7 Inspiring Women From Bolivia You Need to Know About

She directed a secular school and critiqued the power of the church through her poems, published in a regional newspaper. Zamudio is remembered as one of Bolivia’s greatest, most outspoken poets. Fellow skater Medina says “some of the girls inherited their polleras from their mothers and grandmothers,” but each girl styles them differently according to their own personal taste.

No matter where skaters are in the world, you’ll likely find them wearing baggy jeans and faded T-shirts. Comparison of health conditions treated with traditional and biomedical health care in a Quechua community in rural Bolivia. Their days, though simple in nature, are filled with intensive labor segregated by gender. Mennonite boys wearing overalls playing outside the school during a short break. Outside of classes, Mennonite children play in the farmlands of the colony.

These women athletes are making a statement with their ancestral clothing. Wearing the mask of a bull with wide, watery eyes, and gilded necklaces adorning her naked breasts and torso, she is a woman who’s comfortable in her sexuality and doesn’t apologize for it. “I wanted her to be completely seductive, completely sexual without being embarrassed about it. I wanted her to feel very powerful,” Mendez says. Madre condemns this outdated approach while testifying the slow but inexorable shift Bolivian society is going through when it comes to shared canons of beauty, women’s roles, and representation.

• “Before hiking, I used to carry tourists’ luggage up the mountains.
• Part of her series Cholitas Bravas, “Cholitas Skaters” focuses on a group of Indigenous Bolivian women who wear traditional clothes while practicing extreme sports.
• At first, her family didn’t approve of her engaging in the sport.
• While nowhere near complete, the following list offers an introductory look at the struggles of women who, far from needing a man to save them, relied on their inner power to create change.
• That is why we fulfilled the goal of sending a message from the top of Huayna Potosí, with the flag of the UNiTE campaign,” she says.
• No one is smiling, rather they all share a defiant look of challenge and pride.

Cover illustration for the book Bolivian women in motion, about the migration process of bolivian women who migrate to Spain. Indigenous find more at https://toplatinwomen.com/dating-latina/bolivian-women/ Bolivian women were historically banned from entering some public spaces, could not use public transportation, and were burdened by extremely curtailed career opportunities. As recently as the last two decades, Bolivia’s Indigenous Quechua and Aymara women, known derogatorily as “cholitas,” were marginalized and ostracized from society. Antony and his team took lighting equipment up the mountain with them for the shoot to give the images a “stylized edge. All the images from the series have in some degree been lit to make them feel unique,” says Antony.

Thriving opportunities for Bolivian women

Luisa Dörr is a Brazilian photographer whose work is mainly focused on the feminine human landscape. The group is based in Cochabamba, but through social media it has garnered an audience well beyond Bolivia. ImillaSkate has more than 24,000 followers on Instagram, 8,000-plus followers on Facebook, and a YouTube channel where some of its videos get thousands of views. During the past three years, ImillaSkate has grown to nine skaters. Being an active member means weekly practice and shared respect for diversity and tradition. The polleras billow and twirl with every turn, jump, and occasional tumble.

History & Culture

They are my mother’s and my aunts’ clothing, and I see them as strong women … For me, women in polleras can do anything. Lucía Rosmery Tinta Quispe helps her daughter, Joselin Brenda Mamani Tinta, with earrings at their home on the outskirts of Cochabamba. Brenda says skateboarding “makes me feel capable, because I can break my own limits,” and the clothing represents where she comes from. Members of the women’s group, ImillaSkate, practice their moves on a ramp near Cochabamba.

Ethnobotany and exchange of traditional medicines on the Southern Bolivian Altiplano

Surrounded by flowers, 25-year-old Elinor Buitrago Méndez floats while wearing customary Indigenous dress. The fashion’s origin in Bolivia dates back to the 16th-century Spanish conquest. “One day I was having a conversation with the girls about why all the boys get together to skate—why don’t girls do that? ” recalls Santiváñez, who now is studying commercial engineering at the Domingo Savio Private University. After finishing this degree, she hopes to launch an audiovisual production company. Tacuri and fellow members of ImillaSkate are among those with Indigenous ancestors.

The word imilla means “young girl” in Aymara and Quechua, the most widely spoken Native languages. Their skirts, known as polleras, celebrate ties to their Indigenous ancestry. Skateboarders from a women’s group whose performances promote Indigenous identity ride at one of their preferred spots, a road on the outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia. The tree-lined road is close to agricultural fields where many Indigenous people work. Overall, Madre turns images into a universal language to describe Bolivian women’s experiences and difficulties and ultimately the uncompromising strength they all possess and share. A potent sorority unites these women because as stories are told and shared, it’s soon evident that “we have all gone through this.” From the traditional Waka Thuqhuri dance, Mendez borrows another symbolic outfit where a woman wears a bull all around her body.