An Overview of the Event:
- In the 19th century, women in Chile considered the education to not be equal and were upset that they were not allowed to attend higher education (Ramos-Vera et al. 2). There were some women who were the first to submit applications to universities, Professor Antonia Tarragó was one of them and her application was denied (Ramos-Vera et al. 2). But in 1872, Tarragó “wrote the first formal application by a woman to the Comisión Universitaria [University Commission] in Chile to have exams for women’s entry into vocational training approved and validated” (Ramos-Vera et al. 2). The National Women’s Council wanted to gain the right to vote for women, first they wanted to start with municipal elections and then go onto presidential elections, this started in 1922 (Ramos-Vera et al. 7).
A brief analysis of why this event is significant for the author or text at hand:
- The Suffragette Movement is important to The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende because it adds to the fact that this is a feminist book. The focus of the book in on the women and their interactions and experiences with the patriarchy so Clara seeing her mother participate in the suffragette movement was important because it adds to her character and how she interacts with the patriarchy later in the story. Clara’s mother was part of the suffragette movement, and Clara would often join her mother and her friends on their trips to factories where they would preach about equality to the women working there, as well as the bosses who just laughed at them. Clara saw the difference between her mother and her friends who were dressed nicely and had money, and the women they were preaching to who were hardworking. This could be where Clara was first introduced to feminism, and it passed down from her mother to her and then through Clara to the later generations of women in her family.
Works Cited:
Ramos-Vera, José, et al. “Amanda Labarca and the First Feminist Institutions in Chile (1910-1922).” Estudos Feministas, vol. 30, no. 3, 2022, pp. 1–12. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48706752.