Costa Rican Women Leaders Promoting Gender Equity as the Public Good

• In Event: For the Public Good: Women in Educational Leadership Across the Continents

Abstract

Using narrative inquiry, this research investigation examines Costa Rican women leaders who are striving to transform gender policies and practices to address the public good. It seeks to provide insight into the research question, “What is the status of women leadership in Costa Rica—their progress, successes, and challenges?”

The Constitution of Costa Rica explicitly supports gender equity policies, institutions, regulations, and economic activity (Jiménez-Fontana, 2016; UNDP, 2012; UNDP Costa Rica, 2019; World Economic Forum, 2018). While women have made positive strides in public service positions, where they represent 45.6% of elected members of their National Assembly and rank 8th worldwide (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2019), little is documented about women’s impact in leadership in this sector and others (Brennan, 2017).

The purpose of this investigation was to begin to remedy the lack of empirical data related to Costa Rican women in leadership by providing insight into their status. a portrait of their progress, successes, and challenges has begun to emerge from their past and present experiences, as well as from their hopes for the future.

This investigation draws on Latina feminist theories that explicitly challenge white, Western theories of gender and focus instead on “constructing a new subject of a new feminist geopolitics of knowing and loving” that emphasize agency, resilience, and persistence (Lugones, p. 756).

Using narrative inquiry, this investigation sought to memorialized and understand the experiences of the women through “a recursive, reflexive process of moving from field (with starting points in telling or living of stories) to field texts (data) to interim and final research texts [that] highlight ethical matters as well as new theoretical understandings of people’s experiences (Clandinin & Huber, 2010, p. 20).”

I interviewed fifteen men and women who were qualified to provide observations into women’s status in the San José region. I also analyzed relevant documents and kept field notes of my observations and experiences.

Analysis of the data indicated that progress of women in leadership is expanding, but limited by many factors. Progresses include high rates of literacy among girls, which leads to more opportunities for higher education and thus, positions that will lead to leadership roles. Regarding the challenges, the society is highly patriarchal—machismo, in the parlance of the Costa Ricans. Furthermore, women leaders report that even in homogeneous settings, women frequently abuse other women and prohibit their advancement, which they call, serruchar el piso, which not only suggests an antipathy toward another’s success, but an active effort at prohibiting it. They become machistas—female versions of male chauvinists, modeling the patriarchal norms. Other findings and their implications will be elaborated on in the presentation.

These Costa Rican women’s stories add to a body of empirical research that has emerged in numerous disciplines within the social sciences and natural sciences related to that nation as a comprehensive review of the literature reveals no studies that address the role of women in leadership in Costa Rica. This study provides insight into the status of women by examining their progress, successes, and challenges.

Author

• Elizabeth C. Reilly, Loyola Marymount University