Making women visible in the (accounting) history of Colombia

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to discuss women’s participation in the accounting history of Colombia from colonial times to the mid-twentieth century. Thus, this study examines specifically the accounts of convents, the education of women in accounting, and the participation of women in the pursuit of the profession, analysed via a variety of source documents and Scott’s methodological approach and conceptual framework. The latter explains gender as the social organisation of relations between sexes. Although one can see some progress over time, it is evident that access to and application of accounting knowledge has been quite limited for Colombian women. This situation points to social difference and distance, and it is also relevant for explaining the accounting history of Colombia.

KEYWORDS:

• Accounting history
• convents
• accounting education
• household economy
• professional accounting services
• Colombia

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editor of Accounting History Review, Cheryl S. McWatters, and two anonymous referees, for their support and relevant comments. I also wish to thank Marilo Capelo (Universidad de Cádiz, España), Nohora García and Alejandra Patiño (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), and Gloria Valero and Michael Díaz (Universidad Santo Tomás, Colombia) for the reading of and observations on previous drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The marginal place where women used to write reflected their social position and, more precisely, the place they occupied in the family (Capelo, Araújo, and Funnell 2018).

2 As noted by Capelo, Araújo, and Funnell (2018), women needed to write to express themselves. In this case, Madre del Castillo wrote not only about her mystical experiences, but also mainly about administrative issues of her religious community.

3 All quotes correspond to the author’s translations of the original Spanish texts.

4 Although one could mark intentionality as an isolated case, it also appears in the managerial style that the Marquise of Valdehoyos implemented in her trade activities some decades later. (Carmona, Ezzamel, and Mogotocoro 2016).

5 A similar situation occurred in several places in Ibero-America. See, for instance, Soeiro (1985) for Brazil, Lavrin (1985) and Ramos (1992) for Mexico, and Amelang (1990) for Spain.

6 These religious women, just like Madre del Castillo, came from wealthy families of the region (De Zuleta 1996). They also knew bookkeeping, as is evident in the accounts and reports found in the convent’s archives of the AGN.

7 A pivotal disturbance in the daily life of the homes and the communities was the civil war. Colombia witnessed several wars in the nineteenth century besides the long battles for independence from Spain. Many women and children, together with their men, marched with the armies, supporting them in logistic tasks and espionage, and even sometimes in the front line of fighting. The most prominent symbolic representation is embodied by young leader Policarpa Salavarrieta (1795–1817) (Jaramillo 1987; Cherpak 1995; Bermúdez 1992, 1993).

8 See other similar examples in Brazil (Sampaio, Gomes, and Porte 2017), Spain (Fernández 1997), and Italy (Licini 2011).

9 Also valid for Spain in the eighteenth century, specifically for Cádiz; see Fernández (1997).

10 However, the role of liberal politicians in promoting women’s equality and equity was quite ambivalent. Although they fostered female primary education, they also rejected women’s participation in the public sphere, the university, and their voting rights. Conservatives advanced the leadership of wealthy women more significantly as agents of charity and Catholic values (Loaiza 2011).

11 Rico-Bonilla (2018) presents this accountant’s conceptual aspects of Colombian accounting thinking at the time.

12 Women’s voting rights in Colombia lagged significantly behind when compared to those in other countries in the region. For instance, one recognised these rights sooner in Uruguay (1927), Ecuador (1929), Brazil (1934), and Argentina (1947), respectively (Jaramillo 2015).

13 The narrative of modernisation also marked Colombian accounting thinking at the time, incorporating subjects such as income tax assessment, calculation of the depreciation of fixed assets, the recognition of intangibles, employee allowances and social benefits. The topics gave new impetus to accounting practice (Rico-Bonilla 2018).

14 As suggested by Kirkham and Loft (1993), a relevant research perspective consists in establishing how the origin and evolution of feminist ideas influenced women’s incorporation specifically into the accounting labour market.