Talk:Women in the Americas

Critique an Article

This article, particularly the section on Women in Social Movements in Latin America, seeks to add a generally underrepresented view of women in roles of political resistance and social involvement. The section talks about how women acted as spies, informants, organizers, nurses and teachers during the time period of Latin American Revolutions. The article seems to be largely built off of credible information written by people who have done extensive work in the roles women played in the region. Many of the sources are books and seem to be fact based and are therefore not overtly biased. I think the views are generally underrepresented because in the readings we have read so far on Latin American revolutions, women are not mentioned. As Simon Bolivar tried to appeal to pardos and native people to support his cause for rebellion, he made no specific appeal to women or any mentions of increasing their inclusions into society. CarinaFlaherty (talk) 16:12, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Which were the supporting roles?

At the end of the Prehistory section reads:

"By the time of contact with Europeans, most North American women were farmers, and had accepted supporting roles to their men, who performed hunting, trade, and diplomatic functions."

Since farming seems to have been the primary means of food production (during that stage in history), a necessity for survival, then hunting, trade, and diplomatic duties would seem ancillary. (My maternal ancestors, for example, were southern European farmers, and I clearly recall that it was the women who ruled the roost, not the other way around.) So wouldn't this sentence more accurately read:

"By the time of contact with Europeans, North American men, who performed hunting, trade, and diplomatic functions, had accepted supporting roles to their women, most of whom were farmers."

Ok, maybe this is not the format for such a discussion, however the point is that history, as it has usually been written, is limited by men's viewpoint of often mis-perceived expressions of self importance... and that we should be wary of this fault.

In this case, perhaps we can't judge, or don't want to say, definitively which is the supportive role, so why not leave that out altogether, so the sentence reads more objectively as:

"By the time of contact with Europeans, most North American women were farmers, and men performed hunting, trade, and diplomatic functions."

Nick-philly (talk) 13:00, 17 October 2019 (UTC)