Summary Of Elizabeth Salas Soldaderas In The Mexican Military

Elizabeth Salas’s piece Soldaderas in the Mexican Military is a historical nonfiction work which addresses the role of the soldadera in Mexican warfare. Written from a modern perspective, the piece intends to expose the true lives of the soldaderas and dispel preconceived notions that many incorrectly hold regarding these women. Thus, Salas writes in an argumentative and persuasive manner in order to propagate her claim that the soldaderas played a more imperative role than what history gives them credit for. Her writing is intended for those who have no background knowledge on the soldaderas or those who hold incorrect preconceived notions about them. Myths that surround the soldaderas stem largely from an era in which the only people who

Near the end, her writing breaks away from chronological order to discuss a specific set of female soldiers and chronicle each of their diverse narratives. Salas examines the lives of nine soldaderas in order to underscore the diversity between all of them and emphasize the idea that not all lived “miserable lives with little knowledge of themselves or the world around them” (Salas 81). Analyzing their roles in this manner allows her to evade the historical perspective tainted by the male narrative of the era. Rather than relying on historical facts written by upperclass men to define the role of the soldadera, Salas recounts the lives of soldaderas through their own perspective to create a more authentic image of them and the role they

This woman, Macias, defines the two by claiming that true women soldiers “took on ‘male qualities’ such as decisiveness, domination and courage,” while correspondingly describing the true soldadera as those who “stayed behind the lines, cooking and caring for their husbands or lovers” (Salas 73). This raises an issue that harks back to the origin of the word soldadera itself- soldada, which means payment. Though this is never distinctly argued in the text, Salas seems to suggest that the name soldadera is demeaning to the female warrior as she is grouped with those whose name is synonymous with the reason that they joined the military- for pay. However, this raises the question of whether or not those women in the military who acted as camp followers or, essentially, prostitutes and those who were female warriors should fall under the same umbrella term of the soldadera. Personally, this was the most resonating aspect of the text because it goes beyond simply trying to dispel the myths surrounding the soldadera, but almost arguing for an inherent shift in how we differentiate between females in the Mexican military. Contradictorily, I felt that the section that discussed how the revolutionary army was held in a camp in the United States did not impact the argument as the rest did. I felt that this section was fairly confusing and also