Rompiendo Mitos y forjando Historia: Mujeres Urbanas y Relaciones de Genero en Costa Rica a Inicios del Siglo XX (review)

At the turn of the nineteenth century, many Latin American countries experienced profound socioeconomic changes, which had diverse impacts on the lives of women. In Costa Rica this changing reality was especially apparent in the decade of the 1920s, when the country experienced a process of economic and social modernization. Women emerged in several different spaces of the public sphere that had been exclusively or mostly reserved to men—in education, politics, social clubs, and sports. Mora Carvajal's book insightfully examines the insertion of urban women into public life in the Costa Rica of the 1920s in the light of two intertwining principles that marked women's activity outside the home: tradition and innovation. Tradition, or the maintenance of differentiated gender roles and identities, governed women's experience in this era of progress. Innovation was expressed in challenges to the cultural assumption that women were naturally fit only for the private sphere.

The promotion of female education in the 1920s continued to be grounded on the liberal claim that educated women would make mothers more qualified to raise better citizens. Motherhood, traditionally considered the most essential attribute of female identity, became a social and political issue. A more "scientific vision" of motherhood and mothering arose, mainly expressed in the professionalization of midwifery. The importance of motherhood as a "deber social femenino" was emphasized. Meanwhle, political participation of women was mostly carried out in two spaces. Working women joined the Partido Reformista and became its "fuerza logística" and "baluarte moral." Secondly, middle-class women led the quest for political gender equality by demanding the female vote. Both reformist women and suffragists justified their presence on the political scene by reaffirming their distinctive gender identity and roles. As stated by Cecilia Rojas Vargas, a member of the Partido Reformista: "[S]i con devoción atendemos los deberes de la casa, también con devoción debemos atender los deberes para con la patria" (p. 258). On the other hand, "cooperation and not confrontation" with men characterized suffragist claims. So, like many other Latin American women, Costa Rican women projected themselves as the bearers of a new moral order in which differentiation of gender identities and roles as well as solidarity between men and women were essential for the maintaining of family harmony and social progress.

The fact that Latin American women saw no contradiction between their traditional roles in the private sphere and their new roles in the public domain is usually interpreted by today's feminists as a surrender to patriarchy. This is an interpretation that both splinters the authentic wholeness of Latin American women's lives and sterilizes their history. Although it is to Mora Carvajal's credit that she does not follow this line, she nevertheless fails to explicitly analyze women's history from the perspective of a more relational, non-individualistic feminism than that which dominates the literature. Female labor is also addressed in a fresh way by the author. Instead of burdening the reader with statistics on women's participation in the labor force, conditions of work and unequal pay, this book presents the methods used in the 1920s to "control" the participation of women workers in the labor market. Thus, a variety of contests sponsored by newspapers or wealthy individuals were devised to honor the "moral beauty" of women workers. Hence rather than rewarding efficiency, these contests had the purpose of reinforcing traditional values and virtues. Urban women also turned socially "visible" though their innovative participation in social clubs, public dancing halls, and various sports, all under the alarmed eyes of many who watched as women were undertaking roles and activities proscribed by tradition.