The women who led the way in America

They are protagonists of the moment that Latin America is going through.

Women who have become something more than a symbol from different spheres of politics, academia, social struggle, and culture in a region marked by deep economic and gender inequality.

Francia Márquez, Vice President of Colombia;

Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile;

Leila Guerriero, writer and journalist;

Alicia Bárcena, Mexican diplomat and biologist;

Txai Suruí, a defender of the Amazon, and Márcia Cristina Barbosa, a Brazilian physicist, have opened a path for millions of women in the Americas that not long ago had been denied them.

A path that shows the importance of girls and young women feeling represented by diverse, indigenous and Afro-descendant women who occupy spaces in decision-making.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, EL PAÍS asked them to tell us about their references.

This is how Txai Suruí describes her mother, Neidinha Suruí, a fighter for the environment and native peoples.

"She was the first woman to inspect areas occupied by isolated indigenous peoples in her country, in an environment dominated by men who said that women should be in offices, kitchens or health clinics," she says with pride.

Now she, at 26, follows in her footsteps.

"It is not easy to be a pioneer," says Michelle Bachelet, the first president of Chile, between 2006 and 2010, and later, between 2014 and 2018.

These women would not have made it this far if it weren't for those who fought before them.

As Leila Guerriero says about the writer María Elena Walsh: “she inoculated many of us with the virus of freedom”.

Teachers, pioneers, role models who taught that it was possible to lead their community, study medicine, be successful writers or develop public policies that would change their country and the world.

Their heiresses pay this tribute to them.

María Elena Walsh, the virus by Leila Guerriero

Great Argentine author of children's books and songs.

At the age of 15 she published her first poem and at the age of 17 she published her first book 'Unforgivable Autumn'.

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The women of Cauca by Francia Márquez

The grandmothers, mothers and defenders of the territory of Cauca paved the way with their struggle so that Colombia now has the first Afro vice president in its history.

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Eloísa Díaz, the young woman who surpassed her time by Michelle Bachelet

She was the first female medical student and the first doctor in Chile in 1886, a time when most women were not allowed to go to university.

When Eloísa Díaz entered the college, she was hidden behind a screen to protect the men from her presence in the classrooms.

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Neidinha Suruí, guardian of the jungle by Txai Suruí

A fighter for the environment and the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, she had to hear a thousand times that her place was not in the fight, but in the kitchens or health clinics.

She has stood up to governments, mining companies and poachers.

Now her daughter continues with the legacy of protecting the jungle and the territory.

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Julieta Kirkwood, democracy in the country and at home by Alicia Bárcena

“Nothing about us without us,” said Chilean feminist sociologist Julieta Kirkwood.

She wove her provocative, urgent and necessary work in the midst of Pinochet's dictatorship.

She was the seed for many young women who consider her a pioneer in the fight for women's rights.

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Elisa Baggio-Saitovitch, when a legend becomes a friend by Márcia C. Barbosa

A top-level researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil, Baggio-Saitovich paved the way for other women to develop their path in science.

In 2004 she organized the first Latin American conference of women in the Exact Sciences.

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