Mirta Vidal

Mirta Vidal (died January 3, 2004) was a writer who was involved in the Chicano Movement.

Quotes

In Women's Liberation!: Feminist Writings that Inspired a Revolution & Still Can (2021)

Although the numerous articles and publications that have appeared recently on La Chicana are another important sign of the rising consciousness of Chicanas. Among the most outstanding of these are a special section in El Grito del Norte, an entire issue dedicated to and written by Chicanas published by Regeneración and a regular Chicana feminist newspaper put out by Las Hijas de Cuahtemoc in Long Beach, California. This last group and their newspaper are named after the feminist organization of Mexican women who fought for emancipation during the suffragist period in the early part of this century.

The oppression suffered by Chicanas is different from that suffered by most women in this country. Because Chicanas are part of an oppressed nationality, they are subjected to the racism practiced against La Raza. Since the overwhelming majority of Chicanos are workers, Chicanas are also victims of the exploitation of the working class. But in addition, Chicanas, along with the rest of women, are relegated to an inferior position because of their sex. Thus, Raza women suffer a triple form of oppression: as members of an oppressed nationality, as workers, and as women. Chicanas have no trouble understanding this.

One needs only to analyze the origins of male supremacy to expose that position for what it is a distortion of reality and false. The inferior role of women in society does not date back to the beginning of time. In fact, before the Europeans came to this part of the world women enjoyed a high position of equality with men. The submission of women, along with institutions such as the church and the patriarchy, was imported by the European colonizers, and remains to this day part of Anglo society. Machismo-which, as it is commonly used, translates in English into male chauvinism-is the one thing, if which should be labeled an "Anglo thing." When Chicano men oppose the efforts of women to move against their oppression, they are actually opposing the struggle of every woman in this country aimed at changing a society in which Chicanos themselves are oppressed. They are saying to 51 percent of this country's population that we have no right to fight for our liberation.

The white male rulers would want Chicanas to accept their oppression precisely because they understand that when Chicanas begin a movement demanding legal abortions, child care, and equal pay for equal work, this will pose a real threat to their ability to rule. Opposition to the struggles of women to break the chains of their oppression is not in the interests of the oppressed but only in the interest of the oppressor. And that is the logic of the arguments of those who that Chicanas do not want to or need to be liberated.

The appeal for "unity" based on the continued submission of women is a false one. While it is true that the unity of La Raza is the basic foundation of the Chicano movement, when Chicano men talk about maintaining La Familia and the "cultural heritage" of La Raza, they are in fact talking about maintaining the age-old concept of keeping the woman barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. On the basis of the subordination of women there can be no real unity.