/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

The fact of the matter is that in most, if not all, South American and Hispano-American countries, women are discriminated against as a matter of course, from citizenship laws to professional life to paternalistic familial structures and domestic abuse, even feminicide. This is clearly not a purely Hispanic affair, since, with perhaps the exception of Scandinavia, it exists in various degrees throughout the world. But the fact of the matter is that even if it’s often used as a pro-American/Israel or neocon club to bludgeon Latinos on other, unrelated issues like American interventionism.

I look at it as being similar to Soviet charges against US treatment of black citizens. Did pointing out the Jim Crow laws make Siberian gulags or Eastern European oppression any more acceptable? Of course not, although it may have scored Moscow some points in the world arena by pointing out American hypocrisy. At the end of the day, though, the answer to Stalinist accusations of racism should have been the civil rights movement, not a denial of segregation. Likewise, to my mind, the oppression of women and minorities and homosexuals in Latin America is not directly related to the Inter-American conflict, but it is very important to me, and I don’t see that there’s any contradiction in my struggle to fight for my wife’s right to marry who she pleases, legally own land and work at any job she wants to in Guatemala and her right to return to and live in Mexico.

I don’t think that the knee-jerk reaction that many people, especially those who don’t live in the region, have to dismiss any and all criticism of Latin American states and/or societies as apologism is helpful at all. In fact, it plays into the rhetoric of pro west puppet LatAm states that justify blatant gender discrimination, macho culture and the persistence of transphobic violence or legal discrimination as we have seen with the surge of new conservative Christian moments in places like Central America. For my part, an equitable solution to a fractured Latin America conflict should be about self determination for Latinos not about and their struggle to create a commkncounter-hegemonic project.

The point is not to attack Hispanic Culture it is to not pretend it is some noble cause above all. Its okay to critique, it's not perfect, especially as a Marxist it is okay to do so.