Ofelia Domínguez Navarro
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Ofelia Domínguez Navarro (
Mataguá Mataguá is a Cuban village and ''consejo popular'' ("people's council", i.e. hamlet) of the municipality of Manicaragua, in Villa Clara Province. With a population of ca. 10,000, it is the most populated village in the municipality after Manicar ...
, December 9, 1894 –
Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Mirta Aguirre Mirta Aguirre Carreras (18 October 1912 – 8 August 1980) was a Cuban poet, novelist, journalist. She has been called "the most important female academic and woman of letters in post-revolutionary Cuba".Catherine Davies, ''A place in the sun?: ...
and Mariblanca Sabas Aloma.


Biography

The daughter of Florentino Dominguez and Paula Navarro, she was born into a family with revolutionary ideals who were participant activists. Her mother passed away when she was just fourteen years old, and the care of her younger siblings fell on her. However, she was able to still graduate from high school. She graduated from university in 1918 with a Bachelor of Science, followed by a degree in Civil law from the
University of Havana The University of Havana (UH; ) is a public university located in the Vedado district of Havana, the capital of Cuba. Founded on 5 January 1728, the university is the oldest in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas. Originall ...
in 1921. Cubaliteraria (ed.): «Domínguez Navarro, Ofelia. Poeta (1894 - 1976)». Diccionario de autores. (in Spanish) After graduating from law school, she began her long professional career in women's work. She was a criminal defense lawyer and focused on defending prostitutes and other impoverished women. She belonged to the group of women and intellectuals who founded the
Club Femenino de Cuba {{Expand Swedish, Club Femenino de Cuba, date=January 2022 The Club Femenino de Cuba was a women's organization in Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Ju ...
, of which she became a delegate to First National Congress of Women in Cuba in 1923. At the conference, she spoke passionately about the rights of illegitimate children and argued for the necessity of paternity testing. Dominguez also spoke in 1926 at the Panama Congress, where she encouraged the formation of a broader Pan-American feminist movement. She was also founder of the Alianza Nacional Feminista (National Feminist Alliance). In 1924, Domínguez Navarro founded the magazine ''Villaclara'' and served as its director. Her articles were published in several other newspapers, such ''La Prensa'', ''El Mundo'', ''El Cubano Libre'' and ''El País'', in addition to writing for the feminist magazine, ''Bohemia y Carteles''. In Mexico, she wrote in the ''Nacional'' and ''El Universal'', among others. Politically, Domínguez Navarro participated in the movement against the dictatorship of
Gerardo Machado Gerardo Machado y Morales (28 September 1869 – 29 March 1939) was a general of the Cuban War of Independence and President of Cuba from 1925 to 1933. Machado was elected president in 1924 as the leader of the Liberal Party, a moderate reform ...
, for which she was imprisoned and exiled to Mexico. In 1936, along with Matilde Rodríguez Cabo, she first proposed reforms designed to decriminalize abortion in Mexico's Penal Code, a proposal that was at the forefront of the international debate looming on the self-determination of women.


Selected works

* ''El aborto por causas sociales y económicas'' (1936) *''50 años de una vida'' (1971)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dominguez Navarro, Ofelia 1894 births 1976 deaths People from Manicaragua Cuban women lawyers Cuban feminists Cuban women's rights activists Cuban women activists Cuban women journalists 20th-century Cuban lawyers 20th-century Cuban writers 20th-century Cuban women writers 20th-century women lawyers 20th-century Cuban journalists