Women in the History of America

The aim of this Course is the study of the role of women during the different stages of the history of Latin America, using as a point of departure the Continent's indigenous cultures, already in existence prior to any European presence, and on through the colonial period into the first republican phase, until the twenty-first century is reached. Within this overarching timeline, the set objective, by means of a careful selection of topics, is to provide an overview of the circumstances and experiences of women in a range of spatial and temporal contexts, while analyzing their involvement in different social environments within a multiethnic and multicultural context such as that of Latin America. In this way, what is registered is an awareness of, as well as an appreciation of, the trajectory of such women as historical agents, thus counteracting both the subordinate position and the invisibility to which they have been condemned, not only on the part of hegemonic patriarchy, but also by historiography itself. Finally, the aim of this Course is to encourage a critical mind-set capable of extricating the role of Latin American women from a range of ethnic and cultural strata so as to advocate their contribution to History.