Volume 5, 2007 - Center for Women`s and Gender Studies

Making Waves
Women’s Studies Center
Florida International University
Volume 5, 2007
Maria Guerrero
Gisela Padron
Monica Sanchez
Advisory Board
Aurora Morcillo, Ph. D
Suzanna Rose, Ph. D
Beverly Thompson, Ph. D
Sponsors
Women’s Studies Center
Women’s Studies Board of Advisors
Iota Iota Iota– Women’s Studies Honor Society
Women’s Studies Student Association
i
Credits
Editors
FIU Women’s Studies Community Board of Advisors
Gayle Bainbridge (Chair of Board)
Marjorie H. Adler, Employee Relations Director, City
of Coral Gables
Carol Alexander, C.P.A., C.V.A.
Maria Anderson, Commissioner, City of Coral Gables
Elizabeth Baker, Esq., Baker & Cronig, LLP
Dr. Glenda Belote, Associate Dean, Undergraduate
Studies, FIU, (retired)
Roberta Fox, P.A., Law Offices of Roberta Fox
Evelyn Langlieb Greer, Hogan, Greer & Shapiro
Lorraine Lester, Esq., Julie A. Taylor & Associates
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
Maria Millheiser, Women’s Studies Alumna and Benefactor
Edith Osman, Carlton Fields, P.A.
Pat Klock Parker, The Klock Parker Group, Coldwell
Banker Real Estate
Mary Lou Pfeiffer, Lecturer , Honors College and
Religious Studies
Helena Venero, Co-owner VTI (Scientific Instruments)
ii
1
Mammy: The Symbol, the Myth, & the Commercial Icon
Taquesha Brannon
3
Male Identified Shorties: Towards a Culturally Specific
Understanding of African American Girl’s Self-Esteem
Jillian Hernandez
8
Hunting, Hawks, and the Breaking and Remarking of Strong
Shakespearean Women
Angelina Fadool
13
As A Woman Thinketh
Tiffany Yeomans
16
Women’s Studies Accomplishments
17
Women Artists
Angelica Clyman, Natasha Duwin, Jacqueline Gopie,
Vanessa Monokian, Wendy Ordonez
18
Women’s Studies Activities: People and Places
20
When We Were Kings
Jonathan Escoffrey
21
Women and a Liberating Islam in Sufism
Ivanessa Arostegui
22
Women’s Entrepreneurial Activity in Latin America and
Caribbean Countries
Victoria Kenny
25
Bunuel’s Version of Tristana and the Inversion of Power
Relations
Zoila Clark
31
Biographies
35
Contents
Feminism and Catholicism
Ana Karla Silva-Fernandez
Preface
Making Waves, the annual student journal of the
Women’s Studies Center at Florida International
University, provides students from all disciplines
the opportunity to display their literary and artistic work. Among other things, the journal is a
compilation of student presentations given at the
2006 Women’s Studies Student Conference. The
articles are put through a rigorous peer-review
process where the most competent works are chosen. Making Waves is mainly a student production whose main goals are to inspire and educate
other students to take an active part in the community.
This Fifth Edition of Making Waves also serves as
a yearbook of sorts, highlighting last year’s most
important events at the Women’s Studies Center.
A new feature of this year’s journal is the section,
“This is What a Feminist Looks Like,” where we
can observe that there are no limits in terms of
age, gender, race, or sexuality concerning who
identifies her or himself as a feminist. This
journal is intended to serve as a stepping stone
towards academic achievement and activism that
Florida International University students and the
South Florida community are capable of reaching.
iv
Feminism and Catholicism
By Ana Karla Silva-Fernandez
Dr. Morcillo was raised in a Spain of
strict Catholic rules of what was expected of
women. She admits she had conflict between her
faith and identifying as a feminist, but she was
not permitted to express the conflict, as she is a
product of Catholic influence. In the Catholic
Franco regime, but also in a dichotomous
environment, she came of age in the midst of the
women’s movement of the 60’s and 70’s.
Therefore, when asked about her first gender
epiphany while growing up, she responded very
steadfastly “there was none.” Growing up in an
all-girl Catholic school saved her from
experiencing the boys-only routine and coming of
age in the second wave of the women’s liberation
movement, she foresaw equality.
It was with determination that Dr.
Morcillo, after receiving her B.A. in History, wrote
to several different schools throughout the globe,
in an attempt to flee a definite destiny: to work as
a teller in a bank, since professorship in Spain is
almost impossible to achieve unless “you know
the right people.” She was then accepted for her
graduate studies at the University of New
Mexico, where she met her husband and later
became a mother. Subsequently, she moved to
Florida with her family, where she was hired by
Florida International University as a Professor for
the Women’s Studies and History departments.
Dr. Aurora Morcillo is the embodiment of
my dreams. A foreigner in this country myself,
with my –I like to say- cute and charming accent,
it is twice as hard to prove myself capable:
because I am a woman and because I am of
foreign origin. I have learned from my interaction
with Dr. Morcillo that determination, hard work,
and a little spunk can go a long way. I identify
with her in our Catholicism and Catholic school
education, in being determined not to accept the
status quo --for I also decided I wanted more by
Culture, nationality, and personal
experiences contribute to significant differences
in how a woman experiences gender, sex, and
sexuality. Although some events related to
gender can be distinct among women of varying
cultural backgrounds, some are unique even
among women from the same neighborhood.
Pre-conceptions are then eliminated on the basis
that generalizations can not be based solely on
geographical location and each individual should
be looked upon for what s/he is: an individual.
Dr. Aurora Morcillo grew up in Granada,
Spain, under Francisco Franco’s regime. To
understand the environment in which she was
raised, I quote her own words from the book
True, Catholic Womanhood:
“To establish a sound political
consensus, the Francoist regime used
the educational system as a means of
indoctrination in the new NationalCatholic ideals. Coeducation was
proscribed, and the younger
generation was educated in gendersegregated schools that thwarted the
later encounter of men and women at
the university level. In the official
propaganda, college education for
women was regarded as an assault
on their authentic feminine destiny: to
become wives and mothers under the
new state.” (Morcillo, 1999)
It was in this gender segregated
environment that Morcillo was born. The eldest of
three siblings, born to working class parents,
Morcillo attended the same gender-segregated
Catholic school she mentions in her book. This
was a contrived environment, as boys
intermingled with the girls only at mass, fueling
the girls’ curiosity, as boys were not, for the most
part, a part of the girls’ everyday affairs.
1
professor’s life is one that produces fruit in the
lives of students without knowledge of those
seeds being sewn. I admire strong women like
her who, without preaching or big speeches,
teach with a smile, a kind word, and tales of life
experiences, of fears and doubts. With this
interview, I realized what profession I want to
pursue. I have learned I want to be a professor.
moving to a different country-- in our tolerant
views on homosexuality, abortion, and on
heterosexuality and marriage. In the few classes
I have had Dr. Morcillo as my professor, I have
learned that being bubbly and spunky is not in
contradiction to with being intelligent. She also
dismantled invisible obstacles I had created for
myself, such as that of a language barrier. A
References:
Morcillo, Aurora. True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco’s Spain. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois UP, 1999.
Morcillo, Aurora. Personal Interview. September 30th 2006.
2
MAMMY: THE SYMBOL, THE MYTH, &
THE COMMERCIAL ICON
By Taquesha Brannon
Mammy is a stereotypical caricature of black women being happy to serve in domesticity. This paper
explores the historical symbol of Mammy and how this image came about in the Old South, and critically
analyzes the Mammy myths and how Mammy became a commercial icon in movies, books, and television
commercials, and asserts the need for a discourse that accepts women as multifaceted individuals who are
not just confined to being labeled as “sex objects” or “domestics.”
Class folklore, literature, and songs
romanticize the Old South and portray it as a rosy
paradise where people lived in peace and harmony.
In the antebellum South, the dominant White culture
promoted the myth that slavery was not a horrific
institution because slaves were happy. The
propaganda during the antebellum era portrayed
slaves as being content with serving their masters
and as docile people who sat around eating nothing
but watermelon. It was also during the antebellum
period that slaves were stigmatized with degrading
and negative stereotypes. Slave women in particular
were stereotyped as the Jezebel, the Mammy, or the
Sapphire. For example, Mammy was portrayed as
being eager to serve in her domestic role, which
consisted of caring for White families’ needs.
According to J. Stanley Lemons’ article,
Black Stereotypes as Reflected in Popular Culture,
1880-1920, “In this changing climate1, the South
symbolized a land of milk and honey, a land of peace,
plenty, and love” (1977, p.110). Yet, the reality was
that the Old South’s atmosphere was far from being
the land of milk and honey. Slavery was a brutal
institution in which slaves were not happy. Also,
contrary to popular beliefs, Mammy was not content
with serving White families. Indeed, my research will
look at the historical background on the Mammy
symbol by examining what Mammy represents,
scrutinizing the Mammy myths, and illustrating how
Mammy became a controversial commercial icon.
To begin with, Mammy was created by White
Southerners because they wanted an image of black
females that was both ideal and less threatening to
White women. According to Deborah Gray White,
author of Ar’n’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the
Plantation South, “In the long run Mammy was of
special importance to Southern perceptions, for she
reflected two traditions perceived as positive by
Southerners—that of the idealized slave and that of
the idealized woman” (1999, p. 61). Mammy was
ideal because she represented the model black
female who was obedient and enjoyed domestic
servitude. Additionally, Mammy was seen as being
less threatening to White women because she was
portrayed as being unattractive and nurturing. This
image of Mammy comforted White women because
they felt that they would not have to worry about their
husbands being sexually attracted to Mammy.
According to Dr. David Pilgrim’s article, The Mammy
Caricature, “The mammy caricature was deliberately
constructed to suggest ugliness. Mammy was
portrayed as dark-skinned, often pitch black, in a
society that regarded black skin as ugly and tainted.
She was obese, sometimes morbidly overweight”
(2000, p. 2). Mammy was desexualized so that she
would not be looked upon as being sexually enticing
to White men. The fact that Mammy was
desexualized points to a deeper issue in which White
women felt intimidated by the thought of black women
being sexually appealing. White women were
represented as the ideal standard of beauty and if
black women were seen as being attractive, this
would challenge White women’s sexuality and
supposed superiority over black women. Significantly
1
“Changing climate” refer to the notion that
slavery was not a happy institution and that the Old
South was not a pleasant place to live, especially for
blacks, because they were exploited and mistreated.
3
than 10 percent of black women lived beyond fifty
years)” (2000, p. 2). The dominant White culture in
the twentieth century wanted to promote the idea that
Mammy was dark-skinned because dark skin was
associated with ugliness. Mixed raced black women
were seen as a threat because lighter skin was
associated with beauty. Therefore, lighter skinned
females were more sexually desirable, increasing
their vulnerability to being sexually exploited by their
masters. Although Mammy was typically skinny
because her slave masters deprived her of food and
young because her life expectancy was short, the
stereotypical representation of Mammy persists in
books and films because the dominant group refused
to socially accept black as being beautiful.
Contrary to the Jezebel image, Mammy is
stereotyped as asexual, which makes her the model
black female: a maternal and a nurturing caregiver.
For instance, Deborah Gray White stated, “She6 was
not just a product of the ‘cultural uplift’ theory,7 she
was also a product of the forces that in the South
raised motherhood to sainthood” (1999, p. 58). Since
White Southerners constructed an image of Mammy
as a saint, they found it difficult to view Mammy as a
sexual being. The irony is that Mammy was seen as a
mother figure but the undeniable truth is that mothers
are sexual beings too, as children are obviously a
result of sexual intercourse. Yet, black men’s
masculinity is rooted in their sexuality; whereas.
Mammy’s femininity is rooted in her purity. According
to bell hooks, author of Black Looks: Race and
Representation, “A sexually defined masculine ideal
rooted in physical domination and sexual possession
of women could be accessible to all men. Hence,
even unemployed black men could gain status, could
be seen as the embodiment of masculinity, within a
phallocentric framework” (1992, p. 94). Although the
White patriarchal society viewed black men’s
sexuality as threatening, they also saw it as
masculine. The White patriarchal society’s views
about black men’s sexuality is contradictory because
on one hand, they feared black men’s supposedly
during this time, the mixing of the races was seen as
deviant; therefore, Anti-miscegenation laws were
established to ban Whites from marrying or engaging
in sexual intercourse with blacks. Yet race mixing was
difficult to control because White men, such as
Thomas Jefferson, were notoriously known for
fathering children with female slaves. Clearly, Mammy
was desexualized to calm the fears of White women
who wanted to sustain their families’ supposed White
purity.
Furthermore, the myth that Mammy was
unattractive was false because White men were
sexually attracted to her. Dr. Pilgrim noted that, “The
mammy caricature tells many lies; in this case, the lie
is that White men did not find black women sexually
desirable” (2000, p. 2). White men, especially slave
masters, were attracted to black women and their
wives disapproved of their husbands’ behavior. For
instance, White2 stated, “Obsequious behavior was,
therefore, more of a must for them3, and the pretty4,
even the comely5, could never rest easy once the
master’s sons reached puberty, or the master himself
developed a roving eye” (1999, p. 50). Unfortunately,
during the antebellum time, White men wanted to give
the impression that slavery was both a happy and
good institution. However, the truth was that slavery
was very demoralizing because White men sexually
exploited black slaves. For instance, slave masters
would have black females stand in sexually
provocative positions when they whipped them. Also,
there were many cases in which White men raped
black women and fathered their children. Sadly, black
women were vulnerable because they were always
under the threat of being raped by White men.
Literature and advertisements created in the
first half of the twentieth century usually portrayed
Mammy as being dark-skinned, old, and overweight
because this was seen as unattractive and sexually
undesirable. Mammy was neither old nor obese. As
Dr. Pilgrim indicated, “Patricia Turner, professor of
African American and African Studies, claims that
house servants were usually mixed raced, skinny
(blacks were not given much food), and young (fewer
6
“She,” refers to Mammy.
The “cultural uplift” theory applies to Mammy
because she was supposed to be a positive
representation of blacks; however, her stereotypical
image was harmful to how blacks were portrayed in
the dominant White culture. Instead of uplifting the
black community, her image degraded blacks,
particularly women, because Mammy represents
domestic servitude.
7
2
Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman?:
Female Slaves in the Plantation South
(London: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1999).
3
“Them” refers to the master and his sons.
4
“The pretty” refers to attractive female slaves.
5
“The comely” refers to average-looking female
slaves.
4
the Black female subaltern” (2001, p. 882). White
males maintained their hierarchy of power by keeping
black women obedient. Furthermore, black women
did not consent to domestic servitude because
slavery was not a voluntary institution. Additionally,
White men used the Bible to justify that slavery was
right because they believed that blacks were placed
on the earth to serve them. For instance, Simms
noted, “Stringfellow teaches masters that it is not only
appropriate but godly for slaves to serve them
voluntarily, and that they, while remaining indisputably
in authority, should be kind to their charges” (2001, p.
884). This notion is very disturbing because the
ideology was that black women were kept in their
place through domestic servitude, which ensured that
White men remained dominant in society.
Besides the many myths surrounding the
Mammy caricature, I have found several interesting
articles and books that depict Mammy as a
controversial commercial icon. Historically, black
actresses, such as Hattie McDaniel,10 Ethel Waters,11
and Louise Beavers,12 have been typecast into
Mammy roles, in which they played maids in major
Hollywood films. For instance, Daniel J. Leab, author
of From Sambo to Superspade: The Black
Experience in Motion Pictures, noted, “American films
generally depicted blacks in a menial capacity.
According to a survey based on films reviewed by
Variety between 1915 and 1920, over 50 percent of
the black characters were maids, stableboys, and the
like” (1975, p. 42). Despondently, Hollywood directors
and producers only gave black women and men roles
that pertained to domestic servitude. This also
suggested that the dominant White culture felt that
blacks’ roles in society were subordinate because
Hollywood studios only allowed blacks to play
characters in films that performed domestic work. For
example, Leab stated, “And during the 1920s more
uncontrollable sexual appetites and on the other
hand, they applauded black men for having sex with
multiple women, which is linked to masculinity. The
underlying notion is that White men feel that is
acceptable for black men to sleep with several
women; however, the line is drawn when black men
have sex with White women, who are considered the
“forbidden fruit.”8
Aside from the myths that have desexualized
Mammy, there is the myth that Mammy catered more
to the White families that she took care of than to her
own family. According to Deborah Gray White, “This
is Genovese’s view. He noted that Mammy was
probably not nearly as ‘White-washed’ as the legend
has it… She served White folks well, but she was
ever-mindful of the well-being of her own family”
(1999, p. 55). The White patriarchal society created
an image of Mammy as being submissive, and in this
obedient position, Mammy’s main priority was to take
care of the White family’s needs. Also, Mammy was
supposedly so happy to serve her White family that
her own family’s needs were secondary. This, of
course, was false because Mammy did regard her
own family well. The literature likes to say that
Mammy abandoned her own family. However, the
truth was that she spent a lot of time away from own
family because she had to involuntarily9 work for
White families.
Moreover, the dominant White culture felt that
Mammy was subordinate and that it was her duty to
serve her master’s family. According to Rupe Simms’
article, Controlling Images and the Gender
Construction of Enslaved African Women, “The
Mammy image contributed to the stability of White
male domination by portraying an ideal type of the
Black female slave in her relationship with her master.
Through her genuine devotion to servitude and
consent to subordination, the Mammy exemplified the
ruling class definition of White male superiority and
10
Hattie McDaniel was typecast as playing
Mammy roles in movies. Notably, McDaniel was the
first African- American woman to win an Oscar for
her role in Gone With the Wind (1939).
11
Ethel Waters was also typecast as playing
Mammy roles in films. Waters was only nominated
for an Academy Award and one of her most
memorable roles was in the movie, Pinky (1949), in
which she played a maid.
12
Louise Beavers like McDaniel and Waters was
typecast as “Mammy” in movies. She was best
remembered for her role as a maid in Imitation of Life
(1934).
8
White women were considered the “forbidden
fruit” because Anti-Miscegenation laws and
segregation were setup to keep blacks and Whites
from having sexual relations with each other or
marrying each other. Loving vs. Virginia (1967)
made it legal for blacks and Whites to marry.
9
I used the word “involuntary” to signify that
Mammy’s position as a maid or house servant was
not voluntary because slavery was an involuntary
institution in which slaves did not have a choice
where he or she worked. Some slaves were forced to
do hard labor in the fields.
5
questions indicated that the Pinesol Lady reminded
them of Mammy. The responses also indicated that
the Pinesol Lady, like Aunt Jemima and Mammy,
perpetuated the stereotype that black women enjoyed
cleaning because it was supposedly their duty.
Another fascinating thing was that the Pinesol Lady
was obese, which suggests that overweight women
belonged in servitude. The students stated that if the
Pinesol Lady was slim, then she would be viewed as
being attractive, and this notion would not fit into the
stereotypical representation of black women in
servitude. Indeed, this article showed that the Mammy
caricature is still promoted in commercials and the
disturbing thing is that this image continues to
stigmatize black women.
In spite of everything, negative media
representations of black women in television
commercials and films have harmed black women’s
own images of themselves. Notably, Fuller stated,
“The social consequences of the resurgence of the
mammy or Aunt Jemima are serious, not only
because of the social messages they disseminate but
also because of the impact on the self-concept and
self-esteem of Black females” (2000, p.130). It is
unfortunate that the dominant White culture
possesses negative attitudes towards black women;
however, I think that the real danger is when black
women internalize societal messages. All women in
general feel self-conscious about their bodies
because the White patriarchal society wants women
to fit into an unrealistic body image that is difficult to
obtain. According to bell hooks, author of Feminism is
for Everybody: Passionate Politics, “Before women’s
liberation all females young and old were socialized
by sexist thinking to believe that our value rested
solely on appearance and whether or not we were
perceived to be good looking, especially by men”
(2000, p. 31). Unfortunately, we live in a society in
which women are judged on their appearance rather
than on their capabilities. The Mammy image is
particularly difficult for black women to shed because
society constantly says that blacks, especially
women,
belong
in
domestic
servitude.
Psychologically, black women have internalized
society’s perceptions of them, which have ultimately
harmed their self-esteem. For instance, hooks
suggested, “Understanding that females could never
be liberated if we did not develop healthy self-esteem
and self-love, feminist thinkers went directly to the
heart of the matter—critically examining how we feel
and think about our bodies and offering constructive
than 80 percent were some kind of subordinate help”
(1975, p. 42). Certainly, the statistics showed that the
number of roles in which blacks were cast as maids
or butlers increased in the 1920s and this also
signified the heightened attitudes of Whites believing
that blacks belonged in domestic servitude.
Typically in most Hollywood films during the
1920s, Mammy was portrayed as a confidant and
friend to the leading White actress. Mammy’s main
role was to aid the damsel in distress, who was a
White actress. According to Hollywood standards, the
White actress was cast to play an attractive woman
who fit into the dominant White culture’s standard of
beauty, which was blonde hair and blue eyes. As I
mentioned earlier, Mammy was stereotyped as being
unattractive and Hollywood studios would have an
overweight black actress play the role of Mammy. The
dominant White culture did not think that being black
or overweight fit into their standard of beauty. Yet,
beyond Hollywood studios perpetuating the
stereotype that White skin color symbolizes, “beauty”
and that black skin color represents “ugliness,” the
Mammy image was popularized during the Great
Depression. This was because Hollywood studios felt
that her character would uplift the spirits of Americans
who went to the movies in order to escape their
everyday realties. For instance, Bogle stated, “What
blacks in the Mae West films represented was the
second step in servant evolution—the domestic
servant as trusted good friend. In some of the Shirley
Temple features, audiences witnessed the first signs
of the humanization of the black domestic” (1973, p.
46). Clearly, Mammy’s nurturing role made her
appear more human to White people because she
was not just seen as their maid, but as their friend,
too. Although the dominant White culture came to
view Mammy as a trustworthy confidant, they sadly
continued objectifying her in domestic servitude.
From the antebellum period to the twentieth
century, and unfortunately even in the twenty-first
century, the images of black women on television
werestill stereotypical. I thought that Lorraine Fuller’s
article, Are We Seeing Things? The Pinesol Lady and
the Ghost of Aunt Jemima (2001), was brilliantly
researched because she conducted an experiment in
which she used black college students who were
majoring in communications to watch a commercial
and analyze the similarities that the Pinesol Lady
shared with Aunt Jemima and Mammy. Fuller asked
the students four questions based upon their
evaluation of the commercial, and the response to the
6
References:
strategies for change” (2000, p. 31). Unquestionably,
it is critical that black women, and all women for that
matter, foster a strong sense of themselves in order
to combat the oppression13 that society places on
them.
Hence, Mammy is a stereotypical image that
perpetuated the belief that slavery was a happy
institution. Mammy represented what the dominant
White culture saw as the model black woman, one
who was obedient and enjoyed domestic servitude.
For instance, Mammy Louise, a character in Marsha
L. Leslie’s play, The Trial of One Short-Sighted
Woman, stated, “That’s the problem. Because what
the world accepts ain’t always the truth” (Euell, 1997,
p. 673).14 Nevertheless, the Mammy caricature
continues to be misrepresented in popular culture and
this propaganda has negatively promoted the idea
that the only suitable work for black women is
domestic servitude. Above all, I think that it is time for
the dominant White culture to break the chains of
their oppression on all women and finally see women
as multifaceted individuals who are not just confined
to being labeled as “sex objects” or “domestics.”
Bogle, Donald (1973). Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and
Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films.
New York: The Continuum Publishing Company.
Euell, Kim (Winter 1997). Signifying Ritual: Subverting
Stereotypes, Salvaging Icons. African American Review, 31,
667-675.
Fuller, Lorraine (Sept. 2001). Are We Seeing Things? The Pinesol
Lady and the Ghost of Aunt Jemima. Journal of Black
Studies, 32,120-131.
Hooks, Bell (1992). Black Looks: Race and Representation.
Boston: South End Press.
Hooks, Bell (2000). Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate
Politics. Cambridge: South End Press.
Leab, Daniel J (1975). From Sambo to Superspade: The Black
Experience in Motion Pictures. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
Lemons, J. Stanley (Spring 1977). Black Stereotypes as
Reflected in Popular Culture, 1880- 1920. American
Quarterly, 29, 102-116.
Pilgrim, David, Ph.D. (Oct. 2000). The Mammy Caricature. (Ferris
State University), 1-7.
Simms, Rupe (Dec. 2001). Controlling Images and the Gender
Construction of Enslaved African Women. Gender and
Society, 15, 879-897.
White, Deborah Gray (1999). Ar’n’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves
in the Plantation South. New York and London: W.W. Norton
and Company, Inc.
13
“Oppression” refers to the pressure that
society places on women to obtain the supposedly
perfect body.
14
Kim Euell. “Signifying Ritual: Subverting
Stereotypes, Salvaging Icons.” African American
Review Vol. 31, No. 4, Contemporary Theatre Issue
(Winter 1997): 667-675.
7
Male-Identified “Shorties”: Towards a Culturally Specific
Understanding of African American Girls’ Self Esteem
By Jillian Hernandez
Shorty wanna ride with me, ride with me
Let your hair down
You said you wanted a thug don’t be scared now
Shorty wanna ride with me, ride with me
You can be my wife but only for tonight
Get your ass on this bike
I’ll show you I can ride
--Young Buck “Shorty Wanna Ride”
Male-Identified Shorties explores the “myth” of African-American girls’ high self-esteem that was generated
by the American Association of University Women’s 1990 study, Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging
America. The root of this myth is linked to colonial paradigms and the objectification of women in Hip Hop
culture. The paper constructs a framework for understanding African American girls’ self-esteem in order to
enable psychologists, girl’s advocates, and social service professionals to effectively address their needs.
feeling “pretty good at a lot of things” at
nearly the rate of White boys. The one
exception for African American girls is
their feelings about school: black girls
are more pessimistic about both their
teachers and their schoolwork than
other girls (Orenstien 2000; p. xxi).”
The American Association of University
Women (AAUW) conducted a study in 1990 of
approximately three thousand girls and boys,
ages 9-15 of diverse backgrounds, in order to
examine the impact of gender on their selfconfidence, academic interests, and career
goals. The AAUW results were the impetus for
the book Schoolgirls: Young Women, SelfEsteem, and the Confidence Gap, by Peggy
Orenstein, in which she states,
“Among its most intriguing findings, the
AAUW survey revealed that, although all
girls report consistently lower selfesteem than boys, the severity and the
nature of that reduced self-worth vary
among ethnic groups. Far more African
American girls retain their overall selfesteem during adolescence than White
or Latina girls, maintaining a stronger
sense of both personal and family
importance. They are about twice as
likely to be “happy with the way I am”
than girls of other groups and report
The widespread attention the study received
perpetuated the myth of African American girls’
high self-esteem as related to body image and
lower academic self-esteem. Sexual scripts
produced by Hip Hop culture have also
contributed to this myth by providing a maleidentified model of sexual freedom for young
African American women that is limited in its
potential for empowerment. This essay will
examine the need for culturally specific
approaches to researching adolescent African
American girls and the colonial paradigms
underlying current stereotypes about their selfesteem. The conclusion proposes approaches
that could be implemented by psychologists,
8
preference for “thick” girls (curvaceous,
voluptuous girls) but the survey assumes that
African American girls are insulated from the
dominant culture’s worship of White, thin, blonde
females. African American girls attend integrated
schools, live in integrated communities and are
subject to the same mass media images as
White girls. Obese girls or girls perceived by the
dominant culture as overweight are still subject to
judgment and humiliation in both Black and White
peer groups. The myth of African American girls’
self-esteem may also be contributing to a health
problem. The NCES reported that 15% of African
American female high school students are
overweight compared with 5% of White girls
(Freeman 2004: p. 47). Even the desired
“thickness” of girls of color has a limit. The ideal
form is manifested in women who appear in Hip
Hop music videos. These women often have
large breasts, tiny waists, and voluptuous legs,
thighs and buttocks.
The dichotomy between the high selfesteem of African American girls in reference to
personal importance and lower self-esteem than
other groups in their academic abilities appears
to have developed from an underlying colonial
paradigm. This paradigm is articulated by Dionne
P. Stephens and Layli D. Phillips in the paper,
“Freaks, Gold Diggers, Divas, and Dykes: The
Sociohistorical Development of Adolescent
African American Women’s Sexual Scripts”, in
which they discuss Sarah Bartmann, the
Hottentot Venus, and the pseudo-scientific
anatomical findings of the European doctors who
examined her. “Drawing on his Darwinist biases
and expertise in zoology, Cuvier made
interpretations that became the basis of sexual
scripts for women of African descent—primitive,
wild, sexually uninhibited, and exotic (FaustoSterling 1995). Thus, Sarah became the bedrock
of African female sexuality, reinforcing the exotic,
animal image that separated people of African
descent from Whites” (Stephens and Phillips
2003: p.7). The link between the high self-esteem
of African American girls that has been
interpreted by the popular culture as relating to
body image and their low academic self-esteem
in comparison to White girls may stem from the
stereotype of Black women as being more sexual
and less cerebral than White girls. The myth of
African American girls’ self-esteem hurts girls of
social scientists and girls’ advocates to challenge
this myth and ensure that the needs of
adolescent African American girls are being
properly met.
The AAUW survey used an index of
statements to measure respondent self-esteem
that consisted of; I am happy with the way I am; I
like the way I look; I like most things about
myself. The study found that 22% of White
female high school students stated they were
“happy with the way I am,” in comparison to 58%
of female African American students. Although
adolescent African American girls appear to
possess higher self-esteem than White girls it
does not translate into higher levels of
educational attainment. For example, the
National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES)
2004 study, Trends in Educational Equity of Girls
and Women: 2004 found that more African
American girls drop out of high school than their
White counterparts (Freeman 2004, p.56). The
study also reported that 7% of African American
girls between the ages of 5-12 repeated at least
one grade since starting school in contrast to 4%
of White girls (Freeman 2004: p.40).
It is necessary to analyze the possible
flaws in the AAUW survey in regards to cultural
specificity that may not have been taken into
account. The survey results do not consider the
culturally specific ideals of Hip Hop and R&B,
which has been a major pop culture phenomenon
since the mid-1990s in addition to assuming that
White middle-class ideals don’t affect minority
groups. This disconnect can be linked to Richard
L. Allen’s discussion of “double consciousness”
in his book, The Concept of Self: A Study of
Black Identity and Self-Esteem, in which he
quotes W.E. B. Du Bois’ characterization of the
condition as, “…this sense of always looking at
one’s self through the eyes of others, of
measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that
looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever
feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro—two
souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings,
two warring ideals in one dark body,…” (Allen
2001: p.29). African American girls, unlike White
girls, measure themselves through double
consciousness and have the added stress of
negotiating two sets of equally unattainable
standards. There are culturally specific ideals of
womanhood such as Black males expressing a
9
“Shorty” is slang for a young person,
typically a female, and is often used by men to
make advances at women. The term’s reference
to the small stature of females has connotations
of subordination and male dominance. The lyric
of the song reads, “Shorty wanna ride with me/
ride with me/ You can be my wife/ But only for
tonight/ Get your ass on this bike/ I’ll show you I
can ride”. The male rapper offers the female
temporary “privileged” status as wife contingent
upon her acceptance of his sexual advances.
Although some young women recognize the
sexist nature of the lyric they dance to it anyhow,
stating that they “enjoy the beat” and often
separate themselves from the females addressed
in the songs. This dynamic further problematizes
the nature of the false empowerment offered by
chauvinistic sects of Hip Hop as it creates rifts
between “good” girls and “dirty” girls.
This dichotomy is fueled by notions of
shame that are discussed in bell hook’s book,
Rock My Soul: Black People and Self Esteem.
Good girl/ bad girl distinctions generate
stereotypes that cause division among young
women and do not challenge the culture that
generates them. Her discussion of African
American women’s self-esteem revolves around
skin color,
“In black youth culture White
supremacist aesthetics prevail. Yet they
are given their most graphic expression
in representations of the black female.
While black male rappers create
antiracist lyrics that project critical
consciousness, that consciousness
stops when it comes to the black female
body.
More than any other
propagandistic tool, television shows
that focus on black youth culture
reinscribe White supremacist aesthetics
with a vengeance. Dark-skinned
females are rarely depicted at all. And
even light skinned females get no play
unless they have long straight hair”
(hooks 2003: p. 48-9).
both racial groups. As White girls are trying to
look like “thick” Black girls, black girls are trying
to tow the line between both Black and White
beauty ideals. Both continue to experience a
drop in academic performance during
adolescence. Moreover, the fact that these
beauty standards are male-defined upholds
patriarchal ideals and hinders potential for female
empowerment.
The hyper-sexualization of African
American females is articulated in popular culture
through the sexual content of most contemporary
Hip Hop and R&B music. In “Where My Girls At?
Black Girls and the Construction of the Sexual”,
Debbie Weekes summarizes the argument of her
essay,
“…through acknowledging the variety of
both celebratory and derogatory
imagery embedded within Jamaican
reggae and African American hip-hop
and R&B, it will suggest that such
musical effects on the construction of
young female sexual selves enable
Black girls to resist where they are
placed in hierarchies of femininity.
However, it will also be suggested that
such resistance may only be temporary,
limited to specific representations of
Black girlhood…the positions taken up
by young women in these sexual
discourses are often problematic. Music
which congratulates Black women for
their sexual prowess creates a false
sense of security for young girls
exploring their sexual selves…”
(Weekes 2002: p. 141-2)
Weekes’ observations shed light on the
challenging nature of addressing the myth of
African American girls’ self esteem. The
construction of Black femininity in Hip Hop allows
young girls to explore their (hetero)sexuality
without shame therefore combating the “slut”
stigma that is branded upon adolescent girls who
are sexually active. However, it undermines the
capabilities of young women beyond their
sexuality as it is constructed by male desire. The
male-identified nature of this female sexual
“empowerment” is expressed in the hit 2005
song, “Shorty Wanna Ride” by Hip Hop artist
Young Buck.
The negative effects of adolescent African
American female’s sexual scripts have played
themselves out in my interactions with the at-risk
girls I work with through the Women on the Rise!
outreach program I created at the Museum of
10
am”? How could they seek treatment or confront
low self-esteem when the culture insists on
denying it?
The pressure for African American
women to conceal low self-esteem is powerfully
portrayed in the essay, “The Black Beauty Myth”
by Sirena J. Riley.
“As a black woman, I would love to
believe that as a whole we are
completely secure with our bodies. But
that would completely miss the racism,
sexism, and classism that affect the
specific ways in which black women’s
beauty ideals and experiences of body
dissatisfaction are often different from
those of White women….To our credit,
black women have often been praised
for our positive relationships with our
bodies…I had read one or two stories in
black women’s magazines about black
women with eating disorders, but it was
still treated like a phenomenon that was
only newsworthy because of its rarity”
(Hernandez and Rehaman; Weekes
2002: p. 364).
Contemporary Art in North Miami. This gender
specific art and art history program aims to
expose at-risk, minority teenage girls to
contemporary women artists of color in addition
to providing them with tools for critical thinking
and creative self-expression. The program is
conducted on-site at institutions that serve at-risk
girls such as the PACE Center for Girls and the
Girls Advocacy Project at the Miami-Dade
Juvenile Detention Center.
Girl-to-girl bullying is a common
occurrence in these facilities. At times I have
heard African American girls teasing each other
about the “nappiness’ of their hair, the “darkness”
of their skin, or lack of “booty”. Despite the
teasing of their peers, many girls proclaim to
have high self-esteem that is usually defined by
their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Although
positive self and body image are healthy and
desirable traits for adolescent girls, there seems
to be an undercurrent of concealment that is at
play, which is reinforced by Hip Hop culture, in
which one’s survival depends on repressing
weakness and acting “hard”. African American
youth are reluctant to share their feelings about
self-perceived flaws as this might make them
vulnerable to attack. bell hooks also links this
shame of low self-esteem to colonial paradigms.
“Science and pseudoscience were used
as part of the argument for both the
colonization of black people via slavery
and the continued subordination of
black folks from manumission on to the
present day. Consequently, it is not
surprising that masses of black people
view science of the mind as suspect.
Psychology has been especially feared
because many black folks worry that
speaking of our traumas using the
language of mental illness will lead to
biased interpretation and to the
pathologizing of black experience in
ways that might support and sustain our
continued subordination” (hooks 2003:
p. 23).
Riley’s description of the complex nature of
African American female body image illustrates
the paradigm of double consciousness as
defined by Du Bois in addition to the suspicion of
psychology described by hooks. Riley discusses
her personal struggle with body image and
attendance at a series of therapy groups in which
she was the only Black woman.
This
phenomenon may signal a call for a more
culturally sensitive approach to treating body
image and eating disorders for African American
females that combats shame and promotes
models of self-esteem that are not based on
physical appearance.
The affect of low self-esteem and
shame on the life of a young African American
girl is the subject of the young adult novel, The
Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake. The book
illustrates the life of Maleeka Madison, a middle
school student in a low-income urban
neighborhood who lives with her widowed
mother. The first-person narrative revolves
around the relationship between Maleeka and
her new teacher, Miss Saunders, who sparks her
self-actualization.
Thus the situation for female African American
adolescents becomes more problematic,
particularly in regards to the AAUW study. Would
young African American girls have told
researchers if they weren’t “Happy with the way I
11
American adolescents in order to collect reliable
data. This research will make it possible to
ensure that this population’s needs are being
addressed and work toward countering racist and
sexist paradigms. Such research should also
concentrate on the suspicion of psychology in the
African American community.
Programs and advocacy campaigns
stemming from this research should challenge
the
male-identified
nature
of
sexual
“empowerment” for girls offered by sexist factions
of Hip Hop culture and offer culturally specific
alternatives. In addition, girl-to-girl programs
should be launched in order to combat bullying
such as teasing about body image and violence
that is sometimes due to a relationship with a
male. The sexist and racist roots of the problem
of the “myth” of African American girls’ self
esteem does not only affect this particular
population but has ramifications for the culture as
a whole. When this myth is eradicated, boys
would learn how to respect women and
themselves in turn, as young men of color are
also hypersexualized in popular culture. Such
reforms would create new models of self-esteem
that will be empowering for all youth.
Maleeka is teased by boys in her class
about her dark skin and is bullied by a group of
girls who exploit her academic skills and poverty
by lending her their brand-name clothes in
exchange for completion of their homework.
John-John, her student peer and the novel’s
antagonist, constantly harasses her at school by
loudly singing a rap song he wrote about her in
the hallway, “Maleeka, Maleeka—baboom,
boom, boom, we sure wanna keep her, baboom,
boom, boom, but she so black, baboom, boom,
boom, we just can’t see her” (Flake 1998: p. 9).
Maleeka tells the reader, “Before I know it, three
more boys is pointing at me and singing that
song, too. Me, I’m wishing the building will
collapse on top of me” (Flake 1998: p. 9).
Maleeka begins to dread school as a result of
this constant harassment. The decrease in
academic performance and personal self-esteem
that are described in the lives of adolescent
White, African American, and Latina girls in
Schoolgirls are meaningfully comparable to that
of Maleeka Madison. However, experiences such
as sexual harassment, bullying, and violence can
be more traumatic for African American girls due
to double consciousness, White colonial beauty
standards, and the hypersexualization of African
American females.
In conclusion, it is necessary to
implement culturally specific approaches to
researching the self-esteem of female African
References:
Allen, Richard L. 2001. The Concept of Self: A Study of Black Identity and Self-Esteem. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Flake, Sharon G. 1998. The Skin I’m In. Maine: Throndike Press.
Freeman, C.E. 2004. Trends in Educational Equity of Girls and Women: 2004 (NCES 2005-016). U.S. Department of Education,
National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S Government Printing Office.
hooks, bell. 2003. Rock My Soul: Black People and Self Esteem. New York: Atria Books.
Orenstein, Peggy. 1994. Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap. New York: Anchor Books.
Riley, Sirena J. 2002. “The Black Beauty Myth” in Colonize This: Young Women Of Color on Today’s Feminism eds. Daisy
Hernandez and Bushra Rehman. California: Seal Press.
Stephens, D.P. and Phillips, L. 2003. “Freaks, Gold Diggers, Divas, and Dykes: The Sociohistorical Development of Adolescent
African American Women’s Sexual Scripts.” Sexuality and Culture, 7, 1, 3-47.
Weekes, Debbie. 2004. “Where My Girls At? Black Girls and the Construction of The Sexual” in All About the Girl: Culture, Power,
and Identity ed. Anita Harris. New York: Routledge.
12
Hunting, Hawks, and the Breaking and
Remarking of Strong Shakespearean Women
By Angelina Fadool
such as this one from Othello. An understanding
of the hunt and its lexicon is invaluable to the
reader or theater patron who is interested in a
deeper understanding of Shakespearean
metaphor.
Thomas Paine once quipped that “to
read the history of kings a man would be almost
inclined to suppose that government consisted of
stag hunting” (Berry 3). He could well have
included the rest of the aristocracy in this
indictment, because the hunt and the pageantry
surrounding it was a focus of court life for
centuries. More than mere recreation or means
of obtaining food; hunting was an assertion of
royal power over man and nature alike. The
culture itself grew out of the law of the forests
instituted by the Norman kings. Distinct from and
superceding English common law, this law
allowed the monarch to declare any forest or
park in the realm private property and make it
illegal for anyone to hunt there without express
permission. This permission was then granted to
the nobility and occasionally to exceptionally
wealthy members of the landed gentry. The gulf
created by the separation of “hunters” from
“poachers” led to tremendous social tension and
backlash from moralist, essayist, and religious
groups that objected to the sport for diverse
reasons. Still, the cultural influence of the hunt is
undeniable. Plays, poems, and literature made
reference to hunting in all its forms while
everything from paintings and tapestries to plates
of the period depicted the sports and its
participants. The elaborate rituals and lexicon
that developed around the hunt in Shakespeare’s
England led to the production of popular
handbooks on the subject such as George
Gascoigne’s Noble Art of Venerie and Hunting
and Thomas Cockaine’s Short Treatise of
Hunting.
Although the highly ritualized par force
de chien (that is, hunting with dogs in open
forest) and the less respected bow and stable
Shakespeare’s Othello is a play in which tragedy
occurs as a result of the titular character’s
imaginings. His jealousy aroused, Othello
confesses his fears of being cuckolded and
considers what he might do if he is able to “prove
[Desdemona] haggard,” including “whistl[ing] her
off and lett[ing] her down the wind to prey at
fortune” though “her jesses were [his] dear heartstrings” (Othello 3.3.264-67). Although the
significance of these lines would have been
obvious to the play’s original audience, the
hawking terms used in this metaphor are now so
obscure as to render them meaningless to a
modern one. Playgoers in Elizabeth and
Jacobean England would have known that a
“haggard” is a mature female hawk that has been
captured in the wild and trained—at first with
restraints known as “jesses” that keep the bird
from escaping until she can be trusted to return
when bidden—to hunt small game and other
birds. Prized for their superior hunting skills,
haggards are the most difficult birds with which to
hunt because only a skilled and attentive owner
can prevent them from reverting to their previous
wildness. Thus, Othello’s concern is that he has
not been skilled enough to keep Desdemona
from reverting to her natural impulses—
presumably those of her wild, unrestrained
female sexuality—and he must now “whistle her
off” the target he had hoped she would pursue
(i.e. himself) and let her follow the scent of her
own “prey” (i.e. Cassio) “down the wind.” Othello
uses the language of the hunt to tell the audience
that he will not sit idly by while he is made a
cuckold, and bemoans the curse of the hunter as
well as the “course of marriage” when he worries
“that we can call these delicate creatures ours
and not their appetites” (3.3.272-74).
Eight of Shakespeare’s plays and one of
his poems contain hunting scenes and the
majority of the Canon contains references to or
employs the language of the hunt—often in
reference to women—in brief but rich passages
13
That is to watch her, as we watch these
kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient.
(Shrew 4.1.188-96)
Alone on the stage, Petruccio explains his plans
for Kate in terms of falconry. He has starved his
“falcon” by denying her food, kindness, and
affection until she has become “passing empty”
and “sharp” enough to chase prey, as a “fullgorged” bird has no interest in the lures used to
train her. His desire that she “stoop” refers to his
wish that she submit to him, but is also the term
used to describe the final swift descent of a bird
of prey as it goes in for the kill. Petruccio knows
that a haggard is trained to return at “her
keeper’s call” by being “watched,” or deprived of
sleep.
When Pandarus brings Troilus and
Cressida together to speak in the middle of the
play named for them, he fills the silence between
them with his observations and encouragement.
Noting how skittish Cressida seems in front of
her beloved, Pandarus notes that she should be
“watched” or kept awake during the night “ere
[she will] be made tame” (Troilus 3.2.42-43). The
implication is that Cressida will be kept awake
with love making, but Petruccio’s plans for Kate
are far less pleasant. The extreme deprivation
that takes place during the first part of the
manning is the fate of a “kite,” or carrion-eating
hawk, that “bate[s] and beat[s] and will not be
obedient.” A less able hunter than the highly
prized haggard, a kite is scavenger that is hardly
worth the trouble of training. When used to
describe a woman, it implies that she is a
predator or a whore, both of which Antony seems
the intend when he calls Cleopatra a kite in anger
(Antony 3.13.89). King Lear, realizing that he is
being treated like a child by Goneril, calls his
daughter a “detested kite” as well (Lear 1.4.224).
While these men are all but driven mad by the
untamed women in their life, Petruccio’s
madness is feigned in order to “kill [his] wife with
kindness” and “curb her mad and headstrong
humor” (Shrew 4.1.210-11). In time Petruccio will
show Kate kindness—as when he offers to have
new hat or fine clothes made for her—only to
take it away from her when she does not “mind
her keeper’s call.”
Once a haggard learns the falconer has
complete control over her comfort and happiness
hunting conducted in parks are referenced in
Shakespeare’s works, the language of falconry is
key to understanding many of the metaphors he
used to describe women—particularly those who
have difficulty occupying their role as a silent,
chaste, and obedient wife and daughter.
Although English noblewomen could and did
participate in the sport, handbooks of the time
were addressed to men seeking control of the
female hawks, eagles, or falcons that may have
either been captured in the wild or raised in
captivity. Falconers like the Bohemian prince
Florizel in The Winter’s Tale would have
displayed their skills on holidays and at weddings
and other celebrations, often wagering and
competing with one another. Not surprisingly, the
language of falconry is used throughout The
Taming of the Shrew, a comedy ostensibly put on
at the command of a lord obsessed with hunting
that centers around weddings and wagering.
Although the play ends with three couples joined
in matrimony, the play is problematic for modern
audiences because of its seeming endorsement
of wife battering and abuse. Yet, as Edward
Barry noted, a close reading of the language of
Shrew makes the case for a different reading.
Looking at the play through the lens of falconry,
the behavior of Petruccio—the gambler and
fortune hunter that finally succeeds in curbing
Katherine’s tongue—can be read as the
purposeful training of a wild creature that can
never be tamed.
The first four acts of Shrew can be
understood in terms of the first and most time
consuming part of this training—the “manning.”
This evocative term refers to the period of cruelty
and kindness where the falconer makes his bird
comfortable with and dependent on him alone.
After a disastrous first dinner with Kate at his
country house, Petruccio delivers a powerful
soliloquy in which he explains his actions, saying:
Thus I have politically begun my reign,
And ‘tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And till the stoop, she must not be fullgorged,
For then she never look upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s
call,
14
And place your hands below your
husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please.
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.
(5.2.174-83)
The way in which the language of falconry is
used throughout this play indicates that Kate has
given up “bandy[ing] word for word and frown for
frown” in favor of using her heart, mind, and
reason at her husband’s command.
It may be tempting to read Kate as
being in partnership with Petruccio in this last
scene, it is important to remember that the
relationship between the tamer and the tamed is
hardly an egalitarian one. While they are both
working toward the same goal and may both
derive a certain amount of satisfaction from their
success, Petruccio is still in control. There is little
chance of constructing a positive feminist reading
of Shrew from hunting metaphors that run
throughout the play, but the fate of strong women
is not entirely sealed. Katherine, as Petruccio
and Othello both know, is a haggard and, as
such, will always be too wild to become
completely domesticated and may one day cut
her jesses and fly “down the wind to prey at
fortune.” Furthermore, the boisterous widow and
the supposedly meek and chaste Bianca end the
play wedded to men who are not nearly as well
equipped for the task ahead of them as Petruccio
was. As a comedy, The Taming of the Shrew
must end in multiple marriages, but Cleopatra,
Margaret of Anjou, and the other strong
Shakespearean women who are compared with
birds of prey do not all meet such happy endings.
Still, an understanding of the language of the
hunt—which is so vital to Shrew and plays an
important role in the metaphors used to describe
women in other words—can provide vital insight
into Shakespeare’s portrayal of strong women
and his plays as a whole.
she is ready to be trained with the lure. At this
stage of the training, the hawk remains tied to the
falconer with jesses as she learns to attack a lure
at her master’s command in order to be allowed
to rest. A similar situation occurs with Kate and
Petruccio on the road to her father’s house where
Kate learns to agree with anything her husband
says in order to be allowed to return home.
Petruccio teases Kate with language, calling the
sun the moon and the moon the sun and all the
while threatening to turn back until she begs:
“Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,/
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:/ And
if you please to call it a rush-candle, / Henceforth
I vow it shall be so for me” (4.5.12-15). The pair
continue in this vein for the remainder of the
scene—even going so far as to have Kate greet
the elderly Vincentio as a woman—causing
Hortensio to conclude that “the field is won” in
favor of Petruccio (4.5.24). This scene is the test
that allows the falconer to determine whether or
not his haggard is ready for the challenge of
unrestricted flight.
Unfettered in the heat of the hunt or
performing to win a bet made by her owner, a
haggard could easily disobey a falconer or slip
away from him entirely. Kate has this opportunity
at her sister’s wedding banquet, but whether
honest or feigned, her condemnation of the
behavior of Bianca and the widow toward their
new husbands is exactly what Petruccio wants to
hear. Kate’s shrewish instincts have not been
extinguished—rather, they have been focused to
attack whatever target Petruccio selects. By
looking at Kate’s final speech as her final,
unrestricted test, her sometime problematic
words can be read as a game played between
her and her husband and an opportunity to best
the other couples in the room. Kate trumps
Bianca in meekness as well as in intelligence and
rhetorical skill when she says:
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart is great, my reason happily more,
To bandy word for word and frown for
frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past
compare,
That seeming to be the most which we
indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
References:
Antony and Cleopatra. The Norton Shakespeare. New York:
Norton, 1997. 2628-708.
Berry, Edward. Shakespeare and the Hunt: A Cultural and
Society Study. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001
King Lear. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton,
1997. 2318-553
Othello. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton, 1997.
2100-74
The Taming of the Shrew. The Norton Shakespeare. New
York: Norton, 1997. 142-201.
15
As a Woman Thinketh
This poem was inspired by the book As a Man Thinketh, I wrote it for women, from a woman’s
perspective. It is written in memory of the women who wrote literature about and for women and
their growth. These women had great strength and had a voice, which we can hear loud and clear.
As a woman thinketh
She will learn to grow.
As a woman thinketh
She will come to know
That there is much more
In this horrid land.
Her very thoughts
Can be captured
With her very hand.
As a woman thinketh
She will know to see,
Past this world’s insanity.
This woman will become
Strong and proud.
She’ll no longer need
Her hand to speak her
Thoughts aloud.
Above and beyond
She’ll search and search.
For the thing she lost long ago.
This thing called Mother Earth.
The mirror will reflect
Soul.
At last as a woman thinketh
She will be bold.
Tiffany Yeomans © 2006
16
Women’s Studies Student Accomplishments
Morcillo, Chonti Valenzuela, and Rose.
Alex Burke, Ivanessa Arostegui, Sze Lee, & Suzanna Rose
Sara Cardelle, Eun Jeong Chung, Ana Gomez, Sze Lee,
Andrea Lopez, Andrea Miranda, Patricia Gousse-Lacao,
Jeremy Triana, Shayna Quicero & Holly Anagnos.
Hiliana Gomez, Andrea Lopez, Ana Gomez,
& Sze Lee, WSSA – Women’s Studies Student
Association
Allison Richardson & Alexina Deannit,
Executive Board Members, VOICEVoicing Opinion in Cultural Equality
17
Left: My Body Drips Stories
by Natasha Duwin
Right: Art piece by Wendy Ordonez
Left: Lisa Lyons by Jacqueline Gopie
18
Right: Indifference by Angelica Clyman
Left: Lyly by Natasha Duwin
Right: Spider by Vanessa Monokian
19
Women’s Studies 2005-2006
People & Places
20
When We Were Kings
Hate was
Just a
Lettered word
As we were
Unconcerned with
Differences in the world
Somewhere between
Development of conscience
And the acquisition of nonsense
Passed down from generations
Tainted views
Imbued by schools of degradation
Somewhere between class
And being taught of caste systems
Somewhere after tolerance
But before ethnic divisions
Before a rainbow of faces
Was collateralized
And then,
Categorized into races
After self love
But long before self
Or self-righteous hatred
When national pride
Meant no disdain for other nations
Before we were further
Divided by our genders
A time so rare
After cooties, before agendas
Before the word 'King'
Meant to demean the word 'Queen'
Causing a gap in gender roles and esteem
We were all Kings.
Jonathan Escoffery © 2006
21
Women and a Liberating Islam in Sufism
By Ivanessa Arostegui
This paper examines the ways in which mystical Islam—Sufism—can provide a liberating experience for
women. I examine various aspects of Sufism: the object of worship, the practice, and the interpretations of
Islam from a feminist perspective. I also examine the representation of female archetypes and the impact
upon women’s roles within Sufism. Additionally, I present potential non-oppressive interpretations of the
Qur’an; and the lack of adherence to Hadith—a primary source in Islam after the Qur’an—and the resulting
implications. Finally, I present the ways in which Sufi women express their spirituality through liberating,
religious experiences.
institutionalized forms of Islam. In Spiritual
Empowerment Through Spiritual Submission: Sufi
Women and Their Quest for God, Amila Buturovic
argues that Muslim women were not given a due
share in the formulation of Islamic doctrines “thanks
to the appropriation of religious discourse by the male
learned elite in the centuries following Muhammad's
revelations” (1996). Buturovic explains that Islamic
law gravitates to a patriarchal mode of living where
women would find a difficult time having direct public
influence and proper education. Buturovic continues,
“though one should not under-estimate the
pedagogical power that women enjoy in their homes,
they have had no access to the legal and theological
reasoning of the male elite” (1996).
Women in Sufism are provided with positive
role models. Rabi’a was the woman who brought the
idea of pure love into Islamic mysticism. Women act
as patrons of Sufi khanqahs, and as shaykhas of
certain convents, they are venerated as saints, and
accepted as spiritual guides for both men and women
(Helminski, 2003). In the Indo-Pakistan Sufi tradition,
the highest ambition of a God-seeking human being is
symbolized by the woman-soul. In Women and
Gender in Islam, Leila Ahmed discusses a man who
studied Sufism from his native land’s Sufi masters,
two of which were women (1992). These positions are
liberating because women can aspire to become
active and important participants in the religious
practices of Sufism. Even if we look into history,
during Abbasid society, Sufism “offered the chance of
an autonomous and independent life otherwise
certainly impossible for women” (Ahmed, 1992).
Buturovic adds, “in medieval Islamic history women
saw in the Sufi path the restoration of their divinely
…within Truth, there is no male or female,
only being.
--Camille Helminski
Sufism is mystical Islam. In Women of
Sufism: A Hidden Treasure, Camille Helminski writes
“true Sufis are Muslims whose hearts vibrate with the
spirituality of the Qur’an…Sufism means that God
makes you die to yourself and makes you live in him”
(2003). Sufism is, however, now a contested subject
among Muslims (Ernst, 1999). What is agreed on is
that “the Sufis themselves give to a woman [Rabi’a al‘Adawiyya] the first place among the earliest Islamic
mystics and have chosen her to be the representative
of the first development of mysticism in Islam” (Smith,
1977). Provided with archetypical images, women can
aspire to high positions. Sufism also lacks a stern
adherence to Hadith, or interpretations of the Qur’an
that can be most oppressive to women. Finally, by
showing the extent to which Sufi women have always
expressed their spirituality—through writings and
rituals—provides an example of a more liberating
experience for women in Islam.
Women’s access to religious education and
training in the Islamic world has not been good. As
Lucinda Joy Peach points out in Women and World
Religions, there are notable exceptions due to class,
place of residence, and sectarian differences (2002).
For example, Peach notes that in Egypt, women
teach the Qur’an, but only to other women; in
Indonesia, the Aisyiahah movement enables women
to teach other women about Islam, and some are
even Imams. Furthermore, in Iran and Turkey women
can have positions as religious officials, but are not
allowed to have any followers. There are few
opportunities for female spiritual leadership in more
22
including Abu Hurayra and Abu Bakra. These men
transmitted Hadith that state that women, like dogs
and asses, interrupt prayer if they’re standing
between the person praying and the qibla. Another
says “three things bring bad luck: house, woman, and
horse,” and finally, another Hadith says “those who
entrust their affairs to a woman will never know
prosperity.” Mernissi questions the Hadiths’ accuracy.
She concludes by saying Abu Bakra probably had
ulterior motives and that he was not to be trusted—he
was later flogged for lying. Abu Hurayra had a
reputation for making up sayings and was threatened
to be sent back to Yemen if he did not stop (Wilcox,
1998).
The Qur’an and its interpretations can also
be a source of oppression towards women. In the
Muted Voices of Women Interpreters, Bouthaina
Shaaban explains that there have been few women
interpreters, because women are seen as subject to
Islamic law, and not as legislators of the law. This
allowed men to do all of the interpreting, which proved
to be very oppressive towards women. For example,
the Saudi Arabian interpretation of the Surah
(meaning chapter of the Qur’an) on clothing, states
that women should cover everything, including hands,
ankles, and legs everything except their eyes. The
Sufi interpretation of the Qur’an is not oppressive. For
example, in regards to dress, the Qur’an does not
instruct veiling of any type, and the Sufis recognizes
that some veiling practices imposed on women are
about power relations, politics, and culture (Wilcox,
1998). Wilcox explains that the only time the Qur’an
refers to veiling is when it states that “…they should
draw their veils over their bosoms (24:31)”; “…on their
eyes is a veil…” (2:7); and “it is not fitting for a man
that God should speak to him except by inspiration, or
from behind a veil… (42:51)” (1998).
Sufi women participate in various liberating
practices which include poetry writing, composing
music, and chanting (zhikr). In India, the woman Sufi
Amir Khusrau composed poetry and music that was
sung in United India in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and continues to be sung today (Abbas,
2002). Khusrau writes:
A lifetime have I begged
Wearing a shroud around my neck
I shall go to thy doorstep
Khwaja’s jogan (female discipline)
O female friend, tell my Khwaja
Show whatever
lift thy veil.
granted space, and ultimately Sufism allowed no
gender privileges” (1996).
Other role models include Fatima and
‘A’isha, considered to be of the first women Sufis
(Helminski, 2003). Fatima was the youngest daughter
of the Prophet and Khadija, and known as “al-Batul”
(the virgin) or “the devoted one,” because of her
asceticism. Fatima prayed, meditated, fasted, recited
the Qur’an, and serviced the community. It is said that
when she spoke she would move people to tears and
fill their hearts with praise for God (Helminski, 2003).
Some theologians even name Lady Fatima the first
Qutb, or spiritual head of the Sufi fellowship (Smith,
1977). Lady Fatima, like Rabi’a, were followed by
many women who took to the mystical path
(Helminski, 2003). Buturovic adds, “even before it
became a mass movement, Sufism was known for its
female followers” (1996). ‘A’isha, a wife of the
Prophet, was a woman to be reckoned with. Fatima
Mernissi, in her book The Veil and the Male Elite: A
Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam
writes that she fought an important role in the Battle
of the Camel, and she published corrected Hadiths
(1991). Hadiths are traditions relating to the words of
Muhammad. Hadith collections are regarded as
important tools for determining the Muslim way of life.
‘A’isha spoke up against Hadiths that are oppressive
to women. She said, “you compare us now to asses
and dogs. In the name of God, I have seen the
Prophet saying his prayers, while I was there lying on
the bed between him and the qibla. And in order not
to disturb him I didn’t move” (Mernissi, 1991). ‘A’isha
religiously educated everyone on the Prophet’s
teachings. With such Sufi women role models,
women are encouraged in their faith and devotion.
The Hadith—often a source for female
empowerment—can provide the opposite as well. The
problem with Hadith, as Lynn Wilcox explains in
Women and the Holy Qur’an: A Sufi Perspective, is
that “Muslim women are often faced with well-known
quotations which limit or demean them in some way,
pronounced with the ring of undisputed authority, as if
they were the words of God” (1998). Sufi women’s
emphasis is on inner and spiritual meaning of the
Qur’an (Ahmed, 1992). This means that the Sufi
religious focus is not shared in Hadith alongside the
Qur’an. This is particularly liberating because the
Hadith can, as Mernissi explains, have very antiwoman notions. Many of these anti-woman Hadith are
quite popular. Mernissi brilliantly questions the
transmitters of three major anti-woman Hadith,
23
Its intensity exceeds the perfume of musk
(Helminski, 2003).
Rabi’a herself was a musician; she retired to the
desert and then became a professional flute player
(Ahmed, 1992). While one can escape into music, it
was originally looked down upon. Music was not a
developed art form in Arabia during the lifetime of
Prophet. It was associated with courtly lifestyles, as
well as immoral, non-religious behavior (Ernst, 1999).
However, Sufis have long utilized music. In Egypt for
example, Helminski states that musical education was
provided by the Sufi orders, such as Shadhiliya,
Ahmadiyah, and the Khalwatiya. “In Sufi performance,
the beat is musically essential, since it provides that
base upon which dhikrees (the Sufis who are
chanting) gyrate” (Helminski 2003). In fact it was in
the homes of Sufi shayhs, or in their mosque
gatherings, where even great singers such as “the
first lady of song of Egypt,” Umm Kulthum, gained her
training (Helminski 2003).
Another Sufi ritual is zhkir. It can be seen as
“the ‘heart’ of Sufism—it is central for reaching the
goal of intuitively perceiving the oneness of all being;
and in the sense of being the “organ of recognition” of
God’s reality” (Helminski, 2003). Zhkir means
“remembrance” and “being mindful.” The Qur’an says
in Surah 33:41: “Remember God with unceasing
remembrance” (Helminski, 2003). I personally
participated in this ritual when I attended a Sufi
lecture at Florida International University, and it was
quite an experience. It was very freeing for me. I felt
disconnected from my surroundings and part of one
collective being. There were rhythmic beats and
chanting. It was such a powerful experience. Sufi
women participate in the same rituals men do,
although not all orders follow the same rituals and
practices. Women still typically participate in zhkir
because it is above gender and earthly matters.
In conclusion, I have argued that within
Sufism, women can indeed find a more liberating
Islam. Sufi women, like Muslim women, may claim to
be deeply and devotedly Muslim. The following is an
excerpt from a song/poem, Sufi Women, written by a
Qadiri Sufi woman Nana Asma’u, who helped guide a
whole community in what is now Nigeria:
I remind you how they yearn for God.
I swear by God that I love them all
In the name of the Prophet, the Messenger
of God.
The sent of their yearning engulfs me
References:
Abbas, Shemeem. (2002). The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Ahmed, Leila. (1992). Women and Gender in Islam: Historical
Roots of Modern Debate. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press.
Buturovic, Amila. (1996). Spiritual empowerment through spiritual
submission Sufi women and their quest for God.
Canadian Woman Studies. 17.1: 53-6.
Ernst, Carl W. (1999). Teachings of Sufism. Boston and London:
Shambhala.
Helminski, Camille Adams. (2003). Women and Sufism: A Hidden
Treasure. Boston and London: Shambhala.
Mernissi, Fatima. (1991). The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist
Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Perseus Books.
Peach, Lucinda Joy. (2002). Women and World Religions. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Shaaban, Bouthaina. (1995). The Muted Voices of Women
Interpreters. Reprinted in Faith and Freedom:
Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World. 61-77.
Smith, Margaret. (1977). Rabi’a the Mystic and her Fellow-Saints
in Islam. Reprinted in Middle Eastern Muslim Women
Speak. University of Texas Press.
Wilcox, Lynn. (1998). Women and the Holy Qur’an: A Sufi
Perspective. Riverside: M.T.O. Shahmaghsoudi
Publications.
24
WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITY
IN LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES
By Victoria Kenny
The purpose of this research was to study the nature and level of women’s entrepreneurial activity in Latin
American and Caribbean countries in relation to economic development. Thirty-four women entrepreneurs in Argentina,
Guatemala and Mexico were interviewed. In addition, female self-employment rates were analyzed for eighteen Latin
American nations. Women entrepreneurs in Latin America share similar characteristics. However, the level of female
entrepreneurial activity varies across the countries analyzed. The evidence suggests a negative relationship between
women’s entrepreneurial activity and economic development.
women associated with higher levels of national
economic development?
1.1
Framework
for
Analyzing
Women’s
Entrepreneurship
To be able to undertake any useful study of
entrepreneurship, it is first necessary to have a clear
understanding of the variables which affect it and
provide a structure to the entrepreneurial process and
to its relation with development. The Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM, 1999) model is the
first model to incorporate entrepreneurship and
economic growth in a framework.
The GEM model takes a comprehensive
approach and links many factors (general national
framework conditions and entrepreneurial conditions)
which influence the level of entrepreneurial activity and
thus affect economic development and vice versa.
Entrepreneurship is complex and no single
measurement can capture the entrepreneurial
landscape of a country (GEM, 2005, Report on Women
and Entrepreneurship, p. 10). Thus, it is not only
important to know the number of women who start and
own businesses, but also the environment in which
they operate, what motivates them to do so and the
characteristics of their businesses.
1.2 Methodology
1. Introduction
An interest in the impact of women’s
entrepreneurship and national economic development
has motivated the present project. There is an
international trend in which assistance to the selfemployed and women in particular are seen as a
solution for growth and poverty (Karides, 2005).
Recently, the Latin American region has started seeing
new initiatives in this field. Still, much more needs to
be done in a region characterized by countries with low
income, high poverty levels, a large informal sector,
and gender disparity.
In 1990, women business owners were
growing faster in Latin American than in the rest of the
world. According to the Inter-American Development
Bank, in 200,1 between 25 percent and 35 percent of
employers and self-employed persons in the region
were women. The region is gradually recognizing the
untapped contribution of increased participation from
half of the population in the economic process.
Regardless of the interest in promoting
female entrepreneurial activity, most of the research
has
been
concentrated
in
understanding
entrepreneurial activity in developed nations. Little is
known about the nature and level of women
entrepreneurs in Latin America. Furthermore, research
analyzing differences within the region is non- existent.
In this paper, aspects of the relationship
between Latin American female entrepreneurial activity
and national income are identified. Investigation of this
sort allows us to answer the following questions: In
Latin American and Caribbean countries, what is the
nature and extent of entrepreneurship among women?
Also, is a higher level of entrepreneurship among
The quantitative analysis includes all Latin
American and Caribbean countries for which complete
data is available for the year 2002.1 In regards to
entrepreneurial rates for women, numbers were
calculated from self-employed women rates
(employers and own account workers) obtained from
the Economic Commission on Latin America and
Caribbean Countries. Economic development is
25
stable and predictable institutions (political, legal, and
cultural) have directly influenced the level of
entrepreneurial activity and hence the level of
economic development in the region (GEM, 2004,
p.24)
measured as the Gross Domestic Product Per Capita
(in US dollars). 2
The qualitative study focuses on three
countries in particular. The study is structured in a
question framework, which increases the possibility of
making a comparison of the 34 interviews. The
question framework was obtained from a study
conducted by John Kjeldsen and Kent Nielsen on the
analysis of the Danish Agency for Trade and Industry3.
Women owners of registered businesses in urban
areas of Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico were
chosen to discuss the individual factors affecting the
level and nature of entrepreneurship.
The general and entrepreneurial conditions of
the region affect women differently than men as
evident in the differences in entrepreneurial activity
across gender. In general, various determinants have
been found to affect women’s entrepreneurial activity
in particular. As identified by Minitti and Arenius
(2003), demographic environment, family structure,
literacy, education and the socio-economic
environment affect females differently than men.
Labor structure conditions also influence
women’s entrepreneurship. Higher educational levels,
along with cultural and economic changes, have
contributed to increase the level of female participation
in the economy. Women make up about 40 percent of
the economically active population in Latin America's
urban areas; the female participation rate rose from 39
percent in 1990 to 44.7 percent in 2002, (Abramo and
Valenzuela, 2005). According to the ILO report of
2003, transformations of the region’s economies in the
1990s have provoked changes in the labor market.
Furthermore, increased involvement of women in the
economy is believed to have helped alleviate high
poverty levels. According to the same report there
were 19 million urban unemployed people in Latin
America and four out of ten Latin Americans did not
have enough income to satisfy basic needs. In fact, in
Latin America, particularly in low-income countries,
women’s work is critical to the survival and security of
poor households and is one of the main ways to
escape from poverty (ILO, 2003, Zambrano, 2006,
Minnitti and Arenius, 2002).
On the other hand, even when female
participation in the economy has increased, women
are still employed in occupations in which poor quality
jobs flourish, particularly in the informal sector, which is
considered to be a “sponge of the female labor force”
(ILO 2003, p.75). The informal sector, constituted to a
large extent by women and responsible for 83% of new
jobs in Latin America (Bridges, 2002, p. 4), affects
entrepreneurial levels in the region. In low-income
countries, the relation between the size of the informal
economy and the level of entrepreneurial activity is
positive (Minitti and Arenius, 2002). Most informal
sector workers in these countries are independent
2. Review of the Literature
In 1970, Ester Boserup introduced the issue
of women and development. Since then, the field has
been divided into two streams: modernization theories
and that of Marxist feminism (Jaquette, 1995). From
1975 until the present, there have been many studies
on different women’s economic activities; from
historical studies on the nineteenth century export and
agricultural development to the exploitation of women
in the maquilas and in the informal sectors (Jaquette,
1995). Even when the literature on the field is
extensive, there have been only a few studies on
women and entrepreneurship. In fact, women have
been excluded from most studies. According to Aldrich
and Baker (1997), research with a focus on women
entrepreneurs still accounts for only 6-8 percent of
international research into entrepreneurship (p. 221).
3. Entrepreneurial Landscape in Latin America
Many factors influence the extent of
entrepreneurship in a country or region; many more
affect women’s entrepreneurship. As identified by the
GEM Model, general framework conditions as well as
entrepreneurial conditions contribute to create and
elevate the level of entrepreneurship in a country.
The general notion is that the environment
Latin America is not ideal for starting up a business in.
Unstable political and economic situations in Latin
America have resulted in low to modest economic
growth. Most common socio-economic problems which
have affected the region were triggered by economic
crisis. Other common issues have been unemployment
rates, inflation, corruption and informality among
others. The underlying effects of the historical and
socio-economic events accompanied by the lack of
26
workers employed in activities with low productivity and
income (ILO, 2003)4.
Culture in Latin America plays a key part in
the different variables previously identified. In Latin
America and the Caribbean, changes in the labor
market and women’s educational accomplishments
have not been in line with changes in the distribution of
family responsibilities (Zambrano, 2006, p. 7). The
level of chauvinism and discrimination still latent in the
Latin America region play a major role in affecting the
variables. Most Latin American sociopolitical structures
are marked by the separation of male and female
roles. Men dominate the public sphere and women
continue bearing the main responsibility for parenting
and housekeeping (Echeverri and Brandazza, 2001).
Hence, Latin American women face high population
growth, lower education levels, unequal labor
conditions, the informal economy and many cultural
barriers. Those factors are also linked to the level of
development in a country.
4. Women’s Entrepreneurial Activity in Latin
America
For the purpose of the research,
entrepreneurs are defined as workers who declare
their professional status to be that of employers or
own-account workers self-employed without full-time
and paid employees- (OECD, 2001). Available data
from 1995 indicates that women represented one
fourth to one third of all business owners in Latin
America and the Caribbean; ranging from 14% to 49%
(United Nations, 1995). Also, in the 1990s women
business owners were growing faster in Latin
American than in the rest of the world. 5
The following graph reflects the different
levels of female entrepreneurial activity across
eighteen Latin American countries for the year 2002
(see Figure 1).
The level of entrepreneurship among males is
somewhat even across all countries unlike the level of
female entrepreneurship which varies between two
groups; that of middle-income countries and lowincome countries. Countries with GDP per capita equal
or larger than US$ 6,000 have on average 10 women
out of 100 people involved in entrepreneurship while
countries with GDP per capita lower than $6,000 count
with approximately 20 women entrepreneurs out of 100
people in the economic active population.
WEA (Percentage Total Active Economic Population)
When GDP per capita is considered for each
of the eighteen countries analyzed, it can be seen that
countries with highest levels of entrepreneurial activity
tend to have low levels of per capita GDP and vice
versa.
For example, Bolivia has a female
entrepreneurial activity measure in the urban areas of
26.3% and a GDP per capita of $ 2,468 while
Argentina has a 8.6% with a GDPPC of $10,880.
30,0
26,3
25,0
21,6
20,2 20,3
20,0
15,9
17,0
17,6 18,1
14,8
15,0
10,0
7,2
8,1
8,5
9,6
10,9
10,4 10,4
11,6
5,0
Total Female Entrepreneurial Activity
Across Latin American Countries
22,4
Panama
Chile
Argentina
Uruguay
Costa Rica
Brazil
Dominican
Mexico
Venezuela
Ecuador
Paraguay
Honduras
Colombia
Nicaragua
Guatemala
Peru
El Salvador
Bolivia
Figure 1. Entrepreneurial Activity across Latin America, Total, Total Female, and Total Male Entrepreneurial Activity
Elaborated by author with data obtained from ECLAC, 2002/2003
27
entrepreneurship process of a region or country (GEM,
2005, p. 12).
To conclude, in Latin America higher levels of
women’s entrepreneurial activity are not associated
with higher levels of development; in fact the opposite
is evident. Evidence presented in this report suggests
the existence of a negative relationship between
women’s entrepreneurial activity and national income.
5. Women Entrepreneurs and Their Stories
Summary of Women Entrepreneurs in Latin America
In the following section an overview of the
analysis of women business owners in Argentina,
Guatemala and Mexico tries to uncover motivations,
characteristics of the entrepreneurs and their
perceptions of the environment in which they operate.
The national and entrepreneurial conditions
existing in the region have been reviewed. Also, the
level of women’s entrepreneurial activity has been
analyzed in relation to economic development. GEM
states that individual factors as well as national factors
should be considered to be able to understand the
Women interviewed are business owners in
urban cities of Argentina, Guatemala, and Mexico. The
main characteristics of the women interviewed are
presented in Table 1 below:
Table 1 - Qualitative Study, Women Entrepreneurs interviewed in Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico
Business
Characteristics
Women Characteristics:
Work History:
Area of Business:
Average Age when started:
Has had previous work experience:
Final Consumer: 73%
Service: 27%
31 years old.
Employee before: 79.5%
Had no work experience: 20.5%
Number of employees:
Education:
Worked in same area of business as
an employee before:
16.5 on average
College Degree: 58.82%
Secretaries: 14.7%
Teachers: 8.8%
Only High School: 20.59 %
Worked in similar industry: 44%
No previous experience in area of
business: 56%
entrepreneurs shows that although the motives behind
the decision are largely the same flexibility and family
roles are more important motive for becoming selfemployed rather than the search for independence in
some fields.
Motives behind the decision to become a business
owner
From the interviews conducted in the three
countries, there is more than one motive for women
entrepreneurs in their deciding to start an enterprise. A
mix of pull and push factors is present among most of
the women interviewed. However, some slight
differences can be drawn from the thirty-four
interviews; many women interviewed in Argentina
mention flexibility and self-fulfillment, while many
women in Guatemala and Mexico mention a financial
incentive as a recurrent motivating factor.
A comparison of the results of the qualitative
survey with existing international surveys of women
•
•
28
Women entrepreneurs in Latin America aim at
a balance between family and work. They
search for flexibility and it is their belief that
they can achieve this by becoming selfemployed.
The primary motive of women entrepreneurs
is their search for flexibility and income rather
than independence. Among the most
•
•
•
Summary of encouraging and discouraging economic
factors1
Findings in this category might reflect
similarities found in other investigations conducted
globally (Jalbert, 1999) and regionally by OIL (Daeren,
2000).
mentioned motives are: a wish for a higher
degree of flexibility in working life and family
life. As a better source of income than being
someone else’s employee; a challenging way
to use their creativity and follow a dream.
The established labor market cannot offer the
flexibility.
Family and children may motivate a woman to
become self-employed –but it is not an
impediment because almost all interviewed
women have or have had help from
grandmothers, maids or babysitters. Others
mentioned they have had to take their
children to work with them.
•
•
The person behind the business
Each woman was asked to describe herself
as a person. From these descriptions a very clear
profile emerged of the women who own their
businesses. They are highly passionate about what
they do, they are aware that they have been able to
show what they could do, and this gives them selfconfidence. The following words would help describe
them: Passionate, Perfectionist, Energetic, Multitasker, Positive, Curious, Hard working, Insistent,
Adaptable, Risk taker, Self confident, Friendly,
Dedicated, Challenge seeker, Customer oriented. Most
of the characteristics summarize in this study go hand
in hand with general characteristics reflected in
research of women entrepreneurs in other regions
(Jalbert, 1999).
Summary regarding social encouraging and
discouraging factors
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Discouraging factors were similar among
women
entrepreneurs
in
Argentina,
Guatemala and Mexico. There were slight
differences across different countries and also
across different areas of business.
Economic situation and uncertainty as
discouraging factors were mentioned by most
entrepreneurs.
Bureaucracy and tax policies were areas of
concern for most entrepreneurs, especially
women entrepreneurs in Mexico.
Credit access was also a major concern for all
women.
Reflections on the results of the qualitative survey
Through the tapes and various pages of
reports on which this part of the analysis is based, the
voices of the "typical" urban women entrepreneurs in
Guatemala, Argentina and Mexico are heard. The
present report on a small sample of women
entrepreneurs hopefully will motivate new insights for
research.
6. Conclusion
Even when Latin American women business
owners seem to share similar characteristics and
motivations, their participation in entrepreneurship
varied across the 18 countries analyzed in Latin
America. Countries were clustered into two groups
and some common ground can be found that has
implications for the kind of entrepreneurial policies
being pursued. In most low-income countries, the rates
for female entrepreneurial activity were higher than in
middle income countries. As suggested by the
analysis, differences in female entrepreneurial activity
rates were mainly influenced by high levels of women
own- account workers. The high number of ownaccount workers is probably driven by different
opposing forces: first, positive demographic factors
such as lower fertility rates and improved education,
which have recently encouraged women into the
economy, and second, negative conditions in the
Cultural aspects were mentioned as major
discouraging factors such as operating in
chauvinist countries and the general lack of
honesty in people in general.
Fear to launch act as a discouraging factor for
most women.
Natural disasters and security issues were
mentioned (mainly in Guatemala and Mexico).
Most women feel that having a family member
as role model was an encouraging factor.
The satisfaction that came from dealing with
customers acts as an encouraging factor
while running the business.
29
general and entrepreneurial environment such as
political and economic uncertainty, unemployment,
regulatory burdens and cultural factors, among others.
In Latin America, higher levels of women’s
entrepreneurial activity are not associated with higher
levels of development; in fact the opposite is evident.
Evidence presented in this report suggests the
existence of a negative relationship between women’s
entrepreneurial activity and national income.
Finally, one could also argue that the
entrepreneurial role of women depends on national
and entrepreneurial framework conditions; women’s
specific conditions mainly related to the reproductive
role and cultural stereotypes; women’s motivations,
capacities and perceptions of opportunities, and finally,
the overall income level of a country. None of the
factors alone created entrepreneurship; they were
interlinked and greatly influenced by the level of
development of a country. Regardless of the level of
development, it is important to bear in mind that the
rapid growth of women’s entrepreneurial activity in
Latin America represents a promising road towards
economic development and social equality.
References:
Abramo, L., and Valenzuela, M.E., (2005). ‘Women's labor force participation rates in Latin America’, International Labor Review, special issue on
Women's Labor Force Participation, 144 (4), Geneva: International Labor Office.
Aldrich, H.E., & Baker, T. (1997). Blinded by the cites? Has there been progress in entrepreneurship research? In D.L. Sexton & R.W. Smilor
(eds.) Entrepreneurship 2000. Chicago: Upstart Publishing.
Bridge Organization, (2002). ‘Supporting entrepreneurship in developing countries: Survey of the filed and inventory of initiatives’, Bridges.org.
Daeren, L., (2000). ‘Mujeres Empresarias en America Latina: el dificil equilibrio entre dos mundos de trabajo. Desafios para el futuro’. Primer
Seminario Internacional de la Mujer Empresaria SIME, 2000.
Echeverri , E., Brandazza D., (2002). ‘Empresarias Decididas: Women Entrepreneurs in the Americas’, Texas Business Review, 14.http://dev.ic2.org/bbr/index.php?pid=100&pub=189
ECLAC, (2002). Economic Projections and Statistics Division, BADEINSO, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,
Santiago: CEPAL, United Nations.
ILO, (2003). Panorama Laboral 2003, América Latina y el Caribe, Lima: International Labor Organization.
Jalbert, S. E., (1999). ‘The Global Growth of Women in Business’, Center for International Private Enterprise conference
http://www.cipe.org/pdf/programs/women/jalbert.pdf
Karides, M., (2005). ‘Whose Solution is it? Development Ideology and the Work of Micro-Entrepreneurs in Caribbean Context’. The International
Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Patrington, 25, (1/2) 30 – 62.
Kjeldsen, J. and Nielsen K., (2000). ‘Women Entrepreneurs now and in the Future’, Danish Agency for Trade and Industry, November 2000,
Available at http://www.ebst.dk/publikationer/rapporter/women_entrepreneurs/index-eng.html.
Minitti, M., Arenius, P. and N. Langowitz, (2005). ‘Global Entrepreneuship Monitor 2004 Report on Women and Entrepreneuship’, Babson
College: The Centre for Women’s Leadership and London Business School.
Minniti, M. and Arenius P., (2003). ‘Women in Entrepreneurship, First Annual Global Entrepreneurship Symposium’, UN Report, 2003.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, (1997). Women Entrepreneurs in SMEs, 1997, First Conference Women
Entrepreneurs, Paris: OECD.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, (1997). Women Entrepreneurs in Small and Medium Enterprises, Proceedings OECD
Conference, Paris: OECD.
Organizacion Internacional del Trabajo, (2003). Panorama Laboral 2003, Oficina regional para America Latina y el Caribe Lima: International
Labor Organization.
United Nations, (1995). Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China.
United Nations, (2002). Human Development Report Statistics.
Zambrano, M., (2005). ‘Decent work and gender equality: Participation of women workers in development frameworks’, Geneva: United Nations.
30
Buñuel’s Version of Tristana and the Inversion of Power Relations
By Zoila Clark
“Man makes of woman the Other.”
--Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Through analysis of a 1970’s Spanish film, this article portrays men’s fear of strong, dominant women.
Tristana, the female lead, loses a leg and evolves into a black widow, in essence, a monster. Once a weak
woman abused by her tutor, she matures, and finds a place for herself within the patriarchal order. As Audre
Lorde would say, Tristana utilized “the master’s tools” to maintain her life, but did not change society.
Through the character of Tristana, an image of wicked womanhood is portrayed within the final period of the
Franco dictatorship in Spain.
“Ni yo puedo mantener dos casas, ni tu
puedes vivir sola. En su lecho de muerte te
me encomendó tu madre. ¿Dónde vas a
estar mejor que a mi cuidado? ¿Quién se
atreverá a ofenderte sabiendo que vives
conmigo?”
Translation: “I cannot pay for two houses,
nor can you live by yourself. On her death
bed, your mother entrusted you to me.
Where could you be better off than being
looked after by me? Who would dare to
offend you knowing that you live with me?”
In 1892, Benito Pérez Galdós published his
novel Tristana. In 1970, Luis Buñuel produced a film
by the same name—however, it differed completely
from the original work. Whereas Galdós fictionalized
the process by which a woman became the ideal
housewife of the new bourgeoisie of the 19th century,
Buñuel portrays the worst male fear of the 20th
century: a woman who kills her husband to establish
a matriarchy. Buñuel’s Tristana is the product of
Franco’s fascist dictatorship in Spain (1939-1975).
The film, however was set between 1929 and 1935,
during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship and the
Republic that took place before the Spanish Civil War.
The location was Toledo, instead of Galdos’s Madrid.
Also, 1929-1935 was a time of worker and women’s
rights street protests, unlike the original period.
Buñuel utilizes surrealist and psychoanalytic
frameworks for his work; as symbolism is important.
Jo Labanyi has noted the use of fetishism and sexual
difference in this film: “whether we interpret Tristana’s
increasing domination of Don Lope as the triumph of
the monstrous-feminine or as the counter-productive
result of fetishization of her, we have the story of a
man’s fantasies of a Woman” (pg. 90). Thus, the
image of Don Lope’s head being hung conveys that
Don Lope fears losing power to Tristana. Relations of
power in Don Lope’s household are examined, as the
house later becomes Doña Tristana’s property. The
transaction raises questions: was it a simple process?
Who else benefits? Is this a feminist movie?
Tristana is a teenage orphan who moves in
with Don Lope as her ward, in accordance with her
mother’s last wish. She had wanted to live alone, but
Don Lope says:
Her fate was decided by her mother and Don Lope—
as a gift exchange representing the social link
between them. Through this ritual of kinship of
friends, Don Lope becomes part of Tristana’s family.
Tristana sees a father in Don Lope and expects his
protection as he promised. However, Don Lope turns
Tristana into his sexual slave and says he can choose
to act as her father or her lover.
Don Lope is portrayed as the master of the
house and he addresses Tristana as “hijita” / “little
daughter,” demanding obedience in exchange for his
affection. Saturna, the maid, believes he is a good
man and keeps him informed of Tristana’s actions.
Don Lope’s power in the house depends on his
knowing about every action of the people living in it.
He even knows about Saturna’s son’s life, Saturno.
This character is a deaf mute, but mimes very well
everything he observes when questioned by Don
Lope. He keeps Don Lope updated with the revolts of
workers in the streets and the birth of a consumer
society. Saturno, ironically, works as a newspaper
3131
Don Lope] como un padre. Quiere morirse en su
casa.”/ “she still considers [Don Lope] to be her
father. She wants to die in his house.”
Tristana begins to mimic Don Lope, even
Horacio tells her, “hablas como él” / “you talk like
him.” She shows admiration for Don Lope’s ideas.
She argues against Don Lope utilizing his own
arguments. Tristana has learned how hierarchy works
in the family and having already started to dominate
Saturna, the lady of the house, she is now ready to
dominate Horacio and Don Lope. Both men are in
love with her, so she uses her power for attention, an
condition to be pitied. She loses a leg, but she ends
up walking like old powerful Don Lope, with a cane.
His long cane, a symbol of phallic power, cannot
compete with Tristana’s new false leg. Tristana’s
footsteps echo noisily around the house signal an
exchange of power. She inverts her role of slave
because “relations of power-knowledge are not static
forms of distribution, they are matrices of
transformations […] one of the more spectacular
results […] was a strange reversal” (Foucault 99).
Throughout the film Tristana has a recurring
nightmare. In this nightmare, she sees the huge bell
with Don Lope’s head instead of a clapper; a
repressed, Freudian dream. Yo Labanyi associates
“the images of Tristana’s castration with Don Lope’s
severed head” and “the sequence where Tristana on
the balcony exposes her ‘castrated’ body to a
terrorstruck Saturno [like] the little boy looking up at
his mother’s genitals from below” (77). This fetishism
based on the horror of the sexual difference is
explained in Freud’s essay “The Medusa’s Head.”
The clapper resembles a penis, the bell a womb;
when Tristana smiles from the balcony, her mouth
can be viewed as a biting or even castrating vagina.
This connection of the church with power is
symbolized by the use of bells, it alludes to the
Francoist period and the changes that took place
during the Republic. Liberal governments precipitate
this change, creating with it the threat of empowered
women. Even before Tristana is on a high balcony at
the end of the film, she tells the bellman the following:
“Aquí arriba se debe sentir usted muy importante. Es
como si dominase al mundo” / “Up here you must feel
very important. It is like dominating the world.” This is
the location of Tristana when she shocks Saturno with
her castrating smile, and she is also on a second floor
when she is stamping her crutches like a clock
waiting to strike the time that Don Lope dies.
boy. Don Lope’s house can be seen as a local center
of power, according to Foucault’s definition:
“Local centers of power: knowledge: for
example, the relations that obtain between
penitents and confessors, or the faithful and
their directors of conscience. Here guided by
the theme of the flesh that must be
mastered, different forms of discourse – selfexamination, questionings, admissions,
interpretations, interviews- were the vehicle
of a kind of incessant back-and-forth
movement of forms of subjugation and
schemas of knowledge” (pg. 98).
Don Lope’s power and knowledge over
Tristana is manageable when she is kept indoors. He
uses the Spanish saying: “la mujer honrada, pierna
quebrada y en casa” / “The honest woman, broken
leg and at home.” Luis Buñuel is exposing the double
standard of patriarchal societies where men are
allowed to control women socially by trading them as
gifts, all the while falsely pretending to be concerned
about their honor and purity. Don Lope is a parody of
a gentleman—he loses all traditional values by
becoming incestuous and not fighting his duels.
Don Lope forges a strong connection with
Tristana; a link that she tries to break when she
meets a young painter, Horacio. Tristana falls in love
with Horacio. When Don Lope finds out about
Tristana’s affair, he demands fidelity from her as
father and lover. Nonetheless, she refuses to answers
questions and tells him angrily: “puedes matarme
cuando quieras”/ “you can kill me whenever you
want.”
In the 19th century, Pardo Bazán found
Tristana:
“embrionaria y confusa, a través de una
niebla, como si el novelista no se diese
cuenta clara de la gran fuerza dramática que
puede encerrar [el tema de la independencia
de la mujer]”
Translation: “embryonic and confusing,
through a mist, like when a novelist does not
realize the dramatic force of the theme of the
independence of women (Anderson 61).”
Buñuel shows Tristana living with Horacio for over
two years. Thus, Tristana breaks free from Don Lope
to depend on Horacio, her new protector. When a
tumor is diagnosed on one leg, however, she returns
to Don Lope’s house because “sigue considerando [a
32
suggest that feminism should focus on collaboration
rather than individualism and identity politics, but in
Tristana, class factors are not developed in terms of
collaboration among women. Psychoanalytic
feminism can only be used to support the
misogynistic perspective of the filmmaker, as Labanyi
did in identifying the reinforcement of fetishism and
gender difference. However, Freud’s theory has not
been used in this film to develop female subjectivity
and the arbitrariness of gender. Feminists that take a
radical stand and look for a complete revolution in
terms of gendered oppression and resistance on all
fronts, public and private, will be against this film for
representing the hierarchy of patriarchy as the only
model to obtain power in society. All these positions
can be summarized in Lorde’s words: “The master’s
tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
Nevertheless, from a liberal standpoint
Tristana can be considered a feminist film because
the protagonist’s nightmare could also be hers, and
this symbolized her attempt to obtain independence
from Don Lope, the enslaving patriarch. Allowing Don
Lope to die could be the first step to improve women’s
conditions in society. Women are not victims, but
have the right to fight like men. Camille Paglia states,
“women [have] their equal responsibility in dispute
and confrontation. Any woman who stays with her
abuser beyond the first incident is complicitous with
him” (pg. 43), so Tristana is right to fight back in the
end.
We cannot talk of one feminism, but
feminisms, in this post-modern era. However, this film
was produced during the repressive Francoist regime,
and I have interpreted this film as a man’s nightmare
of castration, and added that it is based upon the
terror of the modern woman of the 20th century.
Tristana is the stereotyped woman who first finds a
provider and then castrates him, like a fetishized
femme fatale.
I believe it is time to deconstruct cultural
manifestations that have been used to define women
from a patriarchal viewpoint. I would like to give
alternatives to the social problems reflected in art and
the media. Films such as these provide opportunities
to identify the portrayal of gender, race and class
bias. We need to be aware of the existence of
master-slave relationship images within society. We
need to learn to live together without objectification in
film and the larger cultural context.
Tristana’s alliance with the police and the
church is shown by her giving money to these
institutions. Her power at home is just part of a bigger
network of power relationships. For this reason, we
notice that she is always aware of the language
others use towards her. Her tone of voice becomes
domineering, and after she marries Don Lope, she
calls him “Lopito (diminutive).”
She is successful in taking the power from
Don Lope. We see her leaving the church, guiding the
way with her cane, Saturno pushing her wheel chair.
Saturna, the other woman in the house remains as
the servant she was when Don Lope was the master
of the house. As Audre Lorde observes, “it is only in
the patriarchal model of nurturance that women ‘who
attempt to emancipate themselves pay perhaps too
high a price for the results’ (pg. 10).” Tristana
becomes bitter as a way to succeed in a society that
is made for men. Don Lope’s sister declares to her
friend that this is a man’s world because they make
the laws, so what else could be expected of Tristana
if she was nurtured by Don Lope?
Power is associated with masculinity and
weakness with femininity. When Tristana becomes
more like Don Lope, he becomes submissive in
talking to her, he is more concerned with his
appearance, stays at home, ends ups attending
church, and getting married. This exchange of roles
proves the “performativity” of gender Judith Butler
describes (pg. 175). Fetish symbolism emphasizes
the feet and Tristana’s leg, which are all phallic
symbols. The fact that Tristana loses one leg seems
to be both a fear of castration and a desire for a
woman’s masculinity. In this movie, performance is
not used to ridicule how the system of gender works,
as Butler suggests, but it is shown as the only way to
obtain power.
For Lorde, “without community there is no
liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary
armistice between and individual and her oppression”
(pg. 11). This means that Tristana, in trying to be Don
Lope, has ended up in matriarchal disguise, and that
living alone in that house with Saturna as her servant
cannot give her any long term self-fulfillment. From a
multicultural-marxist feminist perspective, Tristana is
not a feminist film because she is defining the
master’s house or hierarchical system as a source of
support, keeping other women as their servants in the
Hegelian dialectic of master and slave. Heidi
Hartman’s materialist feminist standpoint would also
33
References:
Anderson, Farris. “Ellipsis and Space in Tristana.” Anales Galdosianos 20.2 (1985): 61-76.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol. 1. Trad. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Labanyi, Jo. “Fetishism and the Problem of Sexual Difference in Buñuel’s Tristana (1970).” Spanish Cinema: The Auterist Tradition
(1999): 7992.
Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. New York:
Crossing
Press Feminist Series, 1984.
34
Biographies
Ivanessa Arostegui studies English, Women’s Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Religion at Florida International
University in Miami, Florida. She plans to earn a Doctorate in
Women’s Studies, emphasizing Middle Eastern/Islamic
women. She is currently learning Arabic, her fourth language,
and will be graduating in spring 2007 with a Bachelor’s
Degree.
My name is Taquesha Shantel Brannon, and I am
from Miami, Florida. Recently I graduated Cum Laude
from Florida International University with a major in
English and a certificate in Women’s Studies. My
research interests are in African-American studies,
concentrating on the lasting effects of slavery,
socialization, African-American identity, and stereotypes.
Moreover, I would like to pursue a Doctoral degree,
conduct research, and teach in a collegiate setting.
Zoila Clark is a graduate student in the Modern Language
Department and enrolled in the Certificate Program in
Women’s Studies at Florida International University, in
Miami, Florida. Born in Peru, she moved to the United
States at the age of twenty six. After being called a
feminist, she sought out the meaning of the word.
Angelica Clyman is a native of south Florida; a graduate
of New World School of the Arts, and now currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Florida International University. Working on various media, all of her pieces share and
air of the spiritual, with the focus turned inward. Using
her own image and other personal symbols her paintings
tell an implied story of the intuitive world within. Angelica
draws inspiration from the romance of religious art and
her philosophy is evident in the quiet drama of her images.
35
Jonathan Escoffery was born in Houston, Texas, before moving to Miami, Florida, where he would grow up
and later attend Florida International University.
Jonathan began writing short stories and poetry almost
as soon as he learned to read and write. While working
towards earning his Bachelor’s Degree in English, he is
currently working on a full-length novel, as well as
seeking publication for his short works and poems. For
further review of Jonathan Escoffery’s work visit
writerscafe.org.
Jacqueline Gopie was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She
has lived and worked throughout the United States. She
is currently a graduate student at Florida International
University pursuing a MFA in painting. Her work is
primarily figurative.
Jillian Hernandez is Curatorial Associate at the
Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, where
she created the nationally acclaimed outreach
program, Women on the Rise!, that serves at-risk
teenage girls. Her essay, Male-Identified Shorties was
later published by the Girlchild Press in the book,
Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from
Marginalized Spaces. She plans to pursue a PhD in
Women’s Studies in the fall of 2007 at Rutgers
University. Her research interests include
contemporary women artists of color, feminist theory,
and girls’ studies. She is the proud mother of Masaya
36
Biographies
Natasha Duwin received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from
Barry University. She is currently pursuing a Master of
Fine Arts from Florida International University. She is
“interested in the construction of a female identity and in
the interactions between the historical baggage that
continues to be handed down to girls everywhere.”
Natasha uses a variety of artistic mediums including
weaving, embroidery, needlework, tapestry, quilting, lace
and other textiles.
Biographies
Maria Victoria Kenny is the coordinator for the
USAID Farmer-to-Farmer program. Her current focus is to serve as FIU's volunteer recruiter, for the
program in Central America. She has had various
work experiences since obtaining her B.S. in International Business. From 1995 to 2002, she worked as
an English/Business Instructor in Buenos Aires.
She later worked for international firms, including
Motorola and Providian Financial. Her current focus
is on international development and women entrepreneurs. She just finished her Master's Degree in
Latin American Studies with a concentration in
Vanessa Monokian: The work I create is motivated by my
longing to understand the weaknesses and strengths of our
educational system, and the effects this has on their understanding of the world. This particular series was inspired by
a resent experience I had while working at a local elementary
school. One child and the work he was creating came to my
attention. He would sit in class creating wonderful works of
distraction for himself. The traditional teaching methods of
utilizing pencil and paper meant little and could not provide
him with the stimuli needed to learn. His teachers saw this
as a display of his lack of discipline, laziness and inability to
Wendy X. Ordóñez was born April 4th, 1986. She came
to the United States in 1999 from Cali, Colombia, with her
parents, sister and her dog. She has worked in the Victim
Advocacy Center at FIU for the past two years as a peer
educator and an office assistant. She is soon to graduate
with a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts. She plans to
continue her education in the fine arts.
37
Ana Silva-Fernandez is a Psychology/ Women’s
Studies double major. She was class president and
president of the Student Council for two consecutive
years at the University of the Amazon in Brazil. She
has been in the USA for the past 6 ½ years and is the
creator and editor of the self-produced fanzine "Woman
Communally". She is also working on a project for education, rehabilitation, and prevention of sexual exploitation of girls in the urban area of Fortaleza- Brazil.
38
Gisela A. Padron graduated from FIU in the Fall of 2006
with a double major in Psychology and Women's Studies. She
currently works in a Psychiatric Partial Hospitalization
Program and plans to pursue a Doctoral Degree in Clinical
Psychology. She intends to open up her own practice one day
where she plans to integrate her interests in women's issues
and mental health.
Monica C. Sanchez graduated from FIU in the Fall of
2006 with a double major in Religious Studies and
Women's Studies and a minor in Psychology. She currently
works at a Community Mental Health Center and plans to
pursue a Master's Degree in Clinical Social Work, where
she plans to integrate her interests in women's issues,
mental health and spiritual well-being.
Gisela Padron, Maria Guerrero, and Monica Sanchez
39
Editor’s Biographies
Maria J. Guerrero was born in Managua, Nicaragua, and came
to Florida at the age of 7. She is an FIU graduate and double
majored in Psychology and Women’s Studies. She currently
works in the mental health field and aspires to continue her
education to receive a Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology.
Maria’s goal is to have her own practice and incorporate both
fields of study. She has always acquired a very rewarding
feeling in helping others.
Women’s Studies Center
Florida International University
DM 212, University Park, Miami,
Fl. 33199
www.fiu.edu/~wstudies