MUJERISTA: A DEFINITION
"To name oneself is one of the most powerful acts any human person can do. A name provides identification as well as being a conceptual framework, a point of reference, a mental construct used in thinking, understanding, and relating to persons, ideas, movements. Because of this Latina women living in the USA who are keenly aware of how sexism, ethnic prejudice and economic oppression subjugate them, use the term mujerista to refer to themselves and use mujerista theology to refer to the explanations of their faith and its role in their struggle for liberation.
A mujerista is someone who makes a preferential option for Latina women, for their struggle for liberation. Mujeristas struggle to liberate themselves not as individuals but as members of a Latino community. They work to build bridges among Latinas/os while denouncing sectarianism and divisionary tactics. Mujeristas understand that their task is to gather the hopes and expectations of the people about justice and peace. Mujeristas believe that in them, though not exclusively so, God chooses to once again lay claim to, to revindicate, the divine image and likeness made visible in Latinas. Mujeristas are called to gestate new women and new men--Latino people willing to work for the good of the people, knowing that such work requires the denunciation of all destructive sense of self-abnegation."
READ MORE: http://users.drew.edu/aisasidi/Definition1.htm
ON THE MUJERISTA MOVEMENT
The name given to an enterprise, a social movement, a way of understanding reality, is very important. A name not only identifies but it influences how one thinks about and conceptualizes that to which it refers. This is why a group of Latinas who work in the field of religion and in the churches invented the word MUJERISTA and, together with other Latinas, we have been using it for the last ten years instead of using "Latina feminists."
Why?
First, in our work with Latinas all around this country we have met with great resistance to the word "feminist." Even if this is mainly due to unjust propaganda, the fact is that many Latinas see the feminist movement as being anti-male, anti-family, and licentious. Second, many of the Latinas who have participated in the feminist movement have not found in it an analysis of reality that takes into account the ethnic/racial prejudice we suffer in the USA.
Repeatedly we have tried to make American feminist(s) understand that we do not suffer sexism apart from ethnic/racial prejudice but that these two types of prejudice reinforce each other to make societal attitudes and practices all the more oppressive for us Latinas. Third, no matter how much we have tried to influence the feminist movement they have not taken our Latina perspective seriously. This is why we have been little more than an appendage that is consider not valuable.
READ MORE: http://users.drew.edu/aisasidi/essay.htm
CONCLUSION: WE HAVE TO HAVE A WHOLE SELF BEFORE WE CAN BE JOINED TO ANOTHER. Every adult woman should know this. A knowing of self, reducing self-abnegation to comparable levels with your partner, and wholeness are ultra important when a woman decides to join with another person, a man, in marriage. And all of these things are equally important when a latina feminista decides to join forces with white feminists in opposing a similar (but not the same) oppressions.
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