MAJOR REVOLUTION
SOUTH AMERICAN GIRLS. A major revolution is taking place in South America, but no one seems to be taking any notice of it. Sport is emancipating the senoritas, states a writer in an overseas paper. Already it has taken them out of the cloistered life imposed on them for generations by customs imported from mediaeval Spain. Their own freedom is more social than political, but it is a real start.
Two hundred and fifty girls from Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Port Rico, Jamaica, and Panama took part in the fourth Olympic Games of Central America, recently held in Panama.
A prime cause of the revolution is the strong influence of cinema news reels showing British and American women taking part in athletic contests. Another factor is the increasing number of Latin-American girls who attend schools in the United States. The revolution is of recent origin. In 1926 a senorita was expected to wear a "Mother Hubbard” costume if she wished to bathe in the sea. Women were not permitted to use the diving-boards or piers at exclusive swimming resorts. Today, Latin-Ame-rican women wear the briefest of swim-suits, and they can bathe anywhere. Sport, has given the senorita much more personal freedom. Fifteen years ago a young woman of the “altas families” rarely appeared in public without a duenna. If she did, it was necessary for her to walk swiftly, glancing to neither right nor left. And no matter how swiftly she walked, she could not escape hearing male comments on her appearance. Buenos Aires tried to give women a little freedom by fining “mashers” 50 pesos for each offence, but sport has been more effective than laws. There are so many unchaperoned women about these days that they attract little attention. Class lines have been broken down and more democratic associations are resulting. Skill at sport is the essential factor. Sport has given the senorita a chance of emancipation and she is grasping it with both hands.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1939, Page 6
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334MAJOR REVOLUTION Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1939, Page 6
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