Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

The social movement of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (in translation: Mothers of the Plaza the Mayo) was founded during a dark period of Argentina’s history- the so called Dirty war. The Dirty war (Spanish: Guerra Sucia), which was also known as the Process of National Reorganization (Spanish: Proceso de Reorganización Nacional or El Proceso), was a period in which suspected dissidents and subversives where persecuted by the Argentine government. It started in roughly 1974 (although some sources…

the form of a group known as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. In 1977, fourteen women would march on the Plaza de Mayo in spite of the military ban on public gatherings. These women were demanding information on their missing children who disappeared as a “systematic effort by the government to rid Argentina of subversive elements” (Mercer, 1998). Initially, the government did not take the “mothers” seriously, calling them out as mothers who could not accept their children left…

Women’s Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean brings together a collaboration of authors with diverse scholarly backgrounds who analyze and present the narrative, vitality and success of women’s experiences, groups and agency in the Americas over the past four decades. The book can be broken apart into five different groups, family structure and globalization, women’s agency and experiences, advocating for social justice and gender’s shaping public policy, and female agency in politics…

Human rights abuses were very widespread in Chile during the 20th century. Much of the government and police force was said to be corrupt and did what it needed to do for money. In Pinochet in Power: Building a Regime of Repression it goes into much further detail about how these abuses took place. The United States CIA had a special briefing paper titled “Chilean Executions” that they passed along to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when they found out that the events were happening.1 It was…

upon the ideology that men are superior to women. One main concept at the beginning of our course reader was that of a "culture of fear" which caused the women of Argentina to create Las Madres, the mothers of the disappeared victims. It was respectable women who excepted their role as wives and mothers who were stepping up to the plate and taking political action saying right is right and wrong is wrong. As well as, believing that the woman's primary role was to nurture the family, and if that…

demonstrating a feminisation of resistance in Argentina. Similarly, much conflict surrounds social reproduction in the country. This being one of the many causes of resistances and a means of solution to the crisis. Through the movements of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the unemployed workers who became known as Piqueteros and lastly, the Ni Una Menos resistance. This politicisation of social reproduction and the feminisation of resistance…

genocidal Dirty War in Argentina. Both plays center around the eponymous heroine’s desire to bury her brother’s body regardless of the prohibition of the law. Specifically, in Antigona Furiosa, the heroine, Antigona, metonymically represents Madres de la Plaza de Mayo who aims to recover the bodies of their children inhumanely executed during the Dirty War. Many of their bodies were lost and have not been returned. In fact, differing from Sophocles’ Antigone,…

Similar to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz when she claims she would dress as a boy to attend the university. You see here that it is necessary for girls to find ways to alternate gender to be accepted. Ruth, owner of Illusion salon was kidnapped by traffickers as rumor tells in the story. Ruth would not be the only to be kidnapped by traffickers in the village. Paula, one of Ladydi’s friends in the village is describe as the most beautiful thing in all of Mexico by Clements. She to also is captured…

Imagine going months without seeing another face, another tree or anything at all. Imagine a place in which you can’t see but all you can hear are rude and nasty orders. Can you visualize a place that the government pays to torture you? Well, some Latin Americans can because they have experienced it. The very government they were dependent on for protection and stability sponsored their demise. The government enabled the military regime to act violently against civilians of Latin America.…

These women demanded human rights. A protest of mothers can represent a threat to dictatorship because they take their traditional roles of mother as a form of mechanism to protest. They will try and defend their children even if it means they have to take other means of defense. These women didn’t care to put their lives at risk all they wanted…