An unlikely player during a 10-year-long civil war, Hermila Galindo’s fearlessness in the face of adversity and use of writing as a weapon against the patriarchy cemented her in history as a true Mexican icon.
Galindo, considered a mother of the Mexican feminist movement in the early 20th century, challenged societal norms that expected a woman’s place to remain in and of the home. She used her powers as a writer to champion progressive ideals, forcing a country to rethink their patriarchal suppositions.
Galindo’s movement to transform Mexico’s sexist way of thinking was especially dangerous. The Mexican Revolution, a 10-year period of civil and political unrest that coincided with Galindo’s rise as a feminist leader, saw up to three million casualties — and an intolerance of those who thought differently. Laura Orellana Trinidad, author of Hermila Galindo: Una Mujer Moderna told Teen Vogue that being a feminist during this time was particularly difficult and often dangerous.
But Galindo didn’t let those constraints keep her from spreading her message. Although she didn’t join the war as a soldadera, she used her status as founder, editor, and writer of The Modern Woman and her position as private secretary to Venustiano Carranza, the revolutionary leader of the Constitutionalist Army who would go on to become the first president of the new Mexican republic, to influence those who would listen.
“Her main goal was a simple one: to lay down the foundation for women to decide and conduct elections for themselves,” Trinidad said. “From her perspective, this benefited everyone as a whole. She saw society as a singular organism in which every component had a good function in order to reach perfect[ion]. Hermila understood that female participation was necessary in the public sphere.”
Mexican women were not even considered true citizens back then, and were not allowed to vote or run for office. They had little or no say over the laws that governed them. Galindo saw this lack of political power as central to female oppression and set out to remedy the issue any way she could.
Galindo’s esteemed position in Carranza’s Constitutionalist army allowed her to spread progressive ideas and gave her the ability to influence some of the first laws that included women, Trinidad told Teen Vogue.
“The most impressive thing is her capacity to question the feminine identity of her time from her readings and writings,” Trinidad explained. “These elements gave her the possibility to reach the highest political level that a woman could reach then [as the] private secretary of Carranza and, with that, [she] very possibly used her influence in the issuance of laws like the one for divorce and the law of family relations.”
Trinidad noted that Galindo’s position was revolutionary in and of itself.
“[She] was the same rank as her faction mates in a world where there were no women in that environment, or those that were involved had support tasks,” she explained. “Hermila was able to transcend that area; her letters to Carranza revealed respect and affection, but also confidence.”
Outside the realm of electoral politics, Trinidad said Galindo wanted women to be able to choose their husbands without interference from their parents in what is referred to as “free love.” She wanted women to be able to freely exercise their sexuality, be educated about birth control, and create new roles for themselves in and outside of the home. Galindo also advocated for divorce and for destigmatizing having children outside of marriage.
As the child of her mother’s affair with a married man, Trinidad said Galindo’s push for sexual education and “free love” could have been inspired by her own need to understand how her illegitimacy was perceived in contemporary Mexican society. Galindo was also an outspoken critic of Catholic men’s strict attitudes toward sexuality and gender, criticizing the institution of marriage as an obstacle to progress that infantilized women.
Galindo was invited to speak at Mexico’s First Feminist Congress in January 1916, where she used her speech to champion sexual desire and education. In it, Trinidad says Galindo forgave women for their sexual instincts and suggested that women could protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies by using birth control and arming themselves with a knowledge of personal hygiene.
“She was greatly criticized on the presentation she gave at the First Feminist Congress,” Trinidad said. “In fact, after her reading one participant asked to destroy the work as ‘immoral,’ and many supported the motion.”
Despite this condemnation of her beliefs, Galindo defended herself in her weekly magazine The Modern Woman, and even participated in the Second Feminist Congress in December 1916. Her call for women’s suffrage was met with little support, Trinidad said.
Shortly after, the new Mexican constitution was approved in February 1917, and excluded women’s right to vote and to run for political office. Nevertheless, Galindo decided to run, despite technically being denied that right and knowing she would lose.
“She launched herself as a candidate for the 5th district of today’s Mexico City,” Trinidad explained. “She finished in fourth place out of 26 candidates and she gladly accepted her defeat because she said that the first lesson for people who dedicate themselves to politics is to ‘know how to lose.’”
Today, the revolutionary feminist is celebrated for helping to usher in a modern, more equal Mexico.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: The Real History of Las Soldaderas, the Women Who Made the Mexican Revolution Possible
