The Real History of Las Soldaderas, the Women Who Made the Mexican Revolution PossibleOG History is

The Real History of Las Soldaderas, the Women Who Made the Mexican Revolution PossibleOG History is a Teen Vogue series where we unearth history not told through a white, cisheteropatriarchal lens. In this installment, Teen Vogue’s Marilyn La Jeunesse explains the history of Las Soldaderas, a group of women fought in the Mexican Revolution.In the 2006 film Bandidas, Penélope Cruz and Selma Hayak’s characters, with their waist-cinching corsets, plunging V-neck blouses, cowboy hats and revolvers, are the stereotypical epitome of what a Latinx woman — specifically Mexican women — are supposed to be: sexy and dangerous. This contradicting characterization of strong Latinx women has become the norm in Hollywood, but the imagery was inspired by something entirely different: Las Soldaderas, the female soldiers who made the Mexican Revolution possible.In November 1910, Mexico was plunged into a near decade-long war that pitted the federal government, run by dictator Porfirio Díaz Mori, against thousands of revolutionaries from varying factions. The Revolution was all-encompassing; everyone was expected to join the cause, and those who didn’t were forced to flee the country.For the revolutionaries, the war was an opportunity to overthrow the outdated class system put in place by the Spanish elite. These revolutionaries saw it as a time for Mexico to reward the people who worked the land, not the other way around: a war for the mestizos; a war for the indigenous; and a war for the poor. But neither side could have endured for nearly 10 years without the dedication of Las Soldaderas.Although not much is known about the demographics of Las Soldaderas, it is believed that a majority of these female soldiers were in their late teens and early twenties, and involved women of various ethnicities, including Afro-Mexicans and people of Spanish descent. As outlined in a 2009 scholarly article by Delia Fernández, now an assistant professor of history and core faculty in Chicano Latino studies at Michigan State University, women like Señora María Sánchez, Señora Pimental, and Petra Herrera — who fought as “Pedro” — showed that women could hold their own amid a bloody civil war. These soldiers fought on all sides, with many elite women joining the federales ranks and others joining different revolutionary leaders, like Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, and Venustiano Carranza.Continue reading -- source link
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