Hermila Galindo

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Galindo and the second or maternal family name is Acosta.
Hermila Galindo Acosta
Born Hermila Galindo Acosta
2 June 1886
Villa Lerdo, Durango, Mexico
Died 18 August 1954(1954-08-18) (aged 68)
Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality Mexican
Other names Hermila Galindo Acosta de Topete
Occupation journalist, activist

Hermila Galindo Acosta (also known as Hermila Galindo de Topete) (1886–1954) was a Mexican feminist and a writer. She was an early supporter of many radical feminist issues, primarily sex education in schools, women's suffrage, and divorce. She was one of the first feminists to state the Catholicism in Mexico was thwarting feminist efforts and she was the first woman to run for elected office in Mexico.

Early life

Hermila Galindo Acosta was born in Villa Lerdo, Durango, on 2 June 1886 to Rosario Galindo and Hermila Acosta. She began her education in Villa Lerdo and then attended an Industrial School in Chihuahua learning accounting, shorthand, telegraphy, typing, as well as English and Spanish. At the age of 13, she returned home and gave private lessons in shorthand and typing to children. In 1911, she moved to Mexico City.[1]

Biography

Arriving in Mexico City, Galindo joined a liberal club and became a public supporter of Venustiano Carranza, lobbying against Porfirio Díaz. She was discovered by Venustiano Carranza while giving a speech to welcome him upon his return to the capital. He then offered her the opportunity to work with him in Veracruz. She became his private secretary and continued rallying support for the rights of Mexican women and liberal ideologies. Carranza supported her efforts, permitting her to distribute feminist propaganda in the southern Mexican states of Tabasco, Campeche, and Yucatán, and in the traditionally liberal state of Veracruz, as well as Carranza's home state of Coahuila, and San Luis Potosí and Nuevo León.[2] Carranza also appointed her as his representative in Cuba and Colombia, to publicize his policies in surrounding Latin America.[1]

In 1915,[1] she created a magazine called La Mujer Moderna ("The Modern Woman"). Along with essays discussing feminist ideas, it served as propaganda to support Carranza.[3] The magazine also featured articles which expressed her disapproval of the Catholic Church and its methods of control. She was one of the first feminists to speak out about the church and its view of women.[4] She eventually wrote Carranza's biography in addition to at least five other books.[4]

At the time her views of sex education and women's sexuality were considered to be extremely radical. Her approach seeking equality and women's rights were seen as controversial. During the Feminist Congress of 1916, which Galindo did not attend, César González, an education administrator for Carranza, read a statement in which Galindo attacked the male double standard in Mexico. After these statements were read, conservative women's groups went on the defensive and came back with a statement which supported the traditional role of women and opposed women's education.[3]

Carranza allowed Galindo to submit a proposal for women's equality to the Constitutional Assembly of 1917, but the item was stricken from the final agenda.[5] Her strong support for Carranza was evident in her writings, which expressed her faith in him and his potential to create a social revolution. Through him she believed that women could get the vote and that there was hope for social reform. In the end, Carranza failed to create the change he promised. Instead, because of corruption, he became an enemy of the revolution, and left Galindo disillusioned.[3] On 2 March 1917, she took matters into her own hands and filed as a candidate for Deputy of 5th constituency of Mexico City. Gabriela Cano, historian, reported that "it was the first time that, in Mexico, a woman contended as an electoral choice". Though some records show Galindo won a majority of the votes, the Electoral College rejected her results, claiming that they were only complying with the law forbidding women. She accepted the rejection but made it clear that her purpose had been to show publicly that women could be elected and should be allowed to hold public office.[1]

In 1923, Galindo attended a Feminist Congress in the State of Tabasco[1] and organized several revolutionary clubs in Campeche, Tabasco, Veracruz, and Yucatán.[5] She married later that year and ended her political involvement.[3]

On February 7, 1940, Galindo received the Condecoración al Mérito Revolucionario (Award of Revolutionary Merit) from the Secretary of National Defense for services rendered during the first (19 November 1910 to 15 May 1911) and second periods (20 February 1913 to 15 August 1914) of the Mexican Revolution.[1]

She died 18 August 1954 in Mexico City.[1]

Selected works

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Vargas Garza, José Jesús (9 March 2014). "Hermila Galindo Acosta" (in Spanish). Torreón, Mexico: El Siglo de Torreón. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  2. ↑ Ward M. Morton, Woman Suffrage in Mexico. Gainesville: University of Florida Press 1962, p. 3.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Pérez, Emma (1999). The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History ([Nachdr]. ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 49–49. ISBN 0-253-33504-3.
  4. 1 2 "Revolutionary Mexican Women in History and Film Bold Caballeros and Noble Bandidas in American Pop Culture". Arizona State University. Retrieved 25 November 2008.
  5. 1 2 Cruz Jaimes, Guadalupe (8 March 2007). "Hermila Galindo, una feminista en la Constituyente de 1917" (in Spanish). Mexico City: Cimac Noticias. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
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