Julieta Lanteri was an important activist in Argentina, recognized as a feminist she who fought for the rights of women and children, in addition to defending social reforms and improvements in working and health conditions for the Argentine population.
She was a physician, specializing in psychiatry, although she also devoted herself to women's and children's health. She became known for being the first woman in South America to vote and contested several elections for the National Feminist Union, but was never elected. She died after being hit by a car in Buenos Aires.
Read too:Rosa Luxemburg — philosopher and communist militant who denounced the oppression of working women
Topics of this article
- 1 - Summary about Julieta Lanteri
- 2 - Origins of Julieta Lanteri
- 3 - Formation of Julieta Lanteri and the prejudice faced
- 4 - Professional performance of Julieta Lanteri
- 5 - Activism by Julieta Lanteri
- 6 - Julieta Lanteri in politics
- 7 - Death of Julieta Lanteri
Summary about Julieta Lanteri
Julieta Lanteri was an Argentine physician and feminist activist.
She was born in Italy but moved to Argentina as a child and acquired Argentine nationality in 1911.
She graduated in Pharmacology and Medicine, being the sixth woman to graduate in Medicine in Argentina.
She defended women's suffrage, equal pay and civil rights between men and women.
She died in a car accident in 1932.
Origins of Julieta Lanteri
Giulia Maddalena Angela Lanteri, commonly known as Julieta Lanteri, he was born in sea fight, a city that was part of Cuneo, Italian province, on March 22, 1873. Currently, the city is no longer part of Italian territory, as it was annexed by France after World War II.
She was the daughter of Mattea Guido and Pierre-Antoine Lanteri, who together emigrated to ArgentinaThe, in 1879. Juliet also had a sister who emigrated with her family. They settled in the city of La Plata.
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Julieta Lanteri's education and the prejudice faced
Julieta Lanteri was marked as one of the most important women activists in Argentina in the 20th century. From a very early age, she demonstrated her willingness to overcome prejudices. Regarding her education, Julieta Lanteri was known to have been the first woman to enroll in the National College of La Plata.
She began her studies in 1891, completing a course in Pharmacology in 1898. She subsequently enrolled at the University of Buenos Aires, where she studied medicine, graduating in 1907. In this course, she she encountered numerous challenges, all of them related to machismo of Argentine society and the rejection of many for the fact that a woman pursues a medical career.
She was the sixth woman in Argentina to obtain a degree in Mmedicine. The challenges she encountered at the university made her, along with Cecilia Grierson, the first woman to graduate in Medicine in Argentina, founded the Association of Argentine Universities, whose objective was to provide support for women to enter and complete their studies College students.
See too:Cristina Kirchner — the woman who twice assumed the presidency of Argentina and was almost killed in an attack
Professional performance by Julieta Lanteri
During her training, she Worked at Hospital San Roque and sought to specialize in the treatment of mental illness and illnesses that affected children and women. In addition, throughout her medical career, she sought to expand her knowledge in psychiatry. lanter yet she tried to get into academia to teach psychiatry classes, but had his application denied.
The justification for this was the fact that she was a foreign woman. After her application was denied, she sought Argentine nationality, which also was denied, because Argentine nationality was only given to foreign women if they were married. In 1910, she married Alberto Renshaw and, the following year, obtained Argentine nationality.
She applied to be an assistant professor and again was rejected, which caused her to abandon her academic pretensions. Despite this, Lanter pursued a medical career and, between 1907 and 1920, she made successive trips to Europe to expand her medical knowledge and take it to Argentina, implementing them in their treatments and contributing to improve the care and procedures of hospitals argentines.
Activism by Julieta Lanteri
In addition to being a dedicated doctor, Julieta Lanteri acted as an activist in defense, above all, of the rights of thes women, seeking to equalize the rights of women and men. She also defended the carrying out of important social reforms in Argentina and was advocate for women's suffrage.
In 1906, she participated in the International Congress of Free Thought. A year earlier, she had participated in the founding of the Argentine Association of Free Thought. In 1909, she founded the National League of Free Thought for Women and in 1910, she organized the First International Congress of Women.
On the issue of voting, she was also an innovative woman, being heralded by many researchers as the first woman to vote in South America. This would have happened on July 16, 1911, in the elections for the Deliberative Council of Buenos Aires (Legislative of the Argentine capital).
This happened because Julieta Lanteri would have a good knowledge of the law that established suffrage in Argentina. Through the interpretation of the law, she would have convinced the president of the electoral district to allow her to vote. As the law did not mention the issue of gender and as she met all the requirements, she was able to vote.
Later, the law was amended to require compulsory military service from voters, a mechanism to make only men vote. This issue was not ignored by Julieta Lanteri either, because years later, in 1929, she tried if enlist nthe argentine army, with the justification that women also had the right to do so, since military service was mandatory for all citizens. Her enlistment was rejected.
Know more: Women's suffrage in Brazil — an achievement in the fight for equal rights between men and women
Julieta Lanteri in politics
After her voting experience and electoral law being changed to exclude women, Lanteri decided to participate in politics in another way: as a candidate. In 1918, she participated in the founding of the National Feminist Union, a political party. From 1919 to 1930, if electedI as a deputy in the Argentine elections.
To the guidelines defended by Julieta Lanteri included proposals such as:
universal suffrage (the right of men and women to be able to vote);
equal rights between men and women in the Argentine civil code;
reduction of the daily working hours;
equal pay between men and women;
right for pregnant and postpartum women;
expansion of security conditions for Argentine workers, especially women and children;
professional support for young offenders;
prison reform;
abolition of the death penalty;
expanding access to medical treatment;
banning the sale of alcoholic beverages.
However, Julieta Lanteri's platform did not win many votes, and she she was not elected in any election she contested. Remembering that she contested elections in a context in which women could not vote, therefore all voters were men. Women were only given the right to vote in Argentina in 1947.
Death of Julieta Lanteri
Julieta Lanteri's militancy made her a prominent woman in Argentina, especially in Buenos Aires, where she resided. On February 23, 1932, she was run over by a vehicle when she was walking along Avenida Roque Sáenz Peña and, after two days in the hospital, she died at the age of 58. The driver of the car fled the scene of the accident.
Her funeral was attended by over 1000 people, and it is not known whether her hit-and-run was the result of an accident or a political crime motivated by Lanteri's militancy and feminist action. Supposedly, the driver of the car was David Klapenbach, a member of a right-wing paramilitary organization. The police investigation, however, would have omitted the author of the crime.
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