Las adelitas,... frontline women defending Mexican petroleum

Next is a report from the financial times about 'las adelitas' who are groups of women preventing a piece of legislation going through and by doing this they defend Mexican Petroleum Company from being privatised.

In fact, the thousands of people actively demonstrating and blocking access to the senate were divided by gender,… so women equal to ‘Adelitas’ and men to ‘Juanes’. The name Adelita is very popular in Mexico and during the revolution of 1910 a story developed between a high ranking military and a ‘soldadera’ whose name was Adela, or ‘Adelita’ (little Adela) by custom.

There is actually a popular song that lasted to these days. It depicts the story of Adela. The jealousy of the military who by just thinking about the possibility of her running away with somebody else makes up stories as to how he would chase her up (or rather follow her up).

That figure is serving as symbol for women following the struggle to stop the selling off Mexicans energy firms such as PEMEX (oil) and CFE (electricity). It brings a sort of unity and romanticism.

Comment by wet_ahuizote

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Mexico’s women thrust on to frontline
By Adam Thomson in Mexico City

Published: April 23 2008 03:47 Last updated: April 23 2008 03:47

Angeles Sánchez, a grandmother with peroxide-blonde hair, has two bullet belts slung across her chest, the stock of a wooden rifle resting against her shoulder and, like hundreds of other women gathered with her, she is dressed all in white.

“For our sons and daughters,” she shouts from a busy street corner of Mexico City’s historic centre in ­protest at the government’s plans to reform the country’s ailing oil industry. “For our country,” she cries still louder. “They are not going to take our oil.”

In normal times, the police standing just a few yards away would be made up of men. Today, though, the authorities have deployed about 100 policewomen, most with heavy make-up and hair pulled tight into a bun. Some are even wearing riot gear in case trouble breaks out.

In the few days since the conservative administration of Felipe Calderón presented Congress with a bill to allow greater private-sector participation in the country’s nationalised oil industry, women have assumed an increasingly visible role in one of the most divisive issues in Mexican politics.

Virginia Jaramillo, a housewife and one of the organisers of the women’s protest, believes such a high female profile is a clear sign of how much things have changed in a country often more associated with moustaches and a macho, tequila-drinking culture than with women’s liberation.
“We have come a long way in the last generation or two,” she says.

In many ways, she is right. For a start, women are far more involved in politics than they used to be. Of the 500 seats in the lower house of Congress, 117 are held by women. Twenty years ago, women held just six.

Women are also gaining ground economically – albeit more slowly. In 2004, the most recent year for which official statistics are available, there were 54 women in the labour force for every 100 men. In 1995, there were only 48.

There are other signs. Mexico City’s government last year passed legislation allowing women to seek abortions. This month, it proposed drastically simplifying divorce proceedings and, before long, the city’s private and public universities will have to provide students with free condoms.
Even Bonifacio Florín, a Mariachi (musician) wearing a tight black suit, white cravat and a large silver buckle with a horse’s head and a lasso, believes things have progressed.

“My parents gave us boys far more opportunities to go to school than my sisters ever got,” says the rugged-looking violinist. “Nowadays, girls get pretty much the same treatment.”

But Adriana Ortiz Ortega, an academic at the College of Mexico in the capital, argues that while Mexican women have more economic and political power than before, it would be a mistake to see the anti-energy reform movement as evidence of their further political and social empowerment.

One reason is that today’s protest movement is simply another example in a long tradition of women organising social movements in Mexico. Angeles Sánchez and her fellow female protesters have even dubbed themselves the Adelitas after the legendary white-robed female fighters of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Perhaps more important, says Ms Ortiz Ortega, is the fact that men, particularly Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing runner-up in the 2006 presidential election, are masterminding the movement in spite of the growing presence of women protesters in the streets – about 20,000, according to the organisers.

“Women are incorporating themselves into the public sphere but they are also bowing to the male agenda,” says Ms Ortiz Ortega. “López Obrador is playing with the gender image to get the idea across that the government’s proposed reform risks affecting the most vulnerable within our society.”

In Mexico City’s historic centre, one of the policewomen agrees. Reluctant to give her name, the officer says the use of women to head the street campaign is a ruse. “It’s a political strategy to make the protesters look more peaceful,” she says. Then, after a moment’s thought, she adds: “But at least it gets us noticed.”