Cecilia Grierson: life and contributions

Cecilia Grierson

The roles which women perform in society are varied and these roles are usually not being considered influential or remain unnoticed. Particularly those roles which are inclined towards religion remain not been put to question. For a long duration of the Argentinean history, religion has been having an undue influence. An optimistic effect on the outlook and ethics of the community of Argentina, realized over several decades was through the arrival of foreign ideas through immigration. Main significance of women is even now her responsibility as wife and mother. Genuine contributions of educated feminists of the early generation are for ascertaining Argentina's place among the international society of feminists and making a gauge of educational liberty for women. When one studies the proceedings in totality, there is certainly a fulfillment that women of Argentina have achieved much, even though Cecilia Grierson was the first among woman to have graduated from South America. She undertook a very austere professional and educational practice, and has put in lot of effort for the development of the Argentine society and the education of the Argentine women. Doctor Cecilia Grierson assumed a position as the representative of a stable and practical feminism. She hailed from Buenos Aires and was born on 22 November 1859 from a couple one of whom was Irish and other was a Scot. She spent most of her childhood days in the field, initially in Uruguay and later with her father in the area of Rivers. (Cecilia Grierson: Medical)

Cecilia Grierson was sent to Buenous Aires for study, but the finances were in shambles and hence she had to return back. When her father expired, she had to travel way back to Buenos Aires in a fight for survival along with her mother and small brothers. She worked as a governess in a wealthy family. When she was 13 she began giving tuitions in rural areas. In 1873 she came back to her wealthy setup and founded a rural school there, in which she worked hard as a teacher for 3 long years. In 1878, when she was 19, she came out with flying colors in her graduation from the Normal School of Teachers of Buenos Aires, located in the Buenosairean district of Cabins and almost immediately, she was offered a position in a school for men folks by Sarmiento, an important person of the policy and education during those times. (Cecilia Grierson: Medical)

When she turned 18, the Domingo, Director of an institution lead by Sarmiento, enrolled her in the Mixed School of San Cristobal and this enabled her to bring back her family to Buenos Aires. At that juncture, she intuitively knew that her field was medicine. She proceeded with her teaching, but the disease of her friend and companion, Amelia Kenig was particularly very decisive in being determined of being medical, although no woman had the guts to take up such a competition. When she was 23, she enrolled the Medicine Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires. As a student alongside she established in the vicinities of the Argentine Medical Circle, the first school of Nurses of the country, an organization that she lead until 1913. (Biography of the first medical Argentinean, Cecilia Grierson)

The identity and the path of Cecilia Grierson, first woman in the field of Medicine from Argentina are linked with the great positions of a group of women who in Latin America and the Caribbean fought to dismantle obstructions in the midst of the ignorance and the indifference of the existent time. They turned out to be the first college students. In the decades of the Seventy and eighty of 20th century Latin America witnessed significant changes in economy and culture and the laws and agreeable reforms that enabled women's free access to education were enforced. During this period grammar schools were founded. And most of the times, the training programs in these training centers was very elementary in nature. One among these institutions which gave elementary training was for women to make them learn to read and write and, at the most, to have a basic knowledge of Arithmetic and language, to implement with poise and grit as wives and mothers. (Biographical Dictionary of Argentina Women, 32)

During the time of 1882 she took a decision to study medicine. A legal nuance blocked the entrance of women in to the area of medicine. She took a very bold decision to get permission for women and she went on to get authorization for her decision. Without losing heart in anyway by the impediments that she had to meet in course of time, she got a special privilege for women from the legal authorities. Preceding her, another woman, Elida Passo (1867-1893), had set foot into the Faculty of Medicine to compete in the race for pharmacy, coming out with flying colors in that branch in 1885. (Cecilia Grierson: Medical)

But pitiably, when Elida Passo was taking part in the fifth year of medicine, she fell ill seriously and passed away without completing her graduation. Grierson proceeded with her studies in a circumstance of censures, malicious opinions and jeering. In spite of all these obstacles, she laid stress on becoming an outstanding student, attained success in the position of histologia and honorem of the Faculty. The thesis study she made on Histero Ovariotomias degree, implemented in the Hospital of Women from 1883 to 1889, came out as a result of these experiences. During the time of 1885, she was deemed the assistant of laboratory of Histologia and medical instructor in the Public Attention. (Cecilia Grierson: Medical)

During the time of 1886, when a massive epidemic struck Buenos Aires she enrolled herself in the "House of Isolation" and had a brainwave for the first time about the requirement to gather auxiliary personnel to the doctor. The very same year she established a school of Nurses, which by the time of 1891 drew the public attention. During the time of 1888 she became the medical instructor in the Rivadavia hospital, this fact turned out to be out of the way, more than its very presence in the competition. During the time of 1889 she came out with graduation in the field of medicine with the analytical thesis on gynecology as mentioned earlier and got from the Maxima authority of the Medicine School of the University of Buenos Aires, the esteemed title of medical surgeon and then after that she began her work in the hospital of Mejia Branches. (Biographical Dictionary of Argentina Women, 33)

Grierson took up an austere and enduring educational activity, to the same extent in the primary and secondary like under the technical and university scope. She inculcated her education stubbornly and she pursued the study of puericultura (health analytical study and the concerns of children that must be taken care of during the initial years of their life) and was the precedent of the sordomudos and blind education. During this time, she realized the requirement to make as a profession the practice of the hospital, after her experiences, as much in the Clinic of Vaccination and established the Red Cross in 1891 when there was an outrage of the smallpox epidemic. This particular project precipitated in 1891 with the building of the School of Nurses of the Argentine Medical circle. (Biography of the first medical Argentinean, Cecilia Grierson)

As a one who lead the way in the educational field of first aid, especially for accident cases, in 1892 she established the Argentina Society of First aid, an organization that performed a great feat of promoting multiple courses, conferences and publications. Transportation by the government leads her to travel to Europe and as a result of her observations the National council of Education institutionalized the curriculum for professional schools. That served as the subject of her book of technical education for women. She made an analytical study of the treatment methods for the blind and sordodumos and in Buenos Aires she set up the Blind Institute. In Paris she attended the best clinics of obstetrics and gynecology. As a result, she made known the study of puericultura in the schools and established the national obstetrical association. (Biographical Dictionary of Argentina Women, 34)

Side by side, Grierson took care of classes of anatomy in the Academy of Beautiful Arts, and took charge of its deemed psicopedagogico doctor's office that was devoted to treatment of childhood retardation. In 1900 the National Council of Women was established by her. Adding up to this she was given the designation of professor of anatomy in the National School of Beautiful Arts and the Chairperson of Obstetrics. During the time of 1897, her book 'Practical Massage' reached out to ample fans and turned out to be the predecessor of kinesiologica Literature in Spanish language. Adding up to this in 1904 it provided for, in the Medicine of Faculty of Buenos Aires, the initial courses of Kinesiterapia, that make up the most important predecessor of the Argentine kinesiologia. (Biography of the first medical Argentinean, Cecilia Grierson)

Grierson gave lessons to chair persons in the national Grammar school of young ladies, of which she was the established professor in 1907. She also took positions related to her profession and released her works as the education of the Taken care of blind person and of the patient. Before that, in 1899, she made a travel to Europe where she inculcated diverse activities and she dedicated herself to professional enhancement and took part in the Congress of the International Women of London. Yet another important work on her part was the establishment of the National Obstetrical Association and the Obstetrical Magazine, scheme that was unique due to the objective to promote the cultural level of the midwives. (Cecilia Grierson: Medical)

The life and the path of this visionary woman were multifaceted. She was not only the first medical antecedent of the times and she practiced medicine like a social worker, but her commitment to the land of policy and the feminism was strong. As a tradition, the legal position of women in Argentina had its base on Spanish law, which gave rise to Roman law, in which the women are considered as the property of the men in the family and individual women under the authority of their fathers and women who were married of their husbands. The Moorish tradition of making a seclusion of women which was strong, especially in southern Spain, from days dating back to centuries of Moorish rule, was most of the times unattainable in colonial Argentina, but had the perception of many as an ideal, and women were not allowed to hold any political and administrative positions in the colonial setup. (Carlson. 7)

There was attempt by the families to get their daughters married between the age of fifteen and eighteen, very often to man who was fifteen to thirty years senior to her. Women were unable to inherit land grants under the colonial system, nor were widows head of the estates. In order to shirk property confiscation, women were put to pressure to remarry. Even after independence from Spain, when inheritance laws turned out to be more equitable, families found ways to circumvent them so as to give the bulk of the estates to male heirs, so that there was an assurance that the wealth stayed with the patrimony.2 These approaches started to change in the end of the eighteenth century and in the beginning of the nineteenth century due to the impact of foreign cultures, especially that of French. The foreign plans were seen as progressive and up-to-date, and Spanish customs began to appear back and unorthodox. (Carlson, 7)

Upper class Argentine women began to organize cultural get together where men and women would be able to interact through informal intellectual discussions and the performance and the enjoyment of music and poetry, just as was existing in the French salons of the day.3 Mostly the Argentine upper class did not make any consideration of the public education or literacy necessary for other parts of the female population, but they needed upper class girls not to be literate only, but to be given lessons to behave in a proper, virtuous and rational way. (Marysa, 242)

They also believed that the Church should offer vocational training to the lower classes, because it was believed that ignorance and lack of skill sets led women to a life of prostitution. IN 1801, the colonial government established the first daily newspaper in Buenos Aires, Telegrafo Mercanble. In consistency it contained articles that were in support of the secular education for women and making a critic of the religious nature of the education that the women received from the Church, which some men believed was held responsible for keeping women ignorant, superstitious and irrational. Secular education, according to the, had to be the way to make women stable in an emotional way so that they could be better mothers and up-to-date companions for intellectual men. (Evans, 117)

At the end of nineteenth and early twentieth century women (including those of feminists) in Argentina were influenced by the widely occurring beliefs about woman's nature and role in society that men claimed to be true. There was a definition to woman as associated to man. Education would solve women's problems, provide them self-respect and make them able companions for educated men, women must not lose their feminine modesty, and they must shirk giving an impression of intellectualism which held association with loose morality. They had a belief that men could exist without love, while women would not be able to. (Marysa, 242)

The conception of romantic of womanly martyrdom was a dominant theme in mid nineteenth century of Argentine women's literature. Patriotic poetry of women often portrayed female virtues at the back ground of men's selfishness. Self sacrifice was the rule. Even as women were fighting for economic, intellectual and social independence, and the prevalent factors and beliefs about women kept them under check, some of which the women themselves accepted as God given or inherent. (Evans, 117)

Women were identified in the same group as children, the retarded and the insane under the nineteenth century civil law based on the Code Napoleon. Women had no legal individuality apart from their husbands and were under their husband's legal control. A woman had to prove that her husband was insane in order to get a legal parting, as divorce was not permitted. Even in these cases, on condition that husband could prove he is able, children over five years of age stayed with the husband. The society expected that women would somehow handle, but they had no real remedy against financial neglect. The women's position did not advance in the 1853 Constitution. (Marysa, 243)

It was understood in many ways that unfavorably affected women although it offered democratic principles with religious liberty and citizenship for all people born in the territories. For example, all people are expected to take up weapons when required, as per article 21. The court ordered that Argentine women were not permitted to the rights of citizenship including suffrage, as women were not allowed to hold the armed forces. The appearance of a planned movement for the granting of civil rights to women was in Argentina rather than in North America or Europe, due to the lack of an educated middle class, constant political and civil chaos and the effect of the Church, which existed in the country during the nineteenth century. (Evans, 118)

In Latin America, Argentina was the leader in working for women's rights. By the end of nineteenth century, Argentine women's movement began following the steps of like movements for the first time in United States and Europe in which women began to arrange themselves to work for the development of the lives of women and children and eventually for the betterment of the society. The woman's movement is different from the feminist movement, which can be slackly defined as the movement for female social and political equality. Philanthropists and temperance workers did not essentially join the feminists in their political demands. (Carlson, 8)

In the start of this century many feminine organizations arose. Having their initialization in the 1860s the Argentine government very strongly encouraged immigration. During that time, forty five percent of Buenos Aires population were immigrants, and by 1890, ninety percent of the immigrants. This massive increase in the immigrants had an inclusion of the skilled, educated and professional people, some of them being free or Socialist political exiles, whose many more developing ideas provided support for secular education and helped, disintegrate the rigid class system, as well as provide a social and intellectual climate that was suitable to women's rights and feminist issues.

In the vicinities of Argentina feminism was largely an immigrant movement, and one of which was associated to the socialist party. And even though there were some non-socialist feminists. In Argentina, even the early feminists generally put social issues above feminist ones. This appears to be the feature of Argentine women, who were generally placed in political issuance influencing the country's welfare above issues that influence women only. This has been duly a result of the many existent repressive military regimes and the brutality which has forced women to become political, even if it had to defend their roles as wives and mothers more than to rally for that particular reason. (Evans, 119)

The beginning of university preparatory secondary school for girls began in 1905, and the opportunity for women to attend the University, made a mark on the real beginning of the feminist movement in Argentina. All of the twenty five women who completed coursework at the University in the time of 1905 and 1910 made a practice of professions, and all strongly supported social and economic development for women. By 1910 Argentina's educational system was considered the best in Latin America, and there was a perception as being morally and financially committed to the financial development of women. As the indication had also in the information sheets associated this paper was also the beginning of the Argentine feminists were strong advocates of the equal educational and career opportunities for the females. (Marysa, 243)

Most of them were concerned with dilapidating working conditions of job training of lower class women. There was a deep philosophical division between those women who were in dedication to philanthropic causes, who were more traditional and conservative in their views, and more closely inclined to the traditionally associated feminine roles, and the more highly educated women who formed their interests in gaining political and economic rights for women. And most of these women were upper class, and really did not reach out to any other class of women in major ways to join them as equal associated in their tussles for unanimity. (Evans, 119)

Starting in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, liberal feminists, primarily middle class, normal school educated women, made a beginning to emphasize social and legal acceptance of their ability to leave home for better education and an independent life. Another group of feminists, the socialist feminists, were born out of the growing socialist and labor movements in these countries and they take a vehement interest in the problems that faced women in industrializing societies.

The stance of feminism was beginning to emerge as a political movement at the very end of the nineteenth century. Making a work in the capital cities of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, Southern Cone feminism clearly began to take issuance of women's right to the national political dispute. Argentina was clearly the leader, and although there was a strong bondage between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Among the very early Argentine feminists were Cecilia Grierson, Gabriela de Coni and Maria Abella de Ramirez. (Marysa, 244)

The socialists made in 1902 the socialist Center Feminista and Feminine the Gremial Union. There was the universal difficulty comprised of the socialist program from its first congress (1896). They were born later the Association of Argentine College students (1904) and in 1905 the Feminista Center, Liga National Feminista of the Argentine Republic and the Center Feminista. They gave labor ambiance, equal and distributed before the law and the feminine vote. In 1910, during the occasion of the center of independence, the National Council of women created a conference pleading that for labor reforms there was a postulation that the women were able to exert greater influence by means of the education of the Future generations before with the vote and the position public. And in the same year the First Feminista Congress of the International of the Argentine Republic was impelled by the feministas like Alicia Moreau de Justo from the association of University women and was presided over by Cecilia Grierson. The main participation involved the difficulties of women in the field of education, in the legislation, the avoidance of the children and the killing of the infants of the distraught. The vindication by the civil rights was at the center point of the Argentine feminism until 1926, when the civil code had a reformation. (Carlson, 8)

It gave rise to a constant action in the feminine rights, from the article publication to the maneuvers of feminine voting in the roads. The first releases appeared and in the women, like Feminine Tribune, established the Socialist and the Carolina Muzilli. Other outshining women were Alfonsina Storni, Malharro De Victory, and Raquel Caamano, the Chertkoff sisters, Gabriela Coni, Mercedes Gauna de Motagliato, and Cecilia Baldonvio and Virginia Volta after World war I, the women reinitialized the fight by their rights of the National Feminista Union (1918), the Feminista Party and the Pro-Derechos Association of the Woman continued initiation of the action of the feminine vote. (Marysa, 245)

Even as these movements action in general in Buenous Aires without success, the principal women's provinces of Santa Fe and of San Juan they got the right to the municipal voting and they provincial in the start of 1920 to the reform of Civil Code (1926) gave rise to the married women certain rights, like the own assets and comprising the civil or mercantile societies. And 30 years the socialist Committee of the Feminine Distraught had little echo, but the Argentina Association of the Suffrage managed to reunite one hundred thousand members. During the beginning of 1933 the association arose from Radical Women and in 1936 the Argentina Union De Mujeres organizations who tussle against the attempts to wipe out the reform of the civil legislation. And even as it were, the years of nationalism, until 1946, pinned the feminista movement, and the force ebbed way on an ample base, nor with possibilities of action. (Evans, 120)

Cecilia Grierson played an outstanding part in the initial years of her life for the Argentine Social Party, established on 1896. Cecilia Grierson incorporated the historical group of socialist women constituted of Alicia Moreau de Justo, Elvira Rawson and Julieta Lanteri, lead the way in the defense of the civil and political rights of the women. Precedent to Alicia Moreau de Justo, Elvira Rawson and Julieta Lanteri-Renshaw amidst others, they set off the fight by the civil rights and the political feminine groups, they made a demand for the equal educative opportunities and in workplace too and suggested reforms to the Civil Code thus adding up to the advantage of women. (Biographical Dictionary of Argentina Women, 38)