Cuba & Chile
Cuba
In their 1924 semi-monthly magazine, El Sufragista, the National Woman Suffrage Party in Cuba announced the goals they hoped to achieve, which included:
- “To obtain the enfranchisement of Cuban women and to obtain all reforms of the Civil Code which may be necessary to establish absolute equality, political, civil, economic, and social between men and women.”
- “To make education free and compulsory, to the end that illiteracy in Cuba be ended so that the people may know how to elect their Government officials at honest elections.”
- “To oppose vagrancy, alcoholism, and all other vices which tend to degrade the human species.”
- “To unite with all international organizations or leagues which are working for the elimination of war in the future, to the end that all questions between nations may be settled through diplomatic channels.”
In Havana, the National Suffragist Party welcomed all women and men over fourteen years of age who resided in the Republic.
Chile
The National Council of Women in Chile consisted of middle-class women who currently worked in industry, commerce, and in the railroads. In 1923, the National Council of Women in Chile submitted a bill to the Chamber of Deputies that aimed to appoint women as guardians of their own children or to other children, to appear as witnesses, to hold property in their own name if they were married, and to receive pay for their work.
In academia, the March issue of Pan American Union Bulletin of 1924 reported women’s progress in educational and professional fields. By 1924, four bachelor’s degrees were awarded to women by the Liceo de Costa Rica in San Jose. Of the degrees conferred, one was in medicine, one was in geography and history, one was in pharmacy, and one was in ophthalmology. For women graduating with a degree in accounting from the Government commercial schools, the Director General of Railways announced that preference would be given to these women. Such a decision opened up service positions in employment.
