Conscious Citizenship. Changing Mentalities of the Santiaguera Women and their Utopias

Abstract

This work tries to visualize, in this part of Latin America, the suffragism and the feminism, what their contributions and their points of view were, and the way they were inserted in the communication flow with the feminists of the continent. It is an interpretation of the political conditions that facilitated a partial insertion of the Santiaguera women in obtaining the right to vote. We analyze the division of the parties and their dispute for the control and access to the power through questionable changing and transient strategies and alliances. In addition, women were considered – from the hegemonic masculine standpoint – less capable to actually understand the political moment, which led to petty politics and corruption. This also made women just skim such manipulations. The women’s vote was a simple chess game for the political parties, which considered valuable to promote women’s suffrage in order to win the power disputes. However, the women took advantage of that to achieve their goals and obtain civil and political rights and more substantial participation in a conscious citizenship, as subjects of the history and, through their pressures, as social actors and constructors. This investigation also contributes to an analysis of the women’s situation and thoughts, their social mechanisms and transformation possibilities. Social and political discrimination were called into question. Between 1902 and 1934, although the women achieved equal formal rights, and despite the not-so-extreme change in the women’s condition, a great number had access to politics and education, and, above all, became aware of the necessity of autonomy in their organizations.