ABSTRACT
The Chicano movement is the all-encompassing effort to, on the one hand, articulate and intensify the Chicano existence, and on the other hand, to articulate and alleviate the suffering which has accrued to Chicanos precisely because of that existence. When the issue of Chicanas is raised, whether it be by Chicanos, Chicanas, or by those outside of the Chicano context, the concern is with the status and role of Chicanas within the Movimiento in general, within specific activist organizations, and within Chicano society. Many of the stereotypes have been equated with aspects of Mexican-Chicano culture. Social scientists describe la Chicana as, “ideally submissive, unworldly, and chaste,” or, “at the command of the husband, who (keeps) her as he would a coveted thing, free from the contacts of the world, subject to his passions, ignorant of life.”.
