Dra. Rosalía Arteaga Castro
Rosalía Arteaga, former president of Ecuador and honorary academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), points out in an interview granted to Spanish newspaper “La Vanguardia” the power of education as the basis of equality between men and women. A Doctor in Law, Political Science and Anthropology and a well-known writer, Arteaga was a victim of this machismo that still prevailed in Spanish-American societies and had to resign from her position, as she explains.
“The machismo of the country prevailed, I received pressures and I refused to accept pranks with powerful greedy. The generals betrayed me, against the officers… I feared a civil war. And I resigned”, she recalls about his days as president. Hence, Arteaga, who was also the first woman minister to have Ecuador, has since dedicated to disseminate the values of equality and parity through education. “To change habits, the only way is a more egalitarian education between the sexes”, she says.
Arteaga is also a lover of the riches of her country. “The best is its natural wealth, the Amazonian jungle and its biodiversity, the Andes, our roses, cocoa, bananas, mango, cane, and our coasts, shrimp, tuna, and oil, gold, copper… and the Galapagos Islands and their wildlife! And above all, its people, very good. And in the Ecuadorian jungle today three tribes never contacted”, explains proudly.
