Soldaderas Remembered

Although soldaderas performed a wide variety of duties, they were remembered in the years following the revolution primarily as sex workers. This perception was encouraged by certain journalists and anthropologists, as well as a popular novel and folk song.

Photographs of soldaderas and female soldiers have also contributed to their image in popular memory. The cropped versions of some photographs became more popular than the original versions, which contributed to the creation of a different perception of soldaderas than might otherwise have existed. Further, female soldiers were much more likely to be the subject of posed photos than soldaderas, a phenomenon which again contributes to a very particular image of each group. Click through the pages of this exhibit for examples and an analysis of how these elements added to the memory of soldaderas.