Prudencia Ayala, The First Woman in Latin America who aspired to the Presidency

Prudencia Ayala

Prudencia was born on April 28,1885 in El Salvador. She began her primary studies at the elementary school of Professor Maria Luisa de Cristofine, which never ended because of the lack of financial resources in her family, so she developed a self-taught education. By 1913 she began writing articles for various newspapers in her country.

In 1919 she was imprisoned for criticizing the mayor of Atiquizaya in one of her columns and then, in Guatemala, she was also imprisoned for accusations of collaborating with the planning of a coup d’état.

In 1921 Prudencia published her first book, entitled “Escible, Adventures of a trip to Guatemala”. She also published the books “Immortal, loves crazy” in 1925 and three years later wrote “Literary clown in combat”. At the end of the 1920s, she founded and directed the newspaper Redención Femenina, where she expressed her position in defense of women’s rights as citizens. For 1930, in the editorial of her newspaper, she published the following:

“Women have ruled in Europe in the monarchical system, why is a strange thing to govern in the Republics of the Indo-Latin-Latin American continent in the democratic system?”

Same year, 1930 she ran as a candidate for the presidency of El Salvador, even though women did not have the right to vote. This generated a great debate about her right to be a candidate and the discussion reached the Supreme Court of her country. The magistrates ruled against her and determined that the laws did not grant the citizen’s right to women, as a result she could not be a candidate.

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References:

El Salvador Histórico, (2012) Prudencia Ayala. Disponible en línea

Llorente Analía, (2018) Quién es Prudencia Ayala, la primera mujer en América Latina que aspiró a la presidencia de un país y a la que tildaron de loca. BBC News Mundo. Disponible en línea