Paper Title
'68ers in Short Skirts: The Politics of Gender in Mexico's Student Crisis and Olympic Games
Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Abstract
The politics of skirt-length is well trod socio-cultural ground and Mexico, like many other countries, experienced running commentaries on the subject in its publications and among its pundits and politicians during the 1960s. Uniquely and ironically, however, the same Mexican state that extolled the virtues of non-revealing garb for its youth put hundreds of those youth in very short skirts as part of a national Olympic hostess uniform. This paper seeks not to explore this apparent hypocrisy in its own right as a matter of fashion, culture, or ideology, but rather as an entre into the manipulation of gendered identities for political ends in 1968 Mexico.
Mexico experienced two of the most significant events of its post World War II history in 1968; Mexico City hosted the Olympic Games and students conducted a popular protest movement that ended in violence. The political ends in question were the ruling party’s continued control over the political system in the face of its most serious popular threat in decades and Mexico’s ability to convey the desired image of itself to the world prior to and during the Olympic Games. Gendered representations served as political shorthand allowing the Mexican state and its supporters in the press to convey meaning, suggest identity, and imply ideology to both foreign and domestic audiences. These representations also serve both to divide Mexican society along generational lines and to reinforce the place of Mexican youth within the international culture of the 1960s.
Keywords
Mexico, 1968, Olympics
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'68ers in Short Skirts: The Politics of Gender in Mexico's Student Crisis and Olympic Games
The politics of skirt-length is well trod socio-cultural ground and Mexico, like many other countries, experienced running commentaries on the subject in its publications and among its pundits and politicians during the 1960s. Uniquely and ironically, however, the same Mexican state that extolled the virtues of non-revealing garb for its youth put hundreds of those youth in very short skirts as part of a national Olympic hostess uniform. This paper seeks not to explore this apparent hypocrisy in its own right as a matter of fashion, culture, or ideology, but rather as an entre into the manipulation of gendered identities for political ends in 1968 Mexico.
Mexico experienced two of the most significant events of its post World War II history in 1968; Mexico City hosted the Olympic Games and students conducted a popular protest movement that ended in violence. The political ends in question were the ruling party’s continued control over the political system in the face of its most serious popular threat in decades and Mexico’s ability to convey the desired image of itself to the world prior to and during the Olympic Games. Gendered representations served as political shorthand allowing the Mexican state and its supporters in the press to convey meaning, suggest identity, and imply ideology to both foreign and domestic audiences. These representations also serve both to divide Mexican society along generational lines and to reinforce the place of Mexican youth within the international culture of the 1960s.