This book reveals the fundamental role women have played throughout the history of Peru. It aims to revaluate the important role of women and achieve a just and balanced empowerment of the female sex.

Some important archaeological discoveries of burials of prehispanic women from the coastal, Andean and Amazon regions that included rich paraphernalia and unequivocal symbols of power have been made. A complex matrix of female rulers, priestesses, soothsayers, healers, elite weavers of ritual garments and hostesses of sacred ceremonies worked at the State, regional and local levels, since the days of the oldest societies such as Caral, Nasca and Moche, up to the more recent ones such as the Chachapoyas and the Inca Empire. The power this numerous group of special women possessed derived from the sacred character that was attributed to the female body as a life-giver and provider of sustenance by ancient Peruvians, a fact that becomes evident in the deified feminization of the natural sources of food, such as the soil, the sea, the lakes and the islands.

Moving on to the period of the Spanish conquest and viceroyalty, the book narrates how some singular episodes marked the survival strategies of the women from the Inca elite, regional and local lordships, and masses of subjugated people. Those episodes are the precedents of the decision by the women of all social classes to back the independence process and participate in the rebellions acting as conspirators, spies, clandestine messengers and the like.
After the independence, the fight for education for women was not so much a demand for equality, as it was an anti-establishment response to the theological prejudice that denied that women were rational and intelligent beings.

After the War of the Pacific against Chile, intellectual women put themselves at the forefront of the national reconstruction process by proposing reconstruction projects that were clearly formulated from the women’s standpoint.

By the start of the 20th century Peru was progressively modernizing itself, and women were being influenced by the European fashion and lifestyle, as well as by the political and ideological movements of the day. Thus both the women from the working class and the intellectuals joined Mutualism, Anarchism and Socialism. Moreover, they even founded their own political paradigms, like for example Indigenism and Aprism. On the other hand, the first Peruvian feminists embraced the illusion of an equality of civil rights between men and women. From the 1930s to the 1970s big changes occurred in the legal, political and economic position of women, such as female suffrage, the acceptance of female senators in Congress, and the insertion of women in the labor markets. However, the fact that they were women meant that they had to keep a low profile in these new environments. During the 1980s the problem of female sexuality and women’s reproductive rights was included in the political agenda. Simultaneously, unprecedented massive organizations of poor women developed in the cities and the countryside, while on the other hand, women of high profile started to access important positions in the different branches of government. At the beginning of the third millennium women finally woke up and started entering different kinds of activities, like professions, arts, businesses, sports, etc.; and they rebelled against the injustices with massive protests, such as the one organized by “Ni Una Menos” (“Not One Woman Less”) against feminicide and violence against women.
Finally, the book carries a vital message for women individually and collectively. Women are affirming a dignified present and discerning a hopeful future; they have planted the seeds of more opportunities for the coming generations.


Additional information:
Author: Maritza Villavicencio
Year of publication: 2018
Language: English, Spanish
Sponsor: La Positiva
Photography/Illustration: Varios
Pages: 280
Size: 31 × 24 cm
Legal deposit: 2005-8984
ISBN: 978-612-47093-5-7
Copyright: Apus Graph Ediciones