I considered the readings for this week largely a reiteration - compelling or not - of themes and thoughts all ready dispersed throughout the classes’ lectures and readings. As the selected authors seem to largely rely on the same bits of evidence to support the thesis that women were important contributors to Spanish-American society, with sometimes separate but nonetheless significant spheres in life, I question whether this redundancy augments the argument made or discounts it.

So we all should well understand by now that women, throughout indigenous, African, and Spanish societies, had distinct social and economic rights, as well as sometimes political rights granted in differing degrees. These lines for comparison are compelling in terms of analyzing women’s pre-colonial status as parallel, though perhaps not equal, to men’s. It certainly seems that the qualities associated with women’s status in the colonial era - subservience, obedience, chastity, etc. - are inventions of European culture, oft tied to the influence of and the virtues associated with the Church. Further, individual societies’ differing degrees of compliance with the proclaimed and expected virtues for each gender role demonstrates both the independently determined values of the society as well as the decentralization of authority, characteristic both of Spanish governance and society and that of Spanish America. This model most readily transferred to the New World on account of the shift of Spanish recognition of monarchical authority to the new colonial lands as well as similar governance patterns established, through the establishment of primary colonial centers, known as viceroyalties, and satellite centers of economic production, cultural practice, and local government.

However, some of the analyses contending that women’s situation in the colonial (and pre-colonial) society was not one in the periphery or on a subservient level to that of men lead me to question the assertion, simply in that most of said analyses rely largely on extrapolation from sources produced by the elite or by the government (run by elites) rather than direct inference from primary sources of women in a variety of social classes. For example, the most interesting (and perhaps enlightening) sources have been those from legal documents, often cited when arguing women’s economic participation and rights, and sermons highlighting the respectable respective situations of men and women, such as the purpose of and roles within marriage. However, both of these are provided not from the men or women themselves, discussing their respective statuses and lot in life, but rather from supra-individual forms, which both reflect cultural attitudes but also provide a guide for such. We have rarely, if ever, been granted direct testimony from women that can support or deny the primary assertion.

The dearth of such leads me to beg the question, “Why?” Is it perhaps because women were largely not granted much education through which to express their ideas formally (or informally) in a record that could be referenced historically? Is it because women did not have the social or political freedom to express their opinions greatly, especially in contrast to the status quo? I do not mean to come at this analyses from a ethnocentric perspective, declaring that there are only certain types of legitimate, meaningful rights and liberties; I rather simply to challenge the idea that we can accept these arguments on face-value as compelling.