Feminism in Argentina

In addition to art, literature and friendship, the newspaper dealt with topics such as the intellectual formation of women, their role in society and their position in relation to men.

[2] In one of the issues, the writer questioned her readers: "Until when the female sex will be seen plunged into the darkness in which it was locked by the oppressive system of those who denied the simplest knowledges?

"[1] Another periodical that argued for women's right to education was La Camelia (English: The Camellia), edited in 1852 by Rosa Guerra, the principal of a small private girls' school in Buenos Aires.

[3] This "romantic concept of womanly martyrdom" was a dominant theme in Argentine women's literature of the mid-19th century, which exalted female virtues at the expense of men's selfishness.

[5] Born in Buenos Aires on 26 June 1819, Juana Manso was a writer, translator, journalist, teacher and precursor of feminism in South America.

"[8] Back in Buenos Aires, she founded the Ladies' Album (Spanish: Álbum de Señoritas), with a very similar theme to the Brazilian journal.

[6] In her periodicals and novels, Manso advocated her ideas on equality of women, popular education and abolitionism, which were met with resistance by Argentine society,[6] as it remained hostile to any manifestation that meant breaking ties with the colonial era.

[11] There was not a homogenous feminist movement, rather individual struggles carried out by women inserted in diverse political identities and different social classes.

[15] By the end of the 19th century, these anarchists raised issues as free love, divorce and allegations of domestic violence, which would gain public prominence decades later.

"[17] Mayra Leciñana of Clarín wrote that "the theoretical alliances with socialism and the positivism of the moment enable a utopian bias that gives thickness to their demands and allows the production of new meanings for 'the new woman'.

"[17] A "transcendental" figure in the history of Argentine feminism, Elvira López became one of the first women to graduate from the University of Buenos Aires' School of Philosophy and Philology.

[18] Her thesis, written in 1901 and titled "The feminist movement" (Spanish: "El movimiento feminista"), is considered a local landmark and meant the issue's entry into the Argentine academic field.

[20] On 16 February 1906, Rawson de Dellepiane founded the Feminist Center (Spanish: Centro Feminista) in Buenos Aires, joined by a group of prestigious women.

[9] The feminist movement during the 1920s was especially relevant, as activists achieved greater organization, perseverance and scope of membership to push for the rights that women were getting in other countries.

[29] As the fight for working class women grew throughout Argentina, Congress began to pass laws and regulations that specifically attended to the demands from female workers.

It seemed as if Congress was so focused on attending to the demands of female labor unions, they did not take the necessary time to consider what working women actually needed in the day-to-day workforce.

[27] Additionally, the fact that there was such a large population of female domestic servants and teachers raised the issue of women in the workforce to feminists and reformers.

She shared her perspectives on feminism and the political role of women in her 1951 autobiography La razón de mi vida (released by Vantage Press as My mission in life in 1953).

Perón dedicates a chapter entitled "From the sublime to the ridiculous" to criticize the feminist movement, claiming that they aspired to be men and consequently renounced their womanhood by imitating them.

[30] Although Argentine historiography has traditionally focused on the actions of Eva Perón and the Partido Peronista Femenino, more contemporary investigations bring to light associations of women opposed to Peronism.

[31] The convulsed period between the early 1970s until the 1976 coup d'état was one of intense feminist activism, although "undeniably all the groups tended to dissolve, dissidences increased and there were migrations towards new formulas that, finally, were also extinguished.

[36] The international context played an important role in this, since the United Nations had decided that the decade 1975-1985 should be dedicated to the equal promotion of women on the part of the member countries.

[37] An emblematic moment of the protests was when activist María Elena Oddone climbed up the stairs of the Monument of the Two Congresses and raised a banner that read "No to motherhood, yes to pleasure".

'[37] Oddone recalled the meeting with the Multisectorial de la Mujer that took place two days after the event in her autobiography, claiming she replied to their "lapidary critics": "I am not a feminist to please anyone but to tell the truth about our condition.

[39] While one sector of feminist activism had a more institutional path and fought for laws such as shared parental authority, there was another, more "alternative" portion that was documented in magazines, newspapers and zines such as Brujas, Cuadernos de Existencia Lesbiana and Unidas.

[...] Because every talk between women has a bit of tango, of noise from a municipal fair, of rattle of scissors cutting a fringe, of lucid occurrences that are born and die in the dawn of the cock and of the drunkard who whistles.

"[36] Unlike other publications they criticized for being too "unifocal", the writers of Feminaria did not align with a single concept of feminism and instead aimed to "show the breadth and variety that there is in [it].

[44] The foundation sets out to combat gender based violence and discrimination against women by promoting welfare, participation and empowerment in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres.

[46] During the 1990s, Argentine LGBT activism took off, and the end of the decade saw the entry of travestis[nb 1] into spaces of feminist discussion, marking the beginning of transfeminism in Argentina.

[52] The term was coined by journalist Luciana Peker and refers to the preponderance of adolescents in the movement, which she considers to be the "fruit of a construction of more than thirty years of feminism, of a tradition of three decades of Encuentros de Mujeres and of a horizontal, federal and autonomous way of doing politics.