Title: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America | Dissident Voice
Headings: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America
The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America
Content: And at the recent World Social Forum in Brazil, the Assembly of Social Movements issued the following declaration: “The social emancipation process carried by the feminist, environmentalist and socialist movements in the 21st century aims at liberating society from capitalist domination of the means of production, communication and services, achieved by supporting forms of ownership that favor the social interest: small family freehold, public, cooperative, communal and collective property. “Such an alternative will necessarily be feminist since it is impossible to build a society based on social justice and equality of rights when half of humankind is oppressed and exploited.” This article revolves around the question: to what extent have conditions for women changed as a result of the left trend in Latin American politics? The U.S. has had interests in Latin America throughout the 1800s (the acquisition of much of Mexico being one of them), but Yankee domination throughout the region began in earnest with the Spanish-American war in 1898. It continued, despite Cuba’s breakaway in 1959, for a full century, but is now declining as progressive countries assert their independence. In the process have come economic and social reforms, a number of which have benefited the women of Latin America. In 1998, leftist Hugo Chavez won his first term as democratically elected president.