page_title: Soldaderas
section_title: Modern-day portrayals
hierarchical_section_title: Soldaderas / Modern-day portrayals
caption_attribution_description: English: A mural from Chicano Park, Barrio Logan, San Diego, California, USA. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 12001192
context_page_description: Soldaderas, often called Adelitas, were women in the military who participated in the conflict of the Mexican Revolution, ranging from commanding officers to combatants to camp followers. "In many respects, the Mexican revolution was not only a men's but a women's revolution." Although some revolutionary women achieved officer status, coronelas, "there are no reports of a woman achieving the rank of general." Since revolutionary armies did not have formal ranks, some women officers were called generala or coronela, even though they commanded relatively few men. A number of women took male identities, dressing as men, and being called by the male version of their given name, among them Ángel Jiménez and Amelio Robles Ávila.
  The largest numbers of soldaderas were in Northern Mexico, where both the Federal Army and the revolutionary armies needed them to provision soldiers by obtaining and cooking food, nursing the wounded, and promoting social cohesion.
  In area of Morelos where Emiliano Zapata led revolutionary campesinos, the forces were primarily defensive and based in peasant villages, less like the organized armies of movement of Northern Mexico than seasonal guerrilla warfare.
context_section_description: Popular culture has changed the image of soldaderas throughout history, however, it has not been a static definition and has made the image ever-changing. Mass media in Mexico turned the female soldiers into heroines that sacrificed their lives for the revolution, and turned camp followers into nothing more than just prostitutes. As a result, it made the idea of a female soldier synonymous with a soldadera and the idea of a camp follower was unimportant and therefore forgotten. However, with more recent popular culture, even the image of female soldiers has become sexualized. Images of female soldiers have become consumerist products portrayed as sexy females rather than portraying them as the revolutionary soldiers that they were. The modern day images of soldaderas do not maintain the positive, worthy aspects of the real-life soldaderas from history. However, images of soldaderas in popular culture are not always extremely sexualized. Adelita, now synonymous with a soldadera, has also become a part of children’s popular culture. Tomie dePaola wrote a children’s novel called Adelita, a Mexican Cinderella Story. The plot follows similarly to the original Cinderella story, but changes details so that the story fits into Mexican culture and norms. Adelita is the name of Cinderella and she has to have the courage to fight against the evil step mother and step sisters, and has to fight for the man that she falls in love with. This may not portray soldaderas as fighting for rights, but she is fighting for something and not just a sexy pin-up style girl.
  A believable soldadera and a female soldier were portrayed by Jenny Gago as the good-natured prostitute La Garduna in Old Gringo (1989) and Marie Gomez as the tough and passionate Lieut. Chiquita in The Professionals (1966).
  Soldaderas have also regained some of their respect through the arts. The Ballet Folklórico de México did a U.S. tour in 2010 celebrating Mexico's history. When it came time to celebrate the Mexican Revolution, the ballet celebrated it only through the female soldiers. As well, the image of soldaderas has also reverted to a symbol of fighting for women's rights for some adults. Especially for Mexican women and Americans in the United States that come from a Mexican heritage, the idea of a soldadera has gone back to the original meaning of the word and denotes a female soldier. For them, a soldadera holds a spirit of revolution and has become a sort of role model for self-empowerment, especially for Mexican ancestry females in the United States as they are not just fighting as part of the minority of women, but also as part of the chicano minority.
  The fighting soldadera was adopted by the chicano movement, the mindset of soldaderas being violent hot blooded revolutionaries or poor, pregnant camp followers persisted when depicting the soldadera. The Chicana feminist movement took the iconography of the soldaderas and made it their own. The brown berrets, a chicana female activism group calls them their inspiration. As well the Chicano movement latched onto them as well, but while women praised their valor, and courage in battle men praised their loyalty to their husbands, and nation further illustrating the machismo culture and the ideological split among the sexes.
caption: La Soldadera mural from Chicano Park in Barrio Logan, San Diego, California
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