History 465 Week 15 Post- Beatas, etc.

This week we talked some more about the role of religion in defining gender roles in colonial Latin America. The Inquisition case of Marina de San Miguel displayed just how prominent the Church was in daily life, and as such it’s no surprise that if a woman did not marry, the only other really appetizing option was to join a nunnery. The movie we watched last week was really good because it provided a visual representation of the things we have been talking about the last couple of weeks (nunneries, women and education). It’s pretty easy to conclude that at this time women still had a significantly inferior role in comparison to men, although I admit I was surprised that some could study and even be admired for their literary works. The ability to censor and remove educational materials when the writings became too secular displays this inequality best.  I wouldn’t be surprised if gender roles shifted significantly when the Church became less a part of society and daily life. The Church at this time was an institution in which women having leadership roles was forbidden by spiritual beliefs, and in such a system there is really no chance for a woman to gain the same status as a man. Perhaps only a nun could even come close through writings, but as the movie showed, even then she would still be under complete control of the male-dominated Church.

As this is the last blog post for this class, I think it’s important to look back at what we’ve talked about this semester as a whole. We’ve covered several centuries, and looked at gender roles all across Latin America. First, we defined what gender, sex, and sexuality really mean, and then we applied these definitions to the indigenous pre-conquest cultures and saw a variety of gender systems—many which were surprisingly equal. It seems the arrival of the Spanish brought a system of less equality, and as Spanish notions of gender met indigenous ones the two mixed. The Church seems to be the defining factor in Spanish gender notions, as most beliefs of how a man or woman should act is derived from Church officials’ interpretation of the scriptures. It’s kind of interesting to realize that pretty much in every culture we looked at, gender roles were tied to spiritual beliefs–it was the cosmos with the Indians in South America, it was the “spiritual war” in pre-conquest Mexico. This contrasts I think with modern society, where we derive our ideas of gender less from religion and more from other social arenas. This is really a reflection of how much society has changed over the last few centuries. I think the most important thing to take from this class is the understanding that gender roles have changed throughout history, and can give pretty good insights into the values of a culture and the way it operates. By studying gender relations and the way the change over time you will have a much greater and more accurate understanding of historical events that took place, and thus studying gender is essential when studying history.