Summary: Throughout Mexico's history, women have been subjected
to a dual standard: exalted in myth, they remain subordinated in
their social role by their biology. But this dualism is not so
much a battle between the sexes as the product of a social
system. The injustices of this system have led Mexican women to
conclude that they deserve a better world, one worth struggling
for. Published originally in Spanish as Mujeres en México: Una
historia olvidada, th ...show moreis work examines the role of
Mexican women from pre-Cortés to the 1980s, addressing the
interplay between myth and history and the gap between theory
and practice. Pointing to such varied prototypes as the Virgin
of Guadalupe, La Malinche, and Sor Juana, Tuñón contrasts what
these women represent with more realistic but less-exalted
counterparts such as Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, La Güera
Rodríguez, and Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza. She also
discusses the identity transformation by which indigenous women
come to see themselves as Mexicana