The Costa Rican Women's Movement: A Reader (Pitt Latin American Series) - Softcover

9780822955436: The Costa Rican Women's Movement: A Reader (Pitt Latin American Series)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822955431 ISBN 13: 9780822955436

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997

This reader reflects the genesis, scope, and direction of women’s activism in a single Latin American country. It collects the voices of forty-one diverse women who live in Costa Rica, some radical, others strongly conservative, and most ranging inbetween, as they write about their lives, their problems, their aspirations.

Unlike the comparative studies of women’s issues that look at several different countries, the reader provides an insider’s view of one small, but quintessentially Latin American, society. These women write of their own experience in organizing and working for change within the Costa Rican community. Some represent groups fitting into traditional “women’s movement” that wants to improve certain aspects of women’s and families’ daily lives. Still others, the “feminists,” argue forcefully that true improvement requires a profound change of power relations in society, of women’s access to power and decision making.

The articles are organized into thematic groups that range from the definitions of Feminism in Costa Rica to women in Costa Rican history, women’s legal equality, discrimination against women, and the status of Women’s Studies. The brief biographies that identify each author underscore the leadership of Costa Rican women in Latin American Feminism. The founders and editors of Mujer, one of the most influential Feminist journals in Latin America, are among the authors represented in the reader.

The audience for this book will include specialists interested in Latin America, in women in Latin America, and in the international women’s movement.

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From the Back Cover:

This reader provides an insider's view of the women's movement in one small but quintessentially Latin American society. It collects the voices of forty-one diverse women as they write about their lives and their experiences working for change within the Costa Rican community.

Review:

“Thirty-four short essays, translated by the editor, peovide perspectives on the women’s movement and feminism in Costa Rica during the early 1990s [focusing on] various theoretical positions informing the women’s movement in Costa Rica; women in Costa Rican history; the legal status of women; aspects of discrimination . . . as well as violence against women in the family; women’s organizations; feminsim in the arts; and the evolving status of women’s studies.”
--Journal of Economic Literature

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