This paper is a discussion of the female ideal in Argentine society in the middle of the twentieth century and the ways in which this ideal was complicated by class issues, focusing on selected quotes from two of that societyÆs more prominent women.
Dona Maria Roldan was a prominent female supporter of Juan Peron and a representative of the laborista party as a shop steward in ArgentinaÆs meat-packing industry. Eva Duarte Peron, ôEvita,ö was the wife of the president and her nationÆs most famous woman. Each was empowered and restricted by the boundaries of ArgentinaÆs definition of the role women ôoughtö to play in society and the confines of being members of the working class. These limitations allowed both to do important work but also defined the way in which they were permitted to view themselves and talk and think about what they were able to accomplish.
One of the most significant political accomplishments attributed to Eva Peron was securing the right to vote for women in Argentina. James quotes Dona Maria: ôI feel wounded many times when my husband on election day says, the people have voted, and I say to him, no the people didnÆt vote, half the people voted, because a woman is a citizenö (42), while Evita write, ôWith [the vote] we women . . . have to win . . . the great right of being simply women, and thus being able to fulfill, totally and absolutely, the mission that, as women, we have to perform for humanityö (182). Both viewed the right to vote as essential for women, but most important as the means of maintaining their female power, not of, in EvitaÆs words, ôwomen whose first impulse undoubtedly had been to be like menö (179).
Although neither woman lived a life that kept them at home, both worked hard to hold to ôthe public myth of woman as maternal, nurturing, pure, and home-boundö (James 46), in the interpretation of their actions. James observes, ô[Ideal women] were intrinsical...