Feminists by default? Women’s rights and social change in Argentina

• In Event: Feminist Perspectives and Social Work

Abstract

This paper examines the decades-long struggles of the Argentinian women’s rights movement around political representation, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive rights. It seeks to understand the transformations operated by the movement to produce a new ‘feminist’ common sense, so that an issue such as abortion could go from taboo to top issue on the public agenda – one that politicians would seek to take advantage of for electoral gain. How did this happen?
Drawing from social movement theory, the paper analyses the movement’s repertoire of contention, the resources it mobilised and the political opportunities it exploited, all the while focusing on the cultural struggles it engaged in and the framing and reframing processes involved (Snow and Benford, 1988; Ryan and Gamson, 2006).
The women’s rights movement being heterogeneous and diverse, its internal tensions are analysed as factors contributing to both progress and setbacks. Key divisions analysed are those between ‘institutional’ and ‘autonomous’ feminist groups with divergent positions vis-à-vis state institutions, and those resulting from partisan politicisation that gave the movement special access but put it at risk by tying its fate to that of a political project that would inevitably decline.
Following a compressed chronology of the movement before the 1980s, the paper focuses on the significant transformations it experienced and the victories it scored once it became clear that a ‘gender-neutral’ democratic transition would not lead to the empowerment of women. It underlines a key element that distinguishes the Argentine movement from others in the region: its focus on the ‘politics of presence’ (Philips, 1998) and subsequent efforts to overcome the extreme under-representation of women in politics by pioneering legislative quotas and gradually moving towards gender parity (Archenti and Tula, 2014).
The analysis then focuses on gender-based violence, a hinge issue in the evolution of Argentinian and Latin American feminism. Mobilisation around it was anchored in the repudiation of its most extreme version – femicide – which struck a chord and made it instantly massive. But by linking the root causes of violence to the denial of autonomy that also underlie the denial of sexual and reproductive rights, it also paved the way for the ultimately successful push for the legalisation of abortion.
The analysis of the movement’s plunge into fourth-wave feminism focuses on three elements – its massification, diversification and rejuvenation, which was accomplished through generational convergence rather than replacement. These changes propelled profound cultural change and extended the movement’s influence across the region and beyond. The conclusions provide a quick sketch of the movement as it stands today and highlights major challenges ahead, including the need to shift towards monitoring implementation and effective access to newly conquered rights and to protect gains against rising conservative backlash.
The analysis was conducted on the basis of secondary sources and information extracted from the websites and Facebook profiles of organisations and campaigns, brochures, statements, videos and in-depth interviews (many of them carried out by the author and already published as standalone pieces) and informal conversations with young feminist protesters.

References

Archenti, Nélida, and María Inés Tula (2014) “Cambios normativos y equidad de género. De las cuotas a la paridad en América Latina: Los casos de Bolivia y Ecuador”, in América Latina Hoy 66: 47-68.
Gamson, William (2013) “Injustice Frames”, in Klandermans, Bert et al. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements.
Philips, Anne (1998) The Politics of Presence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ryan, Charlotte, and William A. Gamson (2006) “The Art of Reframing Political Debates”, in Contexts 5(1): 13-18.
Snow, David A., and Robert D. Benford (1988) “Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization”, in Klandermans, Bert, Hanspeter Kriesi and Sidney Tarrow (eds.), International social movement research Vol. 1. Greenwich: JAI Press.

Author

• Ines Maria Pousadela, CIVICUS/Universidad ORT Uruguay