This week’s reading starts with an assertion that I find to be both insightful and true: “In theory, freedom and equality are universal values…in practice, [they] are the product of local circumstances”. This more or less sets the mood for this week’s topic, as I personally found the category of citizenship and freedom to be interestingly compared between Cuba, Brazil, and the United States as it pertained to race, and (albeit only briefly discussed,) gender. The differences between slavery in the three regions corresponded to the treatment of people of African descent after emancipation had been reached in each country. The point made that in the United States the black population is, was, and always has been isolated within a single social system, a class of their own so to speak which happens to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, resonated with me as it expanded what I already knew to be true. Of course, it is obvious to most people who have lived or even visited the United States that something rotten continues to exist in the treatment and lack of social mobility that people of color but mainly African Americans experience. I have oftentimes wondered which qualities in particular make the United States feel so very wrong when it comes to racial relations and the tainted slavery past. What this week’s reading exposed to me by its comparison to Cuba and Brazil was that, in fact, most other countries did not continually segregate blacks in all dimensions in a way that affectively and forever placed them in a lower class of their own, riddled with stereotypes of savagery and less-ness. When Brazil did finally emancipate slaves, certain rights came with that, such as owning property, being able to vote, being able to marry into other races, etc. Similarly in Cuba, if one was to rise through business or education (though this was a very hard feat as a person of color,) they would be respected just the same as any other person. The racial class that the United States formed for blacks made both of these two scenarios impossible for emancipated slaves in the US.
On this note, a lot of ideas were brought into my head when I read the short section explaining how one of the largest and most reliable symbols of status and success for an elite in Latin America in the late 1800s was to marry a woman whiter than himself. This is, of course, horrifying. One of the facets of intersectional feminism that I feel strongly about is the disgusting beauty standards that have told women of color for centuries that they are below white women in terms of their physical appearance and, to some extent, their worth as a whole. It is heartbreaking and appalling when one imagines a six year old girl of color despising her kinky or curly hair, her darker pigment of skin, or otherwise her facial and bodily features which she has no control over, because they don’t match with the beauty standards of being a white woman. All women are beautiful, undeniably, and of course scientifically certain features hold no merit in desirability, i.e. white women are in no way more beautiful than women of color. Period. This section of the text thus made me question how far the roots of these beauty standards go back to. Not only does this passage assert that women are objects upon which to up one’s social status, but additionally states that women of color were undesirable and second-best. Really, really disgusting.
On this note, the two documents written by women in this week’s reading were interesting, and the disparity between the two made room for insights on the role of the Church in the development of Latin American feminism, and the sort of perhaps unknowing or subconscious self-hate expressed in the latter document written by Josephina Pelliza de Sagasta. It is always atrocious to read thoughts on women preserving their place in the home without access to higher education or a place in the workforce, and it is doubly appalling to hear a person assert that women should keep their livelihood to servitude towards men and children… regardless of the gender of the author. In this case it was a woman, writing in response to another woman. Throughout the text, she cited religious works as a reference point for all women but specifically Maria Eugenia Echenique to delve into to better understand the predicament of life on the planet as a woman. This of course made me curious as to whether or not anti-feminism and sexism would have occurred among women had the religious influence not been present, as women really have no power and control to gain by being sexist, rather their power would come in classism combined with sexism as they might look down upon those of the lower class.
