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Alexander Araya Bermdez

Professor Monica Bradley

Barrios y Borders: Lenguaje e Identidad en los grupos minoritarios

12 Jul 2017

The Invisible Women

Women have certainly fought too many battles. History has witnessed their

braveness, conviction, and resistance. And, societies owe most of its current greatness

to worthy women. These all are true statements, but they have not always been

recognized as such. On this paper, I react to the way womens role has been

downplayed through the diminish of the relevance of their daily work, the abatement of

their significant participation during challenging events, and the lack of exposition of

their literary input. The truth is that it has to do with us, when it comes to women. This is

something we cannot deny, as we all have women in our lives. Women we love

passionately. We would fight Goliath for these special beings, and we would never let

such iniquities happen to them.

Ours is the work they decided to call unwork. The tasks as necessary as air

(Levins 16). This short, yet powerful, quote from Aurora Levins Morales Revision

encompasses the very first historical, cultural, and societal injustice I want to focus on:

the way womens role has been negatively impacted by the diminish of relevant work

they do daily. Women do not receive any payment for the work they do at home: this

work has always been taken for granted. The irrelevance we have historically attributed

to the work women do at home should serve as a deep reflection of how bad we have

done in terms of equality. It is unbelievable that the tasks that keep our children safe
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and healthy, our houses clean, our tables with food on them, our clothes ready to wear,

and our society educated with the best values are still tasks we downplay. Most of us

had no money. Many of us were never paid for working, continues Levins (19). It is also

important to say that money is not the only recognition and retribution women deserve:

even more important is the acknowledgement of the significant role they play in terms of

building our societies, what we are, what we are recognized for. It summarizes to Levins

quote: Look whatever you like, its our work you see (20). It is there: we cannot deny

the undeniable.

In addition, womens role has been downplayed by the abatement of their

significant participation during historical challenging events. The most common

example: war. During different conflicts through history, women had to stand still and

cope with the absence of their male partners. Life had to continue, things had to be

done anyways, and hunger did not stop. Emma Seplveda digs into Chilean coup

dtat, Edwidge Danticat writes about the occupation of Haiti, and Auroral Levins reveals

the Puerto Ricans penury: the common pillar in all these essays is represented by the

incredibly difficult and challenging events women have had to face and overcome. If we

look at Chilean coup dtat, we will found thousands of stories about women keep their

families together: women sacrificing themselves to guarantee the best opportunities for

their loved-ones. Jennifer Browdy de Hernndez cites Marjorie Agosn, and says:

My poems acknowledge those voices muzzled in dark and silent torture

chambers, especially the Voices of Women and of children who were forbidden

to sing and denied the opportunity to grow knowing the soothing touch of a

parent or to simply gaze, unafraid, at open horizons (7).

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This affirmation summarizes the reality of most of women during hard times: they had

the impossible job of keeping their families rolling, their communities moving forward,

and their society intact. Besides the Latin American scenarios listed, American women

faced the same situation during war times. So did European women.

Finally, I would like to talk about the lack of exposition of womens literary work,

and how this diminishes their role in our societies. If we walk through college and

university alleys asking students about the literary work of women writing about their

battles, the most likely response would be: I/we do not know any. This is not only sad,

but dangerous at the same time. How can we address a change about the big iniquities

women face if they are not even capable of reaching the masses with the messages

they need to spread? I need to be totally honest, and admit that I have never had any

exposure to this type of literature until now. If that is my case, how many people in the

world remains ignorant about this important matter? Jennifer Browdy de Hernndez

states:

in addition to the larger ideological battles between socialism and capitalism that

were rocking the Americas in the second half of the twentieth century, many of

the contributors to Women Writing Resistance have also been intimately involved

with the feminist struggle to eliminate sexism, and the indigenous and Black

struggles to overcome the entrenched racism of Latin America and the

Caribbean (4).

Then, I wonder: if these are not topics that should be spread amongst our societies,

which ones are? Those written by men even when they deal with unimportant matters?

Aurora Levins Morales states: [w]e have always been here. How could they not see
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us? (19). This is extremely true in the sense that women have historically written about

their lives, realities, and challenges; nonetheless, we have failed them. We have not

paid attention to what they have to say.

To conclude, I just want to reinforce: we all have women we love in our lives, and

we would be destroyed by just imaging them in a position or situation like the ones we

have gone through. The less we can do is value and enrich womens roles in our

society. Treasure the work they do, recognize their contribution to history, societies, and

cultures, and honor their literary work as a mean to express their sorrow.