Dolores Jiménez y Muro
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Colonel Dolores Jiménez y Muro (June 7, 1848 – October 15, 1925) was a Mexican schoolteacher and revolutionary. A native of Aguascalientes, Ags., she rose to prominence during the Mexican Revolution as a Socialist activist and reformer and as a supporter and associate of General Emiliano Zapata.
Jiménez y Muro was a notable contributor to the Complot de Tacubaya, which sought to depose President Porfirio Díaz in favor of Francisco I. Madero. She is credited with writing "The Political and Social Plan", published on March 18, 1911, which outlined the ideas and aims of the conspirators. "The Plan" advocated a continuation of the demands the Mexican Liberal Party had made in 1906, including fair wages, affordable housing, improved working conditions, and curbs on foreign investment. It also promoted the decentralization of the country's education system, on the premise that a school's needs are best met when it is locally funded and controlled.
Unlike earlier revolutionary theorists, however, Jiménez y Muro insisted that wage should be increased for women as well as for men. Previously, women's wages had not been of major concern to most reformers, since, according to a 1910 census, women accounted for only 8.8% of Mexico's workforce. Jiménez y Muro argued that this statistic was misleading, since it overlooked the many women unofficially employed as street vendors, artisans, and small-scale commercial farmers. Mexico's women, she said, were a vital part of Mexico's economy, and therefore they deserved to benefit from Mexico's economic reforms.
Jiménez y Muro's writings soon garnered the attention of Emiliano Zapata, who adopted some of her proposed reforms and invited her to join him in Morelos to further their shared aims. She did so in 1913, and remained an active part of Zapata's organization until his assassination in 1919. She died on October 15, 1925 in Mexico City, at the age of 77.
