Women In Colonial Latin America

The study of colonialism in Latin American history reveals the intricacies in which men and women were affected by a radical shift in their way of life. These changes affected all levels of gender, race, and class, although not equally. By incorporating gender studies into the historical analysis of the colonial era in Latin America, a larger picture emerges. Joan Scott provides insight into the study of gender by stating that a full analysis is understood by kinship relationship, political economy, symbols, normative claims, and subjective identity . Each of these elements in represented in primary and secondary documents regarding women in colonial Latin America. First, the book Moon, Sun, and Witches by Irene Silverblatt gives insight into how Spanish …show more content…
This colonization was first done by the Inca Empire upon the indigenous Andean people, and then by the Spanish conquerors who radically transformed life politically and economically. Initially, Andean culture was shaped by the notion Silverblatt describes as gender parallelism demonstrated in the ayllus, or communities, where ‘male and female labor was forming a unity necessary for the reproduction of social existence” . However, this system was undermined by the Spanish colonial system. The Spanish introduced notions of property ownership, land tenure, and tributes into the ayllus that unequally distributed amongst gender . This is illustrated through the burden placed on Andean peasantry to exist under the Spanish economic system. For example, all men had to pay tribute demands in the form of labor services, and women were also illegally placed under this system, forcing the peasantry into the Spanish market economy that no longer served under the gender parallelism . However, and Silverblatt explains this burden was not spread equally amongst genders because men had a way