## 1. History: A Genealogy of Latin American Feminism


### 1.1 Latin American Feminist Origins (Pre-20th Century)



Most historical genealogies of Latin American feminism trace their
origins to the social movements beginning in the 1960s and 1970s
centered around women's liberation. However, feminist ideas in
Latin America are much older than those which have been documented as
part of feminist political action. The origins of Latin American
feminist ideas can be found in reflections on conditions of otherness
that emerge as a result of colonialism and in critiques of norms that
render the category of man the entry point for humanity. By the 60s
and 70s, feminism in Latin America had a firmly rooted history
concerned with articulating difference and alterity from a
non-dominant perspective (Gargallo 2004: 80).



The existence of a genealogy of Latin American feminisms brings to the
fore the relationship between women and history. Getting to know the
past was a critical and necessary component of the feminist movements
of 60's and 70's. The past framed the existence of
historical examples of women's struggles that served as
endorsements for the claims of feminist movements (Palacios
2007: 96). The failure of history to collect the life and action
of women required new perspectives, which came to include the search
for forgotten figures, attention to subjects like the body and female
sexuality, models of femininity, and attention to structural systems
of oppression as necessary points of departure for what would become
the genre of feminist of scholarship (Palacios 2007: 98). 



Notwithstanding, there are still lacunas in Latin American feminist
genealogy as the writings of non-white women from the 19th
and early 20th centuries (and earlier) are seldom found in
written form, given that many non-white women were illiterate, and
their stories were not textually documented. Their ideas and histories
were orally transmitted, and current local oral traditions account for
them (Gargallo 2010: 12a). Oral history projects enable contemporary
listeners to hear the voices of voiceless women and be witness to the
document of concerns that grow out of poverty and colonial obscurity
(Oliver 2018, 32). For instance, the colonial resistance of
Baraunda, wife of Garifuna leader Satuye, is legendary
for her people; her memory travels in songs sung by Garifuna women of
Honduras and Belize. Similarly, the story of Anacaona, Taino chief
(*cacica*) of Jaragua Hispanola, is one of colonial
resistance; prior to her execution she was offered clemency in return
for becoming a concubine for a Spaniard, and her refusal and
subsequent death solidified her legendary status which is immortalized
in songs from Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The stories
of Indigenous women of these times continue to be shared orally
through myth, songs, and proverbs, and contribute to the foundations
of Latin American feminist thought (Gargallo 2010: 14a).



One of the earliest documented writers in the Latin American feminist
tradition comes from the 17th century. Arguing in favor of
the educational and intellectual rights of women, Juana Ines
Maria del Carmen Martinez de Zaragoza Gaxiola de Asbaje
y Ramirez de Santillana Odonoju (1651-1695),
recognized by many as Juana Ines de la Cruz or Sor Juana of
Mexico, was a self-educated scholar of the Baroque period whose
writings have garnered quite a bit of philosophical attention as part
of the Latin American philosophical canon. She was well known during
her lifetime as evidenced by multiple publications of her work.
However, by the second half of the 18th century, her fame
diminished as attention to Baroque poetry declined. In 1951, her work
recovered attention with the publication of her complete works
(Gargallo 2009: 419). Subsequently, Juana Ines de la Cruz has
become an iconic Latin American feminist figure whose work exemplifies
the existence of lettered women intellectuals who resisted systems of
domination. For instance, *Approaches to the Theory of Freedom in
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz* (2018) advances a philosophical
exploration on freedom in the corpus of Juana Ines' and
methodologically situates her in the Mexican philosophical tradition
(Aspe Armella 2018). Alternatively, in *Feminist Perspectives
on Sor Juana Ines de La Cruz* (ed. Stephanie Merrimm 1999) Juana
Ines is framed in terms of her feminist impact on literature and
culture in an anthology that bridges her from the past into the
present. 



Juana Ines de la Cruz was one among many feminist writers who
advocated for social and cultural changes, including the role of
women. Teresa Margarida da Silva e Orta of Brazil (1711-1793)
was the first woman in the Portuguese-speaking world to publish a
novel and the first Brazilian-born person to edit a book in Europe.
She advocated for the autonomy of the Indigenous and the rights of
women in science (Gargallo 2004: 80). Flora Tristan of
Peru (1803-1844) argued for women's equality and
its important relationship to workers' rights (Gargallo 2004:
80). Argentinian abolitionist Juana Manso (1819-1875) detailed
education and philosophical instruction as a route to the moral and
intellectual emancipation of women. This position was taken up at the
end of the century by figures like Rita Cetina Gutierrez of
Mexico (1846-1908) and Visitacion Padilla of Honduras
(1882-1960) (Gargallo 2009: 418). Cetina Gutierrez
founded La Siempreviva in Merida, Mexico's first secular
school for poor girls and an art college for young women. She is cited
as one of Mexico's first feminists who promoted secular
education of women and fought for their self-determination. Padilla
founded the Sociedad Cultural Feminina, which promoted access to
education, especially for women. Venezuelan Teresa de la Parra
(1889-1936) used writing as a mechanism of resistance from which to
question the limitations of the gendered experience exemplifying the
way that literature can be both political and philosophical. Broadly
speaking, feminist ideas are rooted in women's personal
experience and this relationship is readily explored through
literature, poetry, and testimonial narrative that concretely reflects
the feminist maxim "the personal is political" (Schutte
1993: 213). 



The existence of early Latin American feminist ideas was not attended
to until years after their inception. The impact of ideas centering on
women's rights to intellectual and educational life, equality,
and workers' rights was not immediate since they were not given
importance in their respective contexts. During the feminist movements
of the 20th century, many of these figures re-emerged as
part of a Latin American feminist theoretical landscape (Gargallo
2004: 81). Early Latin American feminist ideas came to be evaluated
through historical memory that gives weight to the claim that Latin
American feminist ideas existed prior to the women's movements
of the 1960s and 1970s. The existence of early Latin American
feminist ideas that predate the feminist movement questions the
relationship between women, history, and epistemology (Palacios
2007: 104). In this context, the philosophical demand is a
reading of the past complexly incorporating women as political actors
and knowledge producers even if they were not seen as such in their
times. 


### 1.2 Latin American Feminist Ideas of the Early 20th Century



Feminist ideas from the early 20th century are
transnational. Ideas move with pushes for social change. Hence, a key
issue for contemporary Latin American feminist writers is the
importance of tracking the movement of ideas and reminding us that
ideas migrate and reconfigure depending on their contexts. The
intersection between women's ideas about resistance and the
ideas that could lead to social transformation was not necessarily
understood as feminist in its time. More often than not, women's
ideas in regards to justice, equality, and political change converged
with other political projects that focused on improving the poor
working class's conditions and not specifically women's
conditions. Their ideas for social change were molded into general
claims about access to education and transformation of laboring
material conditions. Ideas that are now coded as feminist are
identified as such in retrospect, but in order to do them justice,
they need to be accounted for in their historicity.



The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) had a profound impact on the
development of feminist ideas (Gargallo 2004: 82). Most notably, the
revolution focused on education, and in this political landscape,
feminist ideas had the historical impact of influencing the thoughts
and actions of women in Mexican society (Gargallo 2004: 82). In 1915,
Salvador Alvarado became governor of the Yucatan and functioned
as a vehicle for social and political change until 1918 when he was
called to return to military duty. He supported a feminist movement in
the region initiated by Rita Cetina Gutierrez in 1870, noted
earlier as one of Mexico's earliest feminists and founder of La
Siempreviva. Moreover, his tenure in office gave room and support for
women's political activism in the region. The first two feminist
congresses in the history of Mexico were held in Merida in
January and November of 1916, giving floor to discussions on the right
to vote and political participation, abortion and contraception, as
well as education (Gargallo 2004: 83). By 1923, the socialist party of
the Yucatan had three women deputies and one alternate
(Gargallo 2004: 84).



Given the impact of the Mexican Revolution, it is no surprise that
some of the first feminist ideas to reach historical identification
are found in its wake. Nevertheless, feminist ideas stretched beyond
Mexico and across Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1880, women
abolitionists in Brazil published a newspaper titled *A
familia* and argued for changes in dress norms. In 1910, Argentina
witnessed the first Feminist International Congress which fought for
peace, education, and social participation (Gargallo 2004: 85). In
1912, women in Colombia declared the defense of civil rights of
married women. In 1916, women in Panama founded Club Ariel and
Centro de Cultural Feminina, which supported intellectual and physical
education as well as the political life of women, and whose motto
centered on virtue and nationhood. In 1924, Visitacion Padilla
denounced the presence of U.S. marine military infantry in Honduras
and Central America in the *Boletin de la Defensa
Nacional.* She founded the Circulo de Cultura Femenina
which supported the education of women and resisted North American
military intervention during the Second Honduran Civil War (1924). In
1928, women of Ecuador sued the state, demanding the right to vote,
and received it one year later (Gargallo 2004: 86).



Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922) exemplifies the convergence of
feminist ideas and ideas concerning broader social transformation.
Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Capetillo was home schooled and secured
a job as a reader in cigar-making factories, reading to workers and
transferring ideas to workers as they rolled cigars. Capetillo's
employment as a reader served as an important locale from which
workers developed a consciousness of trade unions, socialism,
anarchism, and women's rights (Ruiz 2016: 6). Although readers
were typically men, it was not uncommon to find women in cigar
factories as the cigar-making industry modernized and became the
second national industry in the first decades of the 20th
century (Ramos 1992: 29). Hence, it is not accidental that some of the
first feminist ideas of Puerto Rico emerged in cigar factories and in
the proletariat presses significantly before the suffrage movement
later in the century (Ramos 1992: 30). Capetillo's feminist
ideas are grounded in her class politics that saw emancipation
occurring at the nexus between labor empowerment and gender equality
(Ruiz 2016: 13). Although often heralded as the first feminist writer
of Puerto Rico and the first woman to ever publish a book about women
in Puerto Rico, Capetillo's work most importantly shows how
early 20th century Latin American feminist ideas and
writers were very much grounded in the lived material conditions of
their times. In the case of Capetillo, her feminist anarchism brewed
at the core of her understanding of workers' emancipation as a
woman who herself labored in the trenches of modernity.



Early 20th century Latin American feminist history
concludes with women's suffrage. The years spanning
1870-1947 are generally considered the pivotal years for
women's suffrage (Gargallo 2004: 94). However, to view this
slice of history as merely centered on suffrage misrepresents the
multiplicity of feminist ideas and activities developed during the
time. These years also witnessed the push for social transformation
oriented around ideas of equality and justice that included, but was
not limited to, the right to vote. The push for equality framed
women's insistence on public access to education, which impacted
not just women but the impoverished as well. The call for a more just
social order framed how women were thinking about their locale in
resistance to military intervention as well as labor movements. Hence,
the ideas that emanate from this period are multidimensional. The era
is identified as closing out with the accomplishment of suffrage.
However, the right to vote emerged at different times throughout the
region, owing to the diversity of local politics. For instance,
Ecuador was the first country in South America to enfranchise women in
1929. That same year, Puerto Rico enfranchised literate women and in
1935, gave the vote to all women. Uruguay followed shortly after in
1932, Cuba in 1933, and El Salvador in 1939. However, the suffrage
movement stagnated in other countries: women were enfranchised in
Nicaragua and Peru in 1955, and only in 1961 did Paraguay give
women the vote.



In the context of suffrage it is important to mention Uruguayan
philosopher Carlos Vaz Ferreira (1872-1958) and his treatise *Sobre
femenismo* (Vaz Ferreira 1933). Prior to the 1980's, Vaz Ferreria
was one of the only well known Latin American philosopher to discuss
feminism as part of the central corpus of his work (Schutte 1993:
208). *Sobre femenismo* is a collection of lectures
Vaz Ferreira delivered from 1914 to 1918, a pivotal time in the
history of women's suffrage in Uruguay. The first printing of
the text in 1933 coincides with Uruguayan enfranchisement coinciding
with the climate of feminist social mobilization that began in
the early 1900's among socialists and sympathizers of feminism
among the supporters of Batllismo (named after the then President Jose
Batlle y Ordonez (Schutte 2003: 209). The Batllist
moment was favorable for intellectuals. They were public and esteemed
roles with impact on social mores, and Vaz Ferreira was among these
(Oliver 2007: 33). *Sobre feminismo* (1933) outlines a
social theory of cooperation between men and women that privileged
monogamy, the family, and equitable division of household tasks
(Oliver 2007: 34). Vaz Ferreira adopts a position he terms
feminism of compensation or compensatory feminism, which he
distinguishes from feminism of equality. Compensatory feminism held
that women are biologically disenfranchised in relation to men, but
society can compensate for the disadvantage by adjusting institutional
structures (Schutte 2003: 209). Consequently, he was an takes up
the topics of women's suffrage, education, right to divorce
as part of his political philosophy. 


### 1.3 The Years of Silence (1950-1970)



Coined by Julieta Kirkwood of Chile as the "years of
silence", the years spanning from 1950-1970s/1980s saw
women (mostly middle-class) increasing their political presence by
participating in popular social movements and political parties
(Kirkwood 1986: 70). However, their social and political participation
lacked explicit feminist demands. Although not a strict set of dates,
the years of silence lasted well into the 1980s for some parts of
Latin America (e.g., Chile); these years, the time of baby boom and
populism, were politically rife in post-World War II Latin America. It
was also a time characterized by McCarthyism which precipitated the
U.S. intervention in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic with
intentions of warding off communism (Gargallo 2004: 94). These years
also witnessed the fall of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in
1956 as well the rise of conflict and military regimes in countries
like Colombia, Argentina, and Chile. Hence, political mobilization
took place around the changing landscape of Latin America, and
middle-class women participated, but their explicit role in these
movements is complicated by the fact that their presence and impact
were not readily documented (Ungo Montenegro 2000: 45).
Notwithstanding, the years of silence were not quiet on pages. Women
during these years were literarily active and produced texts that
privileged their position which was theoretically underappreciated
because of their literary style (Gargallo 2004: 95).



The relationship between literature and philosophy has been explored
as part of the Latin American philosophical tradition. For instance,
one position holds that the Latin American literary tradition of essay
writing contains insights that can ameliorate the troubles of Latin
American philosophy at large (Pereda 2006: 196). Nevertheless, the
points of literary departure for many Latin American philosophers are
seldom women, although Latin American women in the middle of the
20th century wrote amply about their identities in
relationship to gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality (Gargallo
2004: 97). It is important to appreciate that not all women's
writing during this time pushed for social change. Some narratives
played into patriarchy and *machismo*, forced marriage, and
social isolation. At the same time, some women presented narratives
that exposed doubts and resistances to the patriarchal ordering of the
world (Gargallo 2004: 97). Unfortunately, women writers of this time
are often folded into literary traditions, hindering their recognition
as thinkers and theorists. One notable example is Rosario Castellanos
of Mexico.



In 1950, at the age of 25, Castellanos defended her master's
thesis in philosophy at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de
Mexico (UNAM). The project, titled *Sobre cultura
feminina*, explored women's role in the production of
culture (Gargallo 2004: 89). She was a prolific writer. However,
Castellanos is largely remembered as a literary figure and a poet. It
was not until 1974 (after her death), that the publication of her most
famous work *El Eterno Feminino* was recognized as
theoretically rich, speaking on themes of gender, ethnicity, and
nationhood. Today, she is recognized as a leading voice in the
feminist movement of Mexico, her work arguing for the construction of
a feminine subjectivity that defies the identity imposed by
patriarchal cultural norms. As a result, her work has aided in
establishing a different vision of political life for women in Mexico
(Gargallo 2004: 90).



The 1950s-1970s was a fervent time of women's writing
across Latin America. Antonia Palacios of Venezuela wrote *Ana
Isabel, una nina decente* (1949), Castellanos of Mexico
wrote *Balun-Canan* (1957), and Albalucia
Angel of Colombia wrote *Estaba la pajara pinta
sentada un verde limon* (1975). Further notable examples
include the Mexican poet Enriqueta Ochoa whose published works span
1947-2008 and Marvel Moreno, one of the most influential female
writers of Colombia. In the 1980s, Moreno broke through the literary
mold of her times marked by the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
with the publication of *Algo tan feo en la vida de una
senora bien* (1980). The protagonists of the book, who are
women, serve as vehicles for the exploration of life in a patriarchal
society. Moreno placed value on providing a genealogy of women as her
protagonists (e.g., the daughter, the mother, the grandmother),
reflecting the importance of transgenerational communication amongst
women. Thus, some argue her works provide a thematic thread of
rebellion that runs through the lives of women and unites them in
their histories of resistance to patriarchal social orders (Gargallo
2004: 106).



While dubbed the "years of silence", the work of women
writers during this period did find voice through literature and
poetry. Their theoretical reflections were subsequently appreciated
with the resurgence of feminism in the later decades.


### 1.4 Ideas of a Movement: Latin American Feminism of the Late 20th Century (1970s-1990s)



The years spanning the 1970s-1990s were marked with important
social and political transformation for women in Latin America amidst
complex political backdrops. Transitions from military regimes and
processes of democratization as well as peace negotiations provide the
context in which women's mobilization emerges across Latin
America. The plurality of political conditions gave way to the
development of diverse feminist ideas. The feminism of this time, also
commonly referred to as neofeminism, was particularly attuned to the
body (Bartra 2001: 1). Grounded in the pre-1970 history of Latin
American feminism, neofeminism strove toward the validation of
women's rights, but specifically centered on women's
freedom over their bodies. The neofeminist perspective translated into
mobilizing on issues of abortion, motherhood, sexual autonomy, rape,
and abuse (Bartra 2001: 1).



Contemporary Latin American feminism surged during politically somber
times, especially under the presence of military regimes or nominal
democracies that repressed civil liberties often in the name of
national security (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 397). Hence, as a
social movement, Latin American feminism was born with an
intrinsically oppositional and occasionally clandestine character
(Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 397). As international organizations
attempted to influence national health and population policies and
governments to control women's bodies, the foci of Latin
American feminisms grew more complex (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992:
403).



One notable characteristic of feminism during this time is the
recognition of womanhood as a shared status. Women during these
decades found identity in their status of womanhood and their shared
condition that differentiated them from men (Gargallo 2004: 88). They
rejected "man" as the standard model around which their
political action organized. The push for social and political
transformation focused less on equality (e.g., the right to vote) and
more on a desire for liberty, denying notions of femininity as
subordinate to masculinist constructions of humanity (Gargallo 2004:
111). Latin American feminism of the late 20th century
encouraged encounters between women that recognized them as subjects,
with their own histories, and on their own terms (Gargallo 2004:
88).


#### 1.4.1 The 1970s



Amid military regimes, the 1970s were characterized by a mobilization
of women that took motherhood to be a political category. In some
countries, women resisted state repression as mothers of those who had
disappeared at the hands of the state (Gargallo 2004: 113). The
CoMadres (Comite de Madres) of El Salvador formed in 1977 to
investigate the disappearance of missing relatives. They photographed
the bodies of people found in the streets of El Salvador in order to
aid in identification. In the same year, the Asociacion Madres
de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina organized as mothers to search for their
disappeared children as a result of state terrorism enacted by the
military dictatorship that spanned the years of 1976-1983. In
Mexico, critical stances on motherhood were initiated by the
neofeminist group Mujeres en Accion Solidaria (MAS), which
protested the sanctifying myth of motherhood on the eve of
Mother's Day at El Monumento a la Madre (a monument honoring
mothers) in Mexico City. They resisted the myth that a woman's
role in society should be circumscribed to motherhood
(Gutierrez 2012: 42). The protest continued in the years that
followed.



The push to disconnect motherhood from womanhood set the stage for a
separation between the reproductive capacities of women's bodies
and their sexual health (Gargallo 2004: 114). Claims to the
decriminalization of abortion emerged under access to reproductive
rights that sought to give women control over their own bodies. Thus,
the right to abort was defended on the grounds of a woman's
right to individual autonomy (Gargallo 2004: 114). In 1976, El
Movimiento Nacional de Mujeres, along with other autonomous feminist
groups, organized one of the first congresses on the decriminalization
of abortion that maintained the interruption of pregnancy as a
woman's decision that should be made accessible through all
institutions of public health (Gargallo 2004: 114). In the years that
followed, feminists in Mexico used a variety of symbolic strategies in
their fight for the legalization of abortion. They dressed in black to
publicly mourn the women who had died as a result of clandestine
abortions (Garagallo 2004: 115). Today, abortion remains tiered in
access throughout Latin America. Countries such as Chile, Nicaragua,
Dominican Republic, and El Salvador prohibit abortion entirely, even
under conditions where it would save a woman's life. In
countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and Venezuela
abortion is legal only under conditions where it saves the life of the
woman. However, in countries like Argentina, Costa Rica, and Ecuador
abortion is legal to the extent that it preserves the physical health
of the woman. In some countries, conditions of rape are understood as
part of the preservation of physical health (e.g., Argentina), while
in others, the extension is made to allow abortion to the extent that
it preserves the mental health of the woman (e.g., Colombia). Cuba,
Uruguay, and Puerto Rico are places that have legalized abortion
without any restrictions that would require some particular reason.
Although the battle for access to abortion began during the 1970s, it
continues to be a contested political issue especially in places where
access is entirely denied or restricted by other factors: physical
health, mental health, or life preservation. Moreover, in places like
Puerto Rico, the question of abortion is intricately bound up with
histories of forced sterilization, making the issue more politically
charged and complex.



As a time characterized by state repression, the 1970s were also a
time of awakening for many women who demanded social change (Bartra
2001: 6). Latin American feminists not only challenged patriarchy by
defining themselves as distinct political subjects, but also
challenged male paradigms of domination expressed through the
militaristic and counter-insurgent state. The reality of state
repression made Latin American feminisms distinct in their ability to
unveil the patriarchal foundations of militarism and institutionalized
violence (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 397). The intimate
relationship between patriarchy and military state repression is best
elucidated by the intersection between Chilean feminist activism and
the push for democratization in Julieta Kirkwood's famous
phrase: "Democracia en el pais, en la casa y en la
cama", which translates to: "Democracy in the nation, in
the house, and in the bed" (Kirkwood 1986: 14). Latin American
feminism of the 1970s was linked to an activism that believed
authoritarian regimes found their roots where patriarchal oppression
trickled into the "private" sphere. By the late 1970s,
opposition movements emerged throughout Latin America, joined by women
from all walks of life defying their historical exclusion from
political life (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 398-399).



The heterogeneity of contemporary Latin American feminism can be
traced to the diverse political conditions from which its activism
emerged. Nevertheless, a theme can be found in the commitment to
change the social relations of production, including reproduction.
Throughout the region, women collectively participated in movements to
engender human rights by seeking better access to education,
healthcare, and urban services as well as resistance to military state
repression (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 401). Latin America's
economic dependence and political repression during these years set
the stage for a distinct militant feminist activism that would
continue to spread into the decade of the 1980s.


#### 1.4.2 The 1980s



The 1980s were characterized by the expansion of feminist theory and
practice. Feminists started focusing on specialized activities that
deepened their vision of politics, culture, and society. The number of
feminist magazines, films, and video collectives increased.
Furthermore, the number of centers for rape victims and abused women,
as well as feminist health collectives, lesbian groups, and other
specifically gendered projects grew during this time (Saporta
Sternbach et al. 1992: 404). As feminists increased their activities
in feminist projects, they began creating more civil society
organizations or NGO's (non-government organizations)
(Millan 2014: 154).



One of the most important events to mark the 1980s was the first
Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe held in
Bogota, Colombia. The Encuentros ("Encounters"), as
they came to be called in short, served as regional critical forums
for debates about feminist politics and the movement's overall
relationship to social justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. The
attendees of the First Encuentro came together on the heels of
geographic and political isolation with a desire to carve out a path
for autonomous politics. Over the years, the Encuentros extended the
map of feminist politics (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 405).



The First Encuentro convened in Bogota, Colombia, over the
course of four days in July 1981; more than two hundred women from
over fifty organizations attended. The region-wide gathering brought
together many strands of feminism, creating a heterogeneous movement
with considerable tensions and conflicts. For instance, during the
planning stages of the meeting, heated discussions emerged between
independent/autonomous feminists, often identified as
*autonomas* or *feministas*, and militant
political feminists affiliated with political parties (e.g.,
socialist), often referred to as *militantes.* Independent
feminists expressed concern over the possibility that feminists
aligned with political parties might try to impose sectarian agendas
diverting attention from issues central to feminist organizing (e.g.,
reproductive rights) (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 407).



The most widely attended Encuentro of 1981, "Feminism and
Political Struggle", focused on the autonomy of the feminist
movement, double militancy (concurrent participation in a political
party and the feminist movement), and feminism and imperialism
(Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 408). The response to the session
exemplified the diversity of ideas involved in the feminist struggle.
All of the participants agreed that women suffer a specific oppression
by virtue of their womanhood, which is exacerbated by class. Their
agreement translated into particular demands: equal pay, end of the
double workday, and the right to safe abortion as well as the right to
choose motherhood (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 408). Furthermore,
it was clear that the political parties of the time across the region
were not centered on these demands in their claims for social change.
Two notable positions were developed in response to the session. The
first position maintained that neither capitalism nor socialism on
their own could end women's oppression. Women's liberation
needed to be articulated outside the networks of party-affiliated
activism that would make demands for complete social transformation to
alter oppressive relations. They held that severing the
*militante* and the *feminista* was to misunderstand
feminist politics, which is a comprehensive political praxis. The
focus of feminist political activism needed to be in targeted feminist
organizations, since the revolutionary Left tended to place men in the
center (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 409). The second position held
that feminism on its own could not be revolutionary because of its
inherent commitment to socialism. They thought feminism should be an
organic outgrowth of socialist struggles that could not be separated
from struggles against class oppression. Double militancy, on this
view, was a practical difficulty, but one that could be overcome
(Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 409).



The 1981 Encuentro reflected the larger social and political
conditions out of which Latin American feminisms were evolving. The
conflict between the *feministas* and the *militantes*
exemplified the divergences in Latin American feminisms during the
1980s. However, it also reflected the genesis of Latin American
feminist ideas in women's political activism. So, although mired
in conflict, the Encuentros signaled the intimate ties between ideas
regarding gender struggle and the political conditions that give rise
to those ideas.



The Second Encuentro, held in Lima, Peru in July 1983,
thematically focused on *patriarchy*, a controversial topic
given its association with imperialist American and European
feminisms. The Encuentro reflected a shift in feminist claims,
identifying that sexism was not just an outcome of capitalism, but
rather shaped by a patriarchal sex/gender system that functioned
autonomously (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 412). Moreover, the
Second Encuentro experienced a public response to the visibility of
lesbian identity within Latin American feminisms, forcing many
heterosexual women to confront their homophobia (Saporta Sternbach et
al. 1992: 412). The meeting also pushed the topic of racism, which
resurfaced in subsequent years both in the Encuentros and the larger
landscape of Latin American feminist ideas that launched staunch
critiques on the omission of race and racism from dominant feminist
conversations.



The growth of the Encuentros testified to the growth of feminisms
throughout the region. The Fourth Encuentro held in Taxco, Mexico
(1987) brought together 1,500 women. As the end of the decade was
nearing, the Fourth Encuentro reflected increased complexity in Latin
American feminist politics, which was made palpable by the recurrence
of the question: "Who is a feminist?" (Saporta Sternbach
et al. 1992: 421). The discussion reflected divergences in what
constituted feminist politics and whether general community organizing
was sufficient to characterize feminist organizing, particularly where
community groups were controlled by the church or local political
parties (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 421). Nevertheless, a key
point remains that when the Encuentros began in 1981, feminism was
still a "dirty word", but by 1987, feminism had gained
legitimacy and was validated in Leftist political circles, notably in
the Nicaraguan revolution (Saporta Sternbach et al. 1992: 421). The
Encuentros continued to demonstrate the diverse growth of Latin
American feminisms as a thriving and expansive map of ideas grounded
in different strands of political activism. Although the Encuentros
continue to the present day, the Encuentros of the 1980s were
significant developments which reflected an evolving social movement
with tense but important relationships among revolutionary struggles,
feminist goals, and claims for social justice.



At the end of the 1980s, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic peaked, sexual
politics became increasingly conservative. Sex, once viewed as a
political act that could blur the private/public divide and subvert
traditional gender roles, became fraught with difficulty. Young
feminists came of age at a time when sexual education shifted toward
narratives of the risks of sex and not its disruptive political
potential (Gargallo 2004: 123-124). Furthermore, the closing of
the decade saw the continued linking between feminism and NGOs that
would be characteristic of the institutionalization of feminism in the
1990s. For some, institutionalization entailed de-radicalization of
feminist politics in Latin America and the Caribbean (Gargallo 2004:
125).


#### 1.4.3 The 1990s



Latin American feminisms during the 1990s are characterized by a focus
on gender equality and non-discrimination within the confines of
institutions governed by neoliberal policies (Coba & Herrera 2013:
18). As a result, they are referred to as liberal feminisms not
grounded in resistance, but rather in their adaptation to a neoliberal
infrastructure that was ushered in throughout the region.
Neoliberalism had a distinct impact on women's activism and the
development of feminist ideas. Women were one of the most affected
groups with the shifts in economic policies, and the phrase
"feminization of poverty" accurately captured the
detrimental impact on women's lives. Many women joined the
menial labor force (e.g., *maquilas*, agricultural labor)
without any labor rights or access to fair wages (Gargallo 2004:
117).



At the same time, feminist activists started coupling their efforts
with organizations that targeted policy change in favor of women and
operated with a distinct language about violence, health, and human
rights in tune with liberal politics (Gargallo 2004: 125). The concept
of the autonomous individual reigned as the explanatory framework for
development. Under the umbrella of individuality, people were
responsible for their own survival and development which were
dependent on their initiative in a market economy (Coba & Herrera
2013: 18). In this context, the activist politics that had once
characterized feminist organizing shifted to less radicalized
organizational institutions. A substantial portion of the feminist
movement that transitioned to institutions did so without critiquing
economic policies and neoliberalism (Bastian Duarte 2012: 157).
Institutionalized feminists started working alongside governments and
agencies, which prioritized change in public policy but did not seek
to investigate the roots of inequality that justified the need for
policy change. Moreover, conditions emerged where NGO's were
able to offer specialized resources for women. In doing so, they
promoted far-reaching gender discourse that was standardized with the
universalizing criteria of the United Nations. With their hands tied
by donors, these organizations were not necessarily mindful of the
priorities of local organizations or their populations (Bastian Duarte
2012: 157). As a result, the infrastructure of institutionalization
exacerbated existing power imbalances across ethnic and class
lines.



Among the institutions participating in the institutionalization of
feminisms was the academy. From the late 1980s well into the 1990s,
women's studies programs started organizing throughout
universities. Moreover, the study of feminist philosophy more broadly
started finding its way into curricula as the activism of earlier
decades pressured universities to support women's and gender
studies (Schutte & Femenias 2010: 400). The decade marked
the professionalization of feminism. Feminism, which had once been an
orienting force of activism, became employable and profitable (Bartra
2001: 11). However, this is not to discredit the tremendous effort
that the development of university programs required. As university
programs became institutional fixtures, they also served as
counter-hegemonic spaces where resistance could be facilitated.



The 1990s also saw the initiation of journals and formal publications.
In 1990, *Debate Feminista* was launched by Marta Lamas. It
remains one of the most impactful journal publications on intellectual
feminisms. In 1991, *La Correa Feminista* was created to bring
together the thoughts of autonomous and radical feminists. It ran
until 1998 when the editors self-assessed the journal's goals
and decided to launch *Creatividad Feminista*, an online
publication which ran until 2008, when its daughter site,
*MamaMetal*, was created. Finally, *La Doble Jornada*
sprang as a feminist supplement to *La Jornada*, Mexico's
leading Leftist newspaper, and ran from 1986-1998 (Millan
2014: 156).



During this time, Latin American feminisms began to privilege the use
of the category *gender* or the *gender perspective*
over *patriarchy* as the conceptual framework from which to
talk about the situation of women. The shift to using language of
*gender* is largely owed to the importation of North American
feminist ideas. In the Latin American context, Gayle Rubin's
work received substantial attention as evidenced by numerous
translations as well as by extensive commentary on its complex
understanding of the sex/gender system (Gargallo 2004: 21). However,
it is important to note that the term was already being deployed by
scholars and carried with it a variety of connotations (Schutte 1998b:
88).



*Gender* was translated to Spanish as
"genero", which to many was a poor translation.
*Genero*, which translates to English as
"species" or "kind", traveled to the Latin
American context via academic publishing and sparked debate on its
aptness to map onto the feminist conditions of the region. The gender
perspective, which employs the paradigm of radical individualism
characteristic of the decade, comes to stand alongside the concept of
empowerment as one that can specifically target women's needs.
The language of gender and empowerment was used by the United Nations
as part of their universalizing goals for women during the 1995 World
Conference on Women held in Beijing, a moment which marked mounted
tensions around the de-politicization of Latin American feminisms
(Bastian Duarte 2012: 157).



The use of the themes of gender and empowerment was further deployed
by newly democratized states. Feminist activists found themselves in a
different relationship to the state as it adopted the language of
*gender*. Once a vehicle of repression, especially under
military rule, Latin American feminists now had to contend with a
drastically different engagement with the role of the state, one that
had co-opted the very terms of a movement that was initiated in
opposition to its repression. Newly formed liberal democracies
understood women as potential markets for modernizing and development,
thus deploying the language of gender and empowerment (Alvarez 1998:
271). However, the way in which the state managed poverty as part of
its modernizing mission was mired in individualism with little focus
on communities.



Political and economic transitions influenced the development of
feminist ideas. Activism became institutionalized and the feminist
movement grew in various directions. As the 90s came to a close, what
started out as a spontaneous social movement with radical ideas about
patriarchy, militarism, and democratization found its way into the
halls of institutions and organizations that stifled feminist
activism. The institutionalization of feminism was so profound that
its political promise seemed lost. However, as the opening of the
21st century demonstrates, this was not the case.
Institutionalization was not without critique, and the early 2000s
marked the emergence of new voices that took liberal dominant
feminisms to task by focusing on anti-neoliberal and decolonial
critique which began to call out the hegemonic practices of Latin
American feminisms.


### 1.5 Dissident Voices: Latin American Feminist Ideas of the 21st Century



The institutionalization of feminism came under scrutiny in the 2000s.
Autonomous feminists argued that as feminist practices continued to
normalize, they failed to account for the inequities among women. As
the century came to a close, critiquing (marginal) voices emerged,
arguing that liberal feminism tended to overlook difference, inequity,
and exclusion amongst women located in vastly different social and
cultural locations (Coba & Herrera 2013: 18). The Eighth Encuentro
(November 1999) held in Juan Dolio, Dominican Republic, reflected the
presence of these emerging voices as dominant feminisms'
"Others": Indigenous women, Afro-descended women, and
lesbians whose position relative to the Encuentros had been marginal.
The claims of inclusivity and diversity of the Encuentros were brought
under critical scrutiny as they argued that their identities had been
obscured under liberal feminism, which took gender to be
characteristic of a foundational unity for the encounters. These
*desencuentros* ("disencounters") formed the basis
of new social and political critique that characterized the emerging
voices.



In response to the neoliberal shifts of the 80s and 90s, the early
21st century brought with it an anti-neoliberal discourse
to Latin American feminisms that was further fed by decolonial and
anti-patriarchal stances. Amongst these were positions that argued for
the decolonization of universal feminism by taking into account the
axes of race, ethnicity, and sexuality in the articulations of
identity. The 2000s were also marked by an attempt to dry out the
institutionalization of gender. At the same time, there has not been
an impetus to reconfigure a social movement in the wake of neoliberal
shifts (Coba & Herrera 2013: 19).



We are currently witnessing an emergence of ideas that is starting to
reshape how we think about Latin American feminisms. However, the
project of reconfiguration is still very much in process. In this
context, critical ideas about race and the history of racism have
entered mainstream concerns, predominantly voiced from Afro-descended
standpoints (Curiel 2007). Further, lesbian feminists have brought
forth criticisms of liberal feminism for not only paying less
attention to race and racism, but also for centering on
heteronormativity as part of the feminist agenda. One notable position
holds that there is an inextricable link between lesbianism and
feminism insofar as the adoption of a self-conscious feminism entails
shifting engagement with dominant masculinity on all levels and this
includes the realm of desire (Espinosa Minoso 2011: 403).
Indigenous feminists have also uncovered critical insights in the
relationships among community, the state, and political belonging.
Their ideas about the balance between ethnic belonging and critiques
of sexism are a call to dominant liberal feminism to rethink its
concept of culture and community that risks reducing Indigenous women
to targets of development (Bastian Duarte 2012: 164). The emergence of
these critical ideas takes liberal feminism to task by calling out the
dominance of middle-class, white/*mestiza*, and heteronormative
models for feminist projects as not only exclusionary, but also
profoundly harmful. Notably, most of these positions take
decolonization as an orienting project and maintain that racism and
heterosexism are rooted in colonialism whose impact continues to
plague Latin America and the Caribbean.



In 2007, GLEFAS (Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formacion y
Accion Feminista) was founded with the intention of creating a
space for dialogue within the lesbian and feminist movement in Latin
America and the Caribbean as well as with other social and land
struggle movements in the region. They self-describe as seeking to
produce political analysis from an anti-racist, anti-military,
anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, lesbian feminist perspective. In line
with their philosophical vision, they published *Tejiendo de otro
modo: Feminismo, epistemologia y apuestas decoloniales en Abya
Yala* (2014b) as an outgrowth of a colloquium held in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina in 2012. The book brings together a diverse group of
contemporary voices that intervene on hegemonic understandings of
feminism in the region in order to make room for a collective that
appreciates the diversity of knowledges. Speaking from the margins,
the book takes as its central claim that decolonization is concomitant
with de-patriarchialization. Hence, it reflects a shift in
contemporary Latin American feminist writings that are paving the way
for critical considerations of capitalism, imperialism, democracy, and
identity. These new voices of dissent are changing the landscape of
Latin American feminisms with unique ideas that call for rethinking
what it means to be a feminist today.


## 2. Key Issues and Debates


### 2.1 Latin American Feminist *Autonomy*



*Autonomy* is a foundational, albeit contested, concept in
Latin American feminisms. It is a foundational concept to the extent
that feminist identity has hinged on the conceptualization of
autonomy. However, how autonomy is defined has been widely debated as
the term has been deployed in varying capacities. Autonomy has been
used conceptually to forge alliances between women's groups in
Latin America that seek to eradicate gender-based oppression. It has
also been used to avoid co-option by actors like political parties,
NGO's, the state, and funding agencies. The result is a tension
between the retention of ideological and financial autonomy and the
widening of feminisms' scope and impact. Thus, the varying use
of autonomy calls into question how it is being defined (Alvarez et
al. 2003: 542).



The history of feminist autonomy in Latin American feminism is rooted
in the activism of the 1970s and 1980s where it was invoked in
opposition to militant feminists (*militantes*) involved with
the political parties of the Left. Autonomy, in this context, was
defined as independence from any organization that understood the
fight for women's liberation as a secondary goal. On the other
side stood those who took the fight for revolutionary social change as
concurrent with feminist involvement and advocated for double
participation (Alvarez et al. 2003: 543). The rise of the political
Left in many Latin American countries involved resistance to political
regimes, and the question of where dedication was rooted reflected the
relationship between feminism and the possibilities for social change.
Feminist activism revealed the way in which the negotiation of
autonomy was and continues to be an evolving concept. As the 1980s
progressed with their shifting political landscape, the idea of
autonomous feminism came to be redundant. Hence, an understanding of
engaged autonomy emerged, which maintained the importance of retaining
a feminist stance while negotiating or participating in social
practice (Alvarez et al. 2003: 543).



The concept of autonomy surfaced throughout the Encuentros that
spanned the 1970s-1990s and further illuminated the question of
inclusion. If being autonomous entailed commitments to women's
liberation, being autonomous also signaled participation in a feminist
project. However, it is contestable what the criteria of inclusion
under the label of feminism was. As Latin American feminisms underwent
institutionalization, two logics characterized the problem of
inclusion.



The policy-advocacy logic argued for promoting feminist-influenced
gender policy through governmental or non-governmental organizations.
On the other hand, the identity-solidarity logic distanced itself from
formal institutions and remained centered on women's movements
through the development of feminist ideas in community and politics
(Alvarez et al. 2003: 548). However, neither one of these necessarily
entailed the inclusion of all women as is demonstrated by contemporary
critiques of the hegemonic practices of Latin American feminisms that
failed to pay attention to the importance of race, class, ethnicity,
and sexuality in shaping subordination (Alvarez et al. 2003: 565).
Cutting across these logics is the way in which inclusion in feminism
is contingent upon practice. How autonomy is understood hinges upon an
understanding of feminist practice, and those practices are shaped by
dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Eventually, autonomy would be
re-defined through individual and collective commitment to the
transformation of women's lives and society as a whole (Alvarez
et al. 2003: 557). At present, there is not a settled definition of
feminist autonomy, but rather a pluralism of understanding that tracks
a variety of proposals for understanding feminist engagement and
practices.


### 2.2 The Politics of Translation and Location



Attention to North-South hemispheric relations has been one key
theoretical issue of Latin American feminism reflected in the ample
scholarship on the migration of ideas. Latin American feminisms, much
like Latin American philosophy, have shown concern over the
authenticity of ideas that have traveled from epistemic centers (e.g.,
the United States, Europe). However, unlike Latin American philosophy,
Latin American feminisms have responded to this concern by developing
theories that attend to dynamics with which ideas travel and the way
in which ideas are re-negotiated and re-signified as they move across
locations. Generally, the claims about the ways in which ideas are
reconfigured as they enter new contexts emerge over concerns about the
travel of ideas in a North-South direction, which not only remains
non-reciprocal, but further signals the centrality of North America
and Europe as the centers of knowledge production. Latin American
feminisms have critically argued against the general understanding
that ideas are formed in the "North" and travel to the
"South" (Connell 2014). In order to defend this position,
it is argued that the act of translating is itself a materially
situated political task that re-signifies ideas as they migrate into
varying contexts. The ideas that emerge in the Latin American context
are themselves unique to the circumstances that generate their
conditions of articulation. However, circumstance is not sufficient to
create uniqueness; rather, the processes of translation involved in
the movement of ideas across hemispheres shift meaning.



Translation can be understood as any act of description,
interpretation, or dissemination. It is always caught up in power
relations that are configured by the asymmetries between people,
languages, and regions (Lima Costa 2014a: 20). In the context of the
Americas, the movement of ideas occurs across asymmetrical power
relations. Ideas encounter roadblocks and migratory checkpoints as
they attempt to cross borders (Lima Costa 2014a: 21). As a result,
dialogue across hemispheres mirrors asymmetries of power and has led
to the mistaken notion that nothing originates from the Global South,
but rather is only imported into the region from the Global North.
Translation is made further complex by "theory brokers"
(e.g., academics, donors, feminist NGO's) that mediate the
movement of ideas (Lima Costa 2014a: 25). As ideas move, their
meanings shift, and their transformation is contingent on the culture
or discipline that receives them (Lima Costa 2014a: 29). Hence,
discursive migration is not neutral, and in the process, location
comes to frame how to understand the reconfiguration of ideas.
Thinking about translation through the matrix of discursive migration
illuminates the way in which difference and power play a crucial role
in how knowledge becomes legitimated across difference.



Placing translation at the center of feminist practices recognizes
that translation is both politically and theoretically indispensable
for feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, and anti-imperial alliances
(Alvarez 2014: 1). Translation is framed as a translocal phenomenon
insofar as it does not involve a fixed location, but further links
geographies of power (e.g., national, local) with subject positions
(e.g., gender/sexual, ethnoracial) (Alvarez 2014: 2). In this
conceptual space, Latin America and the Caribbean are configured with
a heterogeneity of *Latinidades* within the United States and
within Latin America and the Caribbean that exist and move across
multiple border spaces (Alvarez 2014: 2). Identities are formed in the
nexus between borders, the spaces of intense confluence that
characterize transmigrations across the region.



Subjectivity is both place-based and mis- or displaced with the
movement of ideas. In this context, difference emerges as a rich
terrain from which to engage others. For some, the difference that
mediates speaking positions is always characterized by degrees of
incommensurability as we can never be fully transparent with each
other across conditions of alterity. However, the condition of
incommensurability is not sufficient to abandon translation, but
rather an imperative to hear others in and across their difference
(Schutte 1998a: 61).



One method of navigating the conditions of incommensurability is
recognizing the complexity and diversity of speaking positions with
which we engage. The term *transloca* has been argued to aid in
elucidating such complexities of difference. Embodying both the
processes of *translation* ("trans") and the
material effects of *location* ("loca"), the
*transloca* highlights multiple dimensions that shape
conditions of difference (Alvarez 2014: 4). Following the claims about
translocation, *transloca* as a subject position attends to the
movement of bodies, text, capital, and theory along the North-South
axis as they produce new epistemologies for apprehending the
globalizing Americas (Alvarez 2014: 4). *Translocas* are
world-traveling translators, cultural and political mediators, and
hence also agents of transculturation (Alvarez 2014: 8). The term is
intended to illuminate the way in which subjectivity is forged in and
through movement across hemispheres mediated by location and
translation. Attending to the dimensions of hemispheric movement
elucidates the conditions of alterity that generate
incommensurability, but also puts into focus the way translation
mediates the processes of identity formation.



The arguments in regard to discursive migration, translation, and
*translocas* further capture the links among Latin America, the
Caribbean, and the United States as part of an intertwined diaspora
(Alvarez 2014: 7). The intertwining is one that stretches in many
hemispheric directions and as a result, makes Latin/a America a
heterogeneous epistemic horizon. From Latinas in the United States to
Afro-Latinas in Latin America, the ideas produced at the borders and
nexus between, in, and through hemispheres are best understood by
appreciating practices of translation. Hence, to think through Latin/a
America as an epistemic locale, in its multidimensionality, requires a
politics of translation that can foster coalition-building across
hemispheres in spite of alterity. If taken seriously, feminist
theories of translation demonstrate that ideas are products of
hemispheric locations, incommensurable with their predecessors (local
or imported). The discourses produced in Latin America and the
Caribbean are not only alternative reconfigurations of ideas, but also
ruptures in political epistemic practices. They call into question the
notion that knowledge production is a naturalized feature of
particular places (Femenias 2007: 14). Thus, the traffic of
ideas generates new and diverse spaces from which to think about
locations of difference (Femenias 2007: 15).


### 2.3 *Gender* in Hemispheric Context



Another key debate that has emerged as a part of the broader Latin
American feminist conversation on the politics of translation has been
over the use of the term *gender*, which, as previously noted,
entered the hemispheric frame with the translation of Gayle
Rubin's scholarship into Spanish. The term was translated into
Spanish as *genero*, whose direct translation is more
akin to "genre" or "species". Latin American
feminists have contested the legitimacy of *gender* as a
category of feminist analysis (Schutte & Femenias 2010:
403).



Prior to the introduction of the term *gender*, feminists most
readily used the concept of *patriarchy* because it offered a
framework grounded in ideological and socioeconomic conditions that
allowed for articulating the cause of women's oppression
(Schutte & Femenias 2010: 403). In many ways,
*patriarchy* served as a glue of consciousness-raising in late
20th century women's movements of Latin America,
helping connect women by identifying their shared subordinate status
under conditions of patriarchy.



During the Second Encuentro in 1982 (Lima, Peru)
*patriarchy* was declared the foundational category from which
Latin American feminists sought to understand their realities. It was
deployed as an explanation for the subordination of women, but also
extended as an explanation for the conditions of compulsory
heterosexuality, repression, violence against women and children, the
prohibition of abortion, and varying forms of social injustice
(Gargallo 2004: 92). It was further linked into frameworks that sought
to identify the role of militarization and capitalism in the
oppression of women. Hence, it provided a methodological frame from
which to articulate claims about power, oppression, and domination
that united women on many fronts. *Patriarchy* was a conceptual
stronghold of Latin American feminism akin to what imperialism was to
national liberation struggles (Gargallo 2004: 92). It was
explanatorily powerful because it could account for complex realities
while also providing an explanation for the shared experiences of
women. Unfortunately, the explanatory power of the term was so
expansive that it rendered historical specificities opaque since
nothing could exist at its margins (Gargallo 2004: 92).



Replacing the focus on *patriarchy*, the *gender
perspective* ("perspectiva de genero") or
*gender focus* ("enfoque de genero") became
the methodological framework from which to talk about women and
women's issues across Latin America. *Woman* was replaced
as a foundational category by *gender*, which became a blanket
term so user-friendly that anyone could use it as a referent to
women's issues (Schutte & Femenias 2010: 404). The
ease with which it was used entailed the softening of radical militant
critiques of *patriarchy* that had characterized feminist
theorization in earlier decades. *Gender* was incorporated into
public policy and social programs by state and intergovernmental
organizations, reflecting the way in which it could be taken up as
part of the lexicon for even policies not feminist-inspired (Lima
Costa 2014a: 26). On the flip side, the Vatican during its preparation
for the 1995 Conference on Women feared using the word *gender*
as it might entail the acceptance of homosexuality, the destruction of
the patriarchal family, and the dissemination of feminism (Lima Costa
2014a: 28).



Although the movement of *gender* across hemispheres is far
from complete, it is important to recognize the way in which the
traffic of *gender* took place in and through material
conditions. One notable method of translating and migrating concepts
is through academic journals, and the debates on the uses of
*gender* have revealed broader reflections on how concepts come
to carry epistemic weight. The transnational citational market is one
key dimension in this process as who gets cited, where, and by whom
exposes the routes through which theories have traveled in global
contexts (Lima Costa 2014b: 142). In light of the conceptual travel
and use of *gender*, Latin American feminisms ask that one
consider the way in which the global privileging of English as the
linguistic medium impacts what knowledge is allowed to circulate (Lima
Costa 2014b: 142). Moreover, these reflections bring to the fore the
fact that English cannot be viewed as a transparent medium as its
privileged status sets the stage for what gets taken up as worth
translating in the first place. It should then be no surprise that
*gender* has traveled so far. Its traffic is a marker of the
imperative to create conditions for productive
"mis-translations" that create spaces for heterogeneous
conceptual development (Lima Costa 2014b: 144).


### 2.4 Negotiating Complex Identities



Although *gender* has been a key focus of analysis, Latin
American feminist thought has also concentrated on the importance of
accounting for the complexity of identity. Conceptually,
*gender* on its own is insufficient to account for the
complexities of identity. Notably, Latin American feminisms have paid
attention to the ways in which class, race/ethnicity, and sexuality
are necessary components for understanding the lived experience of
identity, which is never conceptualized as pure nor one-dimensional
(Femenias 2007: 16).



The idea that class is a key dimension of women's lives is one
that is rooted in Latin American feminist activisms of the late
19th and early 20th centuries. As previously
noted in Section 1 (on the history of Latin American feminism),
women's fights for equality of this time were framed in terms of
equitable access to social goods (e.g., education). The impact of this
push was the transformation of the material lives of people living in
poverty more generally. Considerations of the importance of class
conditions in understanding the plight of women and the poor have been
long rooted in Latin American feminist ideas. Feminist projects
concerned with the advancement of women in civil society converged
with labor movements and anti-imperial resistance (e.g., Luisa
Capetillo). This trend re-emerged during resistance movements of the
1970s that aligned feminist projects with revolutionary parties of the
Left across Latin America. As a result, attention to class dimensions
has long been part of the feminist methodology. However, this
attention has not been without fault. Contemporary theories from the
work of Afro-descended women have argued that the overwhelming
attention paid to class has come at the expense of analyzing the role
that racism has played in the marginalization and exclusion of
African-descended and Indigenous populations (Curiel 2007).



The reflections on race/ethnicity of Latin American feminist
methodology are diverse, demonstrating the racial heterogeneity
generated by the colonial condition. Colonialism not only initiated
contemporary understandings of race/ethnicity but generated conditions
of racial formation under systems of exploitation and subordination.
Specifically, the colonial history of Latin America entailed the
subordination of Indigenous and Afro-descended peoples (Schutte &
Femenias 2010: 407). Economically, colonialism entailed the
enslavement and exploitation of these populations. Culturally,
colonialism ensured the imposition of a socio-symbolic order that
entrenched whiteness as a norm and cultural authority (Schutte &
Femenias 2010: 407). Concurrently, norms of gender and class
emerge through the production of race, whose economic impact is
reflected through the link between whiteness and class ascension.
Subsequently, nation-building projects in Latin America and the
Caribbean were forged by political elites with patriarchal ideologies
mired in racism and classism. The impact of these ideologies has
entailed a racialized social stratification that reflects the
privilege of whiteness and leaves women disproportionally affected
(Curiel 2007: 98).



Against this backdrop, feminist reflections on race/ethnicity have
sought to undermine the racism of national ideologies that have led to
their subordination and marginalization. One such ideology is that of
*mestizaje* which emerged as part of nation building projects
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. *Mestizaje* favored
the formation of a racially-mixed people but came saturated with
Eurocentrism and privileged the whitening of the Americas.
*Mestizaje* ensured structural inequalities as it racialized
class differences while maintaining racism a myth. On the heels of
these conditions, notable contributions to the discussion on
race/ethnicity in Latin America and the Caribbean have come from
Afro-descended and Indigenous women who have been systemically
marginalized in these social processes. They argue that
*mestizaje* functions as a sequel to colonialism that continues
to entail subordination and marginalization in social life (Curiel
2007: 98).



Racialized women in Latin America and the Caribbean have also pointed
to the racism of dominant feminist methodology that took womanhood to
be a shared categorical status but dismissed the importance of the
specificities determined by race/ethnicity and class identity. In so
doing, the voices of racialized women have opened up new avenues for
contemporary critical feminist investigation. For instance,
Afro-descended women have shown how the methodologies of studying
women from colonial times detrimentally read the lives of enslaved
women one-dimensionally as solely victims of slavery, overlooking the
ways in which many participated in acts of resistance. Acts like the
waste of household goods or self-induced abortions to avoid the
enslavement of children are best understood as acts of domestic
marronage and need to be read as part of the history of Afro-descended
women in the Americas (Albert 2003). In this context, the call for a
more multidimensional analysis of racialized women also entails
demonstrating that for racialized women, the public and the private
spheres are not separate entities as hegemonic feminism purported
(Curiel 2016: 49). Hence, a call for the blackening of feminism has
emerged as a way of elucidating the relationship between racism and
sexism in order to better understand the histories of women throughout
the Americas (Carneiro 2005).



Further, racialized women of Latin America and the Caribbean have
provided new constructive frameworks for conceptualizing racialized
and ethnic identities. One such attempt can be found in the
development of *Amefricanidad*, a term coined by Afro-Brazilian
scholar Leila Gonsalez, that resists the use of
*Latinidad* because of its Eurocentric underpinnings, much like
how *mestizaje* downplays the Indigenous and African dimension
of Latin America and the Caribbean (Curiel 2007: 99). Building on the
use of *Amefricanidad* or *Amefricanicity*, others have
argued for the use of the term as a privileged epistemology that
enhances the visibility of Afro-descended feminism in the region
(Alvarez & Caldwell 2016: v). *Amefricanidad* tracks the
importance of African and Indigenous roots of identity, but also seeks
to think from within those identities as it pursues an intersectional
approach to racism, colonialism, and imperialism (Alvarez &
Caldwell 2016: v). *Amefricanidad* tracks racialized identity,
but at the same time signals plurality in its capacity to capture the
multiple inheritances of Latin America and the Caribbean.



By keeping the impact of the colonial condition at the center of
theory, contemporary Latin American and Caribbean feminists have also
critically evaluated norms of sexuality, a topic which dominant
liberal feminism long maintained at the margins. The lesbian movement
of Latin America and the Caribbean stems from mixed-gender homosexual
organizations that were in dialogue with the feminist movement of the
late 20th century (Bastian Duarte 2012: 165). However, for
much of this time, discussions on sexual preference were set aside
within the liberal feminist agenda. Lesbian feminism, much like the
larger panorama of Latin American feminism, is heterogeneous.
Nevertheless, there is one common theoretical denominator: the
imperative to transform ideas and practices related to
heteronormativity, lesbianism, and gender relations (Bastian Duarte
2012: 169). At stake in the analysis of lesbian feminism is the way in
which heteronormativity permeates all aspects of lived experience,
including the intersections among sexuality, race/ethnicity, class,
and gender. For instance, Afro-descended lesbian feminists have linked
racism and sexism to heteronormativity by arguing that the obligatory
dimensions of heterosexuality are intimately bound up with the
reproduction of racist and sexist practices (Curiel 2016: 50). Others
have argued that there is an intimate relationship between lesbianism
and feminism that hinges on the recognition that liberation for women
is founded in decentering patriarchy, which often involves
re-negotiating relationships with men and masculinity on all levels
(Espinosa Minoso 2011: 404).



Implicit in discussions of the complexity of identity is the
relationship between the individual and the collective. The
relationship between structural collective conditions and the
formation of individual identity attends to the ways in which human
beings are not isolated meaning-makers. However, when the conditions
of meaning-making reflect the heirlooms of colonialism, oppression,
patriarchy, or obligatory heterosexuality, tense negotiations are
required between the individual and the collective. Indigenous
feminists have negotiated the political and personal value of ethnic
belonging with individual feminist claims (Bastian Duarte 2012: 164).
The liberal neofeminist movement has long emphasized the importance of
sexual and reproductive rights of women, but while these issues may
represent core aspects of many women's lives, they do not
represent core issues in Indigenous women's struggles.



For instance, the topic of violence is one at the center of feminist
concerns of many political persuasions. However, from the perspective
of Indigenous feminism, violence is not just constructed in terms of
gendered violence but is also generated by those who have seized and
destroyed Indigenous lands (Bastian Duarte 2012: 163). Hence, an
understanding that projects violence solely centered on individuality
will not be sufficient to generate conditions of equality for
Indigenous feminists whose collective identities serve as the primary
method of preserving their cultural systems (Bastian Duarte 2012:
164). The meaning of equality and justice for Indigenous feminists of
Latin America and the Caribbean follows the specificity of their
politics, which takes the role of the community as central to identity
and hence calls for new ways of thinking about the relationship
between individual feminist demands and collective transformation
(Bastian Duarte 2012: 165). Although not all Indigenous peoples of
Latin America and the Caribbean reside in their own communities as
many have migrated to more urban areas, it is important to appreciate
the ways in which community in a multifaceted sense operates as an
important feature of transformative projects.


## 3. Latin American Feminist Philosophy



Latin American feminist philosophy emerges at the nexus between theory
and practice. The social activism of the 20th century
fueled the production of theories that form the tradition of Latin
American feminist philosophy as well as its place in the academy.
However, the study of Latin American feminist philosophy remains
scarce and derelict (Gargallo 2015, Other Internet Resources). The
social sciences have been the primary driver of institutional
advancement for feminist theory and to date philosophy trails in its
taking up of feminist issues as philosophical (Schutte 2003,
208). The existence of Latin American feminist philosophers
has been largely denied, and the specificities of their theoretical
contributions have been erased under the sexist, Eurocentric
orientation of philosophy. Recognition of their existence is a
political act that contests the dominant architecture of the history
of philosophy. Taking account of Latin American feminist philosophy
requires a historical and philosophical reconstruction that
understands the fact that women from Latin America and the Caribbean
have long been thinkers. The philosophical work that remains to be
done requires engagement with their ideas.



Latin American feminist philosophy is political (Gutierrez
Castaneda 1994: 186). The ideas that pushed social
transformation in the 20th century movements are grounded
in politics that recognized the imperative for social change. The
political dimension of Latin American feminist philosophy is reflected
in the fact that many Latin American feminist philosophers were or are
activists, and the span of their thought often reflects their
participation in resistance movements. Resistance can mean many types
of political projects, and in the context of Latin American feminist
philosophy, the act of citing is understood as political because it
works toward building a philosophical canon that legitimizes the
voices of women long excluded from philosophical practice. In
this manner, feminism upholds a broad conception of politics that
disturbs the spaces in which it operates blurring the boundaries
between the public and private (Gutierrez Castaneda
1994: 187)



Tracing a philosophical history of Latin American feminist thinkers is
a task that merits scholarly attention, and to date there is a lacuna
of resources. One major obstacle is linguistic as a lot of textual
sources have not been translated. Furthermore, the resources
themselves are not ample, although some notable publications have been
made. The *Antologia del pensamiento feminista
nuestroamericano: tomo 1 del anhelo a la emancipacion*
(2010a) and *Antologia del pensamiento feminista
nuestroamericano: tomo 2 movimiento de liberacion de las
mujeres* (2010b) coordinated by Francesca Gargallo are some of the
first large-scale publications to anthologize Latin American and
Carribean feminist philosophical writings. They are non-exhaustive
resources that testify to the theoretical, argumentative, and
methodological contributions of Latin American and Caribbean feminist
writers spanning from the 15th to the 20th
century. As the anthology rescues writers often lost to the pages of
history, it also takes Latin America and the Caribbean, as
*nuestra* or *our* America, as the point of theoretical
departure. Thus, it enables a collective recognition of a history of
feminist thought that does not depend on North America or Europe for
its identity. The anthology further demonstrates that Latin American
feminist philosophical thought is hardly new. It is grounded in a
history of resistance to social and political conditions that impeded
the recognition of women as knowledge-producers (Gargallo 2009: 418).
It has been argued that early feminist philosophies are some of the
first systems of thought to account for the politics of legitimacy
whereby social conditions grant privilege to the epistemic productions
of one group in order to exclude and delegitimize the voices of others
(Gargallo 2009: 420). The critique of legitimacy is one that follows
Latin American feminist philosophy well into the 20th and
21st centuries.



For instance, Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695), one of
the most cited writers of this tradition, advocated for the
intellectual life of women, which entailed denouncing norms of
hegemonic masculinity. Her image as a protofeminist writer has been
associated with lesbianism, as she led a monastic life and in so
doing, resisted the dominance of masculinity (Gargallo 2009: 419). Her
existence as an intellectual defied the authority of her times and her
resistance is reflected in her writing.



A further example can be found in the thought of Luisa Capetillo
(1879-1922), which is rooted in her participation in labor
movements in Puerto Rico and the United States during her lifetime. As
a cigar factory reader, she was employed by the workers and functioned
as an intellectual and cultural intermediary by reading workers
everything from news to political theory. Capetillo became a reader at
a time when forty percent of the tobacco workers and eighty-seven
percent of the agricultural work force of Puerto Rico were illiterate
(Ramos 1992: 14). However, the presence of readers, like Capetillo,
made the tobacco labor force one of the most socially conscious (Ramos
1992: 21). Her activism drew intellectual support from European
anarchist philosophy that traveled to Puerto Rico through translations
of authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Diderot, Bakunin, Kropotkin,
Marx, and Nietzsche (Ramos 1992: 27). Capetillo made a mark on the
Puerto Rican labor movement, but she became a transnational migrant as
she was driven out of Puerto Rico by a government crackdown on
anarchists (Ruiz 2016: 3). In her short life of forty-two years she
would come to reside in New York City, Ybor City, and La Habana as she
continued her activism by organizing labor strikes, arguing against
the institution of marriage, engaging in stylized resistance by
wearing men's clothing, and publishing four books (Ramos 1992:
66). Capetillo's most important contribution was producing ideas
rooted in a workers' rights movement that moved across nations
and was itself inspired by the travel of ideas.



Philosophy as a field of study in Latin America and the Caribbean was
institutionalized and professionalized in the years spanning
1940-1960. Hence, it is no surprise that subsequently women
gained formal university education in philosophy. Matilde Carranza
(1892-1981), born in San Jose, Costa Rica, was Costa
Rica's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy. She
attended the University of Wisconsin and is also noted as one of the
first women to receive a doctoral degree from the university. Her
philosophical thought centered on the importance of education for
social transformation, which aligned with her anti-despotic and
egalitarian politics. However, her most notable impact was shattering
the myth that women were not apt for philosophy, thus paving the way
for women of other generations (Prada Ortiz 2013: 32-33). Ana
Isabel Alfaro (1944-1990), born in Alajuela, Costa Rica, studied
philosophy at the University of Costa Rica. Her philosophical
commitments centered on the role of education in national development,
as she took education to be socially transformative. As a result,
Alfaro saw the role of the university as an integral part of social
change. Her commitments to the transformative powers of education were
methodologically rooted in interdisciplinarity and cultural diversity.
Notably, Alfaro placed importance on the creative power of women
within her philosophy of education, arguing for their creative
potential and reflecting this commitment in her political alliances
with poor women (Prada Ortiz 2013: 55).



Following suit, Monelisa Lina Perez Marchand, Victoria Junco
Posadas, Olga Victoria Quiroz Martinez, Rosa Krauze, Elsa
Cecilia Frost, Vera Yamuni, and Maria del Carmen Rovira Gaspar
entered academic philosophy in Mexico in the middle of the
20th century through the seminars of Jose Gaos
(Gargallo 2015, Other Internet Resources). Notable among these is Vera
Yamuni (1917-2003) and Maria del Carmen Rovira, who
recognized the importance of doing philosophy from a Latin American
perspective with a keen eye toward the specificities of women. Rovira
would apply this methodology to historicism and Yamuni to humanism
(Gargallo 2009: 423). Yamuni is particularly important as her work and
place in the academy influenced many generations of feminist
philosophers. She was a transnational thinker born of Lebanese parents
in Costa Rica, although she did most of her studying, teaching, and
writing in Mexico. Yamuni studied under Gaos and would dedicate a part
of her intellectual career to engaging with the work of Gaos, notably
critiquing his misogyny. She further dedicated time to translate texts
from English and Arabic to Spanish, reflecting her commitment to
creating conditions of philosophical access (Prada Ortiz 2013: 71).
However, she is notably remembered as a feminist thinker through her
work on Sappho, Virginia Woolf, and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as her
feminist analysis of the role of women in the history of philosophy.
Her writing conceptually explored sameness and difference long before
it became a hotbed of feminist philosophical analysis in the 1990s
(Prada Ortiz 2013: 87). Her influence as a feminist philosopher is
profound as she has been cited as the first to introduce feminist
philosophy into Mexico by her student Graciela Hierro, who became an
iconic figure of Latin American feminist philosophy in the 1980s and
1990s (Prada Ortiz 2013: 83).



The social transformation of the 1970s and 1980s reverberated into the
field of philosophy. As women increasingly began to establish
themselves in the academy, their ideas developed. On the shoulders of
symbolic mothers and the politics of the times, Latin American
feminist philosophy began to proliferate as a diverse system of
thought that took feminist theorizing to be a form of politics.
However, the points of departure for analysis varied. Graciela Hierro,
student of Yamuni, developed a feminist ethics informed by
utilitarianism that explored the intimate relationship between ethics
and politics focused on liberation and pleasure. For Hierro,
women's politics is one centered on making claims about the role
of women in a society where the condition of womanhood is understood
as a variant characteristic of human life (Hierro 1990). Hierro, much
like Yamuni and the women that came before her, functioned as a
symbolic philosophical mother to many as she heavily influenced a
generation of feminist scholars. Eli Bartra, a student of
Hierro's, maintained that feminism is a theoretical current
dedicated to uncovering what it means to be a woman. For her, the
feminist project is political because feminism is a political
philosophy (Bartra 2001: 12). Diana Helena Maffia of Argentina,
influenced by Bartra, further maintains that feminism is both a
political position and a critical theory that lends itself toward the
revision of political ideals (Rietti & Maffia 2005).
Maria Luisa Femenias, also writing from Argentina,
maintains a link between feminism and politics but takes Latin
American feminism to be characterized by its unique appreciation of
the intersections among gender, class, race/ethnicity, and religion as
they collectively forged conditions of existence (Femenias
2007). Urania Ungo Montenegro of Panama defines feminism as a
political theory of women that reflects the relationship between women
and politics (Ungo Montenegro 2000).



Although they diverge in their characterizations of the relationship
between feminism and politics, all of these positions share a general
understanding that to philosophically discuss Latin American feminism
is to engage in political theory in a way that elucidates the diverse
and complex relationships among women, gender, and politics. This list
is by no means exhaustive, and further figures like Rosario
Castellanos of Mexico and Celia Amoros of Spain should not be
forgotten as they influenced the positions developed by these
thinkers. Furthermore, philosophers like Ofelia Schutte, Cuban-born
and writing in the United States, have made notable contributions to
the landscape of Latin American feminist philosophy, reminding readers
that the feminist tradition occupies a part of a wider tradition of
political liberation and theory of Latin America. All of these women
dared to be thinkers at times when being a Latin American woman in
philosophy was unheard of, and they have come to form the foundation
of a canon of thinkers that paved the way for new and emerging
voices.



The work of Ofelia Schutte in the United States remains one of the
most important contributions to Latin American Feminist Philosophy as
she is responsible for creating academic spaces that bridged ideas
across the hemisphere for English speaking audiences. In 1988 she
published "Philosophy and Feminism in Latin America:
Perspectives on Gender and Culture" (Schutte 1988), which
provides a framework for understanding the sociocultural specificity
of women's conditions in Latin America (Schutte 1988: 63).
In 1994 she guest edited a special issue in *Hypatia* on
Spanish and Latin American Feminist Philosophy featuring essays by
Celia Amoros, Maria Luisa Femenias, Graciela
Hierro, and Griselda Gutierrez Castaneda. The special
issue closes with a list of Women's Studies Centers and
Programs in Latin America and Spain by country featuring Argentina,
Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Spain (Schutte 1994: 194). In
bringing these voices together, Schutte bookmarks the birth of
philosophical feminisms of Latin America by flagging new
interpretations of philosophy that question the links between
knowledge, gender, and power (Schutte 1994: 143). The special
issue mirrors the framing of *Feminist Philosophy in Latin
America and Spain* (2007) edited by Amy Oliver and Maria
Luisa Femenias. *Feminist Philosophy in Latin America and
Spain* continues to be one of the most important compilations of
Latin American feminist philosophy in English featuring a range of
topics including ethics, gender, history, patriarchy,
translation, and sexuality. 



Argumentatively, Schutte lays the philosophical groundwork for a
robust Latin American feminist philosophical methodology over the
course of her career. In "Philosophy and Feminism in Latin
America: Perspectives on Gender and Culture" (1988) she begins
to frame Latin American feminist philosophy as a field that unfolds
from gender consciousness in the context of discrimination and
oppression with specific research strategies that can appropriately
attend to the situation of Latin American women and girls (Schutte
1988: 65). Building on these insights, the last chapter of her
book *Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in Latin American
Thought* (1993) takes up an analysis of the relationship
between cultural identity, feminist theory, and liberation by
exploring the historical precedents of Latin American feminist theory,
plural feminist research strategies, the specificity of Latin America
in relationship to gender issues as well as the evaluative and
participatory models that structure feminist politics of the region
(Schutte 1993). Her insights with respect to the specificity of the
Latin American condition and gender elucidate the complexities of
context that generate the conditions of the possibilities of Latin
American feminist thought requires centering the topics of
violence against women, women and development, and women and domestic
work that point toward the patriarchal appropriation of women's
bodies and labor for social reproduction (Schutte 1993: 215).
Ultimately, the specificity of the Latin American gender context
produces the orienting markers of a Latin American feminist
theoretical method: a critical conception of knowledge, a connection
between theory and practice, progressive projects and concepts of
freedom and liberation, and transformative politics of culture
(Schutte 2011). Here transformation needs to be decolonizing in
that it needs to overcome the privileges of Eurocentric coloniality
and Ango-Eurocentric modernity. Transformation is a constant challenge
that unleashes the perspectives of women of color, LGBTIQQ subjects,
ecological feminisms and perspectives suppressed by male dominant
consortiums of power (Schutte 2011: 800). 



In this vein, dissident voices of the early 2000s waged a decolonial
critique that came to characterize contemporary Latin American
feminist philosophical scholarship. Influenced by the pivotal
contributions of Maria Lugones (2007, 2008), contemporary
decolonial Latin American feminist scholarship has tackled
Eurocentrism, colonial underpinnings, and omissions of identity in
feminist philosophy. Lugones was an integral voice in the formation of
a decolonial feminist tradition as she was the first scholar to
articulate the concept of the coloniality of gender. In conversation
with the scholarship of Peruvian Anibal Quijano (2000), she
maintained that the modern sex/gender system is rooted in the colonial
project that imposes a dimorphic sex/gender system framed through
heteronormativity. Complementing Quijano, she maintains that the
colonial/modern gender system required the categorization of human and
non-human and the invention of racial divisions of the human. However,
she critically adds that gender played an important role in these
relationships, a point Quijano overlooks. As a result, the status of
white women, existing alongside colonizing white men, operated on a
different nexus committed to the reproduction of racialized humanity.
The peoples of the colonized world did not participate in the modern
gender system prior to its imposition. The import of this argument is
that gender and sexuality are co-constitutive of race and are formed
in and through the colonial project that sought to subordinate
colonized peoples. Hence, to theorize about gender entails a look at
the heirlooms of colonialism that built the possibilities of the
modern world through the categorization of people into racialized,
gendered humanity. This critique problematizes any idea of shared
gender in womanhood because it fails to account for the racial and
class differences that cut across the formations of identities in the
Americas.



One of the most notable and comprehensive texts that brings Latin
American decolonial voices together is *Tejiendo de otro modo:
feminism, espistemologia y apuestas descoloniales en Abya
Yala* (2014b), edited by Yuderkys Espinosa Minoso, Diana
Gomez Correal, and Karina Ochoa Munoz. The book provides
a critical intervention in contemporary Latin American feminisms from
the diverse positions and experiences of women (Escobar 2014: 11).
Rooted in decolonial epistemic practices, the book reconceives Latin
America as *Abya Yala*, the Kuna (Indigenous people of
Panama and Colombia) term for what colonizers termed
"America". *Abya Yala* translates as "land of
full maturity" or "land of vital blood" and is taken
as a methodological starting point for theorizing ways of knowing
through a decolonial lens. The contributors adhere to the claim that
decolonization cannot occur without de-patriarchialization. In other
words, resistance to capitalism, racism, homophobia, and all forms of
domination related to our modern social order has to incorporate
strategies of de-patriarchialization (Escobar 2014: 11). As such, the
text brings to the fore the importance of intersecting Latin American
feminisms with decolonial thought and exemplifies new emerging
critical voices that contribute to growth and proliferation.



The scholarship notably produces a Latin American feminist genealogy
committed to prioritizing the voices of those systematically
marginalized or ignored and decenters dominant white,
upper/middle-class feminisms that have failed to account for
difference (Espinosa Minoso et al. 2014a: 14). The scholarship
is a further testament to the fact that no one dominant category will
solve the problem of unification (Espinosa Minoso et al. 2014a:
20). The project of decolonial feminisms is not framed by privileging
one category of analysis over another (e.g., race over gender);
rather, it proposes a systemic critique focused on the conceptual
framework of dominant Latin American feminisms, calling attention to
the ways it has reified classism, sexism, racism, and
heteronormativity. The project of decolonial feminisms is a movement
in process, but its core seeks to bring together the productions of
thinkers, intellectuals, feminist activists, lesbian feminists,
Afro-descended women, Indigenous peoples, poor *mestizas*, and
allies committed to the historical recuperation of anti-racist theory
and practice from the epistemic position of *Abya Yala*
(Espinosa Minoso et al. 2014a: 32).



Two notable examples of decolonial feminist theory can be found in the
work of Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui and Rita Segato. Silvia Rivera
Cusicanqui is a Bolivian feminist sociologist and historian. She is
known for her critical historical analysis of the sociology of the
image, which holds that images have the power to construct critical
narratives that can un-frame different forms of contemporary
colonialism (Rivera Cusicanqui 2010). Images, more than words than
themselves, engender the hierarchy of the textual over the visual that
come to give identity markers meaning. However, words hide meaning and
images can reveal buried layers of meaning that may not be spoken.
Alongside the preponderance of text and the presupposed colonial
universality it carries exist other worlds of meaning marked by
the term *ch'ixi*, which Rivera Cusicanqui describes as
that which is mottled in that it obeys the Aymara idea that things can
be and not be at the same time. The power of the undifferentiated is
that it is conjugated in opposites (Rivera Cusicanqui 2010: 70).
In a similar transformative critical move, Argentinian-Brazilian
anthropologist Rita Segato, develops her lines of research at the
cross-roads between a critique of coloniality and a responsive
anthropology (Segato 2022: 1). The anthropological project, she
argues, needs to be open to being interpellated through difference
within the "we" of the moral community that allows the
other to judge us and tell us who we are and what is expected of us
(Segato 2022: 3). The decolonial responsive anthropology she
develops opens the door for questions on the nature of patriarchy, the
role of the state, and the intimate yet unspoken ways in which race
and class are co-constituted, which are all explored in *La
critica de la colonialidad en ocho ensayos* (2013) recently
translated to English in 2022. 



The Latin American decolonial feminist tradition has found influential
allies in the Latina/x feminist tradition of the United States.
Latina/x feminisms took shape during the 1960s and 1970s as part of a
wide range of political struggles seeking gender and social justice
that comes to form a wide landscape of theories. The term
"Latina/x" is broad, but far from monolithic as it can
capture a range of identities (e.g., Afro-Latina, Afro-Caribbean,
Nuyorican, Xicana). It symbolically encapsulates identity conditions
of migration, immigration, and diaspora to the United States from
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although Latina/x
feminisms are a wide-ranging field, they generally adhere to a system
of thought that attempts to unravel interlocking systems of
oppression, reflecting on the conditions of borderlands,
race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, immigration, and religion in unique
ways. Most importantly, Latina/x feminist theory pays close attention
to lived experience and made notable contributions to theories of
identity that extend beyond the borders of the United States. Here,
figures like Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Emma
Perez, Juanita Ramos, Norma Alarcon, Chela Sandoval,
Mariana Ortega, Ofelia Schutte, and Maria Lugones have been of
significance. Notably, the work of Anzaldua influenced
Lugones' conceptualization of the coloniality of gender, which
is at the centerfold of decolonial feminist theory in both Latin
America and the United States. Although theories are always tied to
their locations, they also travel in ways that require attending to
the processes of re-signification undergone through their traffic. It
is for this reason that some decolonial feminist thinkers have called
for closer attention to the specificities of alterity that might set
limits on the theoretical application of ideas (Mendoza 2014: 101).
Most recently, the collection of essays *Theories of the
Flesh* (2020) explores the specificities of living alterity
in the flesh in ways that bridge Latinx and Latin American feminist
orientations around decolonial critique, epistemologies of resistance,
and coalitional politics. Hence, the Latina/x feminist
tradition has been influential on its own merits and continues to pave
coalitional roads with Latin American and Caribbean thinkers both
within and outside the United States.


## 4. Conclusion



The history of Latin American and Caribbean feminist ideas is
extensive. However, it is one that remains underappreciated in North
American and European academic spaces. The omission of Latin American
feminisms is further compounded by the fact that most of its primary
resources remain untranslated from Spanish, making the travel of ideas
difficult. For some, the linguistic inaccessibility might not be
problematic as it signals the need for epistemic centers to
accommodate across difference, and for others, it merely highlights
the ample amount of work that remains to be done. Either way, the
Latin American feminist tradition is one that methodologically reminds
its readers that theory is always grounded in practice. Thus, placing
the ideas of women and their push for social transformation at the
centerfold of philosophical and theoretical activity demands
contextualization. For philosophical practices more specifically,
Latin American feminisms remind us that women have been thinking much
longer than they have been credited for and philosophers need to
merely start asking: What were they thinking about?