independencia y forjaron su imperio en el Valle deMéxico que extendieron hasta el Golfo de México, el Océano Pacifico y hasta las

regiones de Oaxaca y Chiapas.



Podemos asegurar que lo Náhuatl es un trasfondo cultural que compartierondiversos grupos indígenas, emparentados por el lenguaje y una historia común ytradiciones y formas de vida que nos permitirán hacer generalizaciones validas para eltema que nos ocupa: la mujer mesoamericana.

Una cosmovisión es “ el conjunto articulado de sistemas ideológicosrelacionados entre si en forma relativamente congruente, con el que un individuo o ungrupo social, en un momento histórico, pretende aprehender el universo” (López Austin,1984:20).

La autora se propone analizar cual es el lugar de lo femenino en los sistemasculturales náhuatl y español, dando cuenta del choque cultural.

Lo Femenino en Meso América

Las diferentes explicaciones que los nahuas tuvieron sobre la creación deluniverso implico siempre una dualidad femenina-masculina. La esencia de todo cuantoexiste se localiza en un principio único y dual. Esta concepción es mucho mas complejaque lo que parece ya que representa una trascendencia del sexo como genero. Esta

pareja divina constituye los principios generadores del cosmos, como una posición decontrarios, los pares no son contradictorios sino opuestos, su cualidad es esencialmentediferente y se sitúan al extremos de un mismo eje conceptual. Su alternancia genera elmovimiento, la vida y el suceder. No hay vida sin esta pareja dual, nada existiría sin la

participación de los dos. En la cosmovisión nahua el aspecto femenino predomina en elorigen: es el poderoso, antecede al masculino, pero finalmente este sale triunfante de lalucha y se establece entre ambos.

La división sexual del trabajo en la cosmovisión nahua, no permite, de origen,fundamentar una superioridad masculina. Hay un reconocimiento explicito de unanecesidad sexual antológica. Si no existiera un aspecto femenino y otro masculino, eluniverso no existiría, la polaridad es necesaria para generar el movimiento y la vida.

Es interesante como se presentan en esta cosmovisión las dualidades que no soncomo las dualidades en el pensamiento europeo (conocida o etiquetado como looccidental).El pensamiento dual europeo valora una parte de la dualidad mientras la otraes desdeñada. En cambio en la cosmovisión mesoamericana hay una necesidad mutuaentre las dualidades, no pueden existir por separado ni autónomamente, las dos son

necesarias y se les da la misma importancia, son pares que se implican mutuamente yque por lo tanto se complementan, cada uno tiene un ámbito de acción específico ydeterminado por su propia naturaleza (esto tiene consecuencias vitales para la mujer ensu vida cotidiana). Para entender la alternancia se da el ejemplo del par oscuridad-luz, al

predominar una sobre la otra se genera el día, por la alternancia de luz-oscuridad y asísucesivamente. En esta alternancia la cuestión de predominio es importante, se da

predominio de un par al otro pero nunca hay superioridad de uno hacia el otro.Finalmente en la cosmovisión nahua el predominio masculino gano sobre lo femenino,

pero esta realidad acontece y se reemplaza, triunfa y desaparece, es decir siempre estaen movimiento y nada es para siempre, no hay esa fatalidad en el pensamientomesoamericano de que las cosas no cambien.



Entonces desde su concepción, lo femenino, en la cosmovisión nahua, forma parte esencial de la ontología divina, y en consecuencia no se da una superioridadmasculina, sino tan solo un predominio de lo masculino sobre lo femenino. Por eso esque en esta cosmovisión se dice que el nuevo milenio (inicio del año 2000) es el mileniode la mujer, donde lo femenino predominara sobre lo masculino.

Así lo femenino forma parte esencial de la ontología divina y en consecuenciano se da una superioridad masculina, sino tan solo un predominio de lo masculino sobrelo femenino, a través del triunfo de uno sobre el otro. Hombre y mujer eran iguales en la

jerarquía conceptual mesoamericana, sin embargo eran diferentes y específicos en sucotidianidad. Era un mundo en el que la mujer aceptaba y conocía el papel que le tocabadesempeñar. De base, esto le genero una posición de dignidad personal y autoestima, derespeto y consideración en la estructura social, aunque su papel era de arduo trabajo,dedicada al servicio de su familia y de su esposo. Así también se otorgaba a cada uno delos sexos un papel específico en la construcción, mantenimiento y continuación delsuceder cósmico. Lo femenino, en este caso, tiene funciones muy definidas y un ámbitoespecífico de acción.

[Due to the Nahua´s Cosmo vision women had respect and consideration in thesocial structure]

El ámbito de acción del hombre era centrifugo, era llamado el ‘corazòn del pueblo’ (Sahún, 1989:377), donde corazón –en el contexto de esa cosmovisión- era lafuerza vital. Por lo tanto el hombre tenía su campo de acción en el mundo. La mujer eracomo ‘el corazón dentro del cuerpo’ (Sahún, 1989:416), lo que significaba la fuerza y laenergía por lo que todo el hogar se vitalizaba, el hombre era para el trabajo bajo el sol,la mujer era para el trabajo bajo el techo, en donde tenia que librar sus batallas diarias.

En pocas palabras, la mujer mesoamericana no fue inferior al hombre, sinembargo, aceptaba su predominio. Su ámbito de acción fue por lo tanto especifico comolo fue el del hombre, cuestión que no se manejo de la misma forma en la Europa de laépoca en donde la mujer era considerada existencialmente inferior, en función y razóndel varón.

Lo Femenino en Europa

El concepto de lo femenino en Europa parte de los relatos del origen del hombre de latradición cristiana y se completa con la visión medieval de la escolástica (filosofíacristiana que se enseñaba en las escuelas y universidades medievales que ha formadouna tradición filosófica que persiste hasta la actualidad. Escolástico, dicese de todadoctrina considerada como dogmática) europea. La obra de Aristóteles marco el tipo de

pensamiento transmitido a las mujeres españolas de la época.

En esta cultura Dios es masculino y las tres personas que conforman el misteriode la Trinidad también lo son. Es decir, el principio divino fue concebido como

proyección de la realidad social. Es omnipresente, omnisciente y eterno. Igualmente es

autosuficiente y perfecto.



En esta tradición la mujer no tiene razón de ser mas que para servir al hombrecomo una ayuda ya que los animales no le sirven para este propósito. La superioridaddel hombre en esta cultura, por lo tanto, queda fundamentada, justificada y establecida.

Platón en sus Diálogos elucida la cuestión del origen del hombre, tan solo como

varón, la mujer surge como una degradación, como el resultado del pecado masculino,la mujer es un hombre disminuido. Aristóteles marco la pauta de la filosofía medieval y

proporciono el marco conceptual en el que se desenvolvió la cotidianidad femenina dela época. La naturaleza femenina, en esta concepción, esta siempre en relación con lamasculina, lo femenino es una excrecencia y accidente del ser humano que esmasculino, la define como un varón frustrado, por esto resulta que:

(…) entre los sexos, el macho es por naturaleza superior y la hembra inferior, el primero debe por naturaleza mandar y la segunda obedecer (Política, libro I, Cáp. III)

La incapacidad deliberativa de la mujer le impide la felicidad porque no puedegozar de los bienes espirituales: la sabiduría y la filosofía, tampoco de la virtud que seidentifica con el bien ni la prudencia, que la llevaría a tener comprensión y juicio recto.En resumen la mujer por su condición no puede llegar a ser sabia, ni buena, ni justa y

por lo tanto, tampoco dichosa. La única posibilidad abierta para estos seres imperfectosde alcanzar la felicidad y la virtud es la obediencia y sumisión. Debido a que lofemenino en inferior a lo masculino, la relación entre ellos será de subordinación. Elmacho por su parte esta siempre en relación de superioridad con respecto a la hembra(también lo decía Platón en su Política) En este también se establece la divisan deltrabajo y relega a la mujer al trabajo manual el cual es inferior y despreciable. Tambiénrequiere que se le eduque y se regule legalmente la situación de la mujer en la polis,aunque no se le de categoría de ciudadano porque ella solo es hábil para la obedienciaya que el “buen ciudadano debe tener conocimiento y la capacidad tanto de obedecer como de mandar”, la excelencia solo la podrá alcanzar el varón, la mujer es incapaz. Eltrabajo para el cual esta únicamente capacitada es despreciable. Su posición social esúnicamente al nivel del esclavo, no puede participar en la vida contemplativa porque notiene capacidad racional y a la vida política no puede incorporarse puesto que no esciudadano y no tiene el derecho de propiedad, entonces solo le resta vivir como esclavoen perfecta sumisión, pues la vida voluptuosa, que podría ser otra de sus alternativas,tiene algunas restricciones para ella.

Las implicaciones que se desprenden nos muestran una esencia femenina

inferior, debida a la superioridad esencial del varón por lo que la mujer se encuentrasupeditada a el en todos los ámbitos y podrá desarrollar solo lo que el le permita.

(La concepción europea de la mujer esta dada por la religión cristiana y por losescritos de Aristóteles y Platón. Por el lado de la religión cristiana la mujer esconsiderada una excrescencia del hombre, el resultado del pecado del hombre. Dios esmasculino y el hombre fue hecho a su imagen y semejanza, la mujer fue hecha enfunción de las necesidades del varón, solo como una ayuda al hombre, fue nombrada enfunción del hombre. De Platón se ve que la mujer es un hombre disminuido, la relaciónde la mujer hacia el hombre es solo de subordinación, la mujer no es ciudadano, no

puede tener cabida en la Política porque no es inteligente, ni puede tener propiedad, la

mujer solo debe obedecer al varón.)



La educación de la Mujer Mesoamericana.

En la familia la mujer recibia desde pequeña el aprendizaje del oficio mujeril: el hilado,el tejido, la preparación de los alimentos y todo lo que se referia al trabajo en el hogar.En lo individual el ideal femenino y las virtudes inherentes eran la oracion y devocion alos dioses, la laborisidad, el recato, la fidelidad, la entereza de carácter, y el valor ante ladiversidad. Los padres les daban largos discursos una vez llegada la edad y estoscorrespondian al sexo y posición. Tanto padre como madre hablaban a sus hijas. Se lesincitaba a ser trabajadoras, “siendo perezosa y negligente y boba seras maltratada yaborrecida”. La madre le decia como debia comportarse: “Mira que tus vestidos seanhonestos y limpios, de manera que ni parezcas fantastica ni vil, no te apresures en elhablar, que tu palabra sea honesta y de buen sonido y la voz mediana, no seas curiosa entus palabras, no andes con apresuramiento ni con demasiado espacio por que es señal de

pompa andar despacio y el andar deprisa tiene resabio de desasosiego y poco asiento. No lleves la boca cubierta o la cara con vergüenza, anda con asiego y con honestidad por la calle. Mira a todos con cara serena, muestra tu cara y tu disposición comoconviene y de la manera que conviene, de manera que ni lleves el semblante comoenojada ni como risueña. Le decia que no hiciera caso de chismes

Women in colonial times in Mexico

Ramos-Escandon (1995) talks about the work of Marcela Tostado-Gutierrez who writes

on women in the colonial times in Mexico documenting the variety of women’s ways

of live and behaviour in the novo-Hispanic society. Colonial time in Mexico is one of

the best documented époques; this compilation comprehends forty essays, 12 of them

are primary resources. However, this compilation is excessively based on the works of

Pilar Gonzalbo and Silvia Arrom whose excellent books are easily accessible and,

according to Ramos-Escandon, they don’t have to be included in an anthology that

pretends to spread out historical documents. What is important in this anthology is the

portrayal of the innumerable ways of being a woman in colonial times. Tostado-

Gutierrez presents too many feminine faces, of diverse colour, class and mentality. She

rescues them in their multiple activities and states: work, procreation, marriage,

entourage, divorce, widowhood, education, and above all, mestizaje , it is a prove that



the sexual moral and juridical apparatus that rule it was not useful to prevent the

growing of groups and social classes of varied ethnicities.

Colonial women are portrayed here as creators of a different tradition which synthesizes

the Mesoamerican indigenous and Spanish renaissance tradition. According to Tostado-

Gutierrez the culture and social diversity is diminished due to gender relations since

women acted as key agents in the process of cultural and ethnic mestizaje . In this sense

colonial women of diverse condition shared the cultural and ideological meaning that

colonial society gave to sexual differences and biological functions. However, this

perspective of continuity and cultural and ethnic mestizaje , contradicts some postulates

of the same author in the sense that she also presents colonial society as a mosaic of

social and ethnics contrasts . Thus, the reader wonders how, if the different social

classes were too dissimilar and even antagonic, the difference in class and ethnicity

disappear in front of the gender continuities. In this sense, Tostado-Gutierrez contradicts

herself when she points out, on one hand, the class and ethnic diversification and, on the

other hand the universal gender identity. If gender is a social construction the

variations in diverse classes, and regions had to be best understood and signalized.

The book “Amor y desamor” which was a by-product of the workshop on history of

mentalities in the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico, focus on

the conflicts and personal histories of colonial couples. The introduction made by

Sergio Ortega clearly locates the meaning of love in the colonial society and informs us

how the prescriptions on how, why and who to love operated at that time. It is a

description of historical character of the love sentiment. It demonstrates how this

sentiment is a product of culture, but more importantly it reflects how the novo-

Hispanic society exerts social control on the individuals when it prescribes specific



behaviours on the proper and non-proper in the couple relations, in this sense it is a

good contribution about the history of inter-generic relationships. The complex relation

between individual and society are also manifest when the author analyzes the ‘deviant’

loving sentiment. The essays are based on inquisitorial sources. The themes that are

analyzed refer to problems in the free election of your partner, the non-love among the

couples and even among clericals, the bigamy and licentiousness, the lack of love and

the contrast between venal and conjugal love. The venal love in Colonial society was

seen as deviant in front of the prescribed model of Christian marriage. Ana Maria

Antondo makes an analysis of prostitution in Colonial Mexico, according to Ramos-

Escandon it is the best analysis on that theme of that period. Atondo points out the

difference between indigenous and Spanish society regarding prostitution and also she

analyzes the socialization webs in which prostitution takes place. To analyze

prostitution, the author uses Foucault perspective on the relation between social and

sexual repression and this allows her to examine prostitution as a social phenomenon

that depends on the temporal variations that she carefully explores describing the

actions of the different actors: women, their clients, their pimps; the estate and the

church as rulers of the actions among the actors. The result is that the prostitution in

colonial times is a domestic issue and the Crown as well as the church tolerates it

seeing it as a necessary calamity . This tolerant attitude changes at the middle of

XVII century when, according to Atondo, in the New Spain appears a new puritan

strand that makes that the church and, above all, the Crown to confine sexuality to

stricter legal rules forbidding not only prostitution but also its exploitation which

benefits pimps . More interesting is the fact that Spanish women were the more frequent

and wanted prostitutes, they were better paid in Colonial Mexico than in Spain, so it

was an incentive to them to immigrate to the New Spain. In the colonial mentality there



was a confusion between amancebamiento and prostitution, more even, the word

‘prostitution; appears not until 1700, even though the phenomenon of venal love existed

since much more before in New Spain. The author demonstrates how the relation

between genders is, above all, a social relation and explains how the relations

between pimps and ‘public’ women superimpose to both ethnic and class

inequality . This book is a truly contribution to the history of gender relations in

Mexico. The author demonstrates how women and men are subject to different

ways of personal behaviour according to what society is prescribing to them.

Either men and women accept or question the assigned prescriptions; they are

anyways immersed in a social web . All this illustrious group of actors (pimps, the

government or ecclesiastic employees, the charming guys, the problematic boyfriends

and girlfriends, the bad marriages) shows that colonial society was even much more

deeply varied and fascinated .

[Me quedo con la idea que entre los estudios de la nueva historia de la mujer que quiere

‘historizar’ las relaciones de genero se encuentran estudios que hacen una rica y

detallada reexaminación de los comportamientos de hombres y mujeres, contrastándolos

con los preceptos morales, religiosos, sociales, políticos de las diferentes épocas. Y al

hacer esto lo que resalta es una multiplicidad de comportamientos, echando abajo mitos

muy arraigados en la sociedad mexicana, mitos a los que se llego gracias a estudios que

no contaban con este detalle o que se hicieron bajo otras perspectivas teóricas, pensando

en que las mujeres siempre fueron subordinadas de una u otra forma a los hombres]

(importante lo que me dijo hoy – 31 de mayo 2010—Helen Hambly. It is different when

women are subjects (en pocas palabras, estan empoderadas) and have consciousness of

their own lives even when they are still stay home mothers but they have the control on



their own life; than when they do not have consciousness of their position and situation

or cannot decide by themselves, or are not consciousness of the limitations and

advantages that they face)

Study on the situation of pre-Hispanic women

Tuñon-Pablos (1991) points out that in the study of the situation of pre-Hispanic women

two perspectives have prevailed: a) Mexican authors from the forties to seventies have

idealized the situation of pre-Hispanic women, conceding them a predominant role in

the indigenous societies; b) No-Mexicans anthropologists and ethno-historicists above

all those writing after 1968, consider that the classist and sexist character of pre-

Hispanic societies oppressed women as a class and as a gender. In spite of clarifying

this distinction, Tuñon, according to Ramos-Escandon (1995), does not make a clear

difference among the selected documents she used in her review, in this sense Ramos-

Escandon points out that Tunon’s work lacks a critic presentation of the documents

consulted, this makes difficult to weigh up their value as a resource

Importance of a new historical perspective assessing the changes and continuitiesin the Mexican women’s life

Ramos-Escandon (1995) in her article “Mujeres y Género en México: A mitad del

camino y de la década” points out the necessity of working on a new historical

perspective which allow us to assess the changes and continuities of Mexican women’s

lives.

Rodriguez, Maria de Jesus (1987) en su articulo “La Mujer y la Familia en la

Sociedad Mexica” muestra a la mujer Mexica como totalmente subordinada, esto se

contrapone a los estudios de Kellogg (1997) en donde señala la ideología de ‘gender



paralellism’ en la sociedad Mexica, Me parece que su interpretación diferente se debe a

las fuentes que cada una usa.



Kellogg, Susan (1997) “From Parallel and Equivalent to Separate but Unequal.Tenochca Mexica Women, 1500-1700” In: Schroeder, Susan; Stephanie Wood, andRobert Haskett (eds.) Indian Women of Early Mexico , USA: University of OklahomaPress: 125-143.

Landa de Pérez Cano, Concepción (1992) La Mujer Antes, Durante y Después de laConquista México: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Comisión Puebla y Centenario

López Austin, Alfredo (1984) Cuerpo humano e ideología, las concepciones de losantiguos nahuas, México; UNAM

Ramos Escandòn, Carmen (1995) “Mujeres y Género en México: A mitad del camino yde la década” In: Mexican Studies-Estudios Mexicanos

Rodríguez Maria de Jesús (1987) “La Mujer y la Familia en la Sociedad Mexica” In:Colegio de México (comp.). Presencia y Transparencia: La Mujer en la Historia deMéxico . México: El Colegio de México.

Silverblatt, Irene (1987 ) Moon, Sun, and Witches. Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru . USA: Princenton University Press.

Tuñon-Pablos, Enriqueta (1991) (comp.) El album de la Mujer. Epoca Prehispanica.Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

Annotated Bibliography, Gender Relations in Colonial Times and Further, Latina America and Mexico

Documents

Transcript of Annotated Bibliography, Gender Relations in Colonial Times and Further, Latina America and Mexico