18 Facts About Ochy Curiel

Ochy Curiel is one of the most prominent feminist scholars in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Rosa Ines Curiel Pichardo was born on 15 March 1963, in Santiago, Dominican Republic, and attended primary school at the Women's Polytechnic Our Lady of Mercy.

Ochy Curiel joined the board of an organization called Casa por la Identidad de las Mujeres Afro, which aimed to combat the dual-discrimination faced by Afro-Dominican women.

The identity politics that Ochy Curiel embraced was counter to the governmental aim of creating a homogeneous society, but one that she felt was pivotal.

Ochy Curiel soon began to recognize that her lesbianism was another part of the equation.

Ochy Curiel argues that heterosexuality has erased women's autonomy and that it is only through reclaiming their non-subservient status and daring to assert that men are not needed for their survival, that women will reclaim their freedom.

Ochy Curiel continued teaching and organizing conferences in the Dominican Republic until 2001.

Soon thereafter, Ochy Curiel moved to Mexico, where she began lecturing at the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Hidalgo.

Ochy Curiel was one of the participants in the first lesbian march held in Mexico in 2003.

Ochy Curiel felt that part of the discussion was missing because Latin American women's voices were not heard in Europe while some European works were not available to Latinas because of language variances.

In 2006, Ochy Curiel moved to Colombia, where she began teaching two courses at the National University of Colombia, one on Racism and Patriarchy, the other on Lesbian Feminism.

Ochy Curiel has shown interest in decolonial theory, which evaluates not just the ending of colonization, but how entrenched cultural ideas concerning classism, heterosexism and racism can be deconstructed.

Ochy Curiel began moving away from transnational feminism in an attempt to understand the underlying causes of oppression.

For Ochy Curiel, recognizing that poor black women exist and have faced bias, is not sufficient nor is recognition that they have some commonalities with other women.

Ochy Curiel posits that until one examines privilege and what is important to specific groups, one cannot fully understand exploitation.

Ochy Curiel has lectured throughout Latin America, North America and Europe discussing her various theories.

Ochy Curiel has been a featured lecturer at many conferences and universities and is considered one of the most prominent Latin American-Caribbean feminist scholars.

Ochy Curiel has published a wide body of work on Negritude and feminist theories.