Reivindicacion de sitios publicos femeninos: retrato de mujeres fuertes mexicanas en la cronica de Salvador Novo, Carlos Monsivais y Sara Sefchovich

Public personae of strong Mexican women are generally defined as defiant and counterintuitive to socially accepted roles of submissive women. They demand attention and elicit inclusion in popular culture. However, when analyzed using queer theory rubrics, heteronormative archetypes are revealed. This thesis chronologically examines works by three Mexican chroniclers from the 20th and 21st centuries, Salvador Novo, Carlos Monsivais, and Sara Sefchovich, analyzing their portrayal of strong women who occupy public urban spaces in Mexico City. Elitist social effects of iconic public images of strong women are investigated, revealing patriarchal restrictions of women in public spaces and subsequent constructions of public personae as exotic and objectified, thus facilitating interaction with an extremely masculinist and machista society. A lack of true social agency is revealed as the patriarchy reasserts itself in spite of the nonconformist nature of the women portrayed. Family and masculinity constructs demand the existence of absent father and husband, hypermacho, and accompanying submissive woman limited to private spaces. The portrayal of strong women in the works analyzed denaturalizes the image of domesticity, signaling that Mexican women leave the home to occupy public spaces in Mexico City. Because the normalization of family construct is questioned, queer theory is utilized in an innovative manner to analyze said portrayals of strong women and social agency.