Ali McCart and I attended a talk on Sunday entitled, "Soldaderas: Female Mexican Revolutionary Figures, Larger than Life." Stephanie Wood from the University of Oregon's Center for Study of Women in Society spoke on the different ways women from the Mexican Revolution have become icons, looking at examples from photographs, murals, paintings, CD covers, book jackets, etc. (To learn about the annual program, of which this particular talk was a part, see CSWS's Road Scholars—A Community Lecture Program.)
She also mentioned contemporary female Mexican revolutionaries, including those in Oaxaca (the state of Oaxaca borders the state of Chiapas to the north), who have played a major role in the protests that began there last summer. (See BBC's Q&A on the events for a refresher of the events up to October 31, 2006, when the article was posted. The struggle continues, but that piece is a quick way to remember the protests' beginnings.) One tactic the female protesters in Oaxaca used involved media: they took over radio stations. To read a CSWS article on this, check out the Winter 2007 CSWS newsletter (free downloadable pdf). In the article, one of four UO researchers who traveled to Oaxaca last summer said the trip gave her "a fresh understanding of the critical role of the media at the birth of an urban social movement in which women play a key role."
Oaxaca Week is April 16–20 at the UO campus in Eugene. Three Oaxacan women who are creating media projects on gender, sexuality, and feminism and how those intersect with political processes, power structures, and cultural narratives in Mexico will be a part of the events. CSWS will also screen some of the women's documentaries, host a multimedia installation, and host a poetry reading. See the newsletter (above) or CSWS's home page for details.
No comments:
Post a Comment