Historical history of women’s human rights
At present, most of the constitutions of the world proclaim equal rights and duties for citizens, but we must remember that it was not always like that. If we want to approach the origin of the discrimination of women, we will have to jump from some thousands of years in history and seek explanations in the Greco -Roman and Judaic traditions, in that of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples that occupied the north and westfrom Europe, as well as in Eastern cultures (confucionist, Hindu and Islamic). We will see that the condition of women has been defined depending on the role it has assigned especially within the family. This makes it considered a unit within another unit and not an individual within the social context.
In the strictest patriarchal regimes, the woman has been a common view of the perpetuation instrument of the landscape of the husband, the tribe or race. Therefore, the punishment for adultery was, and in some cultures it is still, very rigid. Its function in reproduction justifies its existence and grants the reasons for its submission. The Jews lapsed the adulterous woman, the Greeks forced her to dress as a girl. To protect the name, goods, titles, powers, belonging to the group, the woman’s life was in the hands of her husband and adultery was paid with death. However, the woman could be assigned or borrowed when it favored the interests of the husband or group, and thus could determine the multiple discriminations that the woman suffered;since she was seen as an object and not subject to rights.
The long road to equal rights
The French Revolution bequeathed humanity one of its most precious documents: the declaration of the rights of man and citizen. However, to the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity, which mark the history of contemporary age, they had to live together for many decades and even centuries with slavery and servitude. Therefore, it is interesting to ask:
How did men understand the principle of equality excluding from the term more than half of humanity?
Under the three sublime principles, the 1793 convention established in France, that all were citizens and were called to exercise political rights, with the exception of those who had been condemned by infamous penalty, mental deficient, minors and women.
Olympia de Gouges, French fighter and revolutionary, thought it was time to propose the inclusion of women in these rights and did so with the dissemination of the document the declaration of women’s rights and citizen. Robespierre ended his illusions by placing the heavy edge of the guillotine in his neck.
The main arguments to consider that women were incapacitated to exercise the same rights of men and citizen were mainly based on three considerations:
- Nature. That confers the woman, because of her condition as a reproductive, a biological essence that confines her at home, domestic, care and protection of breeding.
- The virtue. That forces women to protect the risks and vices that find their space in the public and the political, protecting it in the private sphere (of the home). In this line of thought, the virtue of women is conditioned to their sexuality based on a single male, its owner, and their permanence in the home.
- Utility. We know how much it contributes financially to society, the fact that the woman remains at home taking care of the domestic, food, clothing, cleanliness and takes care of the care of the little ones, the elderly and the sick. Today, that the woman has gone to work factories, institutions and companies, the accusation of putting the stability of the home, education and formation of children and their exposure to all social scourges of the big cities falls on risk.
In his book Political Rights and Citizenship of Women, Evangelina García Prince quotes Juan Jacobo Rousseau, the humanistic thinker and philosopher par excellence, who synthesizes these three reasons that excluded the woman from the city-girl, denying her rights, with thefollowing words:
“In all pure and legitimate relationships as a daughter, sister, wife and mother the woman is the man’s assistant. Those who encourage women to risk that solid power, that legitimate sovereignty that now exerts on men (governing it through its beauty, its good humor and its good sense, by their grace, their skills and their instinctive act) in aWich attempt and push it to a rebellion, which can only end in an ignominious and ridiculous defeat, those who do so, are not prudent advisors, or true women’s friends ”.
The human rights of women in Ecuador
Although, in recent decades, the country’s conduction has been in the hands of different political sectors, Ecuadorian women have attended the incorporation of their rights and recognition of their status of equality against men in different laws, andIn the text of the last two political constitutions of Ecuador. The 2008 Magna Carta, in its art. 10, num. 2, affirms: “No one can be discriminated against ethnicity, place of birth, age, sex, gender identity, cultural identity, […] the State will adopt affirmative action measures that promote real equality in favor of the headlines ofrights that are in inequality.4Se in art.66, num. 3, the Ecuadorian State recognizes and guarantees: “The right to personal integrity, which includes:
- Physical, psychic, moral and sexual integrity.
- A life free of violence in the public and private sphere. The State will take the necessary measures to prevent, eliminate and sanction all forms of violence ”.
The Republic of Ecuador has assumed and ratified, throughout the last decades, the main agreements, treaties and conventions that promote gender equal and the promotion and defense of women’s human rights assuming, before the communityInternational, the explicit and binding commitment of its compliance. Among them we have CEDAW, the Inter -American Convention to prevent, sanction and eradicate violence against women (Belém do Paraá Convention), the Action Program of Cairo and Cairo, the Beijing, Beijing and Beijing platform, the statuteof the International Criminal Court, the Millennium Development Goals and the consensus of Mexico and Quito.
The demands of women’s organizations, under the rights recognized in the last two constitutions and commitments assumed by the country before the international community, crystallized the promulgation and modification of laws in defense of the human rights of Ecuadorian women. Thus, between 1998 and 2007, several important laws were promulgated and/or modified, including: the Law of Violence against Women and Family, the Labor Amparo Law, the reforms to the civil and criminal codes, the Free Maternity Law, the Law for Sexuality and Love, the Law of FEES and the Organic Law of Health.
Similarly, the active participation of women’s organizations and national mechanisms for women;National sexual health and reproductive rights plans, for the prevention and eradication of trafficking, traffic and sexual exploitation and the National Plan for the Prevention and Eradication of Gender Violence.
Female suffrage in Ecuador.
Women’s suffrage in Ecuador was guaranteed in the 1929 Constitution, making Ecuador the first country in Latin America to give women the right to vote. The constitutional change occurred after Dr. Matilde Hidalgo requested to vote in the legislative elections of 1924. The application was accepted by the State Council, making it in turn the first woman in Latin America to vote in a national election. null
For the 2017 general elections the number of women voters reached 5.427.261, while the men were 5.206.173.
Until 1884, none of Ecuador’s constitutions referred to the gender of people by establishing the requirements to enjoy citizenship rights, although there were no cases of women who tried to vote. The 1884 Constitution was the first to introduce a limitation in terms of the person’s gender, establishing that they enjoyed citizenship rights only ‘men who know how to read and write and have turned 21 years or have been married’. The inclusion of the restriction was born from the debate itself about the possibility that women try to exercise the vote, with the conservative majority in the assembly imposing their position.
The Constitution of 1897, prepared by a markedly liberal assembly, withdrew any reference to the gender in regard to access to citizens, in addition to having emphasized to improve the condition of women in society. The Diario de Debates of the Assembly includes the following annotation, dated June 3, 1897: ‘In the first days of the Convention, much has been done to improve the condition of women as it has been granted citizenship rights, leaving the ability to exerciseany public office, including the State Minister ‘. However, although in theory women had all citizenship rights, it was commonly accepted at the time that their exercise could be restricted in the electoral field.
Matilde Hidalgo
During the registration stage for the legislative elections of 1924, Matilde Hidalgo, who was known for having been the first Ecuadorian woman to have completed her secondary studies and the first doctor (graduated in 1921 at the Central University of Ecuador), tried to register inThe city of Machala to vote in the elections, but the officials in charge prevented him from his status as a woman.
Hidalgo made a formal application and used as an argument the text of the Constitution of 1897, which did not contain restrictions on gender to enjoy citizenship rights. His application was raised to the State Council, which finally proved him right and allowed him to vote in the elections of May 10, 1924, which made her the first woman in Latin America who could vote in a national election.
Constitution of Ecuador of 1929
The public debate that took place as a result of the case of Matilde Hidalgo led to the 1928 Assembly, also of a liberal majority, to guarantee the female suffrage leaving any questions out. Article 13 of the Constitution, promulgated the following year, established that all Ecuadorian ‘man and woman, over 21 years old and that they know how to read and write’ is a citizen.
In the following months the political parties initiated campaigns to promote the registration of women in the electoral records. The conservative party managed to attract the greatest number of women, asserting in a statement that ‘far from being harmful to the female vote, it would contribute to moralizing the elections’. The Liberal Party based its strategy on remembering that it was the assembly dominated by members of its party that granted the vote to women.null
Abolition attempt
During the drafting of the Constitution of Ecuador of 1937, the lawyer Luis Felipe Borja proposed to eliminate the explicit recognition of the female vote, asserting that the issue should be defined in the electoral law and that the status of citizen did not enable the right to the right to itself the right to vote. José María Velasco Ibarra opposed this and other attempts to reduce the electoral roll in the constitutional text. Borja said that allowing women to vote was equivalent to inviting ‘the cleric’ vote.
Borja’s position was strongly rejected in liberal circles of Guayaquil, although he had a certain echo in Quito, with several thinkers and editorialists pointing out the lack of autonomy of women as a reason to prohibit them from voting. In favor of the restriction of the female vote, even recognized women of liberal tendency were presented. The feminist Rosa Borja de Ycaza, for example, said during the public debate that the right to vote was not so important because ‘the woman’s vote without civic preparation, only serves as a blind instrument in the great national orientations.’
The electoral law finally did not include restrictions on female suffrage, and the authorities clarified that women could continue voting freely.
Biliography
- https: // www.Wikiwand.com/es/suffrage_femenino_en_ecuador
- http: // repository.UASB.Edu.EC/Bitstream/10644/954/1/human.PDF
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