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Article Evaluation

Mexico

During the time Spain owned Mexico (pre-independence) Mexico adopted the style of Spain’s Catholicism where women were normatively established as weak. "During the beginning of church history ecclesiastical authorities found in the creative fashioning of gendered language an important means by which to reaffirm the patriarchal norms that underlay the institutions power and authority" (Witschorik). In the case of the patriarchal system that developed over many centuries in the Church, normative definitions of masculinity and femininity took on added significance as guarantors of institutional stability which ensured the ongoing functioning of the institution, but, when contested or undermined, threatened the entire sacred enterprise (Witschorik). Women were “excluded from the public sphere [of the church] and held in the private realm of home and family life” ; “the Church, the school, and the family all converged in assigning women this role” (Loaeza).

In Mexico during 1807, people "cited women's behavior as a root cause of social problems" and though that it would lead to the break-down of New Spain(Witschorik). In this time period women were inferior to men and the inequality of gender was used as a sense of power in their sermons (Witschorik). In colonial and early-independent Mexico, male archbishops would use language "that either explicitly invoked patriarchal social norms or creatively reinforced them through adaptations of tropes of masculinity and femininity"(Witschorik). Studies even show how "the Church likewise played a role in shaping women's marriage choices, both through canonical rules of consanguinity among marriage partners and by means of the ostensible limits imposed by its expectation that marriage be contracted freely by both parties"(Witschorik).

During the Cold War, the influence of communism “became a central political battle and a common cause for the Church and the Mexican Women” (Loaeza). Prior to the Cold War, women were confined to the private sphere in the homes of the family. “In the face of an alleged Communist ideological offense, [this notion of women being confined to the private sphere] became an issue of public concern” (Loaeza). As a result, women “created new forms of political participation, and they acquired an unprecedented sense of political competence [as well as involvement in the church]” (Loaeza). Women were “made aware of their own potential in the public sphere” (Loaeza).

Post-Cold War, “women were at the center of [social influential] pursuit” (Loaeza). A common woman figure in the Mexican Catholic Church was “derived from the position of Virgin Mary­­––or her more vernacular representation, the Virgin of Guadalupe” (Loaeza). Virgin Mary was held as a “role model” for women and young girls and was distinguished for her “passivity, self-denial, abnegation and chastity” (Loaeza). The Church disseminated a religious, maternal, and spiritual role component of Virgin Mary “that governed attitudes and symbols sustaining women’s status” (Loaeza).

Women of Nahua

The Women of Nahua are significantly noted for their lack of power and authority in their roles compared to men in the realm of the Catholic Church in Mexican society. It is seen that “Nahua women’s religious responsibilities in Mexico City lay between the officially recognized positions of men in the public arena and women’s private responsibilities in the home”(Truitt). They were denied the officially sanctioned power that should have actually be offered to the Nahua women (Truitt). The lack of authority for women resulted in occasional outbreaks in violence due to the frustration of power struggle. “In at least one-fourth of the cases, women led the attacks and were visibly more aggressive in their behavior toward outside authorities”. Position wise, Women were eligible for divine favor however they were unable to become nuns in the Catholic Church society (Truitt). The women were only to “be recipients of God’s divine favor and protection if they followed the tenets of the Catholic Church;” the rules and regulations for women were evidently more strict and rigid than those for men. (Truitt)

Women of Vela Perpetua

There is specific evidence for a woman dominated church-oriented organization called The Ladies of the Vela Perpetua. The ladies of the Vela Perpetua, “a predominantly female lay organization whose central purpose is to keep vigil over the Blessed Sacrament overnight”, was a unique organizationbecause of “its  implicit challenge to the Church’s rigidly hierarchical gender ideology: the constitution of the Vela Perpetua mandated that women, and only women, were to serve as the officers of this mixed-sex lay devotional organization”(Chowning). Scholars suspect that the woman led organization “was predominately found “in the small towns and cities of the central-western states of Guanajuato, Michoacán ́and Jalisco (a part of Mexico known as the Baj ́io)” (Chowning). During this time, “female leadership meant something virtually unheard of in Catholic lay societies: women were in a position to ‘govern men’(Chowning). Even though Vela Perpetua was founded in 1840, their reverse gender role legacy was neither celebrated nor recognized until much later in time.

According to research form scholars, “We do not and cannot know for certain who first conceived the idea of the female-led Vela Perpetua” (Chowning). However, it is known that this institution was comprised of devout mothers, grandmothers and great- grandmothers alike. (Chowning). These ladies who participated in the Vela Perpetua organization brought a sense of ‘feminization’ that they had been historically denied in the realm of the Catholic Church which surrounded their lives. Because the sense of the social and religious freedom that was provided, others in surrounding communities “flocked to the Vela as a way to support the Church and to claim a kind of religious citizenship — greater equality and greater power within the Church… ” (Chowning). Consequentially, some men were rather angered over their non-traditional church ways that were being practiced and “four years [after the Vela Perpetua was founded] “the first separate Vela for men was founded” (Chowning). Despite the creation of a separate Vela for men, it was seen that “several of the women’s Velas were singled out for praise by the bishop for their efficient organization”(Chowning).