2011/12/01 by Zandra Pedraza
Social Sciences · #Gender and Feminist Studies #History and Politics in Latin America #Latin American Cultural Politics
paper · pdf · doi:10.7440/res41.2011.06
openalex publication_date 2011/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This article examines the constitution of modern women in Colombia during the twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the changes during the 1930s and 1940s that incited debate on this topic. Just as the demands for sexual equality began to rise, the struggles for women’s emancipation intensified and various social transformations made it necessary to revise the doctrine on female education. Despite different opinions regarding the desirability of giving women the right to vote, extending their primary education, and increasing their participation in public life, both proponents and critics of these transformations agreed on protecting the basic nucleus of a woman’s education that was established in the nineteenth century around her roles of housewife, mother, and wife. During these decades, beauty, which went from being a natural gift to something accessible through consumption and accumulated investments in feminine bodily capital, was added to the list of duties of femininity.