Feminist Philosophy in Latin America and Spain. (Value Inquiry Book Series)

FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY IN LATIN AMERICA AND SPAIN

VIBS Volume 189 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Peter A. Redpath Executive Editor

Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno Gerhold K. Becker Raymond Angelo Belliotti Kenneth A. Bryson C. Stephen Byrum Harvey Cormier Robert A. Delfino Rem B. Edwards Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Francesc Forn i Argimon William Gay Dane R. Gordon J. Everet Green Heta Aleksandra Gylling Matti Häyry Steven V. Hicks

Richard T. Hull Michael Krausz Mark Letteri Vincent L. Luizzi Adrianne McEvoy Alan Milchman Alan Rosenberg Arleen L. F. Salles John R. Shook Eddy Souffrant Tuija Takala Anne Waters John R. Welch Thomas Woods Emil Višļovský

a volume in Philosophy in Latin America PILA Arleen L.F. Salles, Editor

FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY IN LATIN AMERICA AND SPAIN

Edited by

María Luisa Femenías and

Amy A. Oliver

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007

Cover Photo: © Jack Child Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2207-2 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007 Printed in the Netherlands

CONTENTS Editorial Foreword

ix

Introduction

xi

Acknowledgments ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

xiii

Feminist Movements in Mexico: From Consciousness-Raising Groups to Transnational Networks MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO 1. Historical Context and Development: From Consciousness-Raising Groups to National Coalitions 2. Between Popular Feminism and Autonomous Feminism 3. From Grass Roots Movements to Political Activism 4. Institutionalization, Professionalization, and Transnationalization 5. About Feminism, Grass Roots Movements, Politics, and Academics 6. Perspectives

11 14

An Approach to Cuban Feminist Ideas and Objectives: Echoes from the Past, Voices from the Present NORMA VASALLO BARRUETA

21

Latin American Feminist Philosophy: Early Twentieth-Century Uruguay AMY A. OLIVER 1. The Latin American Context 2. The Feminist Climate in Batllist Uruguay 3. Carlos Vaz Ferreira 4. Post-Batllist Developments

31 31 32 33 39

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards: Social Constructions and Gender Strategies in Uruguayan High School Students ADRIANA MARRERO 1. Uruguay in the World and Women in Uruguay 2. Education, Income, and Gender in Uruguay Today

43 43 45

1 4 6 8

vi

CONTENTS

3. Women and Men at the Doorway of the Adult World: What Numbers Conceal and Reveal 4. Different Perceptions of Themselves, Different Perceptions of the World: Terms of Discrepancy Between Women and Men 5. The Future: Certainties, Uncertainties, and Strategies to Face It FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

47 52 59

Multiple Feminisms: Feminist Ideas and Practices in Latin America FRANCESCA GARGALLO

73

On the Trail of Gender MARÍA ESTHER POZO

87

A Critical Examination of Women’s History MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS 1. What is the Origin of Women’s History? 2. What is Women’s History? 3. New Subjects 4. New Problems 5. New Focusing 6. New Methods? 7. Which Historiographic Renovation? 8. What is the Fate of Women’s History?

95 96 97 98 98 99 101 103 105

Thinking Patriarchy CELIA AMORÓS 1. Patriarchy, Racism, and Sexism 2. Serial Pacts and Topos of Misogyny 3. Pledged Pacts and Feminine Figures 4. Excursus

109 109 114 119 121

The Challenge of Differences in Latin American Feminism MARÍA LUISA FEMENÍAS 1. Equality 2. Difference 3. Universal 4. Postcolonial Feminism 5. Critically Retaining the Universal 6. Balance

127 127 128 129 131 132 133

Contents

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

Postmodernity and Utopia: Reclaiming Feminist Grounds on New Terrains OFELIA SCHUTTE 1. Utopian Desire 2. The Resistance to the Postmodern Turn in Latin American Leftist Philosophy 3. Postmodernity in Latin America 4. The Visibility of Different Economic and Social Conditions and the Demand for Alternatives: Feminist Utopian Horizons 5. Conclusions Feminist Philosophy and Utopia: A Powerful Alliance ANA MARÍA BACH, MARGARITA ROULET, AND MARÍA ISABEL SANTA CRUZ 1. Conceptual Arguments 2. Ideology and Utopia 3. Utopianism, Feminism, and Philosophy Unthinking Gender: The Traffic in Theory in the Americas CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA 1. Introduction 2. The Traffic in Theories 3. Translation as Discursive Migration 4. Translation Practices and the Traffic in Gender 5. Gender(ed) Readings/ Feminist Readings: The Brazilian Context of Reception 6. Beyond Gender?

THIRTEEN Philosophy, Politics, and Sexuality ALICIA H. PULEO 1. Philosophizing About Sexuality: A Form of Politics 2. The Reaction to Enlightened Feminism and to Suffrage 3. Revolution and Transgression 4. Final Considerations

vii

137 138 140 141 145 147

149 150 157 160

167 167 168 169 170 175 181 187 187 187 191 194

viii

CONTENTS

FOURTEEN The Ethics of Pleasure GRACIELA HIERRO 1. Introduction 2. The Gender Perspective 3. Ethics 4. Good and Evil 5. Morals 6. Religion and Morals 7. Sexual Morality 8. Double Sexual Morality: A Mexican Interpretation 9. A Look at What is Considered “Normal” 10. The Sexualization of Morality 11. A Criticism of Gender 12. The Hedonistic Sexual Ethic 13. What is Considered Good, and Hedonism 14. Sexuality, Eroticism, and Love 15. Eroticism 16. Love 17. Conclusions

200 201 202 203 203 204 205 205 206 206

About the Contributors

209

Index

213

197 197 197 198 198 199 199 200

EDITORIAL FOREWORD Over the past decades, Western philosophy has been enriched by the development of feminist thought. This book, edited by philosophers María Luisa Femenías, from Argentina, and Amy A. Oliver, from the United States, is about feminist thought in Latin America and Spain. The subject is timely: today feminist philosophy is pursued in virtually every Hispanic nation, and there is a greater willingness to examine the standpoints and experiences of different groups of women and the diversity and relevance of feminist voices in philosophical debates. The book’s content blends the theory, history, and practice of feminism in Hispanic countries. Crucial conceptions of gender, difference, and context are clarified and explained in a number of chapters. There are also chapters that focus on the historical development of feminism and its practice in specific nations. Feminist Philosophy in Latin America and Spain is a relevant book for two reasons. Feminist philosophy is dominated by Anglo American authors. This book presents a collection of essays written by contemporary Latin American thinkers who write from different countries and thus from a different reference point so that they add to the range of ideas to be discussed. Furthermore, not only do the essays raise important questions about the complex relation between feminism and culture; they further suggest an agenda for future discussion of the issues. Arleen L. F. Salles Special Series Editor, Philosophy in Latin America December 2006

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION Our primary goal in editing this volume is to demonstrate the vast range of philosophical approaches, regional issues and problems, perspectives, and historical and theoretical frameworks that together constitute feminist philosophy in Latin America and Spain. Our secondary goal is to make available to English-speaking readers recent feminist thought in Latin America and Spain to facilitate dialogue among Latin American, North American, and European thinkers. Feminist thought has existed for centuries in Latin America and Spain, but is generally not well known or well understood outside Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian contexts. Contemporary approaches to feminist thought, in particular, sometimes differ from North American and European styles of feminism. For example, the context of the family for the individual tends to be comparatively more important in Latin American and Spanish feminist philosophies. Ethnic and class concerns and categories often are as primordial as gender, particularly in developing nations. Such nuanced differences between south and north provide useful ideas for feminist thinkers to contemplate. We organized the chapters in this volume to present first a variety of perspectives on the history and practice of feminism in selected Hispanic countries. Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America are the backdrops for the early chapters on concrete feminist movements and philosophies. Subsequent chapters are on the theoretical underpinnings of feminist philosophy as practiced in Hispanic countries and in Brazil. These chapters explore epistemological concerns, feminism in the history of philosophy, notions of difference, post-colonial feminism, postmodernism, utopian visions, concepts of gender, politics and sexuality, and the ethics of pleasure. A chief difference among the latter chapters hinges on the question of context. Some authors argue that consideration of historical, geographical, or socio-political context is crucial to the development of feminist philosophy. For others, theories can translate across cultural divides and remap different kinds of borders such that theory can be divorced from place. The variety of perspectives on context is compelling and readers will be challenged to consider the role that contexts play in their own thinking about feminism. Interest in feminist philosophy in Latin America and Spain has burgeoned over the past few decades. Feminist thought is especially exciting because of its dynamic engagement with social and political realities and a usual accompanying awareness of other current trends in feminist theory around the globe. We hope that the readers of this book will be stimulated to appreciate the variety of ideas about women’s existence that Latin American

xii

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

and Spanish thinkers have generated, and to apply these ideas to other contrasting discourses within feminist thought.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors would like to acknowledge with gratitude the contributions of several of the people who made this project possible. Robert Ginsberg, founding editor of the Value Inquiry Book Series, first encouraged the production of this volume. Peter A. Redpath, executive editor of the Value Inquiry Book Series, helped bring the work to fruition by providing very helpful advice and offering examples of other works published in the series. Eric van Broekhuizen of Editions Rodopi, B. V., managing editor of the Value Inquiry Book Series, provided encouragement when he visited the Eastern Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association. Shelley Harshe, Senior Administrative Assistant in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at American University, provided invaluable technical support. We are especially indebted to Arleen L.F. Salles, editor of the Special Series on Philosophy in Latin America, for her expertise and support. Several translators contributed to the volume as acknowledged in each chapter. Translations required extensive editing in some cases to make them conform to editorial guidelines. We also acknowledge with sadness the passing of a contributor who helped advance this volume, Graciela Hierro. She died in Mexico on 30 October 2003.

This page intentionally left blank

One FEMINIST MOVEMENTS IN MEXICO: FROM CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING GROUPS TO TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS Martha Zapata Galindo Translated from Spanish by Amy A. Oliver A current concern of international feminism is to create a lasting alliance among feminism, social movements, and activism in non-governmental organizations, political parties, government institutions, and universities. As feminism continues to seek greater strength and democratic representation at the local, national, and transnational levels, theorists propose altering traditional patriarchal customs and the relationship between production and reproduction of life, which constitute the foundation of masculine domination. In this sense, the reconstruction of the Mexican feminist movement in the last thirty years, which I will present below, attempts to show the different paths taken and the many strategies and alliances used, and the attempts to resolve them historically. Finally, I begin with the idea of a movement in which many types of feminism can exist, and I make a series of strategic points that I hope will encourage the development of new perspectives on the disjunctures experienced by the different struggles today. 1. Historical Context and Development: From Consciousness-Raising Groups to National Coalitions In the early 1970s, the feminist movement consisted of scholars, professionals, and militants from leftist political parties who organized themselves into consciousness-raising groups. Mujeres en acción solidaria began in 1971 and Movimiento Nacional de Mujeres in 1972. A small group of women separated from the first group in 1974 and founded the Movimiento de la Liberación de Mujeres. Other groups in this first phase were the Foro de la Mujer (1972), the Colectivo Cine Mujer (1975), and the group La Revuelta (1975), which published a journal dealing with topics such as abortion, rape, sexuality, and prostitution. These initial groups attracted middle-class women who studied the body and sexuality. From the

2

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

beginning, a conceptual duality was present within the movement that marked its development and was unaffected by political differences. Some feminists defended what some have called “feminism of equality,” while others gravitated toward “feminism of difference.” The first emphasized a politics of equity between the sexes that sought to demand the equality of women under the law and in all spheres of economic, social, and political life, whereas the second emphasized the existence of sexual difference and how it becomes a source of inequality . Contrary to other feminist movements, which initially emphasized the topic of domestic work, in Mexico the movement identified violence against women and the quest to legalize abortion as its central concerns (Burkhard, 1993, pp. 19–35; Tuñón, 1997, p. 65; Rascón, 1988, p. 209). International Women’s Year (1975) contributed to strengthening the efforts of feminist groups by expressing their demands in public spaces and making clear the conflict between the autonomy of the movement and its relation to the state. The Mexican government sought to gain the support of feminists to write the report on the situation of Mexican women. Some feminists chose to collaborate as resource persons and information gatherers, but the majority decided not to participate in this endeavor. Instead, they organized an alternative conference in which they denounced the dehumanizing nature of the event sponsored by the United Nations. The organizers of the alternative conference rejected the goals promoted by the United Nations because they believed them to be set forth on a capitalistic and patriarchal plane that was unaware of the problem of sexual inequalities (Burkhard, 1993, p. 20; Lau Jaiven, 1987, pp. 88–89 and 111–115; Lamas, 1998, p. 113). International Women’s Year also had some positive results for feminists: aid programs by and for women, since their organizations began to receive funding in the context of the politics of development, something which over time led the movement to discover new areas of action (De Barbieri, 1986, p. 17). An example of this is the founding of the nongovernmental organization Centro de Atención para Mujeres Violadas in 1976 and Centro de Información y Desarrollo Humano en América Latina in 1979. The organization of the United Nations conference stirred debate on the relationship of the feminist movement to the state, and spurred many feminists to increase their presence in public spaces and reformulate their strategies for acquiring power. In 1976, a relevant journal appeared, Fem, in which primarily journalistic work provided the basis for discussion of the most pressing problems and topics of the movement. The founding of Grupo Autónomo de Mujeres Universitarias took place in 1979 along with the founding of the first lesbian and gay groups (Lesbos in 1977, and Lambda and Oikabeth in 1978).

Feminist Movements in Mexico

3

Another key consequence of the 1975 conference was the formation of alliances among groups, such as the Coalición de Mujeres in 1976 with the objective of giving voice to feminist demands in public spaces by organizing publicity campaigns, symposia, conferences, and demonstrations. Other actions included the establishment of the first resource centers for women, the identification of the legalization of abortion as a major goal, and the undertaking of initiatives to reform the legal code to consider sexual harassment a sexual crime. The Federación Nacional para la Liberación y los Derechos de la Mujer, founded in 1979, was an alliance to unite feminist groups with several leftist political parties such as the communist and the Trotskyite, some unions, and three lesbian and gay groups. This move took advantage of López Portillo’s (1976-1982) political reforms legalizing leftist political parties, and it revisited the legal efforts of the Coalición in regard to abortion, rape, and sexual harassment, and its efforts to improve protection of women in the workforce. Parallel to these developments was the growing number of women who presented their demands outside the home. In the early 1970s, these demands became integrated into the different phases of Mexican social movements. Vivienne Bennett (1992, 1993) separates the social movements between 1968 and 1988 into three separate periods: the early 1970s, 1979-1983, and 1985-1988. These heterogeneous struggles included those of the union, rural women, political solidarity, and urban popular movements. Women organized committees in all of these contexts and fought alongside men. Some examples include electrical workers who organized between 1972 and 1978, rural workers who fought to defend or regain land, the urban popular movement participants who organized the fight for urban space, and the National Committee in Defense of Imprisoned, Persecuted, Disappeared, and Exiled Politicians, headed by Rosario Ibarra de Piedra. Other women organized on the basis of their feminine condition and made social demands. The women of Villa de las Rosas, in Chiapas, persuaded the municipal president to build a birthing center. In another case, prostitutes organized to improve their working conditions (Acevedo, et al, 1988, pp. 136–147). Women began to politicize motherhood to promote concrete gender concerns in opposition to feminist positions that defended legal abortion and voluntary motherhood. The political field, which in this chapter divides into three sub-fields (the political parties, government institutions, and non-governmental organizations), experienced greatly diminished activity. Women put forth very few initiatives within the political parties, not because of lack of participation in the context of double militancy in political struggles, but because of the lack of leadership opportunities for women in the parties, and the ongoing tradition of female branches of the parties. Based on strategic

4

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

calculations, the parties would occasionally take up women’s social demands, but at the same time they kept women out of political positions (Rascón, 1988, p. 210). State institutions began to implement public policies borrowed from United Nations’ treaties, but they did not include the demands of the feminist movement. The introduction of International Women’s Year occasioned the amendment of Article 4 of the Mexican constitution in 1974 to legalize equality between women and men. The academy began to focus on the situation of women by seeking to analyze their role in society and collect empirical data to theorize and draw conclusions about women’s issues. The most common topics during this phase were the role of women in population politics, fertility, access to the labor market, the family, and domestic work. 2. Between Popular Feminism and Autonomous Feminism The 1980s included a major women’s mobilization movement occasioned by three factors. The economic crisis that marked the end of the economic policy of “stabilizing development” in Mexico , and that produced massive unemployment, consequently displaced a large number of women into the informal work sector. These women found themselves responsible for the survival of their families, clearly revealing the feminization of poverty. Second, mass destruction of homes and workplaces occurred in 1985 as a result of the earthquake, and people banded together to solve problems the government could not. Third, the reaction to the electoral fraud of 1988 allowed a coalition of leftist parties to approach the centrist party and the ruling party, and to make common cause with social movements protesting the absence of democracy. During this phase, a strong institutionalization and an incipient professionalization exist among orientation and assistance groups, especially feminist groups that work with urban popular organizations and grass roots movements. In the context of implementing measures reached by the United Nations, international organizations begin to finance projects related to education, literacy, and health in a framework of integrating women into development and family planning. Some international organizations also support women’s research groups and agencies that aid victims of sexual violence (Lang, 1999, pp. 111–112). Some of the new non-governmental organizations are the Grupo de Educación con Mujeres (1982), Acción Popular de la Integración Social (1982), Mujeres Trabajadores Unidas (1984), and Colectivo de Lucha contra la Violencia contra las Mujeres (1984). After the earthquake in 1985, non-governmental organizations provided legal orientation, offered educational courses for workers, and supported the garment workers’ union, Sindicato Nacional de Costureras 19 de Septiembre, in its organizational phase. These feminists from the non-

Feminist Movements in Mexico

5

governmental organizations work with marginalized women and establish an alliance of activists from popular movements, founding the feminist popular movement, and becoming the major force behind the institutionalization and professionalization of the feminist movement. Other organizations that arose during this phase are the Centro de Apoyo a la Mujer Margarita Magón, Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida, Salud Integral para la Mujer, and Centro de Investigación y Lucha contra la Violencia Doméstica. In spite of the fact that women of the popular sectors managed to imprint a feminist profile on their class demands, these feminist groups were able to incorporate their perspective on the social and economic realities of the country (Tuñón, 1997, p. 73). In the political realm, the presence of the feminist movement retreats in its entirety, since women from the popular movements protest publicly on designated dates (Tuñón, 1997, p.75; Lamas, 1998, pp. 113–126). These dates are 8 March (International Women’s Day), 10 May (Mother’s Day, when women assert the right to voluntary motherhood), and 25 November (a day to remember violence against women). These public protests attracted workers and rural women to the movement. This retreat explains why native feminism is absent at the beginning of the process of democratization in Mexico toward the end of the 1980s. While women from the popular classes played a significant role in the process, after the fraudulent election of 1988, feminists protested against the imposition by the State of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) as president through the Coordinadora Benita Galeana. This group failed because of its inability to mediate differences between popular and native feminists. Mujeres en Lucha por la Democracia was another group that failed because it did not formulate a concept of democracy from the perspective of gender. In academic and university circles, scholars began to show interest in institutionalizing gender studies, reformulating research based on social science work that provides theoretical and methodological tools, and identifying empirical results that allow the articulation of political stances. Among the topics for research are the double day (full-time work outside the home coupled with full-time domestic duties after work); double activism; the relationship between public and private, family and reproduction, women and political participation, identity and sexuality; and the distinction between sex and gender, developed with greater intensity in the following decade (Serret, 1989, p. 19; Lamas, 1992, pp. 15–18). The newspaper La Jornada began publishing a supplement called Doble Jornada in 1987 that allowed feminist activists and academics to express their ideas and debate political action. El Colegio de México launched an interdisciplinary women’s studies program in 1983 and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México organized a gender studies program toward the end of the 1980s. The Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana opened two

6

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

women’s studies departments. By the mid-1990s the Universidad de Guadalajara opened its gender studies center (Blázquez Graf, 1997, p. 196; Oliveira, 1989, pp. 15–17; Bastos Romero, 1989, pp. 127–128; Urrutia, 1986, pp. 235–237). 3. From Grass Roots Movements to Political Activism The orientation of the feminist movement in the 1990s was toward political parties, government institutions, and non-governmental organizations. As a result, the feminist movement became distanced from the grass roots movements. The feminist movement began to establish alliances with the Movimiento Amplio de Mujeres, which fought for democracy and founded the Coordinadora Feminista del Distrito Federal in 1990 proposed at the sixth Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres (Chapingo, 1989), where women discussed the relationship between feminism and democracy. Sixty-one delegates from different political parties formed an alliance to present a project to the legislature to reform the penal code regarding sex crimes. A majority made up of activists in non-governmental organizations and many political parties developed the project and collaborated with the Prosecutor’s office (De Barbieri, 1990, pp. 350–354). In 1991, the Convención Nacional de Mujeres por la Democracia formed to force political parties to include women on its lists of candidates for election. These efforts represented a new stance with respect to the State and to political parties. The Partido de la Revolución Democrática was a driving force behind gender politics because it was the first political party that attempted to win seats in the local and national house of representatives, opening the door to gender politics and to inclusion of women candidates on its ballots (Stevenson, 1998, pp. 201–212). At its First National Congress in 1990, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática passed a 20% minimum quota for women to occupy delegate and leadership positions. In 1993, they raised the quota to 30% (Tuñón, 1997, p. 84). This did not prevent the Partido de la Revolución Democrática from pursuing gender demands more generally to widen its base of support, thus demarcating the goals of the feminist project from male domination within the political parties. In women’s non-governmental organizations , feminist activism became increasingly important at the same time as the non-governmental organizations increasingly influenced the feminist movement, a phenomenon that took place throughout Latin America (Álvarez, 1997, p. 154). The primary objectives of Mexican non-governmental organizations were the formation of leaders and legal assistance (26%), survival tactics (22%), academic studies (18.6%), the prevention of violence against women (16%), and the defense of human rights and union rights (14%) (Tuñón, 1997, p. 58). The influence of non-governmental organizations on the feminist

Feminist Movements in Mexico

7

movement is significant because these organizations question established social order and they make gender issues public (Tarrés Barraza, 1999, p. 219). Consequently, democratization increased in the private sphere and revitalized public life. In government institutions, feminists became active in implementing policy, especially because it involved violence against women. Specifically, they organized the first Agencias Especializadas en Delitos Sexuales, the Centro de Atención Integral a la Víctima de Violencia Intrafamiliar, and they worked directly for the Procuradería General de Justicia (F e m, February 2001, pp. 7–9). Within the framework of the neoliberal restructuring of the economy, women’s non-governmental organizations see their work as a bridge between women’s needs and government institutions or political parties and, therefore, become service providers whose goal is to find practical solutions for social needs (Tarrés Barraza, 1999, p. 247; Tuñón, 1997, p. 104). To achieve this, the activists need social and cultural capital, which allows them to carry out their work efficiently, and also to raise funds from bilateral organizations or private foundations. Situated in the political culture of the Mexican political system, feminists rely heavily on their social capital to network with other social and political actors, using established client and corporate structures, and engaging in reciprocal relations based on loyalty. These relations appear reliable, but are only effective when the same politicians remain in office. The instability of the political situation puts the continuity of the organizations’ work in jeopardy every six years, thus straining relations among the groups. In the 1990s, the government created a series of programs for women, obligating many non-governmental organizations to reorient their activities and concepts to be able to justify their existence. With this strategy the government displaced popular movements and the feminist movement from the public sphere because it took over rituals that feminism traditionally demanded for mobilization and that, in the eighties, lower class women had handled. The government introduced its programs for women on 8 March, transforming protests into acclamation processes for state politics, while managing to integrate and co-opt many feminist activists who chose political careers under government pressure. In the academic arena, universities introduced gender studies curricula and secured departmental and institutionalized structures. Researchers were not merely gathering empirical data, nor were they using gender theory to develop political and ideological differences. Instead, they established a tight link between the issue of gender, scientific research, and feminism. For example, they studied breakdowns in development processes to analyze the possibilities for liberation through modernization. They recognized the need

8

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

to change social relations and relations between the sexes to liberate women and all of society. In this context, they began to understand gender studies, in the framework of constructivist theories, as analyses of the construction of diversity of gender identities (Lamas, 1996b, pp. 327–366). An equitable integration of women into society, culture, work, and politics proved insufficient to liberate women because reformulating the role of men in social relations was also necessary (Tarrés, 1997, p. 34). The situations of women needed to be differentiated in terms of class and ethnicity so as not to propose global solutions that were not practical in particular social circumstances. Differentiations have become increasingly subtle even though a great theoretical, methodological, and ideological diversity exists in approaching this research. New topics of feminist research include gender democracy, citizenship, political participation, quotas for political parties and government institutions, non-government organizations, problems of internationalization, modernization and gender, and globalization and gender. 4. Institutionalization, Professionalization, and Transnationalization Throughout the country’s history, efforts to internationalize the feminist movement in Mexico have existed. These efforts were less intense in the 1970s because the first consciousness-raising groups directed their concept of work toward developing a strong sense of autonomy that would enable them to remain independent of politics and its institutions. A majority of feminists disagreed with the radical nature of this conception and refused to participate in the official preparations for International Women’s Year. This refusal did not prevent feminists from accepting financial backing for projects designed by women to serve their needs. Women helped with the planning of the projects, which opened the door to the institutionalization and professionalization of the feminist movement that in the seventies included a search for identity. Sonia Álvarez has analyzed how the Encuentros Feministas Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, beginning in 1981, offered the necessary opportunity for collective discussion of the identity of the women’s and feminist movements in Latin America, and they inaugurated a forum in which groups could confront each other about conflicts and differences in an international setting. These encounters took place in the context of a spirit of solidarity, allowing local political identities to form by establishing close relationships with other political identities that were facing similar processes of marginalization, on local and national levels. In this setting, discussions took place among lesbians, union women, rural women, urban women, women belonging to diverse ethnic groups and non-governmental organizations, academics, guerillas, and militants from various political

Feminist Movements in Mexico

9

parties seeking social and political rights, all according to their conceptions of social justice and the goals of different feminisms (Álvarez , 2000). In the context of planning international conferences, women’s nongovernmental organizations became adept at speeches and interventions of an international nature, acquiring increasing representation in all that involved development and implementation of gender politics projects. This process was decisive in restructuring their relationship with the government and with politics because the women’s non-governmental organizations abandoned absolute independence in order to develop a concept of autonomy that could coexist with political activity. Feminist ideologies in Mexico then began to diverge: some groups defended radical autonomy, while others developed a more pragmatic strategy relative to politics and tried to maintain “equilibrium between the politically correct (ethics), and the politically possible (action)” (Tarrés Barraza, 1999, p. 244). Others devoted themselves to the practices of lobbying and political maneuvering to exert influence over political decisions in the ministries, parliaments, and national governments. Women’s non-governmental organizations in Latin America became interested in transnational politics in the context of the international conferences organized by the United Nations. They participated with greater interest in the planning of conferences and they reoriented their activities toward the implementation of inter-governmental transnational policies. Their primary interest was extending formal rights toward the possibility of influencing government policies. This all resulted in the formation of a new type of activist and the production of new alliances between transnational activists in nongovernmental organizations, intergovernmental organizations, and government institutions (Álvarez, 2000). The process planned during the mid-eighties to the early nineties at local and national levels expands to a transnational level in the mid-nineties. The principal goal was the implementation of gender policies that the member nations of the United Nations have recognized. Mexican feminist organizations carried out their transition from a general opposition to patriarchy and its attendant government and social institutions to a politics of representation of concrete local, national, and transnational interests. At the end of the nineties, non-governmental organizations in Mexico acquired more cultural and social resources that allowed them to develop hierarchical organizational structures that responded to international needs and requirements of professionalization . The price that non-governmental organizations pay for financing and for consolidation of their work led them to give up autonomy, organizational experiments, selectivity in choosing political allies to form coalitions, and reformulation of their relations with base movements. They broke their political ties to the social movements to

10

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

redefine themselves socially as service providers for women of the popular classes rather than as political advisors (Tuñón, 1999, p. 104). On the other hand, international organizations that dispense funds tend to favor processes of professionalization by relying on experts in matters of gender, bypassing women in the base movements who fight for political and social rights or those with feminist goals and objectives that are critical of male domination. Marginalized from public arenas, women in the popular movement became dependent on feminist experts who did not always address or incorporate their demands. The role that the neoliberal state assigns to civil society has several implications. It celebrates the growing role of civil organizations in solving social problems and it hopes civil society will solve them on its own because the state withdraws and lets the market regulate unresolved conflicts. Since market demands, not laws, regulate relations between the state and civil society, the state makes use of civil society’s work to fight poverty (Braig, 2001) at the same time as it reduces or eliminates its own programs. Herein lies the risk that non-governmental organizations will implement government policies, a risk also observed in relation to non-governmental organizations and international organizations that grant funds to finance projects (Álvarez, 1997, p. 158). When non-governmental organizations back government policies, they do not contribute to democracy and especially not to gender democracy. The gap that opened in the 1980s between everyday women and the feminist movement became even wider as a result of the professionalization of nongovernmental organizations, the poverty of women, and the decline of family support networks (Enríquez Rosas, 2001, pp. 57–59). Programs to fight poverty only reach women of higher social classes, meaning that nongovernmental organizations only offered their services to solvent clients. Researchers estimate that Mexico has 75 million poor people, 45 million of whom live in extreme poverty (Boltvinik, 2000, p. 22). The last three decades of the feminist movement may reflect three strategies: the first decade concentrated on consciousness-raising and selforganization, and acquired a presence in public space through protests; the second decade emphasized solidarity and identity, and feminists tried to help grass roots women to “understand and assume their feminine condition in the world of politics” (Lamas, 1988, p. 338); the third decade saw negotiation, interest groups, and the reformulation of feminism with respect to politics. In this last phase, feminists explored strategies for influencing social organization, the political system, and cultural order. The articulation of the feminist movement in the public sector at the beginning of the seventies attempted to link feminism with anti-capitalism in theory and praxis. Feminists were seeking a way to transform the relationships of production and reproduction of life. The experiences of

Feminist Movements in Mexico

11

popular feminism in the eighties did not impact feminist theory sufficiently to advance discussion toward the problem of class to develop a new focus that could enrich the perspectives of class and gender. Instead, feminism fell back on culturalist formulations which, though not without legitimacy, are not universal, and lost sight of the material conditions of life, thereby failing to develop an open, pluralistic politics of identity and to mediate between class and gender. The influence of non-governmental and transnational organizations on feminism in the nineties facilitated privileged access to material, political, and symbolic resources for an elite group of women without having implemented mechanisms that democratize access to power or that make possible a restructuring of the relationship between grass roots and professional women by taking into account local and regional needs. 5. About Feminism, Grass Roots Movements, Politics, and Academics The Mexican feminist movement has never had a social support base nor has it managed to mobilize the masses around one of its gender demands. The position in society, and the symbolic capital derived from it, of the group of middle-class women whose started this movement determined the demands expressed as strategic gender interests. From the beginning, the goal of these women was to establish themselves as a movement independent of any practical concern. They established alliances with social and political actors to compensate for the absence of a broad social base and a weak public presence. Once they abandon consciousness-raising, they broaden their strategy of political and academic alliances to prepare their struggle for power. Ultimately, their goal was to transform patriarchal society. The lack of democratic organizational structures that characterized the first two phases of the movement, and the impossibility of applying strategies in accordance with a plurality of political interests and political identities, led to the downfall of all the coalitions and alliances of the late seventies and early eighties. The Federación Nacional para la Liberación y los Derechos de la Mujer could not articulate a controlling politics because the leftist parties that comprised it lacked a social base and rejected gender politics. From this moment on, the movement showed myopia in concentrating all its efforts on abortion rights. In a society with a strong, conservative, Catholic influence, and with social structures resting upon masculine domination characterized by a controlling hyper-masculinity, many women assumed and defended abortion rights. The hyper-masculine ideology dominated all spheres of society and violently rejected efforts to transform gender order while also neglecting other social conflicts that also affect

12

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

women existentially. In Mexico, women felt ambivalent about domestic work because it has strong implications of servitude. At this point, most feminists agree that abortion will never have a broad social acceptance. However, thanks to the feminist movement, this has not prevented Mexican women from demanding the right to decide what happens to their bodies and pregnancies even when religious beliefs do not allow them to accept legalization of abortion. Popular feminism tries to mediate the category of gender with that of class, and that of practical concerns with that of strategic gender concerns. This effort has produced new kinds of activists who try to establish relationships between politics and feminism, between politics and social movements, and between feminism and popular movements. Thanks to the work of these new activists, new coalitions are forming between people in different fields who will eventually become representatives of specific interests in the movement of women against the government. Grass roots activists learned early on that material questions were also questions of gender demands, and they began developing new feminist positions. Feminists who came from a class perspective different from that of the grass roots activists had difficulty opening their ideas to other conceptions. They limited their attempts to recruit women for the feminist movement without succeeding in developing a controlling theoretical and political position that could integrate the struggles of the popular movements with those of feminism. Discussed at the fourth Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe held in Taxco, Mexico, in 1987, this conflict is present throughout Latin America. The results of the Encuentro demonstrate the difficulties involved in developing a controlling politics that could combine emancipation with self-determination in the context of poverty and the lack of democracy in Latin America. The final document from the Encuentro, written by a small group of feminists, confirmed the difficulty of reconciling multiple differences among diverse groups and interests. The authors of the document appealed for recognition of these differences to develop a common agenda, and emphasized the need to rethink the relationship between gender, class, and ethnicity, and to structure a broad feminist project that included all of society. The feminist movement of the nineties directed its attention to expanding communication between women in politics and women in academic fields. Feminists organized discussion forums attended by activists from the parties, popular organizations, and universities (Tuñón, 1997, p. 63). Sent to the Convención Nacional por la Democracia to meet with academic women to discuss political strategies, the delegates also planned to reach a higher level of professionalism to be able to wield influence in politics.

Feminist Movements in Mexico

13

The discussion forum sponsored by Debate Feminista in June 1991, “To Whom Does Politics Belong? Crisis of Representation: Women’s Interests in the Electoral Battle,” documented the attempt to build alliances between political and grass roots activists. The discussion again confirmed the need to leave one’s corner of the world and develop a universal project, as well as the need to understand feminist perspectives as one part of a total package (¿De quién es la política? 1991, p. 12); the political party representatives expressed perspectives of a strategic nature and demanded of feminism a concrete project with clear implementation ideas, and an ability to build alliances with diverse social actors without regard for whether they agreed with their positions (¿De quién es la política? 1991, p. 15). The representatives of the grass roots movements tried to find a solution to the problem of how to negotiate politics with grass roots women, or how to articulate feminism’s demands within the framework of the economic and social needs of grass roots women, but negotiation did not catch on with the fraction of autonomous feminists who insist upon monopolizing the definition of feminism. Starting with sexual difference, understood in the Lacanian sense as the structuring element of the psyche that is independent of social processes and remains static, they tried to develop a project “to improve the position of women in the existing social and political order” at the same time as they strove to construct a new social order (¿De quién es la política? 1991, p. 64). The solution offered by this feminism implies creating a “women’s social contract” that allows women to network and choose leaders on the basis of professionalism and competence (¿De quién es la política? 1991, p. 69). This debate reveals the obstacles feminist groups face to getting involved in politics and negotiating alliances with grass roots movements. The differing definitions of sexual difference and feminism, the difficulty of developing critical stances in the face of masculine political culture (Lovera, 1991, pp. 257–258; Bedregal, 1991, pp. 259–260), and the fact that the interests of feminist groups and those of political parties contradicted one another, led to establishing a minimal consensus during the Convention, and left behind the debate over gender democracy and developing a feminist political platform. Thus, autonomous feminism wound up defending proposals removed from the social conflict of the majority. Since followers of autonomous feminism did not understand its role as a social movement, when they attempted to transform it into a political movement, they could not articulate a powerful, coherent position. For that reason, its actions were focused on certain areas and were increasingly oriented toward professionalization and efficiency within the traditional spaces of politics, and the movement distanced itself from the emancipatory goals it had originally championed.

14

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO 6. Perspectives

An assessment of the past thirty years of the Mexican feminist movement shows a series of positive advances of great significance that are comparable to the achievements of feminism at the international level. Feminism has acquired a presence in the public eye, and has therefore been able to articulate widely its gender demands at local, national, and international levels. Owing to the feminist movement’s involvement in politics through legal reforms, projects to implement public policy, and work within nongovernmental organizations, gender issues have achieved legitimacy and autonomy in the context of the government, political parties, and other social groups. The feminist movement has also transformed political and cultural discourse and achieved widespread social acceptance of gender issues. As a result of driving the process of democratization in recent years, the feminist movement has managed to introduce gender justice into the agenda for democracy and it has broadened political, social, and civil rights for women. Society has begun to recognize discrimination against women in the different realms of work, politics, family, culture, and gender relations as a problem whose solution it can no longer postpone. Feminism has acquired recognition, power, and legitimacy at the local, national, and transnational levels, and the ability to shape national and global politics with the support of the internationalization of gender policies and gender studies in the universities. However, the path feminism has taken in the last three decades has generated a series of problems that feminists must critically examine to develop new emancipatory perspectives. The collaboration of feminist activists with political parties, government institutions, non-governmental organizations, and inter-governmental organizations has had negative repercussions on the legitimacy of independent feminist groups, the representative nature of the movement, and its relation to other social movements. The professionalization of activist feminist groups as a result of the financing of non-governmental organizations, the institutionalization of gender studies, and the consolidation of activists into official political circles that defend gender policies has led to privileging interventionist strategies and politics and a “gender technocracy” that specializes in the implementation of processes rather than the creation of spaces for consciousness-raising, empowerment, and social and economic transformation (Álvarez, 1997, p. 161; Fischer, 2000, p. 271; Wichterich, 2001). The feminist movement has so far failed to establish mediation between practical gender interests of the social movements and strategic gender interests defended by autonomous feminists. This accounts for the growing

Feminist Movements in Mexico

15

distance between women of the grass roots movements and professional feminists. Their conflicts have become irreconcilable. Do practical concerns exclude gender concerns, or do the two simply oppose one another as thought by the defenders of autonomous feminism? Despite the major achievements of feminism in Mexico, feminism has not resulted in women holding leadership roles in the parties, nor in government, nor in the academy. Aspe Bernal and Palomar Verea (2000, p. 241), in their analysis of political representation and gender, show how female legislators in the Cámara de Diputados in Mexico has only increased from 5.06% to 16.2% between 1961 and 2000. Local and national politics continue to largely exclude women, and the processes of democratization marginalize them through the depoliticization of gender issues and the attempt to convert such issues into tools for resolving social problems. This tendency to separate democracy and politics from gender is increasing among international organizations that grant funds to women’s nongovernmental organizations and claim to support democratization at the national level. The feminist movement needs to recover the meaning of its autonomy and recreate the sense of feminism as a social movement. This requires that it make itself an actor in civil society, assuming an organic character to mobilize grass roots women and position them as opposition forces against the neoliberal State and globalization. Political participation would have to avoid marginalizing grass roots women, respect autonomous forms of organization of diverse feminisms, and channel the diversity of interests toward a global gender policy while realizing that such a policy can only be successful if it is open to a plurality of political identities. Feminist theory needs to think about the relationship of the symbolic or cultural to gender, beginning with material conditions of production and reproduction of life to formulate a critical project of social transformation that includes marginalized women as much as women from other social classes.

WORKS CITED Acevedo, Marta, et al (1980). “México: Una bolita de cal por las que van de arena,” Fem 13 (marzo-abril), pp. 111–148. Álvarez, Sonia E. (1997). “Articulación y transnacionalización de los feminismos latinoamericanos,” Debate feminista, Mexico, 8:15 (abril), pp. 146–170. _____. et al (1998). “Introduction: The Cultural and the Political in Latin American Social Movements,” Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures . Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, pp. 1–29.

16

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO

_____. (1998). “Los feminismos latinoamericanos se globalizan en los noventa: retos para un nuevo milenio,” Género y cultura en América Latina. María Luisa Tarrés, Mexico: El Colegio de México, pp. 89–133. _____. Translating the Global: Effects of Transnational Organizing on Local Feminist Discourses and Practices in Latin America. (MS) Arizpe, Lourdes. (1977). “Women in the Informal Sector: The Case of Mexico City,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 3:1, pp. 24–37. _____. (1990). “El feminismo y la democracia mundial,” Debate feminista, Mexico, 1:1, marzo, pp. 109–113. Arizpe, Lourdes and Margarita Velázquez. (1994). “La participación de las mujeres en el sector público: Hacia una nueva cultura política,” La mujer del México de la transición, ed. Patricia Galeana. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, pp. 73–78. Aspe Bernal, Mónica and Diego Palomar Verea. (2000). “Representación política y género: El sistema de cuotas y su aplicación en México,” La Ventana: Revista de Estudios de Género. Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 11 (junio), pp. 241–265. Bedregal, Ximena. (1991). “Reflexiones postelectorales: posibilidades, desafíos y límites del movimiento feminista,” Debate feminista, 2:4 (septiembre), pp. 259–265. Bennett, Vivienne. (1993). “Orígenes del Movimiento Urbano Popular Mexicano: pensamiento político y organizaciones clandestinas, 1960–1980,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 3, pp. 89–102. _____. (1992). “The Evolution of Urban Popular Movements in Mexico Between 1968 and 1988,” The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy, eds. Arturo Escobar and Sonia E. Álvarez. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, pp. 240–259. Blázquez Graf, Norma. (1997). “Incorporación de la Mujer a la ciencia a comienzos de los noventa,” La voluntad de ser: Mujeres en los noventa, ed. María Luisa Tarrés. Mexico, pp. 195–210. Bourdieu, Pierre. (1996).“Die Logik der Felder,” Reflexive Anthopologie, Pierre Bourdieu and Loîc J.D. Wacquant. Frankfurt, pp. 124–147. Braig, Marianne. (2001). “Zwischen Menschenrechten und Rechtsstaatlichkeit. Zivile Frauenorganisationen und Demokratisierung des Staates in Lateinamerika,” Staat, Nation, und Demokratie. Festschrift fûr Hans Jûrgen Puhle, Frankfurt.

Feminist Movements in Mexico

17

Burkhard, Cristiane. (1993).“Von der Liebe zur Notwendigkeit,” Feministische Bewegung Mexikos im Wandel 1971 bis heute. Diplomarbeit Fachbereich Politische Wissenschaften an der Freien Universitât Berlin, October (MS). Butler, Judith. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” N.Y. and London: Routledge. _____. (1998). “Merely Cultural,” The New Left Review, 227, pp. 33–34. Bustos Romero, Olga L. (1989). “Los estudios sobre la mujer (y de género) en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: Investigaciones y tesis,” Estudios de género y feminsimo, ed. Patricia Bedolla, et al. Mexico : Fontamara, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, pp. 123–147. De Barbieri, Teresita. (1978). “Notas para el estudio del trabajo de las mujeres: el problema del trabajo doméstico,” Demografía y Economía, 12:1(34), pp. 129–137. _____. (1986). Movimientos feministas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. _____. (1990). “Derechos humanos para la democracia,” Debate feminista, 1:1 (marzo), pp. 46–52. De Barbieri, Teresita and Gabriela Cano. (1990). “Ni tanto ni tan poco: las reformas penales relatives a la violencia sexual,” Debate feminista, 1:2 (septiembre), pp. 345–356. (1991) “¿De quién es la política?–Crisis de representación: los intereses de las mujeres en la contienda electoral,” Debate feminista, 2:4 (septiembre), pp. 3–98. Enríquez Rosas, Rocío. (2000). “Redes sociales y pobreza: mitos y realidades,” La Ventana: Revista de Estudios de Género. Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, junio, pp. 36–73. (1988) Fem 10 años de periodismo feminista. Mexico: Planeta. (2001) Fem Publicación feminista mensual, 25:215 ( febrero). Fischer, P. and E. Amalia. (2000). “Entre ires y venires, la crisis es una realidad insoslayable,” La Ventana: Revista de Estudios de Género. Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 11 (junio), pp. 266–187. García, Brígida and Orlandina de Oliveira. (1977). Reflexiones teórico metodológicas sobre el trabajo de la mujer y la fecundidad: la importancia de la unidad

18

MARTHA ZAPATA GALINDO doméstica. Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología: Investigación Demográfica en México.

Gargallo, Francesca. (1997). “El feo Encuentro de la necesidad,” Debate feminista, 8:15 (abril), pp. 343–348. (2000) La Jornada. 18 de agosto. Lamas, Marta. (1986). “El movimiento de las costureras (notas para una reflexión feminista),” Fem, pp. 336–350. _____. (1990). “Editorial,” Debate feminista, 1:1 (marzo), pp. 1–5. _____. (1994). “Cuerpo: diferencia sexual y género,” Debate feminista, 5:10 (septiembre), pp. 3–31. _____ et al. (1995). “Building Bridges: The Growth of Popular Feminism in Mexico,” Women’s Movements in Global Perspective, ed. Amrita Basu. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, pp. 324–350. _____. (1996a). El género: la construcción cultural de la diferencia sexual. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. _____. (1996b). “Usos, dificultades y posibilidades de la categoría de ‘género’.” Lamas 1996, pp. 327–366. _____. (1998). “The Mexican Feminist Movement and Public Policy-making,” Women’s Movements and Public Policy in Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Lycklama à Nijeholt, et al. N.Y. and London: Garland, pp. 113–126. Lang, Miriam. (1999). “Die urbane Frauenbewegung in Mexiko. Interventionen gegen sexistische Gewalt,” Freiburger Frauenstudien, 2, pp. 107–128. _____. (2001). Una cuestión de género. Strategien zur Bekâmpfung von Gewalt gegen Frauen im mexikanischen Modernisierungsprozeß. Tesis doctoral en el area de política y ciencias sociales de la Universidad Libre de Berlin. Lau Jaiven, Ana. (1987). La nueva ola del feminismo en México. Mexico: Planeta. Lovera, Sara. (1991). “Magro fruto de la batalla por lograr una bancada feminista,” Debate feminista, 2:4 (septiembre), pp. 245–258. Massolo, Alejandra. (1997). “Políticas urbanas y mujer: una aproximación,” La voluntad de ser. Mujeres en los noventa, María Luisa Tarrés, Mexico: El Colegio de México, pp. 291–312.

Feminist Movements in Mexico

19

Oliveira, Orlandina de. (1989). Trabajo, poder y sexualidad. Mexico: El Colegio de México. Paredes, Beatriz. (1991). “Las mujeres en la contienda electoral,” Debate feminista, 2:4 (septiembre), pp. 13–16. Ramírez Saavedra, Beatriz. (1992). “Feminismo y Democracia,” Debate feminista, 3:5 (marzo), pp. 345–357. Rascón, María Antonieta. (1980). “Feminismo y Reforma Política,” Fem, 23, pp. 209–214. Serret, Estela. (1989). “El sujeto femenino: para una refundamentación de la ‘Teoría Feminista’,” Sociología, 4:19 (mayo-agosto), pp. 11–22. Stevenson, Linda S. (1998). “Las mujeres políticas y la izquierda en México: reclamo de un nuevo espacio en la política Institucional,” Género y cultura en América Latina. Mexico: El Colegio de México, María Luisa Tarrés, pp. 193–215. Tarrés, María Luisa. (1993). “Hacia un equilibrio de la ética y la negociación,” Debate feminista, 4:7 (marzo), pp. 59–73. _____. (1997). La voluntad de ser. Mujeres en los noventa. Mexico: El Colegio de México. _____. (1998). Género y cultura en América Latina. Mexico: El Colegio de México. _____. (1999). “Las organizaciones del movimiento de mujeres en la reforma política,” La sociedad civil, ed. Alberto J. Olvera, Mexico: El Colegio de México, pp. 217–257. Tuñón, Esperanza. (1997). Mujeres en escena: de la tramoya al protagonismo (19821994). Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Urrutia, Elena. (1986). “El Programa Interdisciplinario de Estudios de la Mujer en el Colegio de México,” Nueva Antropología, 8:30 (noviembre), pp. 235–237. Wichterich, Christa. (2001). From Passion to Profession? Mehr Fragen als Antworten zu Akteurinnen, Interessen und Verânderung politischer Handlungsbedingungen der neuen internationalen Frauenbewegung. Paper given at the session on “Movimientos internacionales de mujeres, reforma organizativa y regulación global,” March 15-16. University of Bochum, Germany.

This page intentionally left blank

Two AN APPROACH TO CUBAN FEMINIST IDEAS AND OBJECTIVES: ECHOES FROM THE PAST, VOICES FROM THE PRESENT Norma Vasallo Barrueta Translated from Spanish by Amy A. Oliver “Where to begin?” is the first question I ask myself when I attempt to broach the conditions in Cuban women’s lives throughout history. These conditions led them to mobilize for change, which regrettably has not always come about. The Cuban women who inhabited the island when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived were the first women in this story. According to the accounts by Bartolomé de Las Casas, the first Spanish settlers did not bring their wives to America. Instead, they sought the company of indigenous women. The parents of the indigenous women had different marriage customs and rites, and believed that the Spaniards were taking the women as legitimate wives. However, most of the Spaniards expressed disdain toward the Indians for several reasons, among them that they did not believe in Christ, and considered and treated women, whether taken by force or not, as servants. The preceding illustrates the first expression of discrimination against women in our country. In this case, the discrimination was double; the Spaniards used women’s indigenous status to make them servants and their female status to make them sex objects. Abuse and rape of women constituted a form of contempt to the first inhabitants of Cuba, utilized by the Conquistadors in their zeal to colonize us. The oral tradition has handed down myths and legends that recount incidents of rebellion among Cuban women faced with abuse by the Spanish Conquistadors. The distinguished writer Mirta Yañez indicates, in referring to these women, “Remember that in the Aerito dance, our indigenous female ancestors brought their singing voice and had the right to speak as equals with the men of the tribe. The Cuban woman was not given to accepting male rule and therefore learned how to actively protest male authority” (Yañez, 2000, p. 152).

22

NORMA VASALLO BARRUETA

Later, with the discrimination against the indigenous population, more Black men and women from Africa arrived in Cuba as slave labor. The Spaniards forced them to work long hours, malnourished and physically abused, without rest periods to recuperate from exhaustion. In addition to this, white men treated Black women as sex objects, by rape or threat, but always with the psychological pressure of fear. The wives of the colonizers, despite their different situation, did not fare much better. These women, also our ancestors, were under heavy pressure from patriarchal culture that relegated them to the status of slaves, as men exercised their oppressive power. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, liberal thought became influential in Cuba. This movement included women such as María de las Cuevas about whom the historian José Antonio Portuondo said, “She represents a democratic and revolutionary tradition in the New World aristocracy in an era which proscribed public expression of women’s views about the country’s problems” (Portuondo, 1947, p. 37). In addition to the proscription of the public expression of women’s views, however, the prevailing nineteenth-century norm was that government needed to regulate women. In 1863 the island’s government established that, in the colony, “Women should be familiar with and carry out all domestic chores regardless of how well off they may be. After upholding moral rules, housework is the most important job for women” (Portuondo, 1947, p. 45). No greater kingdom for women existed than the private sphere, and this idea carried the seal of the Rules of Law and Morality. In October of 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes rose up in arms against the Spanish metropolis accompanied by his slaves whom he had freed. Independent ideas abounded alongside the nascent national consciousness. Six months later, when the Constituent Assembly met in the village of Guimaro, Ana Betancourt, distinguished fighter for Cuban independence, spoke: Citizens: the Cuban woman in the quiet dark corner of the home has waited patiently for this sublime moment in which a just revolution breaks her yoke and unfurls her wings. Here everything was enslaved, the cradle, color, and sex. You all want to destroy the slavery of the cradle fighting until death. You have destroyed the slavery based on color, emancipating the servant. The moment has arrived to liberate women! (Sarabia, 1968, p. 63). These first arguments of this type on the continent represented the most advanced intellectual thought of the era about women. These ideas are among the first feminist claims. Following the Europeans, Cuban women

An Approach to Cuban Feminist Ideas and Objectives

23

demanded recognition of the equality and independence of their sex. From this moment on, some women did not remain tranquil or resigned though no doubt it proved difficult to unfurl their wings. Cuban feminist thought began in this period when Cuba struggled for political and economic independence, first from Spain and later from the United States. Many women were prominent in these struggles, and many people viewed these women as mothers and wives instead of recognizing them for who they were, fighters and heroines. We have much more to do to get them into the place in history they deserve. To cite just one example, today we recognize Mariana Grajales, the mother of the Maceos, as we still call her, for the key role she played in the formation of the national consciousness of her children and her ideas about independence. José Martí said of her, “Heroes are easily made with such women.” We still have much to do to raise the historical profile of this woman who played such a major role in the ideological formation of her famous sons, well beyond that of the traditional role of mother. In 1898, the war of independence ended, but it produced the Yankee intervention and, from that moment on, diverse events led to the rise of the Cuban suffragist movement and the constitutional convention, where delegate Miguel Gener introduced an initiative for women’s suffrage (González, 2002), included these events in its debates. The conference did not approve Gener’s proposal: three decades of intense fighting was necessary for the proposal to succeed. According to Yañez, the year 1898 “should be viewed as a key time for Cuban feminist discourse” because of the shift in literature away from the “fragile woman,” an image from Romanticism that influenced the nineteenth century (Yañez, 2000, p. 152). The significance of the nineteenth century for Cuban women schooled in feminist thought was the recognition of their condition of inequality, and the idea of overcoming it as an expressed goal. However, these ideas did not soon transform into action. In 1899, the General League of Workers, in its Declaration of Principles, exposed the situation of extreme exploitation of Cuban women, especially women who worked outside the home. Women’s thinking about ideas went in one direction, and their reality, decided by men, went in another. In 1902, Cuba formally gained independence, but its status had changed from colony to neo-colony. We were not free either way. A new political period began in Cuba in which women began a discreet movement to demand changes in their legal status. Legally, women were dependent on men who represented them in any situation dealing with property, business, or legal protection in general. First their fathers, then their husbands, decided what was best for them. Not until 1917 did the Law of Patria Potestas pass. This law began to change this situation, at least on paper (the reality was no different).

24

NORMA VASALLO BARRUETA

The influence of feminism from the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, due to geographic proximity and interaction with that country during its occupation of our territory, and the effects of World War I on the lives of European women, who then occupied traditionally masculine spaces, were no doubt significant elements that contributed to the strengthening and growth of incipient feminist ideas among Cuban women at that time. In the twentieth century different periods of political struggle existed and women were not on the sidelines of all social movements. From 1912 on, a strong suffragist movement existed based on feminist organizations that formed around that time and which formally became the National Suffragist Party between 1913 and 1914 (González, 2002). This organization was already demanding, among other measures, the right to divorce, which was passed in 1918. Created during this same year, The Women’s Club of Cuba began as an intellectual project that fostered exchange of ideas among women members, but who were not representative of all sectors of our society. This period gave way to a feminist movement that sought the advancement of all Cuban women, a process that contributed to the planning of the First and Second Congress on Women in 1923 and 1925, respectively, and is the reason why many consider Cuba the birthplace of Latin American feminism. The fight for equality under the law, the right to vote, and the transformation of women’s inequality characterized this period. In 1934, Cuban women obtained the right to vote through a presidential decree, but the constitution of 1940, which stated, “Men and women are equal,” authenticated this right. This constitution was advanced for its time, at least on paper, but reality did not always respond to what the constitution provided for. Despite this setback for the beginning of the feminist movement in Cuba, the Second Wave began almost immediately as reflected in women’s struggles in the first decades of the twentieth century and the publications about them that we have preserved (Vasallo, 1995, pp. 65–75). For example, Camila Henríquez, on 25 July 1939, delivered a lecture at the HispanicCuban Cultural Institute entitled “Feminism,” in which she traced the situation of women from 400 B.C. to that moment. To quote an idea from this distinguished Dominican who lived for many years in Cuba and who writes about the condition of women who were her contemporaries and the obstacles they faced in transforming their situation: When a woman has achieved true economic emancipation; when the situation that forces her to prostitute herself in a marriage of convenience or in the public sale of her favors has completely disappeared; when the prejudices that govern her sexual conduct have

An Approach to Cuban Feminist Ideas and Objectives

25

been destroyed by every woman’s decision to control her life; when women have accustomed themselves to the exercise of freedom and men have improved their despicable sexual education; when people live in freedom and peace, and through many trials they find a way to establish new bases for unions between men and women, then there will be decisive words said about this complex question. But we will not hear those words. The period in which we live is one for breaking down barriers, of obliterating obstacles, of demolishing so that we can later build, in every detail, a life of relationships between human beings (Henríquez Ureña, 1992, p. 570). Camila anticipated the difficulties in overcoming the obstacles then identified and how lengthy the fight would be, but perhaps what she did not imagine was that sixty years later her words would be almost as timely as when she uttered them. The right to divorce and the legalization of abortion were victories of the first half of the twentieth century in Cuba; although they are still topics of discussion in many parts of the world, they are goals of women’s movements in this century. All this feminist progress did not enjoy continuity in Cuba. In the first place, under the constitution of 1940 women had achieved equal rights, and yet these rights did not exist in practice. Secondly, according to the judgments of activists of that period, the government’s dictatorship was so brutal that women subordinated their feminist concerns to fight the regime. What did the first half of the twentieth century mean for Cuban women? From a legal point of view, women achieved the three primary victories of this century: the right to vote, access to all levels of education, and access to the labor market. From a practical standpoint, however, women did not widely experience the last two. A second significant achievement was the right to divorce and the legalization of abortion, the second a goal of many contemporary feminist movements and controversial topic in many circles even today. How have these victories been put into practice? In 1959, when the Revolutionary Social Project was organizing, women in general expereinced high rates of illiteracy, lack of education, and discrimination by class, race, and gender. Legislation was needed to facilitate women’s access to and participation in public life. In 1953, women made up only 17.1% of the labor force, most of these in the service industries such as domestic work. Economically and educationally disadvantaged at that time, Cuban women were dependent on men. This was true in all social classes but, of course, more critical among poor women and worse among black women. A gradual but sustained process of large-scale social change for women began in 1959. Women in the feminist movement proposed some of these

26

NORMA VASALLO BARRUETA

changes after they realized that the mere right to vote would not produce the changes necessary in their lives. In Cuba, unlike in other countries, this process came about not as a direct result of feminist campaigns, but as a consequence of a movement toward broad social transformations, a principal goal of the social project of the Cuban Revolution whose ideology opposed discrimination and inequality among people regardless of their class, ethnicity, or sex. Transforming the subordination of women, taking them outside the domestic sphere that historically confined them, and converting them from solely being an end of social change to being also a means of social change were major goals of the Social Project of the Cuban Revolution. Without a doubt, a significant campaign of the first years was the literacy movement that benefited women and men of all ages. To provide continuity and to maintain the results of the elimination of illiteracy, the movement offered free education everywhere in the country with equal access for girls and boys, and made education through ninth grade compulsory. Today the average educational level of the country is ninth grade for both women and men. Women’s access to education, and the encouragement they received to participate in society and to assume roles traditionally reserved exclusively for men, resulted in more women attending the universities and going into careers not traditionally open to women. Today, enrollment in the educational system is at 2,296,930 Cubans. Fifty percent are women and girls who represent 76% of technical and professional teaching, 60.2% of higher education, 66.4% of the medical fields, 65% of the natural sciences and mathematics, and 63.9% of economics, to cite a few examples (Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, 1999, p. 117). All this contributes to the privileged place Cuban women occupy in the work structure. The labor market allowed for the presence of women in the public world, and the government passed laws that favored women’s access to work and has perfected regulations in this regard such that Cuban women have the right to any position for which they meet qualifications, and they receive the same pay as men. Another element that profoundly impacted women’s lives was the development of the National Health System , with free access, which early on developed programs that directly benefited women such as family planning and the right to make decisions about their bodies. These have given Cuban women independence and have elevated their self-esteem. The passage of the Family Code, which gives equal rights and tasks to men and women with regard to the family and domestic life, complemented the above. Our constitution states that women have the right of access to all of the roles and occupations of the State, of Public Administration, and of the Production and Lending of Services.

An Approach to Cuban Feminist Ideas and Objectives

27

The creation of laws that promote the fundamental rights of women and require the practice of equality facilitated the massive incorporation of women into the public sphere through employment and widespread access to education and job training. For example, between 1965 and 1995, women’s participation in the national economy increased from 15% to 42.3%. Characterized by upward mobility in a job environment, women’s presence in the workforce has led to their significant representation in technical fields, from mid to upper-level positions. This is a result of sustained access to education. Cuban women have been the greatest beneficiaries of education, a significant achievement of the Social Project of the Cuban Revolution. Women constitute sixty-four percent of the country’s skilled labor force and their presence in higher education contributes to maintaining and increasing their involvement in this category. This entire process has impacted women’s consciousness and has helped identify new needs requiring progressive changes to Cuban law to make equal opportunities a reality for women. With respect to women’s health, the Ministry of Public Health in Cuba offers essential health programs that privilege women such as programs for mothers and infants, with an emphasis on cancer prevention in mothers, cervical and uterine health, prevention of non-communicable, chronic diseases, and elder care. The Ministry pays special attention to sexual health and considers it wellness from physical, sexual, and emotional pleasure that is attained through the practice of self-determination in sexual relations. The major areas in sexual and reproductive health include the basic right of women to control and make decisions about their bodies and sexuality. The Ministry recognizes this right as essential for women’s development. The triumph of the Revolution brought many cultural institutions that promote our culture and contribute to the formation of new generations of artists. Despite this emphasis on Cuban culture and the assimilation of the Vanguard into the world, women are not prevalent in the world of culture. Of the officially recognized artists, one quarter is female. In this area women need greater representation. Similarly, women’s access to decision-making positions is not on a par with their achievements and their place in the occupational structure of the country. Since the Revolution women have come to make up nearly a third of all bosses in Cuba; however, they are generally not bosses at the highest levels. In the central administrative organizations of the State, only three women hold positions as Ministers, and women Vice-Ministers have varied between five percent and nine percent during this same period (Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, 1999, p. 153). In fields such as education and health, primarily female in the trained workforce, women in leadership positions are 52% and 42%, respectively,

28

NORMA VASALLO BARRUETA

high statistics no doubt, but with room for improvement. In the Department of Justice, 49% of judges and 61% of district attorneys are women. In the general election of 1998, an increase existed in the number of women delegates to the Regional Assemblies (28.6%) and in the Parliament (27.6%). Cuba ranks first in Latin America and twelfth in the world in terms of the number of women in its Parliament. Despite women’s gains and achievements in the last four decades, a notable contradiction still exists. Women have advanced considerably in the public sphere and in exercising their basic rights, but they continue to be primary protagonists in the private realm, with primary responsibility for reproducing the labor force. This is where we most deeply feel our economic crisis, which Cubans call the “Special Period.” Women have sought economic alternatives to supplement their salaries, which have produced a movement toward the emerging sector of the economy, to improve work conditions and increase income. Women who have gone into this sector of the economy to take jobs for which they are overqualified, view this phase as temporary until conditions in Cuba improve. They are unwilling to permanently give up the personal satisfaction that comes from practicing their chosen professions. The above reveals that the crisis has not harmed the progress women have made and that the progress is probably irreversible. Studies on the impact of the crisis and the economic changes affecting women show that women do not believe the crisis has had a positive influence on them, but that as a result of seeking alternatives to many problems of daily life they have faced, they are more creative, organized, and stronger. Women, regardless of the jobs they currently hold, have an image of women as capable of doing any job in society, and making progress in their abilities, which speaks well of their self-esteem, a process we discussed earlier that appears not to have stopped as a result of the economic crisis (Vasallo, 1997, p. 158). Cuban women, though they suffer domestic overload made worse by the current conditions in which they carry out these tasks, feel they are part of the public sphere which they do not want to give up. They have been able to confront the crisis, identify moments of personal growth, and build personal life projects related to professional and work advancement (Vasallo, 1999, p. 67). For Cuban women, the twentieth century, especially the second half, represented the achievement of basic triumphs that feminists had attained in the world, minimally in legal discourse , though in our case they materialized in politics and all women received them, something for the rest of the world to aspire to. To effect change in the private realm, above all in terms of a fairer and more equitable sharing of domestic roles, to be able to break the “glass ceiling,” the invisible obstacles that impede women’s access to

An Approach to Cuban Feminist Ideas and Objectives

29

leadership positions, we still need to achieve greater participation in the realm of power. We also need to continue participating in the transformation of Patriarchal Culture, which even women sometimes carry out and perpetuate through education and other ways we are not always conscious of, which curtails our progress.

WORKS CITED González, Julio César. (2002). “La diáspora feminista en la República, 1898–1925,” Boletín del Archivo Nacional, No. 12. Henríquez Ureña, Camila. (1992). Estudios y conferencias. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas. Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas. (1999). “Perfil Estadístico de la Mujer Cubana en el Umbral del Siglo XXI.” Havana: Editorial Oficina Nacional de Estadística. Pichardo, Hortensia. (1989). Facetas de Nuestra Historia. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente. Pino Santos, Oscar. (1964). Historia de Cuba. Havana: Editorial Consejo Nacional de Universidades. Portuondo, Fernando. (1947). Curso de Historia de Cuba. Havana: Editorial Obispo 530. Sarabia, Nydia. (1968). Ana Betancourt. Havana: Editorial ciencias sociales. Vasallo Barrueta, Norma. (1995). “La evolución del tema Mujer en Cuba,” Revista cubana de psicología, 12:1–2. _____. (1997). “Social Subjectivity of Women. A Study of Cuban Women in Different Roles and Different Generations,” Cuba in the Special Period. Virginia: Studies in Third World Societies. _____. (1999). “La Mujer cubana ante los cambios económicos; impactos en su subjetividad,” Hacia una mutación de lo Social. Zaragoza, Spain: Egido editorial. Vilasís, Mayra. (1997). Lecture delivered at the Cátedra de la Mujer de la Universidad de La Habana. Yañez, Mirta. (2000). Cubanas a Capítulo. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente.

This page intentionally left blank

Three Latin American Feminist Philosophy: Early Twentieth-Century Uruguay Amy A. Oliver Uruguayan women benefited greatly from a golden age of progress, promise, and possibility that existed during the early decades of the last century, as Adriana Marrero indicates in the following chapter.1 These three decades constitute an extraordinary period of economic expansion and social progress despite a brief recession that followed the First World War. “Batllist Uruguay,” as this period is often called, reflects the decisive influence on many areas of Uruguayan life wielded by President José Batlle y Ordóñez. In this chapter I analyze the contributions to feminist thinking of some noteworthy protagonists of Batllist Uruguay. 1. The Latin American Context Combating the frequent assumption that feminism is a perspective imported exclusively from the United States or Europe, sometimes burdens analyses of feminist thought in Latin America. Although many scholars of feminism in Latin America acknowledge their appreciation of and reliance on feminist scholarship produced by intellectuals in Europe and the United States, feminist thought exists in Latin America that is not derivative of or dependent on theories produced outside the region. Autochthonous feminist thought has existed in Latin America for centuries. The thought of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695), a Mexican writer and nun, had some qualities, themes, and perspectives that are feminist. The 1982 biography of Sor Juana by Octavio Paz, Las trampas de la fe [The Traps of Faith], was instrumental in bringing Sor Juana’s life and works to a wide public. 2 Her autobiographical essay, “Reply to Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” is a brilliant and powerful defense of a woman’s right to engage in intellectual pursuits, and includes many feminist strategies and dimensions. Since the mid twentieth century, Sor Juana’s rebellious, persevering, and independent spirit has endured as a model and source of comfort for liberationist-minded philosophers working under difficult political conditions throughout Latin America.

32

AMY A. OLIVER

Thinkers focused on women’s intellectual, cultural, and social lives have identified among Latin American feminists throughout the centuries distinguished feminist thinkers such as the Venezuelan Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936), and the Mexican Rosario Castellanos (1925–1974). As revisionist reappraisals of under-appreciated women thinkers have become more frequent, scholars are reexamining writings by women on a large scale as they continue to rescue such texts from relative obscurity. Flora Tristán, Rigoberta Menchú, and Domitila Barrios de Chungara are but a few whose work has enjoyed increased critical attention. Concurrently, oral history projects enable us to hear the voices of traditionally voiceless women. Such projects document the concerns of countless women living in poverty and obscurity who rise with the sun and manage to withstand life day after day. In recent years, especially after the United Nations’ 1975 “International Women’s Year,” and the “Decade of the Woman” from 1976 to 1985, others have continued to develop feminist philosophies appropriate for Latin American contexts. Professional “feminist philosophy,” which I address in section three of this chapter, has been a constant in Latin America since the early years of the last century. Feminism, then, is not merely some northern ideology imported into Latin America; instead, a developed native feminist thought has existed in Uruguay and other countries. 2. The Feminist Climate in Batllist Uruguay Two tendencies, in some ways contradictory, predominated in Batlle y Ordóñez’s political thought about women. First, this thought was chivalrous, and thus paternalistic, in its emphasis on “protecting” women. In practice, the concern with protection manifested itself in the passage of useful legislation especially designed to benefit women in the areas of labor, motherhood, and retirement. Second, Batllist thought was liberationist, claiming equal rights for women, rejecting notions of women’s “inferiority” (which people frequently blamed the Uruguayan Catholic Church for promulgating), and promoting education and the right to vote and work outside the home. President Batlle established a political climate that, despite its patronizing elements, was propitious for feminist activism and advancement. For example, the Uruguayan teacher María Abella de Ramírez founded the first feminist center in 1903. Paulina Luisi (1875–1950), the first woman to graduate from medical school in Uruguay (in 1906), established the National Council of Women in 1916, and in 1918 gave a major lecture on feminist reorganization of the family to include women’s rights. Her sisters, Clotilde and Luisa, were the first female lawyer in Uruguay and a famous poet, respectively. Many thousands of other women of all social classes became involved in advancing feminist causes. As in other international feminist

Latin American Feminist Philosophy

33

movements of the time, women’s initial focus was exclusively on gaining civil and political rights, which left issues of institutional structure for later. A prominent Batllist politician, Baltasar Brum, who served as President of Uruguay from 1919 to 1923, expressed the attitude that prevailed among many men in Montevideo when he boasted, “Happily, in Uruguay, and I assert this with great pride, male politicians have already concerned themselves with remedying the situation of women without waiting for women to ask us to do so.”3 This quote incorporates both Batllist tendencies mentioned above because while Brum is paternalistic, he also expresses an awareness of women’s condition, and he vows to help change it. While Batllist politicians continued to establish favorable conditions for women, a range of Uruguayan thinkers delved more deeply into those familial and intimate issues in society that impacted substantially on women. Philosophers in Montevideo had perhaps even more suasion with the Uruguayan public in terms of raising consciousness about women’s issues. Intellectuals in general, and philosophers in particular, were an esteemed and integrated part of society. Their frequent public lectures were well attended, they wrote essays that were published frequently in daily newspapers, and they spoke before the legislature. In addition to their university responsibilities, their role was to engage the public and help sort out the cultural issues that kept Montevideo abuzz with activity. 3. Carlos Vaz Ferreira The major Uruguayan social philosopher, Carlos Vaz Ferreira (1871–1958), produced feminist philosophy in Batllist Uruguay still considered theoretically rich today. Vaz Ferreira was a pioneer in feminist theory, and his impact and feminist projects together demonstrate a telling lesson about feminism in Latin America. His writings and feminist political stance had significant impact on women’s rights throughout Latin America. The ideas of this seminal Latin American social thinker and his provocative study of gender and family often appear as timely and universal today as they did when first delivered in Uruguay beginning in 1914. Sobre feminismo (on feminism) is primarily concerned with examining “factual” differences between the sexes and with “normative” issues such as the political and civil rights of women, the social life of women, and the organization of the family within society. Vaz Ferreira analyzes the disproportion between the ideas and faculties of women and the scope that society allows to their activity. He advocates the right of women to participate in all that makes life valuable to the human being. He expresses ideas in Sobre feminismo that are poignant, relevant, and innovative in light of contemporary social debates throughout the Americas: “His point of view, imparted through his university professorship, the press,

34

AMY A. OLIVER

and Parliament, essentially becomes official doctrine about women, and it gains wide acceptance throughout society.” 4 In terms of content and tone, and, more significantly, impact on elite thinking, the English-speaking counterpart of Sobre feminismo may be John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women, written in 1869. Sobre feminismo, however, reflects social changes that could be expected more than a halfcentury later. Vaz Ferreira's early influence on the suffrage movement was significant and his contributions are especially noteworthy given that Hispanic men of his era, generally speaking, were not renowned for their progressive attitudes toward women. In Latin American intellectual circles in the early part of this century, one effect of pervasive machismo (and its complementary femininity) was to marginalize women so thoroughly that thought about gender and family roles could only have widespread impact when expressed by powerful men such as politicians or philosophers. Vaz Ferreira was one of Latin America’s most influential social philosophers in the early twentieth century. In 1957, the University Press of Montevideo collected and published Vaz Ferreira’s complete works in nineteen volumes. Although Living Logic (1920) and Fermentary (1938) are among his best-known works, and both are available in translation in English and several other languages, his lesser-known essay on women, men, and their roles and rights within the family, Sobre feminismo, first appeared in 1933, though Vaz Ferreira wrote it between 1914 and 1922, as he delivered segments of it as public lectures at the University of Montevideo where he was an internationally renowned professor. Vaz Ferreira would likely have published the lectures in book form much earlier than 1933 if the operations of the university press had not been suspended with some frequency. Subsequent Spanish-language editions of Sobre feminismo appeared in 1945, 1957, and 1963. Set within the Latin American experience, carefully examining Sobre feminismo has the advantage of building on a historically powerful document, one which presents cogent arguments against the marginalization of women, the infringement of their political rights, and the second-class status they experienced in marriage. Vaz Ferreira outlined a theory of cooperation between men and women that privileged monogamy, the family, and the equitable division of household tasks. He studied the ways in which pregnancy can be a disadvantage for women and suggested remedies to compensate for what he viewed as biological inequity. Well ahead of his time, Vaz Ferreira reflected on divorce, artificial insemination, and abortion. Vaz Ferreira was a painstaking, self-consciously philosophical craftsman who clearly grappled with what “evidence” he could muster to support what was essentially cultural and social criticism of the intimate dealings of men and women. He was avid in applying the idea of avoiding contradiction, an insistence on philosophical probity not then expected in

Latin American Feminist Philosophy

35

Latin American discourse about women’s roles. Some of his importance rests on just that point: he is a model of solid, anthropologically sensitive social philosophy. Interestingly, the first printing of Sobre feminismo in 1933 coincided with the year in which Uruguay enacted women’s suffrage. Since Uruguay was one of the first Latin American countries to enact women’s suffrage, the lengthy gestation period and public lectures leading to the publication of the essay reveal its timeliness within Uruguayan society and Vaz Ferreira’s role as an influential public thinker. These dates are historically significant because they show that women and men have done serious feminist thought in Latin America for nearly a century. The theories of Vaz Ferreira have not yet received the critical attention they deserve. In general, Sobre feminismo continues to be a relatively unknown work even in some militant circles in which European and North American analyses of the human condition in general, and feminism in particular, remain privileged and widely disseminated. One distinguishing feature of Vaz Ferreira’s work is that it includes analysis of justice for women within the context of the family while many contemporary theories of justice omit consideration of women in families. John Rawls, for example, in his well-known A Theory of Justice, does not address this problem.5 In the United States , women later published theories of justice that explicitly deal with the problem of the family.6 Sobre feminismo is an analysis of the social situation of the woman “of flesh and bone,” in Miguel de Unamuno’s terms, in the context of “feminism” and “antifeminism.” Vaz Ferreira explains, “those terms ‘feminism’ and ‘antifeminism,’ ‘feminist’ and ‘antifeminist,’ in reality, do more harm than good, and they complicate the many and sometimes enormous difficulties of the problems: they complicate them further with questions of words and with confusions derived from the words.”7 Vaz Ferreira believes that the terms “feminism” and “antifeminism” produce a false polarization because people exist who believe “we are the true feminists because we want to preserve the distinctive traits of the female sex. You want to make men of women; your true name ought to be ‘hominists’ and not ‘feminists.’”8 According to Vaz Ferreira, the issues are not this polarized or this simple, and this kind of resentment impedes serious analysis of the truly agonic situation of modern woman. Nevertheless, considering the different connotations the word “feminism” has, contemporary persons sometimes run the risk of being misunderstood when calling themselves “feminists.” Vaz Ferreira recognizes the importance of clarifying language usage and, consequently, he tries to extract concrete meanings when discussing feminism. Still, he claimed, “if they want to call me a feminist, I will not contradict them.”9

36

AMY A. OLIVER

The best strategy, according to Vaz Ferreira, for confronting the problem of the social situation of women has two steps: (1) examining questions of fact, the possible questions about the similarities and differences between the two sexes; (2) examining normative problems. Vaz Ferreira distinguished factual questions from normative ones in his Living Logic (1910). Factual questions are those of knowledge and verification. Normative questions are those of action, preference, and choice. The second are most relevant to the condition of woman. Among the questions of fact, of similarities and differences between the sexes, Vaz Ferreira maintains that debatable data and undebatable data exist. The undebatable fact that is most crucial and most radical for his time is: “From the union between a man and a woman, the woman can become pregnant; nothing happens to the man.”10 He argues, “Finding this fact to be satisfactory is to be ‘antifeminist.’”11 For Vaz Ferreira, factual data are of three types: (1) biological, (2) physiological, and (3) psychological. Today, as in Vaz Ferreira’s day, a debated issue is that of “the comparative intelligence of the two sexes, a special case in the category of comparative psychology.”12 In his treatment of the intelligence and mental aptitudes of women, Vaz Ferreira accepts the hypothesis that it could be verifiable that women might be less intelligent than men as he ponders why no female Ludwig van Beethoven or Charles Darwin has existed, for example. This is the weakest point in his argument and a rare occasion when he fails to take socialization into account in ways we routinely use today when trying to explain differences between social groups and their roles. More convincing is his treatment of normative problems in Sobre feminismo. The normative problems for Vaz Ferreira are: (1) a woman’s political rights; (2) a woman’s activity in society, her access to public office, her access to careers, professions, and education; (3) civil rights; and (4) the relations between the sexes and the organization of the family. The central idea in his analysis of th ese problems is to maintain the difference between “feminism of equality” and “feminism of compensation.” “Feminism of equality,” according to Vaz Ferreira, is based on the idea that “jobs and careers should be open to women as they are to men; that women should have the same civil capacity as men, the same level of education; that, in general, the sexes should be equalized by diminishing the difference between them and by placing women in the same situation as men, making them more like men.”13 For Vaz Ferreira , “feminism of equality” does not merit much attention because of the mere fact that women are biologically mistreated by the likelihood of pregnancy in their unions with men and, therefore, to speak of “equalization” is not possible. The only acceptable feminism, for Vaz Ferreira, is that of “compensation,” which is based on the idea that society must compensate

Latin American Feminist Philosophy

37

physiological injustice given that it will never be possible to equalize it and that it would be counter-productive to attempt to do so. For Vaz Ferreira, “Antifeminism takes as its guide that fact (women’s biological disadvantage). Bad feminism does not even take it into account. Good feminism strives to correct it and compensate for it.”14 With respect to the civil and political rights of women and the social participation of women, Vaz Ferreira, working with many others, had a decisive impact in favor of women in the Uruguayan legislature. Uruguay enacted suffrage in 1933, after the United States (1920) and Ecuador (1929), and before many European countries. Vaz Ferreira also proposed a bill that passed into law exactly as he had conceived it: the law of “unilateral divorce,” which “gives women the power to obtain a divorce at will, without giving cause, while men have to show just cause.” 15 This law is consistent with his theory that the situations of men and women are fundamentally different. When the law passed, “opponents of divorce did not like it because of their need to preserve the family as the basis of society. Proponents of the right to a divorce did not like it either because they framed the question as one of ‘equality.’”16 People could criticize this position of Vaz Ferreira as a case of reverse sexism in which men do not have the same right as women. It can also be placed in the context of his theory of “feminism of compensation,” and in this way he appears to propose replacing patriarchy with a form of matriarchy for the purpose of correcting historical inequities. To some extent, Vaz Ferreira also believes that matriarchy deserves a turn in beginning the long process of compensation. The normative problems that most concern Vaz Ferreira are those of relations between the sexes and the organization of the family. He addresses the structural issues that suffragist feminists had not yet had time for, and made significant contributions to theorizing about women in relation to the family: “Vaz Ferreira’s ideas about the family and the role of women in it constitute, even today, a kind of paradigm in Uruguayan society.” 17 His analysis of marriage and divorce is a curious mix of obsolete and progressive, contemporary ideas. On the one hand, he asserts that roles outside the home are for men and those inside the home are for women, that women may be less intelligent than men because the great cultural figures are men (Plato, Beethoven, William Shakespeare, and others), and that “free love” is a destructive social force. On the other hand, Vaz Ferreira is a pioneer of feminist ideas that became widespread much later. For example, although he believes that people ideally constitute relationships as monogamous marriages, he identifies marriage as an institution that regulates and limits the role of women in professions and the workforce and, therefore, needs modification to correct the unfair treatment of women. In 1917, Vaz Ferreira wrote, “A

38

AMY A. OLIVER

woman's ability to live for herself, which has to do with power, ability, and opportunity, should not depend wholly on marriage, as it appears to in mainstream society, which is one of the saddest and most unpleasant aspects of traditional society.”18 He also critiques the arguments of opponents of divorce who “reason as if those who support the right to a divorce maintained that divorce is a good.”19 Vaz Ferreira believes that expecting women to change their names when they marry while men do not modify theirs is unfair: “Isn’t this a relic of antiquated social structures in which the man owned the woman, or she was subordinate to him?”20 He was also concerned with the plight of single women in Uruguayan society, and defended the right of women to choose to remain single without society looking askance at them. “A woman’s ability to live for herself, which has to do with power, ability, and opportunity, does not depend entirely on marriage, as society would have us believe…. The horrible part is that society is organized around making pariahs of women who do not marry.”21 Vaz Ferreira’s biography illuminates in part his interest in the rights of single women. In addition to his two brothers, a biologist and a lawyer, his sister, María Eugenia Vaz Ferreira (1880–1925), was a distinguished poet. The social pressure suffered by his sister did not escape Vaz Ferreira’s attention when she chose to remain single and defy familial and societal expectations. Throughout her life, María Eugenia’s single status often received more attention than her literary work. Cultural critics of the time even referred to her as an “autumnal virgin.” Her brother, in addition to defending the rights of single women, also understood the pressures suffered by married women in oppressive relationships. For that reason, he supported a woman’s right to divorce for “irreconcilable differences,” without further explanation or elaboration. Generally, Vaz Ferreira was a progressive thinker, within whose vast writings occur some contradictions about women’s roles and history, but his study of women and family is as timely today, in many senses, as when he delivered his lectures on the subject in Montevideo beginning in 1917. He advanced the right of women to participate in all that is valuable for any human being. The impact of Vaz Ferreira’s thought was crucial to the artful and forceful discussion of the progress of Uruguayan women, even though he was not the only man working for women’s rights, and many women were working toward the same goals. Vaz Ferreira’s writings belong to a period of great activity serving the improvement of social and political conditions for women. Vaz Ferreira’s originality lies in the philosophical seriousness of purpose we can see in his arguments and in the way he exercised his social standing for the benefit of women and society.

Latin American Feminist Philosophy

39

4. Post-Batllist Developments Thirty years of Batllist ideology favorable to women’s advancement abruptly ended in March of 1933 with a coup d’etat by the conservative Gabriel Terra. Women’s suffrage, as it turned out, did not immediately translate into social change for women in Uruguay. Women did not vote for the first time until 1938 because of circumstances brought about by the coup. For many reasons, most dealing with political developments, the progress women had enjoyed in the first three decades of the twentieth century slowed and eventually stalled. As the following chapter shows, many challenges still lie ahead and structural problems remain in Uruguayan society. As women’s suffrage spread throughout Latin America (with Paraguay being the last country to enact it in 1961), men were still the predominant practicioners of philosophy. Feminist concerns sometimes arose tangentially in other philosophical discussions. For example, the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea focused on women, indigenous peoples, and children as early as 1952 in his analyses of forms of marginality. 22 More recently, theories of liberation often self-consciously advocate for the rights of women in similar ways. In recent years, as Latin American women have entered the academy in greater numbers, many women philosophers actively engage in feminist philosophy, often in addition to other philosophical areas of expertise. Scholars of literature and the social sciences have increasingly drawn philosophers into their debates about feminist theory. The number of feminist conferences, books, and journals has increased, most notably in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, but similar phenomena are present throughout Latin America. A key point of debate centers on disputes among feminist thinkers over the primordiality of gender and class. Some have maintained a traditional socialist idea that women must work toward justice with men instead of emphasizing differences between men and women, but others have argued that patriarchy must be subverted before a society unconstrained by divisions of gender could arise. While the first believe that class is primordial, the latter privilege gender-based social order in their analyses. Feminist thought in Latin America can be differentiated from many of its North American and northern European counterparts by a pervasive concern for the family and forms of Latin social life and relationships. While alternative lifestyles do exist among women in Latin America, commonly feminist philosophy has attempted to end discrimination against women while simultaneously accepting the family as the fundamental social unit. While many widely read translations of North American and northern European feminist thought are published in Latin America, their emphasis on

40

AMY A. OLIVER

the individual rather than family is not easily adaptable to some central Latin American contexts and is often seized on as evidence of unbridgeable cultural difference. Feminist thought in Latin America continues to focus first on the pressing concerns of Latin American societies, without necessarily concerning itself with questions of its applicability to other regions of the world. Instead of being a separatist movement, feminist thought is often well-served by connections forged with other areas of contemporary thought in Latin America such as the development of democracy, social justice, religious and secular ethics, and liberation philosophy.

NOTES 1. Adriana Marrero, “Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards: Social Constructions and Gender Strategies in Uruguayan High School Students,” Thinking About Feminism in Latin America and Spain, eds. Amy A. Oliver and María Luisa Femenías (Amsterdam, Value Inquiry Book Series (VIBS), Editions Rodopi, B. V., 2003), pp. 43–71. 2. Octavio Paz, Las trampas de la fe (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982); Octavio Paz, Sor Juana or the Traps of Faith, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1988). 3. Baltasar Brum, Los derechos civiles y politicos de la mujer [Women’s civil and political rights] (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1923), p. 17. 4. Silvia Rodríguez Villamil and Graciela Sapriza, El voto femenino en el Uruguay:¿conquista o concesión? [The women’s vote in Uruguay: victory or concession?] (Montevideo, Uruguay: Grupo de Estudios sobre la Condición de la Mujer en el Uruguay, 1984), p. 12. 5. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1971). 6. See, e.g., Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (N.Y.: Basic Books, 1992). 7. Carlos Vaz Ferreira, Sobre feminismo [On feminism] (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1945). 8. Ibid., p. 17. 9. Ibid., p. 111. 10. Ibid., p. 25. 11. Ibid., p. 25. 12. Ibid., p. 12. 13. Ibid., p. 16. 14. Ibid., p. 38. 15. Ibid., p. 83. 16. Ibid., p. 83. 17. Rodríguez Villamil and Sapriza, El voto femenino en el Uruguay, p. 12. 18. Vaz Ferreira, Sobre feminismo, p. 81. 19. Ibid., p. 81. 20. Ibid., p. 141. 21. Ibid., p. 92.

Latin American Feminist Philosophy

41

22. Leopoldo Zea, Conciencia y posibilidad del mexicano [Mexican consciousness and possibility] (Mexico City: Porrúa, 1952).

This page intentionally left blank

Four EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES, UNFAIR REWARDS: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND GENDER STRATEGIES IN URUGUAYAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Adriana Marrero Translated from Spanish by Soledad Caño Giral

In late 1996, in the context of doing research on Uruguayan high schools, among other tools of data gathering, I surveyed 339 students in their last year of high school. The questionnaire, self-administered, consisted of forty closed questions and an open question at the end of the form designed to allow young girls and boys to express whatever they might not have been able to express through the closed questions. I did not intend the research and the analysis of information to lead to the formulation or contrast of strong hypotheses on issues of gender. Nevertheless, I assumed from the beginning that the variable “sex” could explain, in part, or help to distinguish some differences of opinions and projects. I inferred little from there and soon abandoned the idea of relating to gender most of the phenomena that I attempted to explore. Something different happened after reading what the students had chosen to write at the end of the questionnaire. The differences I started to notice about the issues women and men preferred to raise, and the ways they chose to express their ideas, set me again on the track that I had already abandoned. The interesting element of these differences was that the students’ answers revealed them precisely when the issues of gender were not the object of reflection or inquiry. Just speaking of their academic or jobrelated future, of their plans, or of their everyday life in school, men and women showed significant differences. I will present these differences, starting with a brief description of the situation of women in Uruguay and of the structural constrictions and opportunities presented to them. 1. Uruguay in the World and Women in Uruguay Uruguay is the fortieth country in the world in the index of human development for the year 1999. This places Uruguay among the countries of

44

ADRIANA MARRERO

highest human development (forty-five in total), just one place under Argentina and six under Chile , our other neighbor in the Southern Cone. Regarding gender, Uruguay climbs four places, reaching thirty-sixth if we consider factors that the United Nations Development Program does in its index of development in relation to gender. These factors include life expectancy at birth (women surpass men by seven and a half years in Uruguay), the rate of literacy of adults, and the gross rate of enrollment for all educational levels (where the difference in favor of women surpasses seven percentage points).1 Furthermore, according to the 1999 student survey, university enrollments are predominantly female (63% of the students at the Universidad de la República are women, whereas 37% are male), and the average years of schooling is also higher among women. However, the same indexes of the United Nations Development Program show another less sparkling aspect of the same reality: Uruguay descends to fifty-sixth place in the index of gender potentiality: women occupy only 13.7% of all government positions, whatever the level, and they occupy less than 7% of seats in parliament. The Gross Domestic Product per capita of women reaches only 51% of that of men. Why such a difference between the position Uruguay holds regarding the “development relative to gender” and the “potentiality of gender”? The favorable indicators on the gender situation are already historical. A relatively long tradition of the exercise of rights of female citizenship, early compulsory schooling, and free public education benefit us. We also benefit from the laicism of a state that has sought early modernization, and that, by splitting public matters from religious life, has contributed to the erosion of traditional views of woman as wife and mother, and has favored her integration into the world of school and remunerated work. To illustrate this with dates, the Uruguayan state has had no official religion since the 1917 Constitution, and before that since 1913, the petition of divorce by the wife's will was in force. However, this process, which reached its peak in the first decades of the twentieth century, first slowed down, and now appears to have almost stopped. Women continue, now more than ever, swarming University lecture halls in search of better and further education, and do everything they can to integrate themselves into working and professional life. However, they do not achieve now what they did achieve a century ago: answers from the political elites in favor of equality. Only recently, and probably as a result of the diffusion of worldwide gender indicators, the concern of favoring participation of women in politics has started to emerge, shyly, and in isolated and minor sectors, increasing voluntarily the number of women on ballots. The question of allotments is not even a debate topic, nor is virtually any question concerning women. This is not surprising: women comprise less than seven percent of the

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

45

national parliament, and Uruguayan women only receive a third of the wealth produced by the country. After so many decades of “equality of opportunities,” the inequality of rewards is more evident than ever. 2. Education, Income, and Gender in Uruguay Today According to the Continuous Home Survey of 1997, the female activity rate reached 48.5%; the male activity rate was 71.4%. Unemployment affected 11.4% of the active workforce: 9% of male workers and 14.7% of female workers. Regarding income, overall, women received the equivalent of 63% of male income. Let us examine more closely this difference, focusing on three main variables: education level, age, and occupation of men and women. Within a general context of high discrimination of incomes, the education level has almost no incidence in the economic parity between men and women. For instance, while women without any training earn almost 53% of what men without any training receive, this percentage rises gradually as we examine the subsequent education levels, to a maximum of 57.2% for a level of “high school graduation”. Female university students receive 56.4% of what men with the same education level receive. As a result of the completion of each of the stages of what we could consider a normal career, women barely reach half of what men with exactly the same education level receive. If we said that on average women received 63% of the income of men, some kind of education must exist that, producing a less inequitable income, would manage to compensate the differences in percentage in the overall numbers and the even greater discrimination that we observed in the preceding paragraph. The answer is interesting, as it takes us to two types of badly priced qualifications in the work market: technical degrees and teaching professions. For these two types of training, women obtain relatively less unfavorable incomes: 60.2% of male income in the case of technical studies, and 67.9% in teaching professions. To appreciate better the dimension of inequality, let us add that the general averages of income of people—no matter their gender—with technical or teaching degrees, are even less than the income received by high school graduates, and the same or even less than the income received by people who have only finished middle school. Therefore, the cases in which the economic discrimination against women is less are those in which the addition of years of formal education after high school graduation appears to impair the expected income instead of increasing incomes. In other words, women have fewer disadvantages in those qualifications that have a negative rate of return.

46

ADRIANA MARRERO

Since we are considering the differences in income between genders, a quick look at what happens during the life span of workers appears suitable. We can easily see that the disparity in incomes that separates men and women describes a divergent curve that makes the incomes grow apart little by little as men and women grow older. Men and women receive higher incomes when they are between forty and forty-nine years old. At that point, women receive 58% of what their male contemporaries do. However, this difference in income varies significantly in each stage. At an earlier age, when the activities and positions are less qualified, the difference between the male and female salary is not so large. At that juncture, the effect of gender merges with a vague and generalized deflation of youth, together with the disqualification of the posts that produces a more equal and easily appreciated relation between sexes: from twenty to twentyfour years old, young women receive almost 79% of male income. In the previous stage, from fourteen to nineteen, the percentage is rather less significant (75%). Yet, as they reach twenty-five, the breach of income between genders grows gradually; from thirty to thirty-nine years old, women receive 62.2% of the male income; from forty to forty-nine, 58%; from fifty to fifty-nine, 56% and from sixty on, they barely reach 50%. The breach expands precisely when people reach the life stages in which they expect to have jobs of great responsibility. Is this growing breach in salaries a numerical expression of the effect of the glass ceiling? Perhaps the answer to this is in the difference of salaries in jobs of higher income: university professionals and upper management. If we turn again to the information from the Home Survey, and we bear in mind the overall percentage of female income, which is 63% of the male income, the dimension of differences in income of the most valued jobs will surprise us: female professionals and managers receive only 49% of male income. They may obtain degrees and pursue their professions, and even hold management positions, but the price they have to pay for this is that they will receive less than half of what their male colleagues receive. To introduce another parameter of comparison that will let us see the effects, in terms of income, that the glass ceiling may have in Uruguay, referring to the income of men and women in positions immediately below management is sufficient: office jobs. With this comparison, we do not attempt to hold the assumption—too strong and problematic—that all management or professional positions are the result of promotions from office positions of less hierarchy. We instead attempt to compare categories of what we can consider neighboring positions and could consider consecutive from a hierarchical perspective. By holding administrative or office positions in general, including heads, women are not so badly off: they receive almost 72% of what their

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

47

male colleagues earn. When we jump upwards, women pay the price. They do not reach those positions, or what they earn barely pays for the effort. In general, the difference in income between women in office positions and those who reach management or professional positions is barely 31.1%. Is this enough to compensate for the additional effort the promotion requires? The difference in income between a male clerk and a male professional or manager is 91.6%: an extra earning almost three times larger than what women receive, and men have already started out with a higher income. In summary, men reach those positions more easily and frequently, and the profit they obtain is much larger. 3. Women and Men at the Doorway of the Adult World: What Numbers Conceal and Reveal Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of the quantitative analysis of the results of the surveys we did, is the fact that “sex” as a variable did not turn out to be enlightening in statistical terms. Women and men came from similar backgrounds, their plans for after high school graduation were similar, and they appraised quite similarly the strengths and weaknesses of the education they were receiving. Even though a first reading of the twovariable charts determined that women studying English outnumbered men by more than 13%, the statistical relation between both variables did not turn out to be sufficiently significant to, on its own, allow some inference. Conversely, the practice of sport was more frequent among men than among their female classmates. In short, the relations we found were so weak, so inconclusive in inferential terms, and so insignificant from a sociological perspective that we were about to abandon the idea of using the survey to undertake an analysis based on gender. If we were to rely on these answers, to hold that no significant differences existed in the way in which male and female teenagers perceived the world of education, of work, and of future-planning would not have been difficult; society would have appeared to socialize Uruguayan teenagers in a flawlessly “neutral” way. One question’s answers finally showed a small but significant breach in the interlocking of the apparent egalitarianism in the socialization processes. This question finally revealed the weight of a social structure pushing toward different destinies and opening different opportunities. And the reason is that, when we speak of structure, emphasizing only the limiting effects is not possible. As Anthony Giddens says, structure has a dual character: it constrains, limiting the stock of possible courses of action in a given situation, but it also indicates tracks, opportunities, and crevices. It supplies the open tracks of the established, and leaves narrow trails to explore, spaces for innovation.2

ADRIANA MARRERO

48

That is why change is possible, as is endurance, as we shall see. Young women place themselves as agents; they do not confine themselves to bear the situation. They interpret and skillfully pick their way through it. Young women are dexterous, and find those small but significant crevices that society appears to promise them. The opportunity of “agency”, the possibility of innovating within the crystallized structural spaces or even against them, and the acceptance or rejection of this opportunity, makes young men and women end up standing on different sides of the road. Let us see the question and the answers. Table 1 In the future, if it only depended on your will, what would you like to be? (In percentages) WOULD LIKE TO BE

MEN

WOMEN

TOTAL

University /Liberal Professional

24.4

47.5

39.0

Educator, teacher, professor

0.8

5.4

3.7

Civil Servant, Bank Clerk In care of household and children Artist, Sportsperson, Craftsperson Businessperson, High Management

0.8 2.5 17.6 53.8

4.9 2.5 7.4 32.4

3.4 2.5 11.1 40.2

The purpose of appealing exclusively and simply to will was to make the students forget, for a moment at least, their rational or strategic elements or factors that could influence the process of decision making on their working or professional future. The question had to work as a sort of “magic wand” that would turn the answers of a cold self-administered questionnaire into the boys’ and girls’ dreams and wishes, no matter how unfeasible they were. Did the wand work? Table 1 is the result of a re-categorization of the probable answers the young students could give. It tries to show a distribution that collected the different destinies, some easier to achieve than others, in six basic categories, that could link the different life styles, values, and tastes. For an accurate reading, let us compare the rows, line by line, to perceive the different answers of women and men. According to the table, women outnumber men in their preference for university professions (by twenty-three percentage points), for educational careers such as elementary school and high school teachers (we will analyze this later), and, surprisingly, for office jobs. The five percent of preferences

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

49

for an office job cannot distract us from the nature of the question. This situation appears as if Cinderella had asked her godmother, as her only wish, to grow old under the florescent lights in a nine-to-five job. Men outnumber women in their preference for business activities, in particular those concerning their companies (more than twenty-one percentage points of difference) and for sport and artistic activities (more than ten points of difference in relation to women). Without worrying about the traditional expectations of gender, men and women pair off percentages regarding their wish to stay at home, taking care of the household and children. How should we interpret these answers? The first thing that immediately comes to our attention is the thoroughly diagnosed phenomenon, in Uruguay, of the realism and pragmatism of our youth: the great majority chooses fairly ordinary occupations and professions that do not challenge their likely chances and daily routines.3 If it only dependent on their will (that is, if no determinations or conditionings of any sort interfered), none of them would travel the world, none of them would be an astronaut, and none of them would aspire to become a tycoon; nobody dreams of winning the Nobel Prize. The wand appears to have rusted, perhaps due to disuse. The differences between genders are conspicuous. Men, more than women, took into account the simple taste for enjoyment and fun. Men more than women preferred recreational or expressive activities such as arts and sports; they also preferred working activities that offer, at least in appearance, greater freedom. To avoid, perhaps, any relation of dependency, forty-four percent of men would like to own their companies. Conversely, women do not appear concerned about this. Considering the high remuneration men obtain in management positions, and assuming they consider this an attainable goal, that they wish to reach these positions more than their female classmates do is not surprising. Are young women giving up in advance a goal that will be elusive, and will not carry great economic returns? In the same interpretative direction that men search for advantageous and relatively less demanding positions, the hypothesis that the few young people that chose to stay at home are expressing their rejection of the rigorousness of the remunerated work market, more patent to them than the rigor of domestic work, would appear possible. Assuming this does not mean we refuse to consider another hypothesis: that they just simply wish to take care of their household and children. Moreover, the small number of women preferring housework contributes to underscoring the fading—at least within particular socio-economic layers—of the traditional model of women limited to the role of wife and mother. The textual statements of the students, spontaneous and unmonitored, will help to shed light on these questions. For now, we can reasonably limit

50

ADRIANA MARRERO

our inquiry to the question of the possibility that young women consider the liberal or educational professions, and office jobs, particularly bank clerks, which applicants often enter by contest, to be the meritocratic tracks that lead to success within a social structure that strongly constrains toward adscription and disparity between men and women. Perhaps, vaguely conscious of the difficulties they will face in the professional, academic, or work world in general, the young women dream of spaces for themselves where their merits, their effort, and their abilities, instead of the spontaneity, enjoyment, and freedom of action men appear to wish for, mark the differences of effectively received social rewards. They may consider the formalization of professional or bureaucratic norms, impersonal rules and procedures in complex organizations, and degrees and rankings not as limitations to possible expansion of the spheres of action of the individual, but as mechanisms of protection against discrimination or arbitrariness, and as providers of devices of measurement and rewards of their merit, above every other difference, including those of gender. Perhaps this entails giving up expressiveness, creativity, or the highest incomes , they could say, but it ensures tangible results. We can also consider the high ranking formalization of some systems, and rigid and parsimonious regulations on promotions, as the one ruling in elementary and high school teaching that women say they prefer, as a mechanism of protection against the tensions and frustrations that characterize other highly competitive academic and professional careers. From this perspective, women would give up fighting for good positions in the more valued and prestigious professions, but they would also be giving up the tension derived from job insecurity, greater salary discrimination, and permanent competition. This gains greater plausibility if we turn back to the numbers we examined earlier; let us remember that office jobs and teaching jobs, although poorly paid, were the least unequal in terms of income. All the above does not mean to imply that young women perceive accurately the differences in remuneration, job opportunities, social rewards, and disparity between genders that we have described. It does not entail that their answers necessarily reveal explication of the long deliberating processes that these issues take into account. It does not mean that the spaces preferred by women effectively result, in real life, as garrisons protecting against inequality. We instead think that, if we insist on considering—as Giddens, among others, does—individuals as competent participants of society and capable of making valid interpretations in given contexts, young women can find themselves in condition to perceive the dimension of the difficulties other women in similar situations have to face, and consequently prepare themselves as best they can to face these situations, even though they do not

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

51

necessarily know the roots or know how to explain the causes of such difficulties. The available information does not allow us to contrast empirically such hypotheses. However, we can explore their plausibility through analysis of the statements of the young women and men. If the young women sustained a more patently meritocratic ideology oriented around achievements, and they sought to compensate—in a more or less conscious way—for the social and psychological disadvantages coming from their condition of women in a public space characterized by male prevalence, we would expect to find in their expressions more self-demand, more disposition to work, and a better acceptance of effort. In other words, if young women believe that others will effectively judge them by and reward them for their effort, they will probably show their disposition to make that effort. Moreover, if they believe in the force of meritocratic mechanisms, they will also be more demanding of others. In general terms, and from a typical-ideal perspective, belief in achievement and merit pushes toward achievement and merit; whereas the belief in the significance of ascribed qualities, such as parentage, gender supremacy, or racial inequality, invites conformity with the place assigned by the inequality system in force. When an unequal structure based on ascribed qualities, such as gender, for instance, combines with a meritocratic ideology oriented around achievement, the probable behavior is more complex. Possibly, the individuals or groups benefited by the structure based on ascribed qualities, tend to seek the formal clearances that allow them on one hand, to compete with the other groups in an open system, and on the other, to legitimize the revenues of the greater relative rewards that the existing inequality system guarantees. Meanwhile, underprivileged individuals or groups—women in this case—are likely to hang on to the meritocratic mechanisms available, expecting to obtain formal clearances and the tools that let them overcome the adverse structural conditionings. The analysis would be even more complex if we were to consider other sources of inequality such as social class or ethnic origin. Considering that our universe of study has a relatively homogeneous background, we will consider these other factors as constant or irrelevant, and we will focus on the question of gender. So now, let us try to give this theorization some empirical flesh. In summary, what do young women say when they speak? And above all, how do they say it? We will use the answers written by the students to the last open question of the questionnaire: Is there something else you would like to tell us about high school or your plans for the future? Thus, the question was an invitation to the young women and men to express freely, in their words, their opinions, worries, wishes and fears. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed (167 total) accepted the invitation. We will show the differences of the

52

ADRIANA MARRERO

expressions of women and men in two aspects of their reality: first, regarding their views on the education they are currently receiving; and second, regarding their projects and plans for the future. 4. Different Perceptions of Themselves, Different Perceptions of the World: Terms of Discrepancy Between Women and Men A conspicuous feature of female discourse that we gathered in the classrooms is the determination to always demand more: more challenge, more order, more hygiene, more organization, more punctuality, and assiduity on the part of teachers. We will examine actual examples. However, to interpret these examples, we need to take into account that their value is not so much in their frequency—which evidently has its significance—but instead we should take into account how pertinent these demands are in the global context of the statements. In this case, each passage works as a small piece of a big puzzle: taken separately, the express interests, wishes, and individual tastes; but taken as a whole, in the general context, they form a different composition, a configuration of senses of a different level with specific features. That is why frequency is not necessarily the most important aspect. As with a puzzle, if we are to form a picture, just one piece may prove essential, more characteristic than many others, more common, and similar to another forming part of the background. This does not imply arbitrariness of interpretation. The textual statements of the students neutralize the subjective sense of their acts from the moment when they accept the invitation to talk—or rather to write—about what they wished. 4 We will examine next this objective dimension: the dimension of language, of words chosen, of ways of expression, of topics chosen. Conversely, we will examine what was not said, what is absent, and what is omitted. Women, unlike men, express disagreement with the level of instruction they receive. We will show next some examples of this phenomenon. The adverse opinions on the level of education come, without exception, from female lips. Furthermore, the categorical and clear way of expressing this disapproval is surprising. Due to the fact that they believe high school does not prepare them for college, or they consider it a mere formality, or because they find it too all-embracing, or for other reasons that young women make explicit, women express their wish to receive better and more profound instruction: “I don't think the education we receive is adequate to enter college.” “High school does not prepare us for anything now. The years we spend in it are just going through the motions, whereas, as far as I'm

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

53

concerned, they should be something more, because when we leave high school, we have had twelve years of study from which we barely obtain what is needed (including elementary school).” “High school is not challenging.” “High school is a disaster, the education level is getting worse with time! About my future plans: the work field is getting more limited with time and it is more difficult to work in something we like.” “They should give us a more solid education. We should be taught different subjects from the beginning and continue with those subjects until the end. Thus, we would finish learning completely about each subject, and not a little about each one. In the end, we don't learn much. One should not bite off more than one can chew.” “I think that the education in high school has declined (in public institutions and in private ones) in the last few years; I make this judgment because I have elder brothers, and even with my parents, we compare and together we draw this conclusion. Even if comparisons are not always valid, in matters of ‘education’ I think it is important, as we are preparing ourselves to deal with the future world. And it is in our hands (in the young peoples’ hands) to try to improve each day.” Let us compare now the content and the tone of the women’s manifestations with others, much more acquiescent, belonging to two young boys. The level could improve, they say, but, in essence, is quite satisfactory. “From my point of view, regardless of the conditions where we study, we have a good educational level . . . which must be improved. Honestly, I don't know yet what I will do.” “High school is good support for the future even though the educational aspect could improve. It could also integrate classes and other high schools with sport activities.” Women are more willing than men to turn their dissatisfaction into concrete demands for a better level of education. They are not simple complaints. Young women demand an education more suitable to their needs, and more challenging. As we will see, the proposals are not a female prerogative, but the men who suggest a more demanding education are scarcer:

54

ADRIANA MARRERO “I think it would be convenient to intensify some courses (such as languages) through an increase in the hours of each course and by providing better teachers. This latter aspect should be for all subjects since only a few have good teachers. Besides, there should be intensive courses in computer sciences and other subjects that prepare us for the future.” “I think that there are subjects that do not correspond to the different curricular options. Other subjects should be studied thoroughly.” “They should give more importance to subjects that are useful for university studies and add auxiliary subjects such as computer science, book-keeping, or typing.”

The response below, by a young male engineering student, is noteworthy for the proposals he expresses to improve secondary education: “We should have computer science and a better library. Offer extra classes as prerequisites for difficult subjects. Have the necessary number of subjects for our level of study.” Other men also turn into proposals their dissatisfaction with the high school they are attending. But the accents are different, the proposals are lined up with the boys’ tastes and wishes: access to library, “better comfort,” as one claims, optional sports or workshops to smooth the way toward the work world. These things replace the auxiliary subjects, the longer time dedicated to subjects, and the intensive courses of the female discourse. “Free access to the library for books used in college. The high school should offer better comfort.” “In my opinion, there should be a workshop in high school, of an optional character, on guidelines on how to find a job.” “There should be a sport structure similar to North American high schools, with scholarships and everything.” Women, and not men, demand an education in accordance with the needs of daily life; but what is daily life? The present, real life, or simply “life,” is something that secondary education should not leave out of its curricular content, say women. The statements we present are interesting because of their choice of words—just the reference to “life” would provide enough material to say a lot—and because of the meaning the young women give

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

55

these words. A style of expression that, at first glance, we could quickly characterize as “traditionally feminine” and intimate refers to issues about different spheres of activity, eventually suitable for articulatation through education. According to the first of the cases we shall see, to prepare for “life” is to get ready for the domestic world, but first—at least, syntactically—for the work and professional world. Both worlds constitute, equally, the everyday world, the world “of daily application.” This idea may appear clearer in the second of the texts cited. “The reality of life” does not consist, in her opinion, of any mystery linked to more or less ineffable forms of subjective experience. On the contrary, “the reality of life” refers to something as public, objective, and generic as “the population and the country.” The terms of comparison she uses: “the reality of life of the population,” opposing it later to what is not real, to the “fictitious characters” educators appear to imagine confirm the meaning of her expressions. This girl places fantasy and fiction in the grown-up world, represented by education—that imagines unreal beings—and not in the world of youngsters. The third example shows the same kind of worry: education should include “current affairs.” Again, the emphasis is not on expressiveness, but on objectivity. She explicitly asks information. “There are subjects with lots of unnecessary topics. And they lack others, more necessary for a good preparation for life, either professionally or for the household. Namely, that what we learn has a daily application.” “The subjects of middle school and high school should be adapted to the reality of life of the population and the country. The people who make the educational programs do not fit in with us, but apparently with fictitious characters, not real ones.” “From my point of view, some subjects should be removed and some subjects on current information added.” From this preference for “everyday life” issues, holding any hypothesis on the force of traditional models of gender is not plausible. On the contrary, everyday life includes domestic life and professional and public life. In such an intertwined world, evidently, current affairs issues consist of the immediate and national reality and regional, international, and environmental affairs. If we can draw any conclusion from this, women are not asking for an education more specifically linked to concrete aspects of life, but generically linked to different aspects and spheres of everyday deeds.

56

ADRIANA MARRERO

Women demand more organization and control in educational institutions. The following four examples, from girls attending state schools—where institutional functioning has more problems—illustrate the demands toward teachers and school staff. The young women express their unfavorable opinions in a clear, categorical, and sometimes brusque way. They know the regulations and they demand their observation; they judge strictly those adults—the teachers—who, instead of behaving as role models, show a lack of responsibility and respect; the girls have shaped standards on how a school should run and they do not hide their dissatisfaction. Again, from the point of view of these girls, the grown-up world and the youth world appear to have changed places. The irresponsible, disrespectful, disorganized, and the ones who lack knowledge and ability are, for them, the adults. “I wish educators were more serious about their attendance, and that they took charge of their courses from the beginning. That students were respected as we respect the teachers.” “I would like teachers not to be absent, and better organization. That sports were included in every grade and that the teaching of languages was organized and useful for the future (not as nowadays).” “I think that there is great disorganization in educational institutions. I also disagree with the fact that the teachers are not qualified and that they are often absent. The teachers sometimes have no pedagogical notions and they do not know how to handle students.” “I don't think micro-experience is a good educational system. The organization of the school is not good. Even though there are good teachers, there are others that are not capable of teaching.” Women, more than men, perceive and complain about the lack of hygiene on the school premises. Are they conditioned by the socialization of gender, or simply more demanding? We cannot know. However, judging by the context of the demands, this aspect appears to constitute just one more in the general trend toward a critical and demanding attitude—toward themselves and toward others—that we observed in the previous items. Not cleaning, not worrying about the hygiene of the school premises, is also neglecting the responsibilities that correspond to those in charge of running educational institutions. Again, the adults are failing to comply with their duties. “There should be more hygiene in the places of study.”

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

57

“That the place of study be more controlled in all aspects such as hygiene and general upkeep, such as the replacing of windowpanes, etc.” “There should also be more cleanliness.” “That they clean the school more.” “Also in the places of study there should exist more cleanliness.” While women students appear to describe a “childish” grown-up world—irresponsible and disrespectful, without proper instruction, disorganized, and unconcerned about cleanliness—and they place themselves in the role of assessors and mature censors, the case of men is different. They expressively declare their immaturity; they call themselves “boys,” immature, unprepared; they openly show their fears of problems and underline the costly effort they expect to expend in the future. They show themselves to be, as we will see, worried, underprivileged, and bewildered. Their discourse is different from that we saw in the case of women. Let us try to systematize these questions. Men, and only men, feel they are too young or immature. Men perceive themselves as unprepared to make decisions or face the future. We will present three examples of three men: The first sees himself simply as “too young.” The second talks about immaturity at the moment of making choices. The third asks for dialogue and understanding, and consideration of “age.” The three examples correspond to men of different curricular options (one was studying architecture, the second, law, and the third, medicine), but all of them attended private institutions. Even in the hypothesis that these kinds of students are used to feeling more protected, and therefore perceive themselves as needing more care and guidance, we should not lose sight of the fact that none of these examples belong to women. The perception of immaturity links more to gender than to the type of institution or family background. “When it comes time to make decisions about your future, you are too young and you don't even know half the options you have. I see youngsters live in indecision!” “Yes, I think that a system should be implemented so that the youngster has more time and maturity to make his choice, with respect to the high school he wants to attend.”

58

ADRIANA MARRERO “I think that youngsters could be helped in high school if they understood and were informed of the reality of the country, which is something good taking into account the age and the problems taking place in it.”

Finally, let us consider the apparent impersonality with which young boys refer to themselves: except for the first phrases of the first case, where we can read textually “you are too young,” and “you don't know,” the boys express the rest of the references to immaturity in impersonal and generic terms: “the youngster” and “the youngsters.” These boys are not referring to all young people; they refer to themselves, because they talk from their experience. Why do they use this form of expression? We do not know for sure. We may hazard that, for the young men themselves, coming of age and just about to leave high school classrooms forever, confessing their immaturity in the first person singular is not easy. Only men refer to effort. In this type of analysis, sometimes the significance of the case and its heuristic performance is more relevant than numerical frequency. This is one of those cases. We did not find in this category many examples of students who refer to the effort of their endeavors, but the only two examples we will quote next—from men—are revealing. One, because it constitutes a rather long text, in which the young boy takes his time to explain, appealing to his rejection to the endeavor, the effort demanded by the process by which, first he chose, and then put aside, a profession. Finally, it brings in an additional justification: the discouragement toward competition among eventual colleagues. The second case is interesting because he chooses to emphasize effort when he expresses his intention of doing what many of his classmates are going to do without complaint: study and work at the same time. Even more meaningful is the fact that he is talking of studies that most students do not consider too demanding (a short technical career, and not a very difficult one) and have rather favorable working conditions (as a bank clerk, relatively well paid, with benefits for students and without long working hours). Is the effort, then, so great? Let us read: “At first, I was inclined to attend medical school. It was the most appealing to me then. But after some time, I was discouraged because I realized the effort it would take and the time it entailed (8 to 10 years). Anyway, I'm not so fond of medicine as to spend 10 years of my life studying it. It also counts to have the knowledge that there is an ‘overpopulation’ of doctors now, and that not all of them are doing well; I think that this was what discouraged me a good deal.”

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

59

“I consider that you should finish high school, if only to find a job. My future plans are to get a job in a bank and make a great effort to graduate from business administration school.” For women, on the other hand, effort is a topic that does not exist as such. Perhaps another way of doing things exists? Their silence appears to say so. Only for comparative purposes, let us see how unreservedly this young woman expresses her wish to achieve her ambitious and diverse intentions: “My goal is to be a lawyer, a Penal Lawyer, and become a judge. I would also like to become a physiotherapist and a very good sportswoman.” We will read similar statements later on. Only men express a deep discouragement in relation to the future. A few manifestations of disorientation, discouragement, or deep despair appear, and all of them belong to men. They appear downhearted, overwhelmed by an uncertain future, and by circumstances that appear to them completely uncontrollable. Let us pay attention to the second example: the young man does not hesitate to link his luck directly to the “world-wide situation.” Who would be able to handle that? Their discouragement comes from their lack of faith in education and in the possibilities of future welfare that it promises, but also, probably, from a perception of helplessness to face an adult world into which they do not dare go yet. The statements themselves are not substantial; they tell us little about issues although they express, in their emptiness, a disorientation manifested even in the way they construct the sentences, as in the second case. “There are not many possibilities for what I would like to study.” “If the global situation goes on like this, studies are not going to be of any use for us. Neither do I think we will have a lot of future if we continue like this.” “No matter how much I study, I'm not going to ensure my life and my future with a degree or a job.” Again, and taking into account the hypotheses we formulated before, let us compare these words with the expressions of a young woman on the same issue: the future, education, and her attitude toward them. Again, not much concrete information is present, but the content, together with the form, are different from the ones belonging to her male colleagues, “I think that the basis is studying, and without this nothing can be achieved. Nothing else.”

60

ADRIANA MARRERO 5. The Future: Certainties, Uncertainties, and Strategies to Face It

At this stage of the analysis to raise a question that, if it were to receive a positive answer, may shed new light on the statements of the high school students appears pertinent. Are not the doubts and discouragement of the young boys the result of a more accurate representation of the reality they have to face? Could not it be that the apparently so secure and adult stance of the young girls hide an insufficient reflection on the difficulties, obstacles, and unfairness that they are bound to suffer? Do they have a kind of selfreliant and arrogant attitude to face the conditions of an adult world they are unacquainted with and they underestimate? With the facts available right now, we already know that, regarding the advantages of gender that await them, men do not have many reasons to feel discouraged. Unemployment affects them less, income will benefit them more, and they will have better opportunities to reach high positions. Although the situation of the work market for youth may provide sufficient reasons for discouragement, to interpret those words as expressions of a more “realistic” view than that of women does not appear reasonable. The difference, perhaps, is not in the fact that the perception of reality is more or less accurate. The difference is in the way they react to that perception. So let us proceed to answer the following, perhaps more interesting, questions, for which we have not introduced yet elements of interpretation. The appraisal of the texts produced by women do not allow us to talk about lack of reflection about the future, about the disparities underlying the different systems, or about the difficulties of their insertion in the work market. The question of gender, as a problematic instance and cause of disparity, is completely absent in the discourses. But other sources of unfairness, such as those derived from socio-economic position, or family background, or the availability or not of social networks to ease their insertion in the labor market, are clearly explicit in the women’s discourse. “In item thirty-seven, even though I believe high school should have subjects of general interest, it should also specialize and go into more depth in the subjects of each curricular option. It is regrettable that although you study hard, if you do not have a good economic position or acquaintances inside, you cannot get a good job, particularly in the area where I hope to work, international relations or political science.” “Yes, the University should be more open to economic possibilities without having to waste years due to problems having nothing to do with the student.”

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

61

“I hope that they will be fair at University and that they give the same opportunities to all of us.” “Everyone should have the possibility of finishing high school. It is important that everyone has knowledge and social charm.” “Yes, I think that education in Uruguay is very poor and I think it is wrong that there is such a difference in terms of level between a public and a private school.” “Yes, I think there are too many things to improve. The state should provide more resources to the Education Institutes, as education is what creates the rest of the professions. Without teachers or professors there would not be lawyers, notaries, doctors, etc.” Evidently, young men are not unaware of social justice affairs or of the concerns about social effects of shortfalls of education. They express themselves directly. What they choose to express is, to some extent, slogans. Far from the moderate tone, sometimes thoughtful and balanced, sometimes simply hopeful of the girls, boys choose those words, those phrases that could well be adequate to close a speech in a school assembly. I do not think I am exaggerating, but let the readers make their judgment. “Fewer reforms and more money for education!” “Do not throw out the subjects that form the general culture of an individual. It is necessary to defend the possibility of having access to an increasingly greater criticism. An uneducated nation is a defenseless nation. No to the reactionary and backward-looking reform that prefers to computerize us rather than teach us how to think.” Is one way of expression better than the other? Is perhaps the more moderate or balanced way of saying similar things sometimes superior or better? This is not the time to discuss this question. We do not attempt to do so; we limit ourselves to demonstrating a difference that may be significant. We saw earlier the disorientation and feeling of defenselessness and bewilderment men expressed; we also saw that these are not issues that women deal with. If the future is, in the best of cases, uncertain and even threatening, taking steps to face it with probabilities of success may be necessary. Analyzing the words of the students, a set of strategies, perhaps reducible to a few types, through which they tried to reconcile what is desirable with what is possible, and in general, handle the risk of unknown

62

ADRIANA MARRERO

circumstances, together with the expressions of wishes and preferences, should be possible to find. If men show themselves to be defenseless, are they the ones attempting to prepare better for a possibly hostile world? Will they try to compensate for the hesitation and immaturity they perceive in themselves with strategies better equipped to allow the men to confront the potential hazards? We find exactly the opposite. Women, not men, are the ones who have planned better their academic, work-related and even personal aims, in search of security and achievement. The belief in achievement, as we said earlier, leads the way to meritocratic paths and to the search for the accomplishment of valuable goals that are tangible and measurable. Belief in ascription eases acceptance of predetermined destinies assuming the force of an order considered “natural” to some extent and difficult to oppose. Women, we supposed previously, orient themselves more toward achievement. They express this distinctly, as we will see now, by the complexity of academic and job-related strategies that cover several possibilities: multiple academic careers, a combination of short careers with immediate returns with longer careers, sequencing of job-related, academic and family-related accomplishments, merging careers and occupations with other creative activities with an eye toward financial returns, or giving up their preferences with an eye toward more industrious goals. Let us see some of these strategies. A combination of short careers allows quick access to the labor market to embark upon university studies later on. Below are two examples to illustrate this approach. Both cases deal with planning for the future in subsequent stages: first, they deal with short-term instruction with quick financial returns, to start university studies later on. The second case considers more involved alternatives. Although the girl knows which field she wants to specialize in, she aspires to a life project, which includes living together with her partner. “My plans for the future are to become a chemistry teacher, and then study chemistry at the University.” “In the future I would like a short course of study to start a career so as to start working and bring in money. Once established, I would continue studying and start university to be a vet or study biology specializing in zoology. That is to say, I would work to make money and be economically independent to be able to leave home to live with my boyfriend and continue studying at the same time.” This combination of careers is of a more practical character oriented to the labor market with other careers or activities of a more creative character.

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

63

Here we can see the way women appraise their future job-related possibilities, sometimes trying to combine and sometimes giving up their vocational and creative ambitions in favor of those with a more practical character. The verbal form used expresses a lot: one thing is what the girl is going to do and going to be, that is, the concrete goal she sets out; and another is what she would like. The firl puts the first before the second, which she relegates. Consider, for instance, the second case. It belongs to a girl who said in an item of the survey that, if only dependent on her will, she would like to be a dancer when she grew up. At the end of the questionnaire, as a comment, she adds that what she likes best is to be a history teacher; although what she is finally going to be is an accountant. A greater distance could not exist between what she ideally wishes for and what she plans effectively: the practical-rational side prevails on the creative and the emotional-vocational sides, making them vanish completely from the horizon of possibilities for the girl, who is taking the “Economy” curricular option. “I would like to be, besides an accountant, which is what I am going to be, a history teacher.” The following case is perhaps even more interesting. It presents many elements, all part of a life project where the girl fuses profession as a means of living with other moral considerations about herself and about the welfare of others. This is also harmonized with the project of developing creative aspects of her personality. She leaves nothing out, and each thing takes its proper place: practicality, values, and creativity merge in a state of parity in the life planned by the girl. “I aspire to have a good job (doctor) that is beneficial not only to my economic and moral welfare, but also to others; and some time to develop my creativity, either in an institute or on my own.” Other women seek to combine different occupations and educational tracks to satisfy their material needs and their likes and inclinations: “I’m going to study business administration and I would like to study acting so as to be a great actress.” “My goal is to be a lawyer, a Penal lawyer, and become a judge. I would also like to become a physiotherapist and a very good sportswoman.” Perhaps due, in part, to the scarcity or the recent development of graduate studies in the country, or due to the lack of knowledge of subsequent goals in

64

ADRIANA MARRERO

the academic career, a lack of experience exists regarding this type of project. In the context of this same research, family background largely conditions access to different circuits of information that allow discovery of the true options that young men and women have and the conditionings they have to face. The sons and daughters of people distant to academic professions do not have a defined image of the stage following the first degree. The possibility of graduate studies and resorting to scholarships as a means of support seldom appears in the projects of the students. Only one case exists, of a woman, who visualizes the sequencing of the different trainings planned, in terms of accomplishment of undergraduate and graduate qualifications. When the time comes to talk about graduate education, two cases exist. “My plans for the future are based on finishing my studies with a good preparation and to be able to obtain a scholarship to do a graduate course in literature and drama.” Determined not to content themselves with only one degree or occupation, some girls simply express, in a relatively disordered way, the different activities they intend to develop. No hierarchy, sequencing, or giving up any activity exists in favor of another here. Juxtaposition and listing exist, and instead of refined strategies, we would better talk of multiple projects. In the first case, the girl says she “would like” to be an elementary school teacher and also study in a school that does not exist (Humanities and Social Sciences). Although she does not know for sure the place where she must go to enroll for University, we must take her case into account as an example of a disposition toward effort. The second case is also interesting. Consider that our societies associate all the activities and occupations she mentions perfectly as the most traditional female roles. But all of them imply some sort of accomplishment. If we can interpret her words as part of an imaginary formed mainly from the internalization of gender roles, we may discover that accomplishment would imply for her the successful performance of the activities she has in mind. Let us remember that the structure, as we said before, constrains and also indicates the admitted ways and the safest and most popular avenues to advance toward achievement of individual goals. If she has learned correctly what society—namely her family, school or cinema—has taught her, what better way of ensuring success than trying to accumulate all those permitted and recommended activities? Put in this way, the question has a simple answer: she will be everything: teacher, mother, wife, and “executive secretary.” “I would like to be an elementary school teacher and also study in the Humanities and Social Sciences College.”

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

65

“My plans are: to be a teacher and executive secretary and be able to have quite a great general culture, so as to continually better myself and finally to get married and have a family.” Finally, a man—the only one who plans to develop multiple activities—appears to fit pretty well in the view we outlined about masculine concerns. His project is quite innovative, and even enviable for some. He combines, the same as the girls, studies of a more practical character with activities of a creative character. However, his projects are rather fragmentary; they give up little, and attempt a lot: he first mentions computer science and English studies that students usually consider “auxiliary” or “complementary” to long-term studies. He wants to “study drama,” but does he want to be an actor? We know the effort and difficulty it would entail, but he does not mention that. He simply wants to work as a “party entertainer.” “I plan to study computer science, finish English, study drama, and work as a party entertainer.” Two points of view could consider teaching professions, together with office jobs, as havens: first, as meritocratic tracks oriented to some kinds of achievements, such as obtaining degrees, grades, and positions that, although badly paid, ensure stable work and particular goals and, second, as refuges from the tensions and possible frustrations derived from the highly competitive atmosphere prevalent in other professions. These two visions do not emerge in a pure state from the statements of the female students. However, we can perceive a strange mixture of both, in which the female students stress as evident the character of the teaching profession as a haven relatively separated from the worries and anxieties of the world. If we were to pay attention to some of the girls, the sphere of teaching belongs to the extra-everyday. A kind of aloofness, of indifference for the material, of peace and total commitment, surrounds the person touched by the educator’s “calling.” More crucial matters exist than those that worry those of us who are in the world; and these young “vocational” women want to dedicate their lives to these matters. Somehow, they shelter themselves, hiding from the world, and secluding themselves in the almost monastic life conditions compelled by the current salaries and working conditions in poor schools. To do that, evidently girls must reaffirm their convictions, making them explicit: they know what they are leaving behind, but they do not care, because they have found their calling (in the first case) or because their real job is not to be a teacher but to serve God (in the second case), or because finding in this world the purity and sincerity that only children can offer is not possible. Three examples that illustrate these issues are:

66

ADRIANA MARRERO “And regarding my future I want to be an elementary school teacher and it doesn't matter to me how little they pay me because it is my vocation.” “My future plans are to study to be an elementary teacher, graduate, and get married, have children, and work for God.” “I plan to be a good nursery teacher. I love children because without them it would be impossible for me to smile. Only children are sincere and they show love without asking anything in exchange.”

Again, to have comparison parameters, let us contrast these expressions with that of a boy in a note on one margin of the questionnaire. Just as attracted to the teaching career , he does not accept the idea of giving up standard levels of remuneration because of this attraction. “I would like to be an educator (history teacher) and eat.” And what do men plan to do? In general, our impression that men worry less about finding ways that ensure and reassure certain success as the case of women appears to confirm. Except for the case we saw of the young man who intended to work as a party entertainer, no other case of a man expressing a will to pursue more than one educational track exists. Their greatest ambition is a university career, a degree. According to the context of remunerations we saw at the beginning of the chapter, to obtain the highest social and financial rewards, they need a degree. This is not enough to free men from uncertainties and doubts. We have already seen how some of them expressed themselves in a way that revealed discouragement and bewilderment. We will see here another example of the misgivings men have. However, some others have a different attitude: in general, they appear to rely on the future, even with fewer weapons than the ones their female partners persist in seeking and accumulating. A degree will be enough for them. What is it enough for? What are the boys’ objectives and life prospects? We will systematize and explain them briefly. A university career provides a better chance of entering the labor market than other possible courses of training. The case of this boy is interesting because of the terms of comparison he uses: being a psychologist is easier work than just studying English and computer science. In the deliberation process, he sets off with not overly ambitious goals, such as finding a job, for which he sets first the minimum requirements—high school, English, and computer sciences—and he considers them not insufficient, but inappropriate for the future work market; so he draws the conclusion pursuing a university career is better. The accumulation of qualifications is not an option for him:

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

67

“I would like to study psychology, I don't mind studying in private or state universities. I think that being a professional carries more possibilities of finding a job than finding a job without higher education. I see that a lot of people study computer science and English but, in a few years, the job vacancies for those qualifications will be exhausted.” We do not know what types of activities he postponed, but we can guess they are desires or activities that he could not fulfill due to financial shortcomings. At any rate, the university career would serve as a passport for the fulfillment of an undetermined set, unknown to us, of personal needs. “I would like to be an architect some day and do everything I wasn't able to do.” A profession or a simple occupation, as a means of making a living and as a means to obtaining “all the comforts” or a “good standard of living,” is a purpose expressed by men. This indicates that women do not have such high ambitions; perhaps because they know that the outcome will not depend only on them. The two examples we will see next show a desire to obtain economic welfare and an outstanding lack of doubt about the possibilities of its attainment. In the first case, another element is present. The boy, convinced of his traditional role of “man” and “future family man,” visualizes himself as the “breadwinner” that provides economic means for subsistence of the home. “Obtain a degree in Chemical Engineering, live with all the comforts that can be provided to a home, and to have a good economic standard.” “Have comforts and a good economic standard sustained by a good and stable job.” Other young men underscore other kinds of concurrences: the need to harmonize the goals of public life—articulated by a profession—and the gratifications of private life by forming a family, and having and bringing up children. The text presented by this boy, not over 18 years old, shows this attitude in an unique way: he wishes to form a family and have children, and above all, to enjoy “the majority of these.” “Obtain the degree of accountant and be able to form a family, have my children, and enjoy the majority of these.” The chance to exercise our chosen profession is usually a recurrent fear among young people in general, especially when facing the beginning of

68

ADRIANA MARRERO

their university studies. The following case, expressed by the so trite example (who knows if frequent?) of the “professional taxi driver,” shows the fear of not being able to work in one’s field of professional activity. “My plans for the future include working as an engineer and not as a taxi driver.” Becoming successful through professional practice is something boys know they can do. Given that employers reserve the most prominent positions in each work or academic field for men, how high they get will depend more on the stage of development of the work field of the discipline or profession they choose than on the effort or the personal merits of men. This does not entail deflating the abilities of men who get to high positions; but we do want to recall that gender limits the competition, sometimes intense, that they will have to confront. Men, at a particular stage, only compete against other men. Women with equal or greater talent will have already fallen behind. The development of their work field is an additional advantage for these men who are sure of being successful. If you surf the crest of the wave, what matters is that the wave is the highest possible. As a boy says: “I want to be able to work in what I like (chemical engineering) and have this reach the maximum development in the country.” A serious problem any educational system faces consists of counteracting its inertial tendencies to reproduce the social structure. A reasonable explanation for this exists. All things considered, society has designed and created school to transmit knowledge, norms, values, and principles that portray and make each society unique. School is an institution, one among several, which attempts to teach whatever is necessary to live in the society, in this one and not in another, and school reinforces society. Considered from a macro approach, social systems tend to their reproduction. The forces that push toward social normalization, no matter what society or group we are dealing with, are powerful and work at every level: in the heart of families, within schools if any exist, in small town or neighborhood communities, in temples, in workplaces, in streets and public places, and within groups of friends. There and then, everyone is a socializing agent. As such, we transmit, often unintentionally or without even noticing, the facts, norms, and values that we have been learning forever. In addition, what we, as socializing agents, persist on transmitting—no matter how unconscious the process is—is not so much the way we believe society and things “ought to” be, but the way we believe they “naturally” are. Contradicting the norm is always possible, but never the “nature” of

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

69

things. If society has done its homework, people will grow up believing that social reality is not normative, but factual. People reduce the different ascription of roles, division of work, a form of family organization only social and historical products, to natural facts, and therefore unquestionably transmitted as such. According to this, unequal appraisal of genders is just another element of our universe of symbols that we transmit, from generation to generation, in exactly the same way. Male supremacy starts showing up as a “fact” in the heart of homes, and continues in schools and later on in the workplace. Meanwhile, in our societies, the mass media and other socializing agents do their part as well. As a result of the process, the inequalities of economic, social, and political rewards, that continually favor men, and that are only the practical expression of a different attribution of value, exert a “demonstration effect” corroborating and contributing to the reproduction of the differential appraisal in force. The differential value attributed to each of the genders anticipates and legitimizes their fate in society. Fortunately, things do not happen exactly as we have described. If the socializing process were so perfect, if the structural forces were truly so powerful, our societies would have changed little throughout history. The structure shapes the back for the burden. Systems tend to reproduce themselves to some extent. Even within powerful constrictions, agency is possible. People have always existed who knew how to detect boundaries and challenge them, thus changing, to some extent, the structure itself. This is possible because the structure is compliant. It allows us to find ways, look for havens, go along quick avenues, and open new tracks. Social movements have known how to make these breaches work in their favor, discovering the small open crevices in the mortar of social conformity, and have acted on them, transforming them finally into new tracks, socially proven and legitimated, now also open to minority and undervalued groups. Once the tracks are open, anyone can walk along them. Again, the differential social appraisal will promote some and discourage others. The counterweights may be less discernible, but not necessarily less effective. The school apparatus has been and still is part of this mechanism, failing to wholly perceive the heterogeneous messages, often contradictory, that the intention of transmitting to new generations what society considers better and more valuable of itself and its history conceal. The distinction between a “patent curriculum” written in the syllabi and materials and a “hidden curriculum” underlying them through the slants of selection, omission, and silence, has greatly helped to elucidate the way in which mechanisms of reproduction work inside classrooms. All that is “worth knowing” is taught in the school, in a male code: history, politics , cultural and artistic

70

ADRIANA MARRERO

expressions, and even sciences; but also manners, attitudes, and interests that correspond “naturally” to each of the sexes and the relative value of each. Meanwhile, the curricular contents of equality, justice, and merit, come to reinforce belief in the real force of an equality of opportunities visibly expressed in co-education, in the gratuitous and obligatory schooling, but later it will not turn into an equality of rewards. The educational system, which proves itself as the best expression of equal opportunities and merit rewards, helps to tacitly confirm, through its contents and its methods, the certainty that some, and not others, deserve by birth, to get the best rewards society can offer. Conscious of the opportunities that formal education opens to them and conscious of their right to use those opportunities, but uncertain of their abilities as the result of an under valuing of socialization of gender, women seek to equip themselves the best they can to try to compete in an equal situation. Evidently, they do not associate these uncertainties with their condition as women; if this were the case, perhaps their strategies would change and probably, they would choose to join the feminist movement. Nothing like that emerges in their statements. Socialization has paid off. Each of them individually believes they need to be over-qualified to enter a career whose true laws they quite ignore. So they try to outline complex strategies, accumulate knowledge, qualifications, and degrees. They look in short or long terms using different tools to face the immediate future and the distant future. They try to satisfy their material and expressive needs, and plan how to do it. They seek reassurances and havens, without raising the question of why their male contemporaries do not feel they need the same. On the verge of becoming adults, the girls raise many questions about the probabilities of their success. Perhaps, they simply do not raise the right questions: “Yes, there is something that worries me. I plan to do more than one career (in my lifetime), and prepare the best I can to reach the highest point in each career. But many people have done that and ended up working in something that wasn't what they wanted. If this happened to me, it would greatly frustrate me because then, what is the use of preparing?”

NOTES 1. United Nations Development Program, “Report on Human Development, 1999” (Madrid: Mundi Prensa, 1999), p. 138.

Equal Opportunities, Unfair Rewards

71

2. Anthony Giddens, La constitución de la sociedad. Bases para una teoría de la estructuración [Establishing Society: Bases for a theory of organization] (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1995). 3. Germán Rama and Carlos Filgueira, Los jóvenes uruguayos, esos desconocidos [Uruguayan youth, the unknown] (Montevideo, Uruguay: Cepal, 1991). 4. Anthony Giddens, Las nuevas reglas del método sociológico [New rules of sociological method] (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1987).

This page intentionally left blank

Five MULTIPLE FEMINISMS: FEMINIST IDEAS AND PRACTICES IN LATIN AMERICA Francesca Gargallo Translated from Spanish by Amy A. Oliver

The history of ideas that guides the actions of Latin American feminism is crucial at present, when the apparent homogeneity of feminism as a liberation movement has exploded into a multiplicity of political positions on the need for a bi-sex, civilizing, and new order, or on dialogue between women and governments and between women and regional and international agencies. The present diversity of positions openly espoused since 1993, at the Sixth Feminist Meeting of Latin America and the Caribbean in El Salvador, is not new in Latin America. All the currents of opinion expressed in El Salvador, though dealt with in ethical and cultural terms about the ways of doing women’s politics, focused on public action, relegating the areas of feelings, sexuality, and corporality, as social spaces in transformation, to a new protected and depoliticized privacy. In the two previous decades, Latin America had not thought of its feminist activities in a univocal way. In Chile, devastated by the Pinochet dictatorship, Julieta Kirkwood and Margarita Pisano developed a political vision of feminist autonomy in the mid-eighties that the slogan “Democracy for the nation, at home, and in bed” summed up. Even in the seventies, the feminist practice of consciousnessraising that led many Latin American women to reflect on their identity as women, questioning the socialization to which they were subjected, and assuming the collective, social, and political elements implicit in personal dimensions, existed alongside more “militant” practices of leftist women who never left their parties, and of progressives who did not go through consciousness-raising but who declared themselves independent with respect to male political organizations and chose to work with women from the popular sectors. As the Cuban Aralia López said well at a panel on “Feminisms and Philosophy,” during the Ninth Congress of the Mexican Philosophical Association, feminism is not a hegemonic discourse since it has many varieties such as those that can arise from sexed bodies in the construction of

74

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

individualities. Feminism is the recognition of subjectivity in progress, made of yes and no answers, and fluid, which implies construction of forms of socialization and new cultural understandings among women. Although according to Dr. López, a division exists between militant feminism and the academy in Latin America—a belief I do not share because of the relationship between the development of alternative thought and the construction of female subjects—when speaking of subjectivities constructed from the totality of philosophical conceptions of woman’s being, she was affirming the history of feminist differences on the continent. From its inception, Latin American feminism was preoccupied with defining indefinite limits. Were the women who belonged to organizations that met on the outskirts of the urban popular movement, the unions, and the rural groups feminists? Women launched accusations and mutual challenges against women who refused to consider as feminist the organizations surrounding family values (mothers of the disappeared, etc.) and against those women who considered them part of the women’s movement, making radical feminism invisible. This diatribe demarcates the beginning of contemporary Latin American feminism, and its echoes permeate ideas about the role of women in society. The recent separation between institutionalized feminists of the possible, and independent, utopian feminists revive these ideas. Partly out of loyalty to Marxist ideas, Latin American feminists have tended toward class analysis and anthropological analysis to define the fragmented identity of women conflicted by belonging to classes, ethnicities, and different value systems. Reality and the initial conflict between feminists, who at the beginning of the seventies were searching for themselves, are responsible for this tendency. These women have also made ethics central to Latin American feminist theory: The idea of social justice runs from hermeneutics of law to affirmation of a way of thinking based on the rejection of the double socialsexual morality. In the writings on Mexican philosophy by Graciela Hierro, ethical indignation permeates the analysis of how masculine hegemony provides moral sanction to masculine domination of physical, economic, and intellectual strengths.1 At the same time, the first intellectual manifestation by independent feminists was the organization of a seminar on ethics and feminism “to construct by being in the world, my personal freedom in relation to freedom in general and the good life of my sisters.”2 Feminists should understand Latin American feminism as a women’s political project and social movement , and a theory capable of finding the sexist bias in all theorizing before it or outside it. As Julieta Kirkwood defined it in 1987:

Multiple Feminisms

75

Feminism is as much development of theory as practice, and they should be inter-related. Conceiving of a body of knowledge that is strictly not practical is impossible. Feminism is a collection of knowledges (or intentions) of and from women and it is involved with them and, together with being a body of understandings, it is transformational action in the world.3 The history of Latin American feminist ideas links to the political agenda of its authors: women who have journeyed through the Mexican Revolution to nationalisms, from dictatorships to forms of government validated by elections (but not democratic ones in terms of participation in economic and political decisions), and above all criticism of leadership and the hierarchy of the masculine political tradition to the “importance of integrating women into production through development programs to correct poverty.”4 In these journeys, Latin American feminist theory has created different meanings, sometimes opposite to those of masculine domination, maintaining their autonomy from ideologies of political parties and the government, demanding equality under the law of relations between women and men, and the free exercise of sexualities and criticism of the heterosexual norm. The influences of feminist theory have included its varieties and the liberation of European and North American women, and the transformation of these into apt instruments to explain the revision that they were and are carrying out of misogynist and sex phobic morals in Latin American women, indigenous women, and in contemporary Indo-American peoples, morals corrupted by Catholicism and single motherhood, historically, and presently the resistance to cultural domination through veneration of the absent father, satanic lesbianism, and idealization of feminine courage from the masculine cradle (guerrilla women). Noting that criticism of European and North American feminist concepts and categories has been present throughout the history of Latin American thought is imperative because recovering universals to interpret societies where no underlying political unity exists is impossible. Each topic that feminism challenges conceptually fragments interpretive categories through the complexity of real problems. Living in the Latin American sphere of militant feminism that has dealt with and constantly deals with all the senses of an emancipatory struggle, to the affirmation of women’s essential positive difference with respect to the world of men, to “gender theory,” confronting the political experiences of the left with some of its economic, ecological, and labor ideas along with new challenges that international financial policies present to their autonomy, and of feminist ideas that the avatars of the movement nourish, at the same time as the ideas generated in other parts of the world, has led Latin American feminism to the

76

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

urgent need to search its soul for the vital differences that comprise it without considering any of its varieties to be something other than feminism. In 1997, when Celia Amorós said that people should understand feminism as a women’s liberation project, as “a kind of anthropological, moral, and political thought that has as its referent the rationalist, Enlightenment idea of equality between the sexes,” or it cannot call itself feminist, only one branch agreed with the first assertion, and all rejected the conclusion.5 In Latin America, women who claim their right to equality, those who question the concept of equality by not accepting its basis, organized lesbians, and women theologians and politicians interested exclusively in the immediate improvement of the condition of women, all define themselves as feminists although they add sub-qualifications to that general qualification. The name is not in play then. In the 1990s, Latin American women who assumed a “gender perspective” in their studies without also calling themselves feminists were few, and in the majority of cases they were employees of social groups linked to churches, political parties, and some unions. In universities and in women’s groups, feminists can accept, or not, the category of “gender” to study reality. But this gets subsumed, respectively, in acceptance of a binary world dramatically linked to the hierarchy of the sexes in imaginary and social reality, or in the rejection of a category that ties women to the power exercised by and from the masculine collective impeding women’s vision of human identity detached from competition or complementarity with a masculine construction of the world, with men. No Latin American variety of feminism presently considers the “question of gender,” or the affirmation of “sexual difference,” or “women’s politics,” or “critique of hetero-reality,” perspectives outside the general theory of their movement that they may undertake from outside analysis and defense of corporality and sexuality; nevertheless, if they do not coincide with them, they combat them with heresies, like misfires from a cannon that they try to direct repeatedly without success. We cannot understand this attitude outside the present economic context of non-governmental organizations of women allied with the fight against violence, the right to reproduction and choice, and increasing human rights for women. These groups have formed around the thought of some feminist intellectuals, especially sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists who, in their words, rapidly converted the category of gender “into one of the conceptual glues” with which to construct political arguments.6 This way they got international financial interests not to question their feminist representation although they worked like any other aid group interested in the female sector of the population.

Multiple Feminisms

77

These groups and independent feminist groups that do not get financial backing and that try to “change life, violating the established order because it is aberrant,” 7 declare their contradictions a theoretical problem. But they do not attempt historical development of the influences received from within and from external influences, nor of the forms in which others accept some ideas—even though they come from varieties of feminism outside Latin American reality—to justify ideologically circumstantial moments. They do not analyze contradictions present in the guiding principles of their feminist practices because they tend to reduce them to “qualitative” categories of the variety of feminism that uses them in political discourse and that vehemently rejects or uncritically defends itself. In the 1970s, Latin American feminism already had a history. Women’s organizations in Mexico, in the 1930s, had demanded of the Cardenas administration the right to vote and to active political participation. In Colombia, in 1912, women demonstrated in favor of civil rights for married women. In Ecuador, in 1928, women demanded implementation of their political rights.8 In Brazil , in 1880, associations of abolitionist women formed and they published an openly feminist newspaper called A familia [the family], and they proposed reforms in their way of dress.9 In Chile , in the 1970s, they fought to obtain their rights, revealing the different forms of legal, economic, and political oppression. They were not explicitly aware of the need to de-conceptualize the feminine as nature in the male-female dichotomy constructed by patriarchal cultures about and against their sexualized body. They were already feminist movements that demanded social and political changes intended to reverse oppression, subordination, and exploitation of women, based on a notion of justice understood as equality of rights and on a national idea that led them to claim characters from pre-Hispanic cultures, the colonial period, or the independence wars with whom they identified their feminine significance. From the viewpoint of patriotic abnegation, since the end of the nineteenth century, Mexican women asserted their equality or ethical superiority with respect to men and, therefore, their right to participate in the destiny of the nation. During the North American invasion of 1848, they were women who had given the country their sons. During the French invasion, they were women who did not marry Maximilian’s soldiers. They were women who did not drink or dance with the enemy, and did not imitate their customs. The major difference between early feminist expression and that beginning in 1970 in Latin America is the discovery by women of their “sameness.” Upon constructing women as the other (nature, a gift that men exchanged, castrated, impure), women responded by finding human values in themselves and unmasking the patriarchal construction of men’s superiority over women and nature. Feminism abandoned explicative tactics

78

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

and encouraged a meeting between women as subjects, if not of their total history, then of their present rebellion, their liberation process. In 1950, Rosario Castellanos presented a philosophy thesis, Sobre cultura feminina [On women’s culture], in which she explored whether women who create culture exist. This was two years after the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, with which Castellanos was not familiar. With the ambiguity typical of a woman who knows that men and a masculine institution are going to examine her, she answered ironically that women are creative in maternity or, on the contrary, they make culture. To liberate herself from this determinism, she proposed they write, delving more profoundly into their being, and that they not make images that men had constructed of them, or they would not be able to construct their image. Two decades later, in Mujer que sabe latín [Woman who knows Latin], Castellanos affirmed that “women break the molds that society makes for them and imposes on them to attain their authentic self-image and consummate and consume themselves in it.”10 Aralia López has argued strongly that Castellanos belonged “as much to the world of philosophy as to that of literature, although she transcended much more in the second.”11 This implies that she has recevied greater readership and has had greater influence on women as a poet and novelist than as a thinker. But, “the great literary theme of Rosario Castellanos could be identified as gender, ethnicity, and nation.” 12 Her philosophy born of feminism influenced her narrative, as did her memories and her political perception of the significance of ethnic difference in the formation of the Mexican nation. The publication of El eterno femenino, in which one of her characters affirmed peremptorily, “Discovering who we are is not enough. We have to invent ourselves,” came out shortly after her death in 1975.13 A significant part of Mexican feminism believed this phrase condensed their yearnings because it dealt with the task of constructing a new female identity, different from that which the patriarchal, hegemonic culture had constructed. The group/collective methodology that they used to invent themselves, creating in the process a new view of the world and of doing politics, was self-consciousness or the process of giving meaning to women’s consciousness. In Mexico, autonomous, radical feminist groups, such as La Revuelta [The Revolt], feminists who were incapable of severing their leftist ties (mainly Communists and Trotskyites), and feminists close to the academy began to meet in small groups. They named their groups, filled them with meaning in light of discovering the political value of lived experience, expressed their desires, politicized sexuality, and critiqued language and its conceptual categories. In Chile, the electoral victory of Salvador Allende’s socialist project and subsequent coup d’etat distanced women from women’s culture, which consciousness-raising groups expressed, detailing women’s oppression in all

Multiple Feminisms

79

its different forms. The participation of many women in the Unidad Popular and, after 1973, in resistance against the military government, led Chilean feminists to formulate a political solution to their subordination and to present themselves as “new social actors.” Between 1973 and 1976, women’s groups, collectives, and organizations began a movement to defend life and physical and moral survival, and to denounce repression. In Brazil, where liberal women, leftist women, women allied with progressive sectors of the Catholic Church, and radical, white, urban, and educated feminists co-existed, they all began to analyze and engage in politics together on the basis of the absolute division that exists between feminist political identity and the practices of women who are not feminists. In Argentina, the participation by many women in bands of guerrillas made development of self-reflective feminism impossible, or marginalized it because of the definition by militant women of sexual liberation as a secondary contradiction, a profoundly anti-revolutionary, petite bourgeois battle. The violence of sexual torture that the dictatorship directed against militant women contributed to destroying the idea of equality between the sexes in armed struggle, and it forced many women to confront their situation in society. In Nicaragua, thirty percent of the ranks of the Sandinista liberation army were women. This made other forms of contact among women difficult, but after the Sandinista victory over Anastasio Somoza’s supporters, revolutionary history offered women a rich experience in political emancipation. In Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela, despite facing diverse political and economic situations, consciousness -raising groups saw radical feminism at the same time as women’s groups met to discuss political problems in their country and to demonstrate their solidarity with the struggle of women in war-torn countries or those under military dictatorships. Women developed the category of patriarchy to elucidate sexism, the base of the dominant culture to explain who divided society into a superior male group with power and inferior, oppressed groups, and how they did this. After the Second Feminist Congress on Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Lima, Peru, in 1982, patriarchy became a category with which Latin American feminists explained reality . Patriarchy was responsible for compulsive heterosexuality, repression, the double sexual standard, women’s subordination, violence against women, the ban on abortion, and abuse of children, in addition to war and forms of social injustice all constructed around a model of male domination of women’s bodies and wills. The Costa Rican, Sol Arguedas, delivered a paper in Mexico, in 1975, for International Women’s Year, called “Historical and Economic Origins of

80

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

Female Servitude,” in which she postulated that the exercise of power to establish laws and set norms, watching over their implementation and imposing sanctions based on an ethics that repressed women, their sexuality, their economy, and women’s issues in society, sustained patriarchal ideology for millennia. In the 1970s, feminists were women in their twenties whose experiences in student movements and by personal motives, that emphasized friendships and underscored the centrality of women’s freedom, solidarity among women, and sexuality, nourished them. In the 1990s, feminists were in their forties or older. Latin American feminism was aging along with its practitioners who delayed childbearing until a respite in the struggle over roles among heterosexual couples permitted it. The de-sanctification of motherhood in Latin America, agitated by military repression and politically rescued by the actions of the Mothers of the Disappeared, was never as violent as it was in the United States, which identified motherhood with the patriarchal family, axis of women’s oppression. Similarly, for Marxist feminist movements in Europe, the family was the first step in the dual construction of capitalism and patriarchy. In the 1970s, Latin America questioned motherhood and the presumed naturalness of maternal values. Many mothers discovered through consciousness-raising that they would not have chosen motherhood if they had known they could avoid it without others ceasing to consider them women. Young women rejected their “destiny” as future mothers. They distinguished between the concepts of “woman” and “mother.” The Mexican, Marta Lamas, defined the roles of educator, feeder, caregiver, or parent as work that women and men could assume equally, and that the state should recognize the labor rights of anyone who assumed these roles. Voluntary motherhood was an axis around which the feminist movement turned. The movement defined abortion rights as the exercise of legitimate defense against the fetus that prevented individual life projects and women’s independence. Women’s bodies became de-maternalized, separating the functions of reproduction and individual health and opening up life projects to an enormous range of options in the workplace. In 1972, in Mexico, a hundred women publicly discussed legislation relating to abortion, birth control, and birth control methods. A year later, the government accepted the new General Law of Population that stipulated “every person has the right to decide in a free, responsible, and informed way how many children to have and how far apart they should be spaced.” In 1976, the National Women’s Movement together with the Feminist Movement formed the Coalition of Feminist Women and organized the First Congress on Legalized Abortion where they agreed that terminating pregnancy was the exclusive decision of women and that abortion should be free in all public health facilities. In subsequent years, Mexican feminists

Multiple Feminisms

81

utilized all the symbolic media to defend the will of women against imposition of motherhood by the patriarchy. For example, they marched for voluntary motherhood on Mother’s Day or they dressed in black to represent mourning over women who have died in clandestine abortions. The eruption of private, intimate life into the streets for mobilization of abortion rights jolted political life. Today, private life issues are receding because of the feminist tendency to promote women in community politics. Public politics have calmed the private realm. By gaining representation, quotas, and political visibility, feminists defended their public presence against criticism and fell back on the family as a space of complementarity and refuge. Non-mothers, by anarchistic definition, have taken refuge in motherhood as the last redoubt of the affections. Since the crisis of collective values, more than valuing women’s corporality, which includes in reproduction the decision not to reproduce, a tendency exists to assume motherhood as a right to a valid way of life for heterosexual and lesbian women, which feminists inserted in the political and philosophical agenda. An ambiguous tendency, a mixture of a feeling of fatigue toward confronting sexual reproductive norms and conservative omnipotence, that of the creative power of gestation, began to develop between 1982 and 1992 when political conservatism found allies in the pandemic of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and the crisis in the Soviet Union. The eruption of fear of sexuality among young people was totally unknown to the feminists of the seventies who faced traditional sexual morals with a fruitful, irreverent ease, deconstructive of forms of repression and violence against women’s sexuality, which did not go through male possession and control. Preventive practices against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, “safe sex,” imply discourse about the risks of sexuality that is a repetitive macho discourse, castrating of sexuality, expressed frequently by progenitors and frightened teachers. The pleasure that provoked the explosion of conventional morals in each extramarital kiss and embrace has disappeared in the coital normalcy of relations among adolescents, converting it into censorship of experimental and multiple heterosexuality, which a large part of young women and men reject. This attitude has relegated the majority of heterosexual feminists to solitude and a generational break with younger women. With militancy gone as a space for interaction/creation among friends, they face a vacuum of horizontal amorous relations that the existence of children exacerbates instead of alleviates, as if feminism had given them few opportunities once sexual-affective relations changed. A variety of feminism that for two decades criticized consumerism for its proximity to popular culture, for its political ideals, or for its ecological motivations, has today yielded to the world of consumption as a form of disenchantment and as a rendition of dominant culture. Why have routes bypassed feminist thought and action to arrive at this crisis of

82

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

individualities? The changes in feminist attitudes with respect to the social and political world closely correspond to the rejection that leftist political parties always directed toward feminist autonomy and that, at the end of the seventies, began to offer arguments of widespread malaise because of the lack of relations with “other” women and with social action. According to the Argentine, Susana Vidales, the feminist movement did not fall into the women’s movement, or into society, because its dynamic was “still internal.”14 Similarly, the Peruvian , Virginia Vargas , opined “to politicize women’s malaise in the face of life situations that are subordinated and arranged by antidemocratic genders,” the “internal climate that underscored feminist identity with force” in the seventies had to reorient itself in the eighties around the organization of its space to “achieve visibility as an autonomous force in society,” to “demand to be heard.”15 The themes that feminist thought focused on during the early years suddenly appeared unattractive for women who increasingly wanted to permeate all cultural areas in their demand for legal and economic equality and political and educational opportunities. The practice of consciousnessraising, as a form of interaction among women, began to stem from a need for social action. Some feminists who had defined the politics of the construction of intimacy and privacy as spaces outside public law, centering it on a combination of issues exclusive to women, and demonstrating it in strictly autonomous feminist organizations, at the beginning of the eighties began to consider “political parties, laws, and the State as potentially viable territory for promoting change for women.”16 The result of this tendency translated into reorganization of feminist collectives into public debate groups, organizations that recognized the demands of the women’s movement and tried to implement change, activists who worked for policies favorable to women, and non-governmental organizations working toward non-violence, health, human rights, and political participation for women. This resulted in confusion between the workplace and militancy, which, far from enriching the movement, reduced feminism’s anarchistic dynamic to production of knowledge that can be catalogued and confirmed for moderate political propositions that the economy’s neo-liberal tendency considered apt for democratizing the subcontinent. In this context, Latin American feminists needed to throw out interpretive categories that evinced corporality of feminism’s ethical propositions, that underscored the absurdity of universalism built around men as the center of the system, and that denounced the impossibility of democracy that does not respect sexual, ethnic, and economic differences. The advent of group work among women dealing with problems exclusive to women, but with “common” characteristics—schedules, hierarchies, salaries, specializations, and so on—facilitated acceptance by nations that wanted to free themselves of social responsibilities that feminist

Multiple Feminisms

83

labor centers would attend to victims of violence, sex education needs, analysis of women’s human rights, and they encouraged the changes necessary for modernization of laws and public policy. Each working group established a stage on which to unfurl their activities, and to cover up the lack of a method to interpret reality, they appealed to reason, common sense, and the research capability of those women who questioned the patriarchal bias of philosophy, political science, and anthropology. Marxist feminist Marta Lamas affirmed in 1989 that if an “extreme feminism” exists, society should turn its gaze toward “another feminism that has managed to become a field in the universities, in politics, and in many other areas.” 17 The category with which Latin American feminism sought its entrance into institutionalized knowledge, to be able to justify its social actions, came from feminism in the United States. Since 1986, Mexican anthropologists began to circulate the classic text by Gayle Rubin on “Trafficking in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex” and to affirm the importance of the category of “gender,” transliteration of gender, to analyze socially learned differences between the sexes. Soon sociologists defended the category of gender as a tool of analysis that allowed greater scientific rigor to the all-encompassing, loosely defined category of patriarchy and the overly gendered term “women.” Gender allowed understanding of male-female interaction in society, going back to imposing the masculine figure in feminist studies. “The objective of gender studies is to understand and explain social relations starting with the fact that human bodies are unequal, and that women are in a subordinate position.”18 Among philosophers, de-corporalization, confused with symbolization of the sexed through the category of gender took on metaphysical traits: “I will try to characterize the body as the space of sexual difference; the spirit as the space of the constitution of gender.”19 The “gender perspective”—apparently accepted by all feminists to analyze forms of symbolization, representation, and organization of unequal social relations between women and men—allowed international cooperation to encourage formation of networks of women’s groups at the Latin American level, in their zeal to gather proposals in accord with their funding sources. “Gender” came increasingly to mean “women” and women used the gender perspective as their perspective about a given topic. By using this unique category, networks de-legitimized differences among feminists, and acquired spaces of reflection about topics formulated or imposed by international cooperation. At the beginning of the nineties, they launched the transition from feminism of social activism to feminism of public policy within the realm of national and international institutions: fighting for quotas in the parties, women’s councils, participation in the activities of the United Nations, obtaining offices for women’s affairs in the majority of Latin American nations.

84

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

Critiques of the category of gender came from radical, independent, or university feminists, who used it for a brief time. Only the Mexican philosopher Eli Bartra rebelled at first against the concealment of women’s creativity that the term “gender” suggested, and she always refused to use it. From the beginning of the nineties, I considered the category of sexual difference much less controlling, with its double meaning of patriarchal inequality between the sexes and feminist construction of a world in which multi-sexed freedom affirms human identity, and its symbolic representation. For the Peruvian, Norma Mogrovejo, the gender perspective centers analysis of women’s subordination on the binary male-female construction and on social inequality stemming from differences between male and female bodies. This leads feminist thought to contemplate “the male figure as a model of social adequacy and, therefore, it limits its analysis to heterosexual realms.” 20 The thought of Chilean feminist Margarita Pisano, a central figure in independent thought that was postulated in 1993 in El Salvador, provided the most crucial critique of the category, from the perspective of the history of feminists. For Pisano, who was a crucial architect of the Popular Unity and who during the seventeen years the Pinochet dictatorship supervised the La Morada Women’s Center in a working-class neighborhood of Santiago and started a feminist radio station, feminism is a civilizing proposition born of cyclical experience of the female body. Feminist action is political action and its theory a logical politics of women that permits analysis of any patriarchal situation and of realms of women’s resistance and creativity. Its permanent preoccupation with building the feminist movement has led it to seek answers to the difficulties, born of neglect of the body as “the only instrument with which we touch life,” that Latin American feminism has had.21 In recent feminist thought an insistence exists on the need to explain any kind of difference to be able to achieve a dialogue; political differences to be able to negotiate, and also assumed sexual differences as the totality of conceptions about the sexed self, without hierarchy, to be able to exist. In 1995, Margarita Pisano was still writing about the significance of consciousness-raising about gender oppression so that every woman would discover herself and other women. She affirmed that if women focused on discovering themselves, they would not end up reading in accounts of women who preceded them: “women who with great intelligence and responsibility, irreverence, and insolence, dared to think and develop utopias, to organize and fight for them, were made invisible.” 22 She did not speak of gender consciousness, but she preferred to speak of women when analyzing the capability for cultural production and the ideas of feminism. A year later, probably influenced by criticisms leveled at the category of gender by radical feminists not involved in workers networks not in non-

Multiple Feminisms

85

governmental organizations (Amalia Fischer in Brazil, myself in Mexico, Urania Ungo in Panama, and others) and by reading the Catalan Maria Milagros Rivera Garretas, Pisano analyzed advances represented by the installation of gender studies in the academy, to conclude that “they have had the limitation of doing a study about women and not about critical thought constructed by women.” 23

NOTES 1. Graciela Hierro, Ética y feminismo [Ethics and feminism] (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985); De la domesticación a la educación de las mexicanas [Mexican women: from domestication to education] (Mexico City: Fuego Nuevo, 1989); Ética de la libertad [Ethics of freedom] (Mexico City: Fuego Nuevo, 1990). 2. Ximena Bedregal, Ética y feminismo [Ethics and feminism] (Mexico City: La Correa Feminista, 1994), p. viii. 3. Julieta Kirkwood, Feminarios [Feminaries] (Santiago, Chile: Documentas, 1987), p. 108. 4. Clara Murguialday and N. Vázquez, Sobre la escisión vital de algunas feministas centroamericanas (ni militantes obedientes ya, ni feministas declaradas todavia) [On the vital schism of some Central American feminists (not militant, still obedient, still not declared feminists)] (Nicaragua: Mimeo, April 1992), p.22. 5. Celia Amorós, Tiempo de feminismo. Sobre feminismo, proyecto ilustrado y postmodernidad [The age of feminism. On feminism, the Enlightenment, and postmodernity] (Madrid: Cátedra, 1997), p. 70. 6. Marta Lamas, El Género: la construcción cultural de la diferencia sexual [Gender: cultural construction of sexual difference] (Mexico: Porrúa, 1996), p. 10. 7. Ibid., p. 27. 8. M. Velázquez Toro, Las mujeres en la historia de Colombia [Women in Colombian history], Vol. 1, (Bogota, Colombia: Norma, 1995), pp. 183–228. 9. Asunción Lavrín, Las mujeres latinoamericanas. Perspectivas históricas [Latin American women: historical perspectives], (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1985), pp. 319–320. 10. Rosario Castellanos, Mujer que sabe latín [Woman who knows Latin] (Mexico: SepSetentas, 1973), p. 19. 11. Aralia López, “Rosario Castellanos: lo dado y lo creado en una ética de seres humanos y libres,” Política y cultura, No. 6, spring 1996, p. 78. 12. Ibid., p. 79. 13. Rosario Castellanos, El eterno femenino [The eternal feminine] (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1975), p. 194. 14. Susana Vidales, “Ni madres abnegadas, ni Adelitas,” Críticas de la Economía Política. Edición Latinoamericana. La mujer: trabajo y política, 14/15 (Mexico City: Ediciones El Caballito, April-July 1980), p. 267. 15. Virginia Vargas, Los nuevos derroteros de los feminismos latinoamericanos en la década de los 90. Estrategias y discursos (Lima, Peru: Mimeo, 1998), p. 2.

86

FRANCESCA GARGALLO

16. Sonia Alvarez, “Los feminismos latinoamericanos se globalizan en los noventa: retos para un nuevo milenio,” Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), p. 5. 17. P. Galeana de Valdés, Seminario sobre la participación de la mujer en la vida nacional (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1989), p. 3. 18. Teresita de Barbieri, “Certezas y malos entendidos sobre la categoría de género,” Serie Estudios de Derechos Humanos, Vol. 4, Mexico, 1996. 19. L. Fort, “La liberación de lo simbólico,” Filosofía de la educación y género [Philosophy of education and gender], ed. Graciela Hierro, (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autótoma de México, 1997), p. 95. 20. Norma Mogrovejo, Un amor que se atrevió a decir su nombre. La lucha de las lesbianas y su relación con los movimientos homosexual y feminista en América Latina [A love that dared to say its name. The lesbian struggle and its relation to the homosexual and feminist movements in Latin America] (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autótoma de México, 1998). 21. Margarita Pisano, “Y todas las alimañas que serpean la tierra. Derechos Humanos: una construcción cultural,” Mujer, violencia y derechos humanos (reflexiones, desafíos y utopías) [Woman, violence, and human rights (reflections, challenges, and utopias)]. 22. Margarita Pisano, Deseos de cambio o ¿el cambio de los deseos? [Desires for changes, or change of desires?] (Santiago, Chile: Sandra Lidid Editora, 1995), pp. 73–74. 23. Margarita Pisano, Un cierto desparpajo [A certain pertness] (Santiago, Chile: Sandra Lidid Editora, 1996), p. 87.

Six ON THE TRAIL OF GENDER María Esther Pozo Translated from Spanish by Amy A. Oliver Through analysis of neoliberalism in Latin America, we see that in the Andean region many structural transformations have taken place, especially in the economy. The framework of democracy and politics gave rise to transformations that, paradoxically, limit freedom by not necessarily constituting a libertarian model, but a regime of accumulation. For this reason, we consider essential the rememberance that the construction of knowledge takes place on the horizon of the existence of countries of the north and the south, a contextualization of power exists, and this is where we should develop critical thought, learning from our specificities, because despite characteristics and conditions common in many situations, a single strategy for development of thought does not exist. The perspective of gender in the study of societies also represents the transformation of societies. Through gender we consider the subject a constituent, not a closed, static product, which allows us methodologically to know the dynamics that make up the collective nuclei that we can recognize through gender. In Bolivia, the topic of gender surfaces in the mid-eighties by way of feminists working in non-governmental organizations, though the International Year of Women introduced gender elsewhere in Latin America in 1975. Studies about the condition of women arose from the work of women in non-governmental organizations and then permeated academic spaces through research and the writing of theses. Non-governmental organizations employed the concept of gender to plan projects and to strengthen organizations, their leadership, and their productive projects, applying and developing instrumental gender concepts from Caroline Moser’s work. 1 Women used new readings to implement variables and gender technologies for planning purposes. During the planning stages, women used different gender tools to determine needs, goals, and projects for women. They applied these to the condition of women and to fulfilling their needs. Among the practical concerns, women turned their attention to the everyday condition of women and that which is empirically verifiable such as supporting families and

88

MARÍA ESTHER POZO

having access to water, land, housing, and work. Strategic necessities, on the other hand, include structural aspects related to women’s unequal place in society, beyond concerns of social class. The category of gender as a tool of analysis revealed the triple role of women in reproduction, production, and communal management. Communal management comes into play in planning public policy development and, currently, in municipal politics in which the role of management is paramount. Communal management provides knowledge of the political activities of men and women beyond those of private space. Dealing with the problems that arose when we moved from planning to investigating concrete circumstances allowed us to see the ways in which using the concept of gender does not always have positive consequences. Many instruments designed for planning did not necessarily correspond to reality, and, in many cases, they lacked content. Reality exceeds the social categories employed by gender and planning. We can also strongly reject the concept of gender by viewing it as imposed by the financial organizations behind development plans. For this reason, we viewed gender as other, foreign, something that colonized our Andean realities, which have different logics than the Western ones expressed by gender. Introducing this theoretical category was a difficult task that implied the challenge of showing that variability characterizes the notion of gender since, if being a man or a woman is a cultural construct, then their definitions vary from culture to culture, and include a multiplicity of elements. Other factors exist that favor accepting the category of gender; for example, it is not only a product imposed by financial interests. Rather, women researchers base their studies on gender in the face of dissatisfaction with the tools used by contemporary social sciences to analyze reality. On the other hand, the presence of women in different areas of society such as production, education, and politics requires that public policy, legal reforms, and state reforms deal with it and take it into account. They are not just concessions and styles in the social sciences. With regard to the universities, finding a connective thread among the epistemological underpinnings of gender is still difficult in Bolivia, perhaps because little philosophical reflection exists about gender theory, or perhaps because few studies exist in the academic sphere. Regardless, we will formulate a panoramic description to facilitate a broader notion of gender theory. We will start from the premise that the process in Bolivia is part of the process experienced in the rest of Latin America, but with characteristics specific to Andean thought. The category of gender, and especially Women’s Studies, have recently entered the academic, political, and research spheres as problematic. Previously, the construction of the subject and its identity dealt with the masculine subject. The introduction of the topic of gender takes place first in

On the Trail of Gender

89

graduate courses at the university through some confrontations designed to sensitize people to the issues and to the plight of women. The first institution to introduce the category of gender into the academic environment in Bolivia, in 1993, was the Center for Higher Education at the Universidad Mayor de San Simon. Originally, this involved offering a for-credit course on Women, Gender, and Development with a primarily economic focus. Later, the Universidad de San Andrés in La Paz developed a course with a focus on culture. The Universidad directed these course offerings, above all, to the work of non-governmental organizations and to improving human resources working in such institutions. The curriculum focused primarily on raising the visibility of women in different sectors of society, especially in economics (the work force) and in the diagnostics and planning of projects with women. Within the context of development, women oriented their objectives toward contributing to discussion and analysis of women and toward analyzing the concept of development. Since 1995, when the Universidad established the degree in Gender and Development, women began to analyze the theoretical construction of gender , its application, and the process that accompanies the examination of its possible compatibility with the concepts of ethnicity and cultural identity. All of this led to gender becoming crucial. In 1997, the Universidad established the Masters degree in Gender and Development which offered a conceptual framework for gender within the social sciences that linked it to concepts of power, local space, citizenship, and politics. The initial epistemological expansion of the concept of gender did not take place in the academic environment, but it formed part of university life and the university creates the research tools. Strengthening theory in terms of conceptual categories led to constructing, interpreting, and fundamentally transforming reality. In this way, the heterogeneity of social actors, the different characteristics of the urban and the rural, and diversity among existing ethnicities, generate the need to search for and create theoretical connections, above all by interweaving gender and ethnicity. These two concepts conceive reality from the notion of theoretical opposition that they bring face to face. We must take into account the simultaneous construction of the concept of gender with other categories such as ethnicity, class, and age, allowing groups a continual reformulation of content and of the nature of relations among these categories. In this articulation, the intersection of gender and ethnicity goes well beyond a mere academic preoccupation or semantic problem, at least to the extent to which such an intersection seems to designate a social category that brings visibility to a human group. Until recently, Spanish has conceived “gender” as designating “class,” as a classification or category. This designation does not exist in Andean

90

MARÍA ESTHER POZO

grammar because the divisions between human and non-human, and animate and inanimate, are more influential than those between men and women although, according to authors such as Marcela Lagarde, “the first consciousness is that of gender…we do not have a vision of the world in which human beings exist, and then men and women.” 2 Andean grammar has not just reduced the discussion to the relevance of the term “gender” and its strange meanings in Latin America because it has other origins. What we can affirm is that the concept of gender allowed us to enter into a debate that renewed analysis of women’s roles with the goal of recovering more realities with other dimensions, such as identity, everyday life, and the need for action in the present, although genders may be historically constructed bio-socio-cultural groups. On the other hand, the concept of ethnicity transmits historical continuity to a people and to their right to legitimate their own future. This difference complements rather than opposes them. The implementation of the concept of gender also has meant analyzing concepts of identity and the role of the social sciences in highlighting the accomplishments of disciplines such as economics, sociology, and psychology. This conceptualization met with the understanding of processes such as productive activities, personal growth, and social and cultural integration and influence, which confers interdisciplinarity. Considering gender as a category of analysis and as an element of visibility of underlying structures in the family allows better approaches to the reality of identity formation. In this sense, the need to deal with the ethnic issue propelled the study of rural women’s identities, which falls under feminism of difference. 3 Another aspect that arises from the confrontation and utilization of the concept of gender is that it allows conceptualization of the individuation of persons in communities. Defining the subject, private and public space, woman and man, in common terms would come about from posing issues about the individual and society, and would refer to differentiated interests and community interests. Considering differentiated interests means considering woman a subject not only functionally, or for planning within the community, but in terms of her role in the organization of power in the inner workings of society. We must remember that the subject-object relationship fulfills the gnoseological function of appropriation of that which constitutes the object of knowledge viewed from the dialectic between the subjective (interior) and the external (reality). Finally, another aspect to take into account is the recent development of the women’s movement which we could describe generally in two ways: the feminist movement in itself and the whole social movement of women.4 On the one hand are feminist recoveries based on Enlightenment rationalism and on industrial development, with a discourse specific to time and place that has allowed theoretical development of proposals (which did not become a

On the Trail of Gender

91

legitimate discourse about all women), that has tied academic feminist recovery more to concrete historical and geographic limits, and that recognized itself as a discourse that represented all women. On the other hand, the movement of working-class women connects with general social movements in which male political experience and women’s own everyday experience mediate their identity. Women bursting onto the scene in situations of national crisis do not do so because of the “women’s movement,” nor because of academic feminists, nor because of the recovery of gender. In all cases they find themselves subordinated as members of a nation and in some cases as members of a class. Thanks to the recoveries of gender, we are aware of political activities and practices of women who recently surpassed the formal political framework even though they continue to be a minority.5 Different from what has happened in other countries, the beginning of feminist studies in Bolivia did not result in women’s popular movements based in communities, but reflected what happened in northern countries. To reflect on the women’s movement, we need to take into account the Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing, because many of the representatives of a broad women’s movement organized it. These women undertook the task of formulating equality politics from the perspective of gender, and to generate a re-formulation of the judicial and institutional framework of the State. In this way they shaped the World Action Platform that consists of concrete programs and projects which, despite having declared recognition of the variables relative to social class, cultural diversity, racism, ethnicity, and the urban-rural tension, did not manage to include major movements organized by working-class women representative of the national scene, such as the movement of coca workers.6 From 1995 to 1996, the main topic of discussion was citizenship, but did not include the claims of the women’s coca workers’ movement, even among claims and proposals referring to the exercise of citizenship such as the right to survival. The same phenomenon occurs with organized women educators or women trade union workers. One reason this occurs is that the World Action Platform, an organization that did not recognize the “specific demands” of working-class women, especially those from rural backgrounds, evaluates the actions they propose, their explicit objectives, and their achievements according to World Action Platform standards. That is, they cannot evaluate that which they have not taken into account. Perhaps this is so because the World Action Platform has repeatedly viewed their claims as identical to those promoted by reflection on the concepts of identity and gender, without taking into account the differences. According to some authors, the demands of “women who are coca workers, rural, and re-located, who are directed toward economic and political sectors in which the under-Secretary of Gender Issues, by

92

MARÍA ESTHER POZO

definition, could not interfere,” explains this fact. Therefore, the UnderSecretary of Gender Issues did not summon these sectors, revealing that she did not take into account the demands of very representative sectors, explained on the basis of identification of the origins of the mobilizations. The facts show the existence of a gap between the movement of women with feminist claims and women who represent, in greater number, social demands. Rather than fostering a dialogue between these two sectors, women worked in non-governmental organizations to foster a didactic relationship toward the masses and in some cases toward the State, thus influencing women about what their demands should be. They articulated demands that responded to different strategies about particular social facts and discrimination against women, which brought about different resistance strategies. At the other extreme, we find feminists working with the “women’s movement” in the realm of the State, with legal claims that emphasize the discussion of discourse that legitimates discrimination. The resolution of their demands occurs within the judicial framework even though they also support economic redistribution using the principle of equality.7 If pre-Beijing resulted in a crucial mobilization to make women visible, post-Beijing signified a retrocession in academic reflection on gender theory. Upon not being able to undertake research and self-reflection, attention centered on topics handed down by the Conference (which, in turn, international funding supported), such as reproductive health and promotion of human rights; philosophical reflection accompanied neither. This leads me to consider the concept of gender in its current treatment as referring to the whole of individual attributes, and not as a social regulator for the historic, collective construction of a differentiated feminine identity.

NOTES 1 . Caroline Moser, Planificación de género y desarrollo: Teoría, práctica y capacitación [Gender and development planning: theory, practice, and training] (Lima, Peru: Centro de la Mujer Peruana “Flora Tristán,” 1995). 2 . Marcela Lagarde, “Identidad y subjetividad femenina,” Identidades de género: Femenidad y masculinidad [Gender identities: femininity and masculinity] (Managua, Nicaragua: Universidad Centroamericana, 1992). 3 . María Esther Pozo, Género y etnia [Gender and ethnicity] (La Paz, Bolivia: Promec, 1999). 4 . Cf. Virginia Vargas, “Reflexiones sobre la construcción del movimiento social de mujeres,” Boletín Americanista, (Barcelona, Spain, 1991), p. 38. 5. Cf. Gloria Ardaya, “Las relaciones de género en las organizaciones políticas y sindicales,” Mujeres y relaciones de género en la antropología latinoamericana [Women and gender relations in Latin American anthropology] (Mexico, 1993) and

On the Trail of Gender

93

D. Rapold, “Desarrollo, clase social y movilizaciones femeninas,” Texto y Pre-texto, (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 1994). 6. María Esther Pozo, “Movimientos sociales y productores de coca: Género y violencia en Bolivia,” (2001). 7 . M. Barrig, “De cómo llegar a un Puerto con el mapa equivocado,” Las apuestas inconclusas: El movimiento de mujeres y la VI conferencia mundial de la mujer [Not a sure bet: The women’s movement and the sixth world conference on women] (Lima, Peru: Centro de la Mujer Peruana “Flora Tristán,” 2000).

This page intentionally left blank

Seven A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF WOMEN’S HISTORY María Julia Palacios Translated from Spanish by Angeles Urrizaga Palacios In 1984, Michèlle Perrot asked “Is a Women’s History possible?”1 The question summarizes several questions raised by prolific historiographic production—beginning about twenty years ago—about women, about “their” history, “their” culture, and “their” absence or marred presence in the history of humankind. Today, ten years after those reflections, and in light of an increased production that has resulted in nobody discussing the presence of women as history’s co-agents, thus recognizing the different ways in which they have cooperated with social development, the question takes on another meaning. The issue today is analyzing the origins of the scholarship carried out and to examine the results obtained from “Women’s History,” not merely its effect on general history. As philosophers, our interest is not only to analyze the historical and ideological underpinnings of Women’s History—which does not mean that it is absolutely unimportant, and it is something that we have to take into account to explain why a Women’s History exists—but instead to do a “second grade reflection about the ultimate conditions of intelligibility of a discipline,” according to Paul Ricoeur, to seek the nature of this historiographic production; to ask for the epistemological statute of this history: Is it a theoretical renovation? Is it a methodological renovation? Is it simply about a thematic renovation? 2 These questions lead us unavoidably to other questions. If we speak of theoretical renovation, what are the conceptual or analytic innovations, or new categories introduced into History by Women’s History? If we are talking about a methodological renovation, what are the “new” methods or the “new” procedures? Does renovation require “new” sources or does it work with traditional sources of history with other categories of analysis? What relations do they hold to general history? If we are talking about the third question, is it just a new subject for the old history or does a “new”

96

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

object of history exist? In sum, what kind of history is Women’s History? Is it a “different” history? Is it a “new” history? Is it a parallel history? Trying to answer these questions requires that we take into consideration not only the work produced, but also the perspectives it offers. That is, the future of this activity in the scientific investigation field, which is the subject that we try to consider here. 1. What is the Origin of Women’s History? This question accepts two answers if we think that we can understand “origin” as: (a) The historical circumstances that gave rise to Women’s History, which led us to relative questions such as where, when, and who. (b) The theoretical-methodological aspects related to the development of historical science, which have made Women’s History possible. According to the first meaning, the question about the origin of Women’s History leads us to women’s movements—in a particular way to those of the 1960s in Europe and the United States—and to their claims. Those were the times to recognize that the individual or collective experience did not grant the possibility of formulating policies of social change that benefited women. Getting to know the collective past was necessary, to know historical examples of women’s struggle, which endorsed the reason for their claims. The realization that history collected the life and action of women in a flawed way was also crucial, and determined strong criticism in feminism’s movement toward the theoretical and ideological bases on which people wrote history and for which they had a new name—“androcentric”—and the need to introduce a new perspective into historical analysis. Regarding this, Lidia Knecher says, “There is an aspect in Women’s History that particularly distinguishes it from other histories and it is the fact that, in general, it has been linked to a social movement, that is, it has been written according to feminism’s convictions and, if it is true that most historiography is influenced by political context, just a few had such a kind of close relationship with a program of action and change like the one put forward by the feminist movement.”3 This demand, stated by the women’s movement of getting new perspectives for historical research, links to the second meaning we have given to “origin,” that is, the state of the discipline of history when those women made their claims. Most certainly not unknown is the fact that even the changes introduced in historiography by social history also helped develop Women’s History: the recognition of new objects (power, the body) and of new subjects (collective subjects: classes, movements), its concern about excluded social

A Critical Examination of “Women’s History”

97

groups (Blacks, indigenous peoples, etc.), or about different cultural expressions, the incorporation of perspectives from new analyses (economic, social, and political) and interpretative schema (the plurality of time: long and short duration, processes, and structures), and the relationship to other disciplines (sociology, anthropology, demography, and linguistics). In sum, the desire for a whole history meant a true renovation of conceptual and theoretical frameworks, and the methodology of historiography. This model provided the possibility to include women’s problems. The historiographic renovation produced by social history coincided with new demands of the feminist movements, giving rise to Women’s History. If we do not pay attention to this double source, the explanation of the emergence of Women’s History will not be possible. 2. What is Women’s History? All this explanation does not take into account the kind of historical work implied by Women’s History. This label offers diverse work, but limits the theories around its constitution and its nature. That is why answering the question “What kind of history is Women’s History?” is difficult. In “Women’s History and the Renovation of Historiography,” Lola G. Luna asks, “What are we talking about when we use the concept of gender in history? Are we talking about social relationships of gender, a history about sexual differences, or about feminine gender and femininity, or other theoretical and methodological orientations?”4 Many may think from the aforementioned that the creation of Women’s History was only a matter of “placing” women where we could not find them before, or simply, the incorporation of other subjects in history—the ones related to women—to some extent. Nevertheless, and on the contrary, the desire was stronger; the interest in considering women’s role in social dynamics derived from the need for getting better explanations, more complete, and more explanatory of the processes of social construction. This kind of explanation demanded that history pay attendtion to women but then soon recognized the importance of explaining several kinds of relationships between sexes. The different ways in which several social situations affect individuals according to their sex demanded other efforts at a theoretical and methodological level. The question about “what kind of history Women’s History is” brings us to analyze the production placed under this label without forgetting the processes and transformation that it has been undergoing since its origin. Books by Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, “Doing History,” offer a good diagram for analyzing Women’s History. 5 The compilers gathered works in which several authors reflected on the theoretical and methodological renovation produced in the last decades’ contemporary

98

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

historiography. Distributed in three volumes, the titles of the works are New Problems, New Focusing, and New Subjects. I will use the organizational diagram of the subjects discussed in those works, although not in the same order, to do an analysis of Women’s History, trying to answer the different questions raised by it, but particularly the basic question: does it constitute a historiographic renovation? 3. New Subjects The attention paid by the new history, social history, to everyday life, private life, and mentalities, also allowed the incorporation of subjects emerging from women’s claims and fights for recognition as historical agents. First the search for extraordinary figures gave rise to uncountable biographies and, at the same time, allowed the renovation of that particular historical genre, followed immediately by the worry about women’s “place” (family, marriage, children, and home), and activities, practical chores, roles, and women’s rituals (upbringing, education, care, motherhood, and prostitution). Then more complex subjects followed: the body and female sexuality, images, feminine figures in literary texts and in art, models of femininity, codes, rules, customs, morals, and law, and in the end, the attention paid to the binomial of domination/oppression in all social situations and the contribution of politics, law, religion, science, and philosophy to the ancient condition of subordination and women’s dependence. 4. New Problems Did new problems in history exist as a result of the women’s proposals? I think that the only answer should be a positive response. What are the discussions about how adequate the use of concepts such as “oppression,” “dependence,” “subjection,” “subordination,” “absence,” and “invisibility” is to explain the “situation” or “condition” (another subject of controversy) not of individuals, groups or social classes but of the collective “women?” The discussions about feminine “nature” or women’s “culture” that gave way to debates within feminism, not just ideological, but theoretical and methodological, about how to face and solve subjects of common interest? Are not the relationships of power between the sexes a new problem in historiography? Detecting the type, form, and quality of relationships between the sexes (to which some reduced a great part of Women’s History) is one component, but a crucial component is analyzing and discussing its effects on social processes. This second part represents an innovation because that problem was absent or simply veiled behind the idea of historic neutrality, sheltered by the generic “man” that marked historiographic work until the interruption of feminism.

A Critical Examination of “Women’s History”

99

This part took the binomials of domination/oppression and equality/inequality out of their classical environment of application, the social classes, to apply them to other pairs of concepts: man/woman and “female/male,” then thought of them in a different dimension: the one that corresponds to relationships of power. This led to a compulsory re-reading of the past and to a new problem of social phenomena. We are talking about a problem, found in every social science, that exceeds historiography, but, without a doubt, in historiography it has a particular character since it is the discipline that can give empirical evidence to support new problems. 5. New Focusing Initially, the focus on the first research about women’s situation in history showed women as victims of a system that excluded them from the politicalinstitutional life that, on the other hand, was the most predominant field of interest for several centuries. Being absent in this field where history “was built,” women, and the entire society, thought they had no history at all. Later research showed that women are absent, or have a weakened or flawed presence in historiographic discourse, not in experienced history. This new perspective questioned analyses that merely stated the situation of women as the result of a continual process of victimization. The proposal in this case was to collect data about women’s participation, beyond the fact of being left out, and to write a history that made women visible, one that recognized them as co-major figures and recognized the value of their contribution to the historical process. Mary Nash called this “cooperative” history.6 In this way, a great part of that produced at the beginning under the name Women’s History fell into in the “biography” genre. That point of view did not question the theoretical principles of a history that omitted women or that simply marred their participation. This history took care of outstanding women, members of elites, who could not represent women’s experiences in general, and besides, it did not go further with the problem for the social sciences posed by feminism or explain the particular situation of those women: why they were outstanding, and how they escaped from the social restrictions of their gender. Those works did not deal with subjects such as gender relationships and the meaning of those relationships and their influences on social dynamics. We can find works that, although they consider the collective of women, take into account the idea that everything is about “completing” history. Susana Bianchi also pointed out that this Women’s History looked for help in the same sources of information and worked with the same conceptual and methodological tools of the history that it was questioning. “It retains, as

100

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

traditional history does, a stressed institutional character: the center of the area of analysis are the states’ devices, political parties, unions, public issues, and so on.”7 The actual change emerged from new questions coming from several theoretical currents that expressed feminism (Marxism, structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory) and from the criticism of theoretical and ideological assumptions of androcentric history, what led us not only to state the need for the incorporation of other categories of analysis in historical research but also to show the need for a renovation in historiographic practices, and what brought about talking about a “new women’s history.” On this matter, Luna says, “In rescuing women from the shadows, we have come around to proposing new theoretical tools to explain not only their participation in history, but inequality and social change from the perspective of differences between the sexes.” 8 Introduced as an effort whose tendency was to surpass the androcentric vision dominant in the historiographic tradition, the first concern of the new Women’s History was to cover the collective experience of women, and escape from the old diagram that only rescued outstanding women. Its aim was to explain the mechanisms of patriarchy’s continuity and to offer an explanation of the collective women’s situation. At the beginning, the concepts of oppression and domination helped, but when facing a schematic use that is not critical to this diagram, criticism emerged. In these conditions, the model offered and pointed out difficulties to give a satisfactory explanation for the complex processes of history because, in that way, to explain the existing difference in the relationship between men and women according to different contexts (socio-economic conditions, classes, cultures, ages, ethnic groups, and so on) was not possible, not even to detect the different situations of women in relation to that, not to recognize the “complicities” of women in patriarchy’s construction. As Gisela Bock says, “not all women have the same history.”9 The new subjects and new problems introduced in contemporary historiography by Women’s History uncovered the shortage of conceptual instruments that social sciences, and history, counted on to describe and explain social processes regarding not ignoring women’s participation. This led to the production of new concepts that allowed a new focusing that the situation demanded. “Gender” emerged as a useful tool to analyze the diverse problem that the study of women presented. Beyond the unavoidable theoretical and empirical difficulties that this notion offers us, we cannot dispute the significance of a large part of the research carried out by the social scientists that used this concept to analyze social reality, nor can we dispute the value of many of the results obtained.10 History incorporated this notion, and used it several times in a descriptive sense. Significant examples of an analytical use of “gender” also

A Critical Examination of “Women’s History”

101

exist that allowed interesting explanations of historical phenomena. In a well-known article, Joan Scott formulated well the defense of “gender” as “a useful category of historical analysis.” 11 This is related to the crucial evolution suffered by the concept (from being hardly defined with the term “woman,” gender turned out to mean the relationship between sexes) and the generalized recognition of the necessity of intertwining this notion with the other categories and valuable notions to do an analysis of society: class, socio-economic situation, race or ethnic group, nationality, age, sexual preference, and profession. The notion of gender led us to re-think ancient notions relative to social relations: equality, inequality, freedom, dependence, subjection, oppression, culture, nature, and power. It meant mainly a new way of focusing on social relations and, consequently, it opened the possibility of giving new explanations of society and history. 6. New Methods? Do new aims, new problems, and new focusing imply new methods? Answering this question appears difficult considering that the word “method” does not have a univocal meaning. If we understand by method “a logic of research,” we would answer negatively since, in spite of some proposals of a certain type of feminism, the serious support of a theory for building scientific knowledge in a “feminine” way does not appear possible. The matter would require another analysis if by method we refer to particular procedures, techniques, and perspectives to get to know certain objects. Has Women’s History worked out new and different methods of research? For the moment, we can assert that it has worked in a different way, from another perspective, traditional history’s sources: when considering the gender notion to answer the questions feminism had raised for history, quantitative history techniques (particularly demographics) and qualitative analysis (speech analysis, for example) have brought about new results. But is the assertion that Women’s History implies a methodological renovation sufficient? In an interesting essay, Arlette Farge is of the opinion that with the theoretical problem that Women’s History needs to re-introduce “the political dimension in the reflection over the masculine/feminine… privileging the notion of the general, as long as this implies reflection about the civil, the economic, and the political itself, without having to exclude the importance of the private… we already have a methodological proposal.”12 In the same vein, Luna emphasizes the particular interest implied by gender’s political dimension for a new Women’s History.13 To write a history different from the reiteration of male domination/female oppression

102

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

and public world/private world dichotomies, all of them led to pendulous interpretations of women’s participation in history: according to Luna, between the main role and the victim role, a historical consideration must exist, conceiving human relationships as power relationships. The most recent research led precisely to consideration of gender’s political aspect, as a means for understanding other social variants that we have to consider and with which the gender notion (class, ethnicity, “women’s culture,” profession, occupation, and sexual preference) has to intertwine to explain women’s situation and the nature of relations between human species. According to Luna, “gender as the element of power relationships is what joins the class, cultural, and ethnic differences existing among all of us….”14 Gender’s political dimension is currently a bright spot for historiographic analysis. As Joan Scott asserts, “gender is the primary field in which or through which power is articulated. Gender is not only a domain but it also seems to have been a recurrent and persistent way of expressing power in the West, Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions.”15 However, the procedures to follow are not clear yet, nor how articulation could make possible a different reading of the past, because unanimity does not exist about what Women’s History should be. While some women appear to accept that this is a parallel history, as we observe in Gisela Bock’s words, “The fact that women’s history has an autonomous character and is different from men’s does not mean that it is less important, not even does it simply raise a ‘particular’ or ‘specifically female’ problem. It rather means we should recognize the fact that general history has belonged to men so far, and we should regard women’s history as general as that of the other sex.”16 Other women, such as Bianchi , discuss “that place” belonging to Women’s History, and that changing human history has not been possible. The most popular opinion among researchers does not mention a “special” history, nor an appendix or mere complement of humanity’s history, nor “parallel” history, nor even broadening general history. A considerable and qualified majority of researchers would like to see Women’s History registered in Social History. To develop Women’s History would be to do Social History with a gender perspective. 17 Seen from another point of view, the incorporation of focus, concepts, new sources, and new analysis techniques introduced by feminism, which we should definitely incorporate into historiographic practice, has renovated Social History. Historiographic renovation produced by Women’s History, the theoretical and methodological problem of surpassing traditional schema and planning new models of historical explanation that consider women’s

A Critical Examination of “Women’s History”

103

insertion in society and their participation in the processes which construct it, is still under discussion. 7. Which Historiographic Renovation? At the beginning of this article, I wondered if Women’s History constituted a historiographic renovation. We have shown in the development of Women’s History how some of the subjects it deals with are new in history, which meant “new research fields and encouraging progress,” how historiography introduced certain problems that gave rise to significant debates and discussions, and how the notion of gender added to historical analysis can give rise to more comprehensive explanations of historical phenomena. We are then in a position to wonder if the introduction of new subjects, the existence of new problems, and the new focus implying the analytical use of “gender” are sufficient to turn Women’s History into “another” history, or better yet, if that can be enough to turn general history into a “new history.” To speak of a historiographic renovation may have two different interpretations, one broad and another limited. The first implies considering a significant change at a theoretical level and at a methodological level of history as a whole, as Social History once was, which represented a profound historiographic transformation. Today we are not able to assert that Women’s History means such a thing to general history. On the contrary, initial efforts to overcome an androcentric history were not as successful as expected. According to Bianchi, “Women’s history and general history are two histories following parallel routes without touching or intersecting, or questioning one another, without discussing or raising conflicts, without calling into question concepts or categories of analysis.”18 To think that the incorporation of new subjects or new problems is the focus proposed by Women’s History, which originates the use of new sources, which does constitute a considerable change in historiography, is possible. However, Women’s History limited renovation because, despite the significant production achieved, not enough improvements occurred to let us think of a true incidence of Women’s History in general history. In 1994, ten years after Michèlle Perrot’s question about the possibility of a Women’s History, Lola Luna pointed out this situation: “The historical production over women is still far from the debates and concerns that currently vitalize male historiography because, after two decades of female historiography in France, England, and the United States, and a decade in Spain and Latin America, it is almost not taken in to account and, when it is mentioned, it is done in a marginal way.”19

104

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

Perhaps we could say that, in a certain sense, this difficulty is not applicable to Women’s History per se, in which case we could attribute it to the resistance toward these changes originating in “the androcentric tradition” that gave supremacy to knowledge production. According to Arlette Farge, the most serious difficulties arise from Women’s History itself. It could not overcome certain “weaknesses,” and something that should concern us. She enumerates the weaknesses as “The always sensitive predilection for the study of the human body , sexuality, motherhood, female psychology, and occupations close to ‘feminine nature’” and “The always used dialectic of domination and oppression hardly passes the stated tautology since it does not try to analyze the intercessions through which that domination is put into practice, in time and space.”20 Reyna Pastor remarked upon the risks of “banality.” 21 The indiscriminate application of this concept prevents the recognition of the complexity of gender relations, neglects the interference of other factors, constitutes a reduction, and does not contribute to satisfactory explanations. Bianchi points to the “hardly innovative and problematic” proposals that Women’s History presently offers: “An increase in the study of normative discourse hardly takes into account social practices and ways of resisting such discourse, which sometimes leads to a kind of self-fascination with suffering.”22 We should add to this the increasing preference for and growing concern with discourse analysis and the study of performativity, both excessive in my opinion. At the Fourth National Congress on Women’s History and Gender Studies, held at the National University of Tucumán in Argentina, almost half of the 130 papers presented dealt with discourse analysis or performativity. In my opinion, this trend develops into shifting the primary interest of feminism to the conditions of women’s existence, constituting a serious risk. I mention this because, at the root of intellectual interests were political interests: to change the rules of the game to make society revert back to a situation in which women are dependent. We cannot achieve this if we limit ourselves to discourse analysis. We need to examine the epistemological assumptions about Women’s History more thoroughly. Questions that should be the subject of debate and research, but do not yet constitute a problem of substantial interest for theorists and epistemologists include: Do its objects define Women’s History? Do its concerns distinguish it? Are its methodologies different? How does it relate to global history? What kind of Women’s History should we write? Faced with these questions, Farge claims the need to “be critical as regards the formulations of women’s historiography itself….”23 The great merit of the studies carried out so far consists of having shown the incompetence of “androcentric history” and the subsequent necessity of

A Critical Examination of “Women’s History”

105

working with gender, which allows us to visualize the relationship between men and women as an essential element of the social dynamic, impossible to ignore in the explanation of the historical process. As Hebe Clementi says, “The key to gender, precisely for this universal quality, is that it is an excellent revealer of the historical tangle that wrapped the significant and essential presence of women in a silence and darkness which omission accentuated. That thick weaving that reveals each society’s construction and women’s role in each of them has started to be discovered.”24 The studies carried out under the rubric of Women’s History have enriched contemporary historiography methodologically. They have contributed with concepts and perspectives of analysis tending to achieve a greater understanding and a better explanation of the complex interrelationships between men and women. They have contributed to explaining the forms of relation between gender and politics. Unquestionably, they have also led to the recognition that the explication of social process demands consideration of all the subjects implicated in it. 8. What is the Fate of Women’s History? As Farge claimed, Women’s History shows “weaknesses” and, as many women say, historiographic production about women still continues to be marginal. Worse yet, it shows signs of becoming banal and its future is questionable. The lack of unanimity concerning what Women’s History is has its correlate in the obvious differences of opinion about its future. Thus, while Bianchi says that Women’s History is in a “deadlock” and see its future as “dark,” Barrancos sees it as “healthy.” 25 Surely the basis of such varying opinions is the expectation placed on the history class to write a different assessment of the possibilities of Women’s History to overcome its difficulties. Contemporary historiography does not question that “History’s aim is not the individual but “the social matter as a whole,” in all its dimensions: human, economic, social, political, cultural, spiritual, etc.”26 As feminism has shown, to consider satisfactory explanations that leave women out, or to find formulations that incorporate women in a tangential way, is incomprehensible. The question is how to face this problem without falling into doing a “parallel history,” how to incorporate into historiography the theoretical and methodological perspective that makes possible a different analysis of historical phenomena, in pursuit of “total history.” Perhaps that is why Bianchi asks, “Is it a fact that Women’s History does not exist?”27 She is referring to Women’s History as a “parallel” history, and to the attempt to do a different history that ends up being just a part of history. Agreement on this point appears to exist among many well-

106

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

known researchers. If the aim is to surpass the androcentric view, that would only be feasible from a more comprehensive, extensive, and profound focus on the problem of history. Surpassing cannot take place if this is just a matter of developing a “parallel” history. A better theoretical perspective requires new procedures and techniques, and produces different results in the application of already tested techniques. Finding the right path involves intense work on theoretical elucidation for accurate conceptual achievement and development of rigorous categories of analysis that allow research on significant problems and clear formulation of hypotheses. Thus, out of the question is the development of a theory without simultaneously developing a methodology appropriate to fulfill the intended purpose of Women’s History: to overcome the androcentric view and write a “global” history. That is why Farge pointed out that a weakness of Women’s History is the lack of theoretical and methodological reflection. Though diminished interest in methodological concerns is not exclusive to Women’s History (for a long time this attitude has been prevalent in the scientific community, perhaps as a reaction against scientism), it constitutes an obstacle to the achievement of its goals. For that reason, certain attitudes of some researchers raise concerns; they are reluctant to theorize or are simply not interested. We can add to this a worrisome trend in contemporary historiography to deal with detail, a “return to the event” that implies a turn in the opposite direction of the path chosen by social history, from which Women’s History does not escape, and this strongly conspires against the ideal of global history. Relevant for Women’s History is the warning that Liliana de Riz gave some twenty years ago about research on Latin America: “We are convinced that at present it is essential to re-establish an aspiration to rigor that does not consist of the simple empirical determination of a collection of relationships based on sophisticated research techniques. Aspiration to rigor implies reflection in the field of theory, an attitude of ‘epistemological vigilance’ that clears the path of methodological ambiguities that impede advances in the production of knowledge about social reality.”28 Scholars present “epistemological vigilance” as a requirement for Women’s History to attain evolution and theoretical and methodological development necessary for achieving transformation of historiography. Otherwise, how would we understand expressions about objectives of Women’s History such as “to overcome the ‘androcentric’ view,” “to explain the mechanisms of patriarchal continuity,” “to embrace the collective experience of women” (Nash), “to question a historiography that ignores the individual’s centrality in historical processes” (Bianchi), “to deny the fixed and permanent character of binary opposition,” “to write the terms of sexual

A Critical Examination of “Women’s History”

107

difference,” “to pay attention to systems of meaning, to the ways of representing gender in society, to articulate of rules of social relations and of constitution of meaning in experience” (Scott), “not to study women’s lives in an isolated way, but to relate them to other historical topics such as the power of ideas or forces that govern cultural change,” “to work with certain perspectives that show the way in which analysis contributes to the explanation of general problems,” “develop systems of interpretation that address the complexity of relations between the sexes, of changes in the status of women, and the advances and declines of history” (Knecher), and “an open proposal that condemns reification and essentialism” (Barrancos). At present, many researchers show great concern for the risk of “banal” interpretations of Women’s History. They agree that the most fruitful way to recover women in history is not to construct a “parallel” history, but one that encourages a new, rational reading of the past, from a perspective that allows a more comprehensive and integrated look at society as a whole and its problems and conflicts. This means a history that is not “androcentric” or, as Reyna Pastor critiqued, a social history that includes the gender perspective. In that case, perhaps no need exists for Women’s History, at least as far as it concerns much of present production. Thanks to Women’s History, the need for writing a history with women is indisputable.

NOTES 1. Michèlle Perrot, ¿Es posible una historia de mujeres? [Is Women’s History Possible?] (Paris: Editorial Rivages, 1984). 2. Paul Ricoeur, Historia y narración [History and narration] (Madrid: Editorial Cristiandad, 1987), p. 170. 3. Lidia Knecher, response to questionnaire. 4. Lola G. Luna, “La historia de las mujeres y la renovación de la historiografía,” Lola G. Luna and Norma Villarreal, Historia, Género y Política [History, gender, and politics] (Barcelona, Spain: University of Barcelona, 1994), p. 22. 5. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, Hacer la historia [Doing history], 3 vols. (Valencia, Spain: Laia, 1985). 6. Mary Nash, Presencia y protagonismo [Presence and protagonism] (Barcelona, Spain: Ediciones del Serbal, 1984). 7. Susana Bianchi, “¿Historia de las mujeres o mujeres en la Historia?” Feminismo, ciencia, cultura, sociedad [Feminism, science, culture, society], eds. Nene Reynoso, Ana Sampaolesi, and Susana E. Sommer (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Humanitas, 1992), p. 26. 8. Lola G. Luna, “La historia de las mujeres y la renovación de la historiografía,” p. 24. 9. Gisela Bock, “Historia de la mujeres, historia del género” Historia Social [Social history] (Valencia, Spain: Universidad de Educación a Distancia, 1994), No. 9, p. 57.

108

MARÍA JULIA PALACIOS

10. María Julia Palacios, “El género en la encrucijada,” ed. María Julia Palacios, ¿Historia de las mujeres o historia no androcéntrica? [Women’s history or nonandrocentric history?] (Salta, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Salta, 1997). 11. Joan Scott, “El género: una categoría útil para el análisis histórico” De mujer a género [From woman to gender], eds. María Cecilia Cangiano and Lindsay Dubois, (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Consejo Empresario de América Latina, 1994). 12. Arlette Farge, “Cultura y poder de las mujeres: ensayo de historiografía” Historia Social [Social history], (Valencia, Spain: Universidad de Educación a Distancia, 1991), No. 9, p. 98. 13. Lola G. Luna, “A propósito de género,” Lola G. Luna and Mercedes Vilanova, Desde las orillas de la política [From the banks of politics] (Barcelona, Spain: University of Barelona, 1996). 14. Lola G. Luna, “La historia de las mujeres y la renovación de la historiografía,” p. 23. 15. Joan Scott, “El género: una categoría útil para el análisis histórico,” p. 37. 16. Gisela Bock, “Historia de la mujeres, historia del género,” p. 57. 17. Reyna Pastor in a personal interview. 18. Susana Bianchi, “¿Historia de las mujeres o mujeres en la Historia?”, pp. 27–28. 19. Lola G. Luna, “La historia de las mujeres y la renovación de la historiografía,” p. 21. 20. Arlette Farge, “Cultura y poder de las mujeres: ensayo de historiografía,” p. 80. 21. Reyna Pastor in a personal interview. 22. Susana Bianchi, in a response to my questionnaire. 23. Arlette Farge, “Cultura y poder de las mujeres: ensayo de historiografía,” p. 82. 24. Hebe Clementi, Migración y discriminación en la construcción social [Migration and discrimation in social construction] (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Leviatan, 1995), pp. 124–125. 25. Responses to my questionnaire. 26. Paul Ricoeur, Historia y narración, p. 32. 27. Response to my questionnaire. 28. Liliana de Riz, “Algunos problemas teórico-metodológicos en el análisis sociológico y político de América Latina,” Carlos Pereyra, Ideología y ciencias sociales [Ideology and Social Sciences] (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1978), p. 77.

Eight THINKING PATRIARCHY Celia Amorós Translated from Spanish by Celieta Marques Amorós

1. Patriarchy, Racism, and Sexism Whenever informing us that arson has destroyed the house of some Roma (Gypsies), or some Pakistanis, the mass media refers to such an event as “an act of racism.” Yet when they report on rape, even when followed by murder, or on women battering, they never describe these facts as “acts of sexism.” The media portrays them as isolated happenings that the individual pathology of their agents can explain. These actions appear to have no relation to social attitudes, domination patterns, or economical and cultural structures. In the ontology that lies beneath these manners of speaking about what is real, regarding race, some actively racist individuals and something called “racism” exist, yet when it comes to gender, only criminals exist: only individuals who specialize in sexual offenses or crimes but would have nothing to do with the presumed existence of sexism as a structural phenomenon. At most, people will grant that such individuals are “male chauvinists.” Yet the connection between this feature in such individuals’ personality and what people sometimes call “male chauvinism” appears especially obscure when one examines the disproportion between the hyperbolic on the one hand (finding out about the rape and torture of a girl shocks society), and the innocuous on the other (to be or to present oneself as a male chauvinist proves innocuous). Men can even say with a sweet smile, “you see, I’m a male chauvinist, so...” and get a complicit smile in return. In this way, between any vandal action of xenophobia and what we pejoratively name, by a wide consensus, “racism,” we perceive a link prima facie, even if we do not know exactly of what the link consists. Yet between sexual crimes and the unnamed sexism no perceived link appears. This difference is especially meaningful. It reveals the astonishing ability of patriarchy to make itself invisible, to avoid us seeing it as a system. How could the triple rape and murder of three teenage girls (it happened in Spain five years ago, and people have scarcely recovered from the shock) have

110

CELIA AMORÓS

anything to do with the innocent little spank Boris Yeltsin gives his secretary? To make matters worse, to fight against such blindness, some indignant feminists set out a huge obstacle for the blind to stumble against. For instance, eager to relate rape with patriarchal power strategies and to show that rape is not an isolated action explained by psychologizing, some feminists suggested that all males are potential rapists. If that were so, in a patriarchal society, the link between concrete rapists and sexism as a phenomenon would be as simple as the link between potentia (in the Aristotelian sense) and action. While running away from the individual psychological explanation, we end up with a more harmful hyperpsychology: the essentialist view of male sexuality as intrinsically aggressive and intrusive. We can state that racism exists without meaning to say that all whites are potential racists, which they are not. Thus, the question is to define precisely what kind of status such entities as racism or patriarchy have. If racism is anything more than a mere word, the same will have to apply, in all coherence, to patriarchy. To admit the existence of such entities is not an innocuous ontological problem. We feminists are working toward constructing articulate feminist politics, and that means anti-patriarchal politics. Given that one power of patriarchy is to make itself invisible, we have to assume the burden of proving that it exists. We have to make it visible (such is the purpose of theory in its original Greek sense) and to reconstruct its precise outlines; let us avoid the facile temptation to resort to monster entities. What we need is to see patriarchy, not to stumble on it. At this point, bringing up the terms of an old and venerable debate is unavoidable. Inherited from Plato and Aristotle, dating from the Middle Ages, the so-called “problem of the universals” focuses on the meaning of abstract and universal terms. According to the terminology of this controversy, those who claim they see the rapists but do not see patriarchy anywhere take a similar stand to that of sophist Antisthenes when he stated, “Oh, Plato, I see the horse but I do not see horsity.” From that point of view, nominalism is one standpoint on the semantic interpretation of generic terms and one intimately linked to an ontological conviction according to which it is individuals who constitute true reality, who possess entity in its strong sense. Then we could reasonably ask nominalists: such terms as “man” and “woman,” do they not mean anything? A radical nominalist, in rigorous terms, would have to answer, no. At the most, in some cases, they would be an easy expedient to refer to an ensemble of individuals with some attitudes in common. As feminists, we could hardly agree. Instead, feminists have long been talking about a sex-gender system, a system of cultural and ideological constructions dependent on belonging to one sex. These constructions are by

Thinking Patriarchy

111

no means innocuous: they redefine sexual difference by awarding precise social and hierarchical connotations. One thing is to hold as an ethical ideal the aspiration to live in a society of individuals, and another is to claim that we can describe our society as such a society. Generic terms refer to something that has a practical functioning, symbolic and real, and therefore, some kind of entity. To be a moderate, not a radical nominalist, means to accept the peculiar kind of entity gender connotes while refusing to essentialize it, thus refusing to consider it an ontological category in the strongest sense. From our feminist point of view, for instance, an essentialist ontological categorization, like the one implied by the interpretation of male sexuality as essentially aggressive, is theoretically and politically inadequate, a “monster” categorization. Nevertheless, this does not mean that a moderate nominalism will find easy standing against an essentialist, realist approach to universals, namely, the position that attributes an essence and admits the ontologization of the meaning of generic terms. The task for us moderate, or nuanced, nominalists is to define what exactly is the extralinguistic correspondence of generic terms, given that while these terms do not admit an essence, we cannot reduce them to mere names either. We will thus have to refer to patriarchy in terms that are free of major ontological implications, if we wish to be coherent with our own premises. Let us then take as a starting point that, although patriarchy, as a domination form, does have systematic effects, it does not constitute an ontological unity. We could assume Heidi Hartmann’s definition of patriarchy as “an ensemble of social relationships between men, grounded on a material basis, which establishes, while being hierarchical, some links of interdependence and solidarity which enable them to dominate women.” 1 This appears to be all a matter of pacts, and so, we could then resolve the notion of patriarchy as an ensemble of patriarchal pacts. We will then need to elucidate what these pacts consist of, in line with the aforementioned Hartmann’s work. Hartmann takes us back, with a lot of sense, since we could hardly understand the question without those references, to the establishment of the “family wage” as an “interclassist patriarchal pact.” The “family wage,” a norm for stable working class families at the turn of the century, meant that instead of fighting for equal salaries for men and women, the worker asked for the “family wage” to keep his wife’s services at home. Had patriarchy not existed, a unified working class could have fought capitalism. Instead, the patriarchal social relationships divided the working class, allowing the buying out of one part of the working class (the men) at the expense of the other (the women). Hierarchy played as fundamental a role in this process as did male-to-male solidarity. We can thus understand the “family wage” as a solution to the conflict that an emerging female workforce posed to patriarchal and capitalist

112

CELIA AMORÓS

interests. In other words, the males continue to resolve their conflicts (in this case, a class struggle) by taking women as a transactional object: males of the ruling class turn males of the dominated class into fathers (not in the biological sense, but in the political sense of paterfamilias). In this way, patriarchy tends to implant wider and wider spaces of equals, who are equals insofar as, as family heads, they control women as a whole, while being hierarchized unequals as they depend on one another to perform that control. When power establishes itself as power of recognition, just as recognition establishes itself as power, then power means, and becomes, power to recognize the recognizers. Historian Viana Müller has pointed out how, when state societies first institutionalized patriarchy, the rulers literally designed men as family heads (imposing their control over women and offspring) in return for their giving some of the tribal resources to the new rulers. Fathers make each other Fathers. Hartmann’s approach is suggestive and full of explanatory insights. I have explored some of them, especially the features of these peculiar “pacts.” For this is not about viewing patriarchy as a Machiavellian conspiracy: major state plenary assemblies of men would not exist, where they would examine the advances of the enemy and plan measures to defend or recover territories. We cannot rule out that conspiracy occasions some males to consciously and explicitly state what they are ready or not ready to concede as a group, but socially structural phenomena are not intentional. Our watchfulness for elements of structural explanation rules out from the start any conspiracy hypothesis. Although Hartmann does not mention it, patriarchal pacts have a gelatinous nature, or, as Jean-Paul Sartre would say, a metastable nature. Some of the ideas Sartre develops in his “theory of practical ensembles” (subtitle of his Critique of Dialectical Reason) are very useful to reconstruct certain aspects, or levels, of these pacts. We do not find, as Hegel claims, the key to understanding Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s dialectics of Master and Slave, says Sartre in Critique of Dialectical Reason, is not to be found, in the relationship between these two characters, figures of his Phenomenology of the Spirit, alone, but also, and fundamentally, in the dynamics of the relationships between the masters themselves and the slaves themselves: “In fact, the plurality of the masters, added to the serial nature of any society, makes the Master, as a Master, encounter another truth in the ensemble of his own class, even if we maintain the terms of idealism. Slaves are the truth of Masters, but Masters are also the truth of Masters, and these two truths oppose each other just like the two categories of individuals do.”2 A system of domination establishes itself by means of two articulated correlative practices: self-designation where members of the dominating group designate themselves as members by defining what entitles one to

Thinking Patriarchy

113

such membership; and heterodesignation where the dominating group has the power to define what the others are.3 Since patriarchy as a male domination system overlaps many other socially relevant domination forms, which also overlap patriarchy, the self-designation taking place here is the practical belonging to the ensemble of males. We underline the practical nature of this belonging, since it never establishes the ensemble of males as sex-gender: it sets itself up by means of a system of practices, and selfdesignation performs the function of articulating them. Here, we make our own the expression, coined by Luce Irigaray in the context of a different problem, “compulsory participation in the attributes of the type,” 4 to refer to the tension all males suffer in their participating in the patriarchal paradigm of virility. This tension is unavoidable precisely because the paradigmatic male does not exist: the playing of the tension itself creates the tension. In other words, where a Platonic conception would suggest the existence of virility, that is, of archetypal virility by antonomasia, virility exists only as an idea, a regulating phantasm for male behavior. What creates links between males is the recurrent displacement and the systematic projection of the ideal of virility to “another spot” and “another part” of their ensemble, constituted in and by this very operation. Thus, each male believes the other one to be the real male. Self-perception by men of their own virility does not take place in recto (what a macho I am, I am a man!); it consists only of that referential tension toward other males (“I am a man because I am one of them, and in so far as I am one of them”). Being a male is not a “cogito,” nor is it a perception, but a belief-exigency. The tension occurs in revolving recurrence, virtually to the infinite (since other males believe, in turn, that they are so in so far as they think they are like each other “male alter,” the one taken as a reference in each case). An ensemble constituted in this way, at this level of synthetic tension, is what Sartre calls a “serialized group,” that is, a collective where the relationships between its members are relations of extero-conditioning, of recurring and revolving reference from one to the other. Therefore, the ensemble as an effect cannot be but pseudosynthetic: it produces virility as an altered and alienated image of each one in and through all the others. In the series, each solitude seconds the other solitudes, precisely because each member is alone, and, at the same time, provides for him not to be alone, resulting in the reinforcement of each one’s solitude and everybody else’s. As in Andersen’s tale of the emperor’s new clothes, virility is an outfit resulting from the fact that nobody dares to say that the emperor is naked because they are afraid others might say otherwise. This can only occur precisely to the extent that the same hesitation exists in the neighbor. Then, the more naked the emperor is, the more dense the layer of garments

114

CELIA AMORÓS

and symbolic ornaments he gets covered with by this practical social construct. Males are males because they believe they are so, although none of them knows of what that virility consists. All they know is that they all share the exigency to value it, and they feel obliged to value it (one more aspect of the partaking in the attributes of the type we have exposed), in the same way that noblesse oblige obliges, above all, to value nobility. Why value virility? People value virility because it implies, if not power, at least potential power. One is, in principle, on the side of those who can have power: we often perceive power as patrimony of the masculine gender. However, does this power have any legitimacy? Its pre-enlightened legitimization, to put it grosso modo, stems from religion, tradition, and custom. The ensemble of women (as this was not an ensemble in a symmetrical sense to that of the men, let us not dwell now on the matter of the mechanisms of its constitution) did not question it. The context was a stratified corporate society that adopted an uncritical position regarding all other powers. As soon as the foundations of the constituted powers became irrationalized by the new argumentative platforms articulated by enlightened reason, women, as an emerging group gaining a higher profile through the revolutionary events, questioned men using precisely the same revolutionary arguments applied against the Ancien Régime: you men of the third state are constituting yourselves as a “male aristocracy” so you are treating us women as a “third state inside the third state.”5 The male aristocracy so addressed will not hesitate to employ repressive violence to restore a “natural order” that is in itself constituent violence. To re-place women in their space, to re-codify this new space that men will force women to stay in, men will apply exemplary measures from the closing of all- women clubs to the guillotine for Olympe de Gouges; the army had already dismissed women, such a “plague”. Certainly, violence existed for all in the French Revolution and singling out what we could call the “patriarchal differential” of violence against women is difficult. We could undertake such a task, but right now we will simply point out that, when patriarchal power feels women are challenging its legitimacy (by approaching, however slightly, the sphere of what is significant), patriarchal power responds cybernetically qua tale, and is not too concerned about stripping itself of its own ideological weapons. This is not original if compared to other powers; yet its cynicism can still astonish even those who thought they were past astonishment. 2. Serial Pacts and Topos of Misogyny On one level, we have looked at the male collective as a serialized practical ensemble. The pseudosynthetic tension of this level has a complementary

Thinking Patriarchy

115

realm, a correlate that is, at the same time, the condition of possibility for that tension, a topos, a common place for reference as an ubi from which the males set themselves apart in their practice of self-designation. The men establish this sphere, this common place, precisely by setting themselves apart from it, so this sphere shapes itself in the same practical process during which males identify themselves as males, serially. When we talk about a topos as a common place we do not mean a sphere in which we inscribe a joint practice: a topos is precisely the symbolic correlate to some serialized practices. In this way, each male structures his belonging to the ensemble of males, and realizes (that is, he gives practical entity to) his virility by means of practical-symbolic operations with a double referent. On the one hand, we find the referential tension in which the “compulsory partaking of the attributes of the type” takes place; on the other, this tension constitutes itself in each male’s setting himself apart from the topos of reference, the topos of the non-male, and, to the extent that each other male, as Sartre would say, sets himself apart from the topos as well. This serial recurrence is what configures the topos as everybody’s place, as a transactional sphere, insofar as it is, at the same time, nobody’s and anybody’s land: a symbolic space of indiscernibility. “Woman” is the topos that produces a pseudosynthetic effect on the serialized ensemble of the males. At this level of analysis, this topos, constituted as a practical-symbolical place, is bound to be the object of violence. This is an effect of its process of constitution since this topos is the reverse of the self-designation system of the males as males: “I am not X to the extent that I have to not-be-it to be like Y, who, in turn, to be like me, has compulsively to make himself not-being-X.” X is what they all have to not-be, in an active and belligerent sense, to be like the other members of the series, that is, to be men. The common place that the man has to not-be crosses from the register of “being” to the register of “having”: this is how “woman”, as topos, is a serial, or serially altered commonplace, of the males. If the males qua patriarchy (patriarchy being precisely the metastable resulting construct of these pacts) always assign “the woman” a topos, this is because they have previously, in a symbolic-logical sense, constituted her as such a topos. The notorious attitude of a Spanish judge, a few years ago, regarding a rape case, illustrates this scheme of patriarchal ideology. He stated that since the woman was sitting between two males in a car, she “had clearly taken just the right seat to be sexually used.” So, males take for granted that any male qua tale has in principle a right to be a user, which a judge validates by establishing himself as a legitimator of the masculine gender’s right of sexual use over any woman not set apart, not “retired.” Any woman who

116

CELIA AMORÓS

does not behave as having an owner sets herself up eo ipso as public property. In other words, any male has a right of usufruct, as a member of the implicit pact of auto and hetero-designations that make up the masculine gender, over any woman non sancta. Here we would define “saint” in the enlightening sense Hobbes gave the word in chapter thirty-five of his Leviathan: “wherever the word saint is adequately employed there is always some reference to property obtained by consent.” Thus, a sensu contrario from this definition, coined by a lucid philosopher regarding patriarchal pacts, wherever owners have not posted the sign “property obtained by consent,” we find not just the merely profane, but even that which, defined negatively as non-saintly, has all the possibilities of getting profaned. Woman is topo-logico-symbolically a place of sexual use for any “X as long as it belongs to the ensemble of males.” With her behavior, she has updated and fulfilled that topos, prefiguring the place-device of use. The fact that “the woman” underwent what she underwent is nothing but the patriarchal-logical consequence, just as an analytical deduction, of having placed herself in it. When it comes to “woman,” spaces do not define her projects as a person, to have a drink, a chat, a dance, but come pre-signified according to their codification by those who have designed those spaces in the pacts that acquire their consistency in the serial mechanism of their selfdesignations. By these auto-designations, they designate themselves as codifiers and attributors of spaces. As Cristina Molina Petit indicates, we can view patriarchy as a system of attribution of spaces.6 In the case we have mentioned, the judge, as an institutional instance, did nothing but sanction and render explicit the pact between the males as interpreted in the patriarchal ideology: the woman placed in determined space-time co-ordinates, between two males, in a car, late in the evening (it looks as if we women are also entitled to a curfew), in a sexually used time, is a nobody’s land. She has de-territorialized herself from the private sphere marked by a male, and she is now a space of sexual availability virtually for all. Why should a judge limit himself to an interpretation of the law for concrete situations when such ancestral constituting proto-laws exist? Regarding “woman,” the need to examine her behavior does not exist as something making sense in a situational logic: people always pre-interpret her. We say, significantly, that we violate the sense of a text when we understand it in a literal and immediate way without bothering to proceed to interpret it. We make violence when we refuse to interpret the other, and, as far as concerns us, nothing gives us such a feeling of violence and impotence as feeling wrongly interpreted, or rather, pre-interpreted: a wrong interpretation is, after all, an interpretation.

Thinking Patriarchy

117

So, an intimate link exists between violence and interpretation because only interpreters recognize each other. That is, they know each other as such precisely by mediating their knowledge through a paradigm of confirmation: you are and you can be with me because you are like me, so I homologate you. Woman is of course not an interpreter: nothing is and has been harder to achieve (except for participation in war) than the promotion of women to the professions and posts involving interpretation as a constituting socio-cultural power (the priesthood, judiciary, professorate, influential media, legislatures). She is not an interpreter and others do not interpret her, either! The reasons why she is not the subject or object of interpretation are, deep down, the same: patriarchal ideology has already constituted her as a topos, or commonplace. This is precisely why it constitutes her as an object of violence. In that sense, patriarchal ideology supports a non-thought on woman: not a false thought, but a non-thought, just as racism was in Sartre’s analysis. Racist axioms, such as “the natives are lazy,” making analytical statements in a colonial context, in the sense that children learn “their meaning together with their truth value,” cannot be a thought. Thought links intimately to the practical project of liberty; thought is, in action, a key to deciphering action itself, it is problematical and always discussible. On the contrary, we could consider racist axioms, just as misogynist axioms (which can be perfectly contradictory without bothering their thinkers: “you know what women are like,” “you never know with women”; as Alicia Miyares indicates, “we are the mysterious and the perfectly well known”),7 thoughts only if we so name the practical decisions to oppress the other promoted forever to the status of definition. Racist axioms developed from the colonial system itself. Colonists did not establish the system on the basis of previous experiments on the diligence or the laziness of the natives; likewise, misogynist axioms are as old as patriarchy and they have evolved even less than the different shapes that patriarchy has adopted through history. They are, instead of statements about something or somebody, auto-designating complicity winks that come to say, “you are one of us and you are in our pact, we understand each other, don’t we? We know, a priori, what we are talking about, don’t we?” Whether you say anything about the colonized or about women does not matter, the system does not even problematize them as objects of a discourse, as something worth discussing. What matters is to express, in mirroring complicity with the one who is on my side, something like, “I am a colonist,” “I am a man.” We reaffirm ourselves pragmatically in our auto-designations with the confirmation by the other, and the other by all the others, and by me, in the recurrence of the series. All beliefs (and virility is, as we have seen, a belief-exigency) need confirmation rituals. That is precisely why we repeat these sentences,

118

CELIA AMORÓS

clichés, or common places to the infinite: they are part of the practical rules that constitute the serial pacts and that configure their correlative topos of reference. “You know what women are like”: to know is a generic property of males. They know, allegedly, out of practical experience; they reciprocally qualify themselves as experts. Men already know that nothing exists to find out, nothing exists to learn from, and nothing exists to communicate. A feature of violence is precisely that it sets itself up as a device to stop time, to deny the change and evolution of things: violent intervention, constriction by decree and without consent, would then pretend its justification. Violence needs to emphasize the inertia of things, to affirm unilaterally the being in its most monolithic and resistant to transformational aspects. For certain sections of the militant Basque separatist group, nothing has changed in the Spanish state since Franco’s times. To maintain male hegemony you have to maintain “the eternal feminine.” Above all, if one already knows this, one can justify beforehand stopping women from having their word: what would they have to say? If they do say something, whatever they say one will reduce it to “you know what they are like”: they resent not being men, they “envy the male penis,” “they want to turn things around,” “feminism is the same as male chauvinism, but the other way around,” etc. This ensures that any aspect of the message comes predetermined by the structure of the code, so the message becomes mere redundancy, or it gets expressed in terms that imply in themselves the disqualifying sanction. In short, women must stay out of the pacts. Men make the pacts on the grounds that “you know what they are like” and they are not like us. Everything about women is a known fact, yet they are always a surprise (“La que no es mala lo parece algunas veces, y la que es mala no lo parece” [the one who is not naughty appears naughty sometimes, and the naughty one doesn’t appear so], as one cha-cha-cha used to be sung.) From this point of view, men do not call for sanctioning violence but preventive violence: a “just in case.” We know everything about women, but, at the same time, we play a fiction of “naïveté.” We fix the rules of the game, but, in case we do not win, we play on two different boards. On the one hand, man has exhausted woman as an object of knowledge because she is so insignificant that nothing exists to know. (Mr. Julián Marías takes the liberty in 1987 of going through an issue “of the utmost importance,” such as the issue of women in an essay not exactly lengthy, fortunately, and with no bibliography at all quoted or consulted [no need for a bibliography, by the way], when it comes to reconstructing the structural invariant he assigns to women: the sphere of “intra-history”.) On the other hand, “we do not know anything about women,” but that is because woman is such an aberrant entity that she belongs to the ineffable,

Thinking Patriarchy

119

beyond categories and determinations. She is “the undefined,” as Professor García Calvo wants it, “she is the excess.” People can revere excess, but they have to control it. To serial pacts between males corresponds “serial thought” on woman as a non-thought, that is, as violence. For violence is anti-hermeneutical. Interpretation paralyzes violence, just as violence paralyzes interpretation. Thought is always hermeneutical truce. Violence is thick and obstinate. Violence is the anti-thought. For the same reason, misogyny is thickheaded narrow-mindedness. We women have a lot to think about and much reflection to share to get out of the locus of the non-thought, the locus of non-recognition, of nonreciprocity, and therefore, of violence. Feminism, as any emancipatory process, is a source of interpreting thought, and it furnishes new keys to deciphering. Feminism is a project to reconstruct social reality on the basis of new and unacknowledged pacts, new pacts where the “pacted object,” the hitherto excluded from being an active subject of the pact, would not be women as a generic, and one result would be a society not formed by patriarchal pacts. 3. Pledged Pacts and Feminine Figures But let us not rejoice for too long in the contemplation of our utopian horizon, and let us go back to our analytical approaches to patriarchal pacts. In what we have called patriarchal pacts between males, we have used the word pact in a sui generis way, or, rather, in a stipulatory manner: it did not retain the connotations of conscious contractualism that the uses of ordinary language would grant. Yet, we do sometimes use this term to refer to some practical attitudes of complicity between individuals or groups in the form of not necessarily conscious winks and other gestures, verbal or physical expressions, which are the very essence of our pacts. We are not to take such complicity gestures as external manifestations of the pacts, just as appearance would manifest an underlying essence, but they are the pacts themselves. Nor is this about using the term “pact” in such a wide way that it would prove imprecise or scarcely operative; at the end of the day, if everything is a pact, it is as if nothing is a pact. In this context, we define a pact as we have done when referring to patriarchal pacts as opposed to class pacts, like Heidi Hartmann does. To this definition, which corresponds to the contents and the nature of the “matter of the pact,” we add a new distinctive one, taken from Jean-Paul Sartre, which refers to the formal modalities that pacts can take on according to their degree of synthetic tension. So patriarchy, far from presenting a stable ontological unity, appears to be a practical ensemble. Patriarchy is made of and by means of a system of

120

CELIA AMORÓS

real and symbolic practices, and it gains its consistency exclusively from these practices. Such a practical ensemble cannot be but meta-stable, so we could say that patriarchy is the meta-stable ensemble of likewise meta-stable pacts between males, by means of which the collective of men constitutes itself as gender-sex, and correlatively, so does the collective of women. Patriarchal pacts can present, as we have seen, different degrees of synthetic tension. From this point of view, what we have called “serial pacts” correspond to the lowest degree of synthetic tension; they are the loosest (in that the misogyny correlative to these pacts expresses itself as not especially repressive violence that takes the shape of an exclusion of women; it is a “not taking into account” which constitutes the topos of the “non-thought”). Yet in some circumstances related to historical relays of patriarchal power (such as strong generational conflicts, or revolutionary periods), these pacts can lose their fluidity and narrow their set: herein we find what Sartre calls “the pledged group.” Such a group is a practical construct responding to a reflexive situation of the group regarding its own constitution. In turn, this reflexive situation takes place under pressure from an external threat that might dissolve or dilute the group, perceiving the group itself as a sine qua non condition for the preservation of the identity, the interests, and the goals of all its members. Sometimes in history, pledged groups have constituted themselves explicitly as patriarchal, by pacting thematically against women. But, in any case, their patriarchal nature comes in as a presupposed constitutive condition of the “oath”: whether or not any kind of ceremony or ritual manifests it, “manliness” or “gentlemanliness” is an essential component to make the “given word” into serious and solemn commitment. A pact is a pact “between gentlemen” and whoever betrays them “is not a man.” (Significantly, when a woman is committing betrayal, we will refer to her with all kind of insults, but we will never say that “she is not a woman.”) The hypothesis we take as a starting point is that patriarchal misogyny gets exacerbated in pledged groups. Woman, as a transactional object of pacts between males, fulfills here a special function. From the ceremonial kidnapping of females in some societies, through group rape in war contexts (armies are institutionalized pledged groups), to the more everyday image of a sports team’s cheerleaders, a whole range of semantic passages brings out the role of woman as a seal for pledged patriarchal pacts. From Plato’s Bk. V of The Republic to French revolutionaries in their constituent processes, having women in common has always been a characteristic expedient for those who identify themselves as brothers, unless what they have in common is the absence of women, establishing celibacies as a cathartic ritual that tightens the bonds between the pledged equals and further legitimates their power by means of their public sacrifice: monks, priests, etc.

Thinking Patriarchy

121

The members of the pledged group, insofar as it owes its consistency to the practical tension of all and each of the members who form it, can only establish the group on the basis of a “mediated reciprocity,” as Sartre would put it; that is, on the free pact of loyalty to the common cause from each member to each member, which all the others witness. (Let us remember that, until not so long ago, being a witness was one of the many things a woman was not allowed to do.) The members warrant one another, in front of all the others, their character (“character is oath,” Sartre said) as an unfailing and unbribable servant to the common cause. Each one guarantees, moreover, that as far as he is concerned, the group will be immune from any possible betrayal insofar as he demands it from himself and from all the others, just as he demands that all the others demand it from him as well. (In the formula of any personal oath, a “may I forget about myself if I forgot about you” always exists.) The oath presents thus a two-faced structure Sartre called “FraternityTerror,” heads and tails of the contracted commitment depending on whether you view it from the standpoint of liberty or that of exigency. Freely handed over to all the others , fraternity is each member’s liberty. Terror is this same liberty as “submitted to the control and coercion from the others, it denies itself any possibility that the individual might become Other.” In other words, terror is the necessity to be what you have freely wanted to be, under the threat of your own brothers treating you as an enemy. Given this analysis, from the point of view of woman as transactional object, what will the correlate of these two aspects, Fraternity and Terror, be? On Fraternity’s side, the brothers’ pact becomes embodied by feminine figures corresponding to the symbolic mother. Men respect and exalt woman in this symbolic sphere: in Spanish Virgin-worshipping brotherhoods, the members swear “by our good little mother,” thus invoking her to seal the pact. Woman is not free to choose such a sphere, and she will lose all respect if she steps out of it. Significantly, during the French Revolution, the Jacobine tendency, drawing its followers from the lower bourgeoisie and heavily inspired by Rousseau emphasizing strongly fraternal equality between the males, sought to make an institution of the mother as a symbolic breast nurturing and transmitting all civic virtues. Yet that is precisely why, paradoxically, men will deny women the right to citizenship. Their mission is to breed good citizens and to keep vigil, from the private sphere, over the ethical conditions that must preside throughout the public sphere. 4. Excursus By definition, in a pledged group a hemorrhagic center cannot exist, that is, any point through which the consistency of the group could escape. If being male consists of making the other believe that he has control over women, it

122

CELIA AMORÓS

would explain why every time men establish an emerging pledged group, the woman they define as the feminine ideal is the one they have. Such was the case of the bourgeois domestic wife the Jacobines presented as “the real woman,” as opposed to the women the Ancien Régime males possessed (to speak rigorously, they did not possess, since the frivolous salon courtesan was rather out of control). As Shulamith Firestone pointed out, during the African-American struggle for civil rights, black males generated a literature that idealized the black woman, a revered mother and a faithful wife standing by her man as the “real woman.” (This imaginarium in the black male’s conscience clearly harmed Anita Hill’s image: she was standing against a man of her race.) This literature was a polemic reaction to the humiliating image of the black family as a house of prostitution for the chaste white family. Before black males set themselves up as a pledged vindicatory movement, the real woman had been the white woman, the one the other, the white man (the real man), possessed. Society viewed the black man as the pimp of the black woman whose prostitution he had to endure, and correlatively, as the infra-man: forced to offer his woman, he retained at least some control by economically exploiting her. This presentation of the pimp as an infra-man might appear as a shock, since its figure is folklorically portrayed as a hyper-representation of masculinity. (As F. Collin indicates, the dominant group endows every oppressed group with a layer of folklorization.) Such hyperbolization and ritualization of machismo is nothing but a reactive compensation to impotence. According to Pitt Rivers’s classical study on the concept of honor in Mediterranean cultures, nomadic people such as the Jews, the Roma (Gypsies), and others, forced to offer their women to the sedentary people as a toll (something like the opposite of Inuit sexual hospitality), show a tendency to exacerbate “possessivity” toward their women as a rehabilitation of their diminished manliness. When, in decadent periods, males became conscious of a feeling of impotence and dispersion, they developed nostalgic attitudes that led to projecting the ideal of the real woman (cf. Tacitus, Arthur Schopenhauer) in the somewhere-else, in what the other has, that is, in the exotic. 8 For the Marquis de Sade, who, in line with the libertines, represents the reverse of the Jacobine ideology and takes a stand for an anarchy-driven aristocratism and for the rejection of any kind of pact, the figure of the mother is a favorite object for violence and profanation. Sadist violence is not an isolated fact; we must place it in its right context as the other side of the republican investiture of the civic mother. Moreover, even though we cannot dwell on all the assumptions and the implications this hypothesis involves, the referent for the pledged brotherhood is not the natural mother, the one giving flesh and blood life, but

Thinking Patriarchy

123

a figure re-instituted on the grounds of the symbolic death of the natural one. Unlike the Freudian myth in Totem and Taboo, the pledged brothers have not symbolically killed the father. The brothers are fatherless orphans insofar as they self-legitimate by giving themselves the law in mediated reciprocity. Only if such reciprocity should suffer a short circuit under any given circumstances, Sartre affirmed, will they institute a Father as a first among equals. The pledged brotherhood dies as far as immediate natural life is concerned to be reborn, self-engendered as a new body, precisely as a political body in the sense of a sovereign body. Our pledged group is the Hegelian Master: it is a pact between masters, between quasi-sovereignties, since it has proceeded to the sacrifice of immediate life to legitimate it by rebirthing it in a new socio-cultural sphere. No wonder, in Leviathan, Hobbes emphasizes circumcision and baptism as marks of the pledged institution granting access to the new life, to life upon the alliance. In baptism, the godmother substitutes for the mother; that is, for a feminine figure symbolizing the new life according to the spirit and the partaking in the new body (political or mystical). Godparents are proper to all initiation rituals: let us not forget that, anthropologically, initiation rituals consist of snatching the child from the natural mother. Thus, pledged liberty, fraternity, represents itself as self-engendering, in some kind of sovereignty myth where the beginning would not start with the natural origins: then, brothers are not so because they are, in fact, children of the same mother, but, in their self-instituting as a brotherhood, they adopt a common mother and they set her up as emblematic mother to the pact. The mother of the pact is a “pacted mother,” a kind of ratified mother, a symbolic space resulting from the legitimating recovery of the origins, a redenda origo, as opposed to the Nietzschean pudenda origo. The “civic mother” of the Jacobine revolutionaries is not as much a natural mother revered for her actual maternity as a function upon which a merely symbolical civic investiture was bestowed in exchange for her waiver to join in the political corpus as a member. She will be the soul, breath, and breast of the Republic. Before, we women did not have a soul; now, we cannot become members of the political corpus because we are its soul: we have too much of a soul. So, if the political pact were to make woman a subject, where would it find the referent for the emerging brotherhood’s pact? Moving on to different aspects of the matter, our pledged group, due to the fact that the synthetic tension of the whole group falls upon each one of its members, can find some relief by projecting its practical unity onto an ontological unity that cannot be obtained even though it is present as a desideratum (the group’s practical unity is only so as a regulating scheme for the individual practices of its members). That the ontological entity does not fail is crucial, as is that it appears at the same time as endowed with the

124

CELIA AMORÓS

stability the practical unity does not have, and as homologable to the desired practical one. Only then will it fulfill satisfactorily the required mediation functions. In the context of patriarchal ideology and symbolic structure, woman, by antonomasia, fulfills all requirements. Woman is a practical unity herself, as a living organism capable of action; furthermore, this practical unity transcends the group (she is not a member), but she concerns the group to the extent that she maintains radialized (sit venia verbo) relationships with each of the members of the pact, and so, she gets articulated to the group while articulating the group itself as its ontological unity. She is the space of symbolical reference where the paroxistical, referential tension constitutive of the group can fix itself in the relation of “mediated reciprocity” that gives it its character. In this way, the revolving and recurrent mechanism of this reciprocity, referring each one to each other through the whole group, is not left to itself: it gains a converging orientation. Philosophers such as José Ortega y Gasset enjoyed stating that man is defined by what he does, and woman by “what she is.” From the point of view of what is convenient for the group of the pledged practical agents, what is best is that she does and does not do at the same time. In so doing, the practical unity will not challenge the hieratic nature of the necessary ontological unity, while the ontological unity will not crumble down under the excessive transcendence of the practical unity. This would explain why groups assign to the instituted woman-mother, precisely, symbolical performances such as attaching medals or cutting the ribbon when christening a new warship. However, the very synthetic tension of the pledged group involves that upon each member, the brotherhood’s ultimate support, will fall the suspicion of the whole group: they all become at the same time suspects and suspecting. Any of them can be a hemorrhagic spot endangering the tense and unsteady consistency of the group. As we saw earlier, Terror is the sinister side to Fraternity. Structurally, we could expect a feminine figure that will run correlatively to the mother of the Brotherhood. Just as the practical unity as a regulating scheme of the group projected on a symbolic space, its precariousness and its lack of consistency will tend to project itself on some imaginary ubi. We have found that unity as a seal to the pact projects onto the mother (she is symbolically constituted at the same time as sealer and sealed entity); now the slippery hemorrhagic center, present in all and each one, yet ungraspable, will look for a privileged projection space which it can perceive as the very embodiment of betrayal: the Witch. By virtue of the hellish dynamics of Terror, pledged groups characteristically launch witch-hunting in a metaphorical sense: it is to the extent that a Witch exists as a supreme antagonist constitutively gliding over the threatened pact itself. The Witch is, par excellence, the Other: she has a

Thinking Patriarchy

125

pact with the Devil. She gathers with other witches in assemblies and sabbaths, where they plot all kinds of diabolical pacts. This is why male groups regard women-only gatherings, as soon as they can gain any degree of importance or closeness to any kind of power, as conspiring sabbaths, and the gathering women, as allies to the enemy. In the hemorrhagic center through which the pledged group loses control, you always have to “chercher la femme.” In many cases this has been the selective reason why we have been allowed to make history, from Malinche, the Indian ally to Hernán Cortés, to Charlotte Corday. The witch being the tail to the head represented by the mother, any woman who does not conventionally assume her role of mother will run the risk of appearing to be a witch. If she does not perform the mediation assigned to her, she will automatically become the anti-mediation, the person responsible for the dissolution of the pact. As Paule -Marie Duhet mentions, during the French Revolution, the women who stood out and outgrew their conventional roles were, in an enlightened fashion, assimilated to witches and treated as such.9 Marie Antoinette “served the ominous purposes of the Austrian Crown,” Olympe de Gouges “ended up making her own the perfidious projects of those who wanted to split-up the country,” and Mme. Roland was a “monster” who provided support to “mercenary writers.” Topos as a space of the non-thought, heteronomously instituted mother, witch, slut, raped or collectivized prostitute: such is the picture of women’s particular adscriptions to this glebe whose map we have attempted to draw, the ideological map of the symbolic spaces we are assigned by the pacts of patriarchal society.

NOTES 1. Heidi Hartmann , “An Unhappy Marriage : Toward a More Progressive Union Between Marxism and Feminism,” Women and Revolution, ed. Lydia Sargent. Boston, Mass.: South End Press, 1981, pp. 1–33. 2. Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la Raison Dialectique, ed. Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre. Paris: Gallimard, 1985. 3. Amelia Valcárcel , “Las figuras de la heteronomía: del vosotras al yo,” Hombres y mujeres en la formación del pensamiento occidental [Men and women in the formation of Western thought], vol. 1, Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1989. 4. Luce Irigaray, Speculumde l’autre femme. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1974. 5. Alicia Puleo, La Ilustración olvidada: la polémica de los sexos en el siglo XVIII [The forgotten Enlightenment: the polemic of the sexes in the 18th century] Barcelona:Anthropos, 1993. 6. Cristina Molina Petit, Dialéctica Feminista de la Ilustración [Feminist dialectic of the Enlightenment], Barcelona: Anthropos, 1994.

126

CELIA AMORÓS

7. Alicia Miyares, “Los hijos falsos del lenguaje: la mujer como genérico,” Contribution to the lecture series “Alternative social movements,” University of Salamanca, August 1988. 8. Cf. Amelia Valcárcel, “Las figuras de la heteronomía: del vosotras al yo.” 9. Paule-Marie Duhet, Les femmes et la Révolution, Paris: Juillard, 1971.

Nine THE CHALLENGE OF DIFFERENCES IN LATIN AMERICAN FEMINISM María Luisa Femenías Translated from Spanish by Amy A. Oliver Latin America does not constitute a homogeneous totality without distinctions (as thought by some who tend to see it as “the exotic other”). The region manifests many and profound differences. Its geography, ethnic make-up, and economy differ significantly although the region does retain some common points: language, a primary religion, its situation relative to the north-south axis, and the real and symbolic space inhabited by women. In addition to the inherent instability of its institutional and economic capabilities, a formal, egalitarian model exists that Latin America can never quite put into practice.1 Such problems encourage a critical potential anchored, in general, in the concept of “difference.” Analyzing equalitydifference dichotomies and contrasting them with other concepts held by feminist theorists is therefore useful. 1. Equality At its base, feminism links to the notion of equality. That equality is not a univocal concept is a well known idea: “Equality of what?” asks Amartya Sen. The idea of equality confronts two challenges: on the one hand, the basic heterogeneity of human beings, where equality is the end goal, and, on the other, the multiplicity of variables used to judge equality.2 In the second case, the material notion of equality differs greatly from the formal definitions of it established before the law, which links them to universalism. 3 The universalization of the notion of equality basically implies that, on some level, we worry for all other persons, and this does not appear to be an unnecessary or hypocritical quality, though, by defending the importance of formal equality, we accept hidden and unwanted material or peripheral inequalities. Be that as it may, we cannot deny the real diversity of women and men. Research based on the supposition of causal uniformity ignores, as Sen indicates, a fundamental aspect of the problem: human diversity is not a secondary complication, but a fundamental aspect of the concern with

128

MARÍA LUISA FEMENÍAS

equality.4 Understood as such, equality occasions the contrastive criterion that permits us to identify differences, inequities, and deficiencies, making clear the need for compensatory politics. This solution, unsatisfactory to some critics, defines itself in terms of “difference through equality,” like an updated version of the fate of Kantian cosmopolitanism, where equality is a necessary though not a sufficient condition to achieve equity and recognition.5 2. Difference Since approximately the 1970s, a good part of feminist production has advocated a radical critique of the egalitarianist paradigm, replacing it with “difference.” The notion of “difference” is not univocal and it takes on a unique character in this context.6 Historically, it has connoted inferiority (in its different forms) as much for women as for Blacks, indigenous peoples, or other non-Western peoples. The white male, self-instituted as the norm, has understood all deviation as “abnormal,” “inferior,” or “negative,” and has displaced the inferiorized “other” to the dark and unfathomable abyss of overflowing emotionality and irrationality. More recently, the defenders of “difference” have defined it as reciprocal and spread throughout the nexus formed by the categories of sex, gender, religion, and class, rescuing it as “positively other” and insisting upon its self-affirming character without intending to approve of it. In this way, the notion of “difference” evokes more than sexual difference. The category of sex-gender remains permeated by ethnic and cultural variables, whose immediate demand is not equality but recognition. The majority of feminists of “difference” develop their theories in countries where a modern legal order and a high degree of equality prevail. In many cases, these feminists implicitly presuppose formal equality. Perhaps for that reason, not without a certain naiveté, they consider all differences necessarily positive, meaningful, and deserving of equal recognition. The negative view of difference, they believe, obeys colonialist preconceptions sustained by centuries of Western domination. 7 In the Latin American setting that has never attempted equality, since the 1990s university researchers have systematically used the concepts of gender and ethnicity inter-relatedly, in search of parameters for identity and recognition. Studies in the field reveal that the absolute priority of ethnicity over gender, which contributed to fragmenting this conceptual weapon from a substantive as well as formal point of view, resolved the well-known conflicts of loyalty and double belonging.8 In Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and other countries with significant percentages of their native population multi or interethnic, public policy applied a large part of the results of the research. Their universal non-

The Challenge of Differences in Latin American Feminism

129

Western symbols had clashed many times with the programs endorsed by European non-governmental organizations or the United Nations, and a vast number of beneficiaries experienced these clearly Western assumptions more as an extension of the Conquest than as assistance. Yet the diagnostic studies allowed detection, based on parameters of the specific cultures, problems of inequity, violence, and invisibility, among others. A wide variety of more or less spontaneous associations of women served as strong centers of identity and resistance. As recent indigenous movements show, without modifying their essential structure, these associations generated major bases of sensitization with respect to what the West recognizes as rights. Led by women, a slower but more fruitful process began that integrated gender-sex and ethnicity into a comprehensive identity model. Whereas hegemonic discourses on equality consider women monolithically in the abstract, constructs of “difference,” tied to traditions, recognize them materially. If the Enlightenment initiated the construction of women's rights with the “Preciosas” (aristocratic French women who organized literary salons to disseminate the ideas of the Enlightenment) and the “notebooks of complaint,” groups such as the “Preciosas” reclaim their place in the social structure of the community to which they belong. In this way, they attempt to affirm themselves in the presence of men, but also in the presence of Western white feminists, whom they view as hegemonic bearers of a discourse based on a folkloric identity projected onto native Third World women, residual proof of the universality of patriarchy and the traditional subjugation of women. Constructed as much by male narratives of their own their own identity groups as by First World feminists who undervalue their experiences and view them as “the exotic other,” native women inchoately sense that such discourses address them as “the Third World woman” (in the ontologized singular). The distortions made by men and First World feminists generate a visceral sensation among native women of double subaltern status. Paradoxically, the exaltation of autochthony tends to obscure the fact that the logic of power also ruled, and rules, interethnic relations. Therefore, only by carefully examining the logic of power can we articulate the intricate links among difference, hierarchy, the self-other dialectic, norm, identity, and exclusion. Only then will we be in a position to consider which differences we should retain, which are significant to identity (whether or not they collide with rights), and which are not. 3. Universal Contemporary criticism of the limits of universalist formalism is something like a “chronicle of a criticism foretold,” and it refers to an old problem linked to the paradoxes of universality that have come to light in different

130

MARÍA LUISA FEMENÍAS

ways. From denouncing women's position as “the excluded other,” to sounding the alarm about the “slanders” of universality9, the nature of “substitute universality” 10, or the “fissure” of the universal 11, many women have developed theories and practices that have revealed contradictions. The tensions between the enunciative and practical levels began to become explicit when enlightened women attempted to include themselves in the emancipatory virtualities of universal equality. The continual revision and manufacture of historic patterns of universality permitted Western women to attain present-day legal and social recognition. In that regard, Latin American women seek their own paths. This does not imply ignorance, rejection, or unfamiliarity with the experience of other women's movements, whether historic or present-day. Their critical starting point is different as are their methods of orchestration. The tolerance of gender inequality relates closely with issues of legitimacy and recognition. People frequently accept gender inequality as “natural” and do not discuss it. Indeed, often women themselves make operative decisions that harm them because the apparent natural, cultural and identity-related justice of these inequalities, together with the absence of any sense of injustice, play a key role in the function and survival of the same structures that make allies of those who have most to lose. In a declaration referring to Chicanas, Gloria Anzaldúa affirms, “men make the rules and women transmit them: mothers and mothers-in-law teach youth to obey, to be silent, to accept male and church culture submissively.”12 In these cases, the equality-difference debate reflects the recovery of gender-ethnic-cultural identity tension and in less Westernized communities it reaches levels of conflict that are very costly for women. In practice, opting to pursue “equality” implies significant emancipatory and legal virtualities, though they are abstract. On the other hand, the choice of “difference” affirms women's self-identity, recognition, belonging, and autochthony, but it leaves them without clear parameters to examine, compare, and translate inequities and injustices and with a sense of discomfort, rarely put into words and even less conceptualized. If they opt for equality, in many cases the community cuts them off from their family and group identities, especially from their mothers and grandmothers. Repudiated by their communities, these women lack “decent” life choices within their own groups. The usual “choice” is then to migrate to more Westernized cities only to join the ranks of domestic workers and single mothers without welfare. Often these women have marginal and highly unstable partners, jobs, or associations with loosely formed groups. These excluded women shape the contingent boundary of the fictional construct of universality at the same time as they define it. The explicit recognition by philosophers such as Judith Butler and Chantal Mouffe that universalist claims include a certain degree of

The Challenge of Differences in Latin American Feminism

131

materially inevitable exclusion requires a reformulation of the topic of universality and the related debate of recent years.13 To contribute to the conceptualization of such problems so that the social stratagem delimits more equitable spaces for all, mobilizing the level of practice and that of theoretical conceptualizations is necessary. Only after examination and discussion of these positions will we better understand the tensions between customs and laws, or in Fraser's terms, between identity and recognition, on the one hand, and distributive justice and equity on the other. This is because, given the impact of examining the connection between theoretical analysis, social sensitization, and practical politics, ignoring the importance for long-term social change of a clearer understanding of gender equity and inequity is a mistake. If “equality” is a hypercodified concept that legitimates modern political institutions, even those biased against it or those which exclude on the basis of gender, examining and being vigilant about the real mechanisms of recognition and of inclusion-exclusion of women situated in communities in which the formal universal denies them a place is essential. 4. Postcolonial Feminism Postcolonial feminism, so much in fashion, attempts to subvert the historical devaluation of women as inferiorized difference, appealing to the standard measure of ethnic difference. However, given that its representatives are primarily English speaking, they are not exempt from the general critique of Anglocentrism as a hegemonic discourse. Similarly, they prefer to overlook that the postcolonial situation varies greatly among the former English, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonies. For that reason, a word as broad as “postcolonial” homogenizes basic differences among such cultural heritages, obscuring ethnic, religious, esthetic, and hierarchical differences within the multiple cultural and ethnic communities that comprise Latin America. In the same way, what white members of the metropolis consider postcolonial continues to be colonial for the native communities that reject how the “Western feminist community” absorbs difference in terms of its own parameters, such as difference in equality, without questioning the legitimacy of its self-appropriation of the representation of “Women.” This critique is common in Latin America in large indigenous communities or those with little ethnic mixing, with a strong sense of belonging. In more Westernized urban areas, the tension between recognition and distributive justice tends to be less and even tilts toward the second, though the tension of the north-south axis is always present. Although indigenous countries have formed independent states since the nineteenth century, they continue to view “White” culture as invasive, thereby complicating the idealized vision of multiple differences in order to

132

MARÍA LUISA FEMENÍAS

draw attention to the real and often wide gap that divides women. Therefore, distinguishing between “difference” as benign diversity and desirable plurality, and “difference” as conflict, rupture, or disagreement is necessary. While the appeal to a confirmed feminine identity becomes more untenable every day within and outside feminism, adopting an uncritical politics is an inadequate if not dangerous alternative. In effect, the guise of “non-Western identity logic,” an argument that we must disarticulate as fallacious and untenable, protects particular exclusionary systems. The argument is untenable because it legitimates discrimination, rape, and gender subordination merely by affirming that we should not utilize the concept of equality because this concept is a subsidiary of Western modernity. In the same way, certain authors’ emphasis on the specific and local, as opposed to the homogeneous and the global, appears to respond to a certain Manichean skepticism. They insist upon the value of intercultural analysis, as a systematic, socioeconomic, and ideological process, while at the same time they retain, as political strategies, the comprehensive categories of “Third World woman” and “Latin America” as historical-economic constructs of identity with their own characteristics.14 This tends to give credence to the political action of women who, positioned in different ways, achieve unity by creating what Mohanty calls “imagined communities” and Butler calls “fictional constructs.” An attempt to maintain equilibrium, though a complex and unstable one, between particularity and universality also exists. Nevertheless, the intersection of the local, national, global, or communitarian tends to erase boundaries and traditional borders, in which transnational forces of de-territorialization and re-territorialization trample these spaces more each day. 5. Critically Retaining the Universal Are Western emancipatory universals from the start bound by an irrevocable monocultural and monosexual clause? Do they eliminate the gap between what is and what might be? Does ignoring them solve the problem of material exclusion? Do these fictional constructs provide a necessary comparative criterion? These questions bring under discussion different challenges. One of them involves imagining whether, if people demand their inclusion in a certain universal, they correspond to the type of subject the universal imagines. If “universal” is a category without meaning outside a particular Western cultural language (as some defenders of multiculturalism maintain), then any attempt to rescue it would be fruitless. If it lacks meaning in non-Western cultures, except as a bearer of colonial reason, the issue is reductionist and exclusionary. Postcolonial proposals work as means of national and political selfaffirmation, appealing to the trick of the incommensurability of difference to

The Challenge of Differences in Latin American Feminism

133

describe the relationships among women and ethnic groups. This incommensurability impedes comparison, agreement, persuasion, and mutual enrichment of concepts. It does not permit terms or common criteria that could allow one argument to prevail over another. In this way, postcolonial proposals only legitimize community-identity interests are while at that same time they believe for women of other ethnic groups and cultures to denounce a situation of unlawful inequity against the rights of all to be impossible. When two situations are incommensurate with each other, freedom from commitment, responsibility, and political action, implicitly promoting demobilization and selflessness exists. This also undermines any legitimization of political actions that promote transnational, interethnic, inter-class, and inter-gender solidarities by, for instance, covering up human rights violations of such women with the rhetoric of “cultural identity.” For that reason, far from conceptualizing differences as “the mark of others” and self-instituting the norm that ignores mutual differences, examining what this rhetoric projects onto the other as a strange and unknown outsider is necessary. 6. Balance Although a syncretic culture of considerable weight already exists, gender and interethnic problems inside the borders of a single state are, at times, more complex than relations between the states. Because of this, the rejection of universal parameters makes an attempt against the defense of the rights of the majority of women and it tends to paralyze any stake in public politics critically oriented toward removing conditions of dependency and submission by women.15 As Nancy Fraser indicates, recognition and distributive justice are two variables that we should maintain in equilibrium, without ignoring or nullifying one over the other.16 Those of us who have lived on the border of the State of Law (Latin America has a great deal of experience with this) know that recognition of gender-ethnic identity differences should not obscure the importance of legal equality or material equality. If formal recognition of rights is insufficient, at least establish criteria that allow us to overcome the incommensurability of infinitely multiplied differences. The law is an instrument that readapts its forms and contents to the interests and necessities of social, political, and economic reality. How it does this depends greatly on the participation of women in the construction of their own interests and objectives. Given that no formulas or favored solutions exist, what is commonly called “cooperative conflicts” frames the immediate task. These conflicts are largely an extension of “problems of negotiation”: Clear and defined interests and general objectives exist, but to reach them, achieving

134

MARÍA LUISA FEMENÍAS

agreements that are only possible if all parties give up something is necessary.17 Two strategies appear to contribute in an interesting way to the goals of the formation of the network and basis for gender negotiation. On the one hand, Sen defends the notion of “positional objectivity.” 18 On the other, Alicia Gianella advocates the notion of “reflexive equilibrium.”19 In the first case, a tacit appeal to the idea of equality exists that is universal in a certain way, in which the idea of “equivalence” presses us to pay as much attention to irreducible particularity as to the normative level. In the second case, reflexive equilibrium permits connection of the normative aspects with concrete situations and experiences. For Gianella, reflexive equilibrium is a way of recognizing the existing disequilibrium. Women who wish to contribute to social change to their benefit must defend two fronts at the same time: generate new norms on the political level and produce substantive changes in practice. Recognition of constant instability and the need for negotiation contribute to reflexive equilibrium understood as a goal. Both strategies allow us to conceptualize more clearly and design alternative strategies to narrow the gap between the formal and material levels. The material demarcation of the border of exclusion favors the development of an “eman(anti)cipatory imagination” which provides the anticipated means for a universality that still has not come and which we cannot impose. Doing so generates a broad, forcible rejection. Because of this, the creation of consensus, consciousness-raising, or sensitivity training regarding inequity are irremovable challenges and tasks found in differeing degrees throughout Latin America. If inequality is not difference, and equality is not identity, a feminism based on equality has no reason to clear away differences. To make invisible the tension between the two is to hide the challenge of forming an argument that articulates inequities and conflicts, and designs useful bridges of translation, for which we must find the political will to achieve.

NOTES 1. A version of this article appears in Spanish in Revista Debats, 76, (2002), pp. 56–64. For a more extensive analysis of this issue, see María Luisa Femenías, “Igualdad y diferencia en democracia: una síntesis posible,” Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez, 33 (Universidad de Granada, 1999), pp. 109–132; Ofelia Schutte and María Luisa Femenías, “Feminist Philosophy in Latin America,” Philosophy in Latin America , ed. Eduardo Mendieta (Bloomington, Ind.: University of Indiana Press, 2003). 2. Amartya Sen , Nuevo examen de la desigualdad [Inequality Reexamined] (Madrid: Alianza, 1995), pp. 7, 13. 3. See, e.g., Angeles Jiménez Perona, “Igualdad,” 10 palabras claves sobre Mujer [Ten Key Words About Woman], ed. Celia Amorós (Navarra: Editorial Verbo

The Challenge of Differences in Latin American Feminism

135

Divino, 1995); Ana Rubio Castro, Feminismo y ciudadanía [Feminism and Citizenship] (Sevilla-Málaga, Instituto Andaluz de la Mujer, 1997), ch. 2; María Isabel Santa Cruz, “Sobre el concepto de igualdad: algunas observaciones,” Isegoría, 6 (1992). 4. Sen , p. 9. 5. Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse,” Boundary, 2.12: No. 3.13 (Spring/Fall 1984). 6. María Luisa Pérez Cavana, "Diferencia," 10 palabras claves sobre Mujer , ed. Celia Amorós (Navarra: Editorial Verbo Divino, 1995); Rosi Braidotti, "Sexual Difference Theory," A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, eds. Alison Jaggar and Iris Marion Young (London: Blackwell, 1998), chap. 30; Genoveve Fraisse, La diferencia de los sexos [The Difference Between the Sexes] (Buenos Aires: Manantial, 1996). 7. Cf. Gaytri Spivak , A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (London: Harvard University Press, 1999). 8. Schutte and Femenías, “Feminist Philosophy in Latin America.” 9. Celia Amorós , Hacia una crítica de la razón patriarcal (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1985), p. 113. 10. Cf. Seyla Benhabib , “El otro concreto y el otro generalizado,” Drucilla Cornell, Teoría crítica/Teoría feminista [Critical Text/Feminist Text] (Valencia, Spain: Alfons el Magnanim). 11. Concepción Roldán, “El reino de los fines y su gineceo. Las limitaciones del universalismo kantiano a la luz de sus concepciones antropológicas,” El individuo y su historia. Herencia de las antinomias modernas [The Individual and His or Her History. The Heritage of Modern Antinomies] (Barcelona, Spain: Paidos, 1995) p. 171. 12. Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La frontera (San Francisco, Calif.: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), p. 16. 13. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe , Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1986); Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (London: Verso, 2000). 14. Schutte, “Latin America,” A Companion to Feminist Philosophy , Jaggar and Young (London: Blackwell, 1998). 15. María Julia Palacios, Defender los Derechos Humanos [Defending Human Rights] (Salta, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Salta, 1999); Nancy Fraser, “Reconsiderando la esfera pública: una contribución crítica a la democracia existente,” Entrepasados, 7, 1994, pp. 87–114. 16. Nancy Fraser, Iustitia Interrupta [Justice Interrupted] (Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 1997). 17. Amartya Sen, “Desigualdad de género y teorías de la justicia,” Mora, 6, (2000), pp. 4–15. 18. Sen, “Positional Objectivity,” Philosophy and Public Affairs , 22:2 (1993), pp. 126–145. 19. Alicia Gianella, “The Reflective Equilibrium and Women's Affairs,” Wissen Macht Geschlecht/Knowledge Power Gender-Philosophie und die Zukunft der “condition feminine”/Philosophy and the Future of the “condition féminine.” (Zürich, Chronos, 2001); also, A. Baum, S. Blättler, B. Christensen, A. Kusser, I.M. Marti, and B. Weisshaupt (eds.), Niveles epistemológicos en los análisis de género, eds. (Coloquio Bariloche, Argentina, 1996).

This page intentionally left blank

Ten POSTMODERNITY AND UTOPIA: RECLAIMING FEMINIST GROUNDS ON NEW TERRAINS Ofelia Schutte A widespread sentiment exists among observers of postmodernity that the construction of utopias—theoretical and political utopias—is a thing of the past. Perhaps the cornerstone of the antiutopian theoretical framework is the argument, offered by Jean-François Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition, that the metanarratives of emancipation provided by the discourse of modernity (and the political projects that accompanied them, such as the French Revolution), are no longer believable.1 Insofar as the discourse of utopia involves a meta-narrative of emancipation, then, such a discourse, too, is no longer believable. But, as I will point out, whether discourses are believable has a lot to do with circumstances and need (not just with the typology of a discourse). Although one factor in the determination of credibility has to do with rationality (for those who use reason as a test of credibility), rationality itself appears to be a diverse concept. Some instrumental, formal, pragmatic, existential, critical, dialectal, feminist, non-Western, and other forms of rationality exist for which we have no overarching test of credibility. Mechanisms of power exist, including institutional power and peer pressure, such as media, education, the law, scientific discourse, group beliefs, the use of approbation or ridicule, and so on, which serve to reinforce or to question the parameters of what is credible and reasonable. In addition, in limited situations even coercive mechanisms exist. For example, a government can direct economic embargoes and threats of war or imprisonment against other governments or people whose way of thinking or living it thinks endanger the stability of a system. For this reason, the claim that utopian discourse is no longer believable, or that the metanarratives of emancipation have lost their ethical and political legitimacy (in the form in which people have practiced them since the eighteenth century), is problematic as a general statement applicable to the entire human condition throughout the world. True, for some sectors of global society, incredulity about emancipation may make complete sense. Lyotard has a valid point in showing the totalitarian consequences of some

138

OFELIA SCHUTTE

of modernity’s discourses of emancipation. The discourses of emancipation can be highly dangerous because they are highly seductive, insofar as they invoke ideals and images linked to powerful human desires for well-being, freedom, and justice. Still, to foster disbelief in all discourses of emancipation can be just as dangerous to the extent that humanity has a lot to attain before it achieves a society where everyone can flourish and before it respects, in a nonexploitative and nonwasteful way, the natural environment and the life of nonhuman species. Despite the seductiveness and pitfalls of the discourses of emancipation, they serve to point to neglected ideals and critical norms whose purpose in renovating established practices and values may prove to be crucial. Despite the upbeat speeches of leaders and politicians, much suffering, lack of freedom, exploitation, and discrimination exist in this world. For this reason, observers should not preclude environmentalists, feminists, racially and ethnically discriminated people, and others from proposing emancipatory projects to change a society’s ways of being and thereby to transform its prevalent reality. Some of these proposals are radical enough (that is, contrary enough to mainstream ways of being and mainstream power structures) that their proponents or their adversaries will deem them “utopian”. The rational task is not to dismiss these proposals out of hand, simply because someone calls them utopian, but to examine their content, rationality, and applicability. A difference exists between reacting mechanically to the label “utopian” and trying to understand alternative forms of knowledge to react mechanically (in a negative way) against the term “postmodern,” for this rules out any good insight that might arise out of this perspective. Can dialogue take place between utopian and postmodern rationalities? Do not utopian rationalities of postmodernity exist, just as utopian rationalities of modernity existed? If so, what might these look like? I will address these questions in four parts. First, I outline briefly what utopian thinking has meant to the West, from the received tradition of modernity. Then I note the resistance, by a nucleus of Latin American leftist philosophers, to accept a postmodern outlook. Next, I mention some characteristics of the postmodern in Latin America, and I consider the emergence of a postmodern Latin American rethinking of utopia. Finally, I sketch what this rethinking could mean for a feminist ethics and politics. 1. Utopian Desire The thought of utopia conveys an imaginary representation of a state of affairs in which justice and happiness come together, and where this reconciliation takes place beyond the individual level, and at some

Postmodernity and Utopia

139

interactive level of community or social life. To represent utopia only by reference to the idea of happiness, as a kind of state of affairs where the ultimate promise of happiness emerges, is possible. Is not this what Christianity sought in part through its idea of an afterlife in heaven? Nevertheless, traditionally, Western thought joins happiness to justice, to some notion of conforming to what is right, for offering a promise of happiness is contradictory in a social order where happiness is arbitrary to whomever enjoys it. In this sense then, to speak of utopia is to invoke an ethical vision of how things ought to be so as to ensure or provide a happy condition to the members of the utopian society or community. Depending on the degree of religiosity associated with the vision, happiness can signify religious happiness or a secular conception of well-being and personal fulfillment. Accordingly, utopia can also denote abundance or wealth, whether imagined in a spiritual or a materialistic sense. Think of those dreams of El Dorado, of finding the city of gold, the fountain of youth. The conquerors and colonizers of America often represented it as a land of promise, as a land where Europeans could fulfill their dreams. America was, ecologically speaking, a land of extraordinary abundance for all the early inhabitants of and migrants to the continent. Today, with the ruthless destruction of the environment, overpopulation, and global warming, not to mention the unspeakable levels of poverty and increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, to link the continent to the idea of natural abundance is difficult, if not impossible. Another utopian representation of abundance, that of material abundance, of which all who inhabit a land share equally, appears to be part of a communist belief that clashes too strongly with social reality. The same culture of modernity that provided the ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity has given us a world in which, as inequalities continue to arise and people reify them, irremediably fracturing the spaces for freedom and “fraternity.” The utopias of the neoliberal market promise abundance if only everyone will support this market and restrict it as little possible.2 The utopias of the market, then, basically compete against the socialist dream of equality and justice. A kind of compromise position (depending on how we view it) arises through the discourses of peace and development fostered by the United Nations. The international women’s movement (via the United Nations) has provided the alternative triple ideal of “equality, [sustainable] development, and peace.” In some respects this goal, too, appears to be highly utopian, for in reality development (insofar as it takes the form of the ever-increasing desire for profit) does not appear to want much to do with observing ecological guidelines; equality, due to the same form of contemporary capitalism ruling our societies, is a vanished concept; and under the

140

OFELIA SCHUTTE

circumstances of scarcity and competition for survival, only force, in the last instance, supports peace, whch is hard to find. At the beginning of the twenty-first century we are as far from utopia as I can imagine. An extraordinary ethical challenge faces humanity, imperiled by, among other sources, the acquisitive drive to keep taking from others and from the environment far more than we give to them, and the sheer need to survive in a world of poverty and scarcity by large parts of the world’s population. A vulnerable element of these two recognizable forces is nature, which cannot defend itself against human incursion, wastefulness, pollution, and the increasing destruction of wildlife habitats. Business wants as little regulation as possible; everyone wants to buy products without paying for the environmental cost of their manufacture, use, and disposal; people want to get ahead without necessarily taking full responsibility for the social consequences of their actions. Survival or acquisition becomes a dominant force in our social codes. Some small units of cooperative life still exist, such as family, friendships, and small-scale associations. Religion can be a cooperative force, but appears to provide the best effects where it has the least power, whereas when it acquires power it does so by promoting fanatical and extremist behavior. The social movements—such as the women’s, human rights, and indigenous movements—provide some hope, but their effects can be transitory and scattered unless a larger political force pulls the many grassroots projects together. In short, economic gain and need have come to overdetermine ethics and the type of social responsibilities that accompany the exercise of freedom. What is utopia today except perhaps the act of invoking an ethical ideal that is strong enough to contain the destructiveness we find around us, at all of its multiple levels? To put it psychologically, what is utopia but to try, in the words of Freud, to restrain the death drive by way of the love or erotic drive? And yet, if we are to call attention to the illicit use of power, which nourishes destructiveness, to speak of love versus aggression is not enough. We need a critique of patriarchy and of racism and class exploitation. We need a parallel critique of anthropocentrism and its devastating effects on the environment. From this standpoint we can look at postmodernity and see what opportunities and challenges the present conditions offer us. 2. The Resistance to the Postmodern Turn in Latin American Leftist Philosophy Part of the problem with an analysis of the relationship between postmodernity and utopian rationalities in Latin America is that some wellknown Latin American leftist philosophers and social thinkers have taken up an anti-postmodern position, believing that the theoretical acceptance of a

Postmodernity and Utopia

141

postmodern perspective and the construction of leftist political alternatives are mutually incompatible. In a recently published work, the Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez takes note of this fact, which he takes to be a detriment to a more open evaluation of the relationships among philosophy, Latin America, and postmodernity. Castro-Gómez notes that, among others, Gabriel Vargas Lozano, Adolfo Sánchez Vásquez, Franz Hinkelammert, Pablo Guadarrama, and Arturo Andrés Roig equate postmodernism with nihilism (or worse). Meanwhile, Enrique Dussel, though utilizing the word “postmodern” to refer to his philosophical concept of liberation, does not so much shed the Eurocentric outlook of Western modernity as replace it with a new absolute, a problem that locks him into a branch of the discourse of modernity.3 Whether Latin American philosophers situate themselves as opponents of capitalism, neoliberalism, and imperialism (through Marxism or a leftist postHegelian perspective) or whether they try to ground a new site of unpolluted discourse of the oppressed in a privileged standpoint, with the new subject of discourse standing on the side of good against evil, they fail to understand the complexities of postmodernity in Latin America. This situation involves, to a considerable extent, that postmodernism, as lived and experienced in Latin America, has its own characteristics and cannot be reduced to neoliberalism even if it coexists in time with neoliberal economic policies. Once we are able to distinguish neoliberalism from postmodernism, we can begin to frame the utopian question within a postmodern context. 3. Postmodernity in Latin America What are some of the different characteristics of postmodernity people may find in Latin America? According to Martin Hopenhayn, a specialist on the topic, the target of Lyotard’s objections is the Hegelian and Kantian notions of the subject. Hopenhayn indicates that the two metanarratives that come to an end, in Jean-Francois Lyotard’s view, are the metanarrative of the knowing subject whose historical goal is totalization (Hegel) and that of the Kantian subject of autonomy, who is emancipated insofar as he or she reaches his or her own (rational) goals.4 What happens in a postmodern context, Hopenhayn continues, is that knowledge no longer depends on a subject of knowledge or enunciation. Instead, knowledge becomes the circulated information that produces more variants and configurations. Knowledge is external from the subject and performatively justifies itself in the complex set of relations that comprise the different language games.5 Although Lyotard strongly criticizes the criterion of performativity in the production and circulation of knowledge, 6 once the criterion of performativity is in place it tends to absorb the criticism directed against it and to restate the criticism on its own terms, subordinating criticism so as to

142

OFELIA SCHUTTE

enhance the operational performance of the established system. From a descriptive standpoint, we face a world where knowledge circulates as information designed to enhance the performance of a given system. The subject of knowledge loses ground as a legitimating factor, whereas the effects of knowledge as instrumental to the performative-driven system receives attention. If Hopenhayn’s depiction of the loss of authority of the subject of knowledge is accurate, with the transference of the corresponding weight of justificatory performance to the circulating, proliferating discourses, then perhaps a way to create a “positive” intersection of Latin American culture and postmodernism is to maximize (optimize) the cultural diversity present in Latin America. Such optimization would preserve and performatively diffuse the differences already typical of the region at the same time that capitalist globalization introduces new language games and models of expertise. Insofar as a systematic instability still exists as to how to assimilate the different cultures and economies of Latin America into the global system, postmodern thinking offers an opportunity to engage with existing ambiguous or unstable elements in ways that open, instead of close, spaces for creativity. This strategy is logical, because although postmodern culture hails differences, the manner in which some ways of thinking and being tend to take over the market leads to the opposite of difference, to more homogenization. The capitalist project toward bigger, better, and more efficient markets and to the fastest, cheapest, most cost-effective forms of production, puts pressure on the “difference” factor of the postmodern ideology and, in an ironical turn of values, leads to the opposite effect, which is homogenization. The neoliberal projects of economic integration into the global capitalist economy will carry with them the mandate to integrate precisely in this costeffective way. While room will exist for inventiveness and imagination, the pressure on a peripheral capitalist region will be to shed any regional “rationalities” that interfere with the global, integrative “rationalities” of the market. In response to this kind of pressure, people can say that part of what makes Latin America marketable are its differences. The “counter-demand” to the rationality of integration need not be separatism, but vigorous appropriation of postmodern rationalities so as to promote and enhance the region’s cultural diversity, including its autochthonous heritage. For us Latin Americanists to embrace this strategy is not easy, however. In the past the way we sought to affirm our difference was through discourses of regional and continental integration. We based many of these discourses on the premise that Latin America could occupy some symbolic position of “Third” in a world torn apart politically by the contest between “the West” and the former Soviet Union and its allies. Today Latin America

Postmodernity and Utopia

143

must defend its differences from the advanced capitalist countries not in terms of its distinctness from two superpowers but in terms of the sum total of its internal differences. Latin American philosophy needs to look at the internal differences in the region and tell the West, “we want you to value us according to our cultural diversity, and therefore not to destroy what we value.” To make a case, our cultural diversity must justify itself performatively on criteria over which we have little say, in large part. The utopian challenge that I see, then, is how to let the discourses of difference take us to those goals where we previously invoked the discourses of unity. Stated another way, we must unite to assert our internal differences if we do not want the homogenizing forces of a global, foreign imposed market to swallow us up and assimilate us. If I am right about this, then strategies focusing on the creative appropriation of differences will be evident in distinct forms of contemporary cultural criticism. A well-known case is Néstor García Canclini’s notion of hybridity, the cultural form of sensibility arising when, in Latin America’s incomplete modernity, people learn to live in view of a “multi-temporal heterogeneity” embracing a span of pre-Columbian, colonial, modern, and postcolonial temporalities.7 I have argued elsewhere that the juxtaposition of different senses of time in the lives of individuals and social groups creates a matrix for understanding the discourse of radically positioned others who may find difficulty in assimilating to the discursive protocols of the dominant cultural sectors of a given group or society.8 Contrasting with the notion of a multi-temporal heterogeneity set forth by García Canclini (whose conception, unless adapted by feminists to address issues of our concern, is unrelated to feminist social criticism), some radical feminists in Mexico have appealed to an alternate sense of time—another time, “women’s time”—to challenge the linear concept of time ruling Western, masculine-dominant societies. This current of radical feminism in the Latin American women’s movement defines women’s freedom in terms of the time freed from trying to keep up with the ever more rapid pace of capitalism’s demand for productivity and the related assimilation of women into the masculine socio-symbolic order. Instead, freedom involves the time to imagine and create a different reality. Their conception of a “women’s time”—a time for joy, for friendship and loved ones, for creative pursuits, for a feminist erotic practice, for building a society around non-oppressive relations—is distinctly feminist. Yet also at the root of this conception are the distinctly Latin American experiences of differences, insofar as they give voice to the dreams of women for whom these ideals constitute a crucial set of ethical and political values in explicit juxtaposition to the foreign-imposed “neoliberal” values. 9

144

OFELIA SCHUTTE

Here we see a type of utopian rationality rising out of a critical examination of sexual difference and its critical potential for changing our ethical vision of human relations. This perspective opposes the logic of modernity without calling itself “postmodern,” since it may want to avoid the connotation of “postmodern” as simply the chronological extension in linear time of the Western construct of modernity. Nevertheless, despite an explicit identification with an alternative postmodern reasoning, in its resistance to a monolithic and uniform sense of time and to a binary-ruled logic, it displays evident affinities with elements of a postmodern outlook. Moving on to the field of literary criticism and addressing the symbolic constructs of culture, a key figure in postmodern cultural criticism, Nelly Richard, has defended a view of difference by parodying the assumed relationship of dependence between original and copy. Her work shows that if Latin America can deconstruct its (modern) role of “copy” of Europe or North America, then the copy can itself become creative and outperform the “original.”10 In a related move, Hopenhayn has endorsed the notion of a “mestizaje cultural” as a way to reconceive the utopian function of criticism in Latin America. The task of such a cultural approach would be “to negate the negation of the other” (negar la negación del otro). 11 As so conceived, the task is to accept Latin America’s internal differences and to accept our selves in and through our differences. Castro-Gómez refers to something close to this when he suggests that we move toward a new postmodern utopian discourse that presupposes a “polycentric” world from an economic standpoint and a “pluralist” world from a cultural standpoint.12 The nature of utopian thinking “cannot be reduced to the Unitarian narratives of modernity.”13 We need to appropriate such postmodern catchwords as “performativity” and “difference” so that we can recirculate the information conveying our critically constructed identities to those who look at Latin Americans from other continents. For us to come up with a whole theory of identity or of liberation is not necessary. These tend to be reductionistic in their modern quest to totalize the image of Latin America in history. Instead, the freedom from such a need marks our postmodern condition, while, simultaneously, we do not want the West to reduce us to what it thinks of as postmodernity. The question is that of establishing the priorities of our differences in the context of a contemporary resistance to the disabling effects of homogenization. Summarizing, I would identify five characteristics related to the postmodern in Latin America which build on our tradition of diversity and differences: (1) “mestizaje cultural,” or cultural mestizaje (Hopenhayn);14 (2) the multi-lingual character of the region (note that we must shed the concept of a Spanish-dominant culture to embrace this); (3) “multitemporal heterogeneity” (García Canclini); (4) the parodic appropriation and inversion

Postmodernity and Utopia

145

of the concepts of original and copy (Richard); (5) a non-binary conception of cultural diversity amenable to inclusion (my proposal). 15 These traits of postmodernity in Latin America intersect with aspects of postmodern global capitalism and its goals insofar as capitalism seeks new markets, diversification, and difference. Yet the way we have construed our differences from a Latin American perspective also subverts the totalizing aspects of capitalism and its indifference to radical political alternatives. Global capitalism brings with it (1) the homogenization of dominant cultural symbols, information, customs, fads, and so on, to the point where shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, and other places of consumption in peripheral capitalist countries like Costa Rica and Mexico sell the same products we would find in Miami or New York; (2) one dominant language (English), (3) linear time, including speed-up demands in productivity and work performance, (4) performativity on its own terms (not in terms of cultural autonomy factors, but according to market-driven power relations), (5) a nonreciprocal concept of difference and diversity, more likely to yield the exclusion than the inclusion of the underprivileged. 16 4. The Visibility of Different Economic and Social Conditions and the Demand for Alternatives: Feminist Utopian Horizons Postmodernity in the periphery of the Western metropolis appears to show us a different face of social reality than what we find in Europe and the United States. In Latin America, the conditions of global capitalism, superimposed on countries where the gap between the rich and the poor is wide and growing, create a different set of economic circumstances than those of advanced capitalist countries. For, if the counterutopian mindset we have learned from Western capitalism is to try to keep as much as we have and to invest in growth to acquire and accumulate more, this mindset or “narrative” of growth does not quite fit the conditions of places where people have quite little, or nothing of their own, to begin with. How can a person become interested in programs that foster the preservation and growth of individual property when she has no property to speak of, or the means of acquiring it? In circumstances of scarcity and need, the discourse of alternatives to the present circumstances, including the discourse of the negation of those circumstances, is an attractive option. Poverty and perceived and real oppressions demand alternatives, for which utopian discourses represent a radical alternative. The real difficulties women experience with respect to their basic needs—whether material, intellectual, or emotional—contrast with the public rhetoric of personal autonomy presumed to be the right of all citizens. The inconsistency between public rhetoric and women’s situation and needs lends support to the feminist interest in alternative utopian rationalities that

146

OFELIA SCHUTTE

address the end of women’s sexual and social oppression. In this context, the experiences of women and the demands of the feminist movement merit special attention. As several different feminist philosophers and social thinkers have observed, women’s experiences and even the nature of women’s everyday practical activities—including their caregiving and “domestic” activities—have a manifest outcome in the kind and quality of political demands women may organize to obtain as citizens. The concept of citizenship itself is transformed when women’s voices and needs are given priority. The politicization of women’s “private” needs or “domestic” concerns can have an impact on the notion of justice. Gender issues related to the home, the domestic space, and the privacy of decisions affecting the use of a person’s leisure time, as mediated by women’s social conscience, can extend an ethical, utopian horizon to political discourse. For example, in times of military repression, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo protested the disappearance of their children by appealing to their caregiving role as mothers, defying the illegitimate power of the military regime. They invoked an ethical norm, which appeared utopian in the light of the circumstances, to delegitimate an illicit government. 17 Today Latin American feminists recognize that the notion of women achieving equality before the law requires the postulate of some form of utopian vision with respect to the equal treatment of women and men in society and especially with respect to the kind of world women who care about freedom and justice would find attractive to inhabit in a qualitative sense. In the second sense, the utopian rationalities emerging in postmodernity may be appealing to a feminist ethics and politics. At a minimum, as Santa Cruz notes, for the most part the modern theoreticians of utopia have been uninterested or unsuccessful in addressing the problem of the subordination of women.18 To this one may add that only from a standpoint already critical of the “universal” citizenship postulated by modernity may we consider a utopian political framework appealing to women. Only if the account of citizenship directs its attention to the “concrete other,” taking into account that the concrete other may be female, have philosophers such as Seyla Benhabib been successful in revitalizing the notion of the utopian horizon of ethical and political thought, associating utopian thinking with transformative political practices.19 Feminist concerns with respect to women’s status in society constitute a way of opening, but not necessarily limiting, the discursive potential for the emergence of new utopian rationalities, given that thinking about concrete others leads to attention being directed to related conditions of poverty in which large numbers of women live, and related racial, ethnic, and other oppressions. Whether out of politically moderate or radical considerations, feminist rationalities retain the power to engage our attention by providing alternative

Postmodernity and Utopia

147

models for political organization and action. Given the nature of transitional constructs of the concept of citizenship currently undertaken as a part of democratization processes in Latin America, alternative feminist visions of democratic society will continue to have a role to play in normative discussions about social policy. 5. Conclusions To conclude, I would summarize my argument by noting that we have not reached the end of utopias, but we have attained an epistemological rupture with the discourses of modernity that produced the old concepts of utopia. As Castro-Gómez indicates, the totalizing utopias that Latin America will phase out are those that demanded an ideal society based on unity, where differences would disappear, and where it was expected that communication among persons would be freed from relations of power. 20 The foundational discourse of a Latin American utopia to which many thinkers appealed in the past has led to a disillusionment stemming from its totalizing quality. Among other problems, such a discourse perceives Latin America as the “absolute other” of European rationality and as containing the seed of humanity’s future spirituality. Castro-Gómez suggests that the record of atrocities committed in the name of justice, in Europe and in this continent, forces us to face that the battle against injustice can also generate new forms of injustice.21 In his view, utopian discourse must shift from an integrationist, totalitarian-prone discourse to a culturally pluralistic discourse articulated around the postulate of an economically polycentric world. Castro-Gómez’s view is consistent with Lyotard’s critique of Hegelian and Kantian meta-narratives of emancipation and with feminist critiques of modernity’s utopian discourse. As one feminist cognizant of the postmodern critics states, “the permanent and universal solutions to diverse and precise problems no longer seduce [us].”22 These postmodern perspectives criticize the dream of an absolute knowledge realizing itself in history and the dream of an enlightened harmony of interests whose ultimate goal is perpetual peace. Once these ideals recede, we will develop others. Instead of celebrating (or mourning) the end of utopias, a more productive task is to question what the limits of our political alternatives are today. If the logic of the period we are living in is changing from a “modern” to a “postmodern” one, we need to learn this new logic and language game so as to insert our knowledge and experience into new debates.

148

OFELIA SCHUTTE NOTES

1. See Jean-François Lyotard , The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 2. Martin Hopenhayn , Ni Apocalípticos ni Integrados: Aventuras de la Modernidad en América [Neither Apocalyptic Nor Integrated: Adventures in Postmodernity in Latin America] (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1994), p. 272. 3. Santiago Castro -Gómez, Crítica de la Razón Latinoamericana [Critique of Latin American Thought] (Barcelona: Puvill Libros, 1996), pp. 17–22, 38–40. 4. Hopenhayn, Ni Apocalípticos ni Integrados, pp. 94–102. 5. Ibid., pp. 102–111. 6. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, pp. 47–67. 7. Néstor García Canclini, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, trans. Christopher L. Chiappari and Silvia L. López (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp. 46–47. 8. Ofelia Schutte, “Cultural Alterity: Cross-Cultural Communication and Feminist Theory in North-South Contexts,” Hypatia, 13:2 (1998), pp. 53–72. 9. See Ximena Bedregal Sáez, “¿Hacia Dónde Va el Movimiento Feminista?” [Where Is the Feminist Movement Headed?] La Correa Feminista, 12 (1995), pp. 10–16. 10. Nelly Richard, “Cultural Peripheries: Latin America and Postmodernist Decentering,” The Postmodern Debate in Latin America, eds. John Beverly, José Oviedo, and Michael Aronna (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 219–22. 11. Hopenhayn, Ni Apocalípticos ni Integrados, p. 280. 12. Castro-Gómez, Crítica, p. 44. 13. Ibid., p. 44. 14. Hopenhayn, Ni Apocalípticos ni Integrados. 15. García-Canclini, Hybrid Cultures; Richard, “Cultural Peripheries.” 16. Luis Camacho, “Consumption as a Topic for North-South Dialogue,” Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship, eds. David A. Crocker and Toby Linden (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998). 17. Elizabeth Jelin, Women and Social Change in Latin America , trans. J. Ann Zammit and Marilyn Thompson (London and Geneva: Zed Books and United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1990), pp. 204–205. 18. María Isabel Santa Cruz , “Feminismo y Utopismo,” [Feminism and Utopianism] Hiparquia, 9:1 (1997), p. 48. 19. Seyla Benhabib , Critique, Norm, and Utopia (N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 327–353. 20. Castro-Gómez, Crítica, p. 42. 21. Ibid., p. 43–44. 22. Martha Rodríguez Bustamante, “ Nostalgias de Utopía ” [Nostalgia for Utopia] Hiparquia, 9:1 (1997), p. 57.

Eleven FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY AND UTOPIA: A POWERFUL ALLIANCE Ana María Bach, Margarita Roulet, and María Isabel Santa Cruz

However reactionary a person might be by refusing to admit the importance of feminist studies in academic philosophical mainstreams, in Argentina most academic philosophy still considers “women’s issues” peripheral, and even superfluous. The institutionalization of feminist studies arrived fairly late in Argentina, encouraged by the cultural and ideological sway that takes place with the re-birth of democracy since 1984. In our case, philosophical work, which has become stronger recently, appears more as a result of theoretical developments taking place in first world countries than of the political struggles of women’s movements. Our analyses depend to a great extent on those in the United States and in Europe, and they aim to be a part of our here and now in the field of contemporary feminist debates, to which we intend to contribute. Our concern with putting forward a utopian dimension for feminism is not new. In fact, in a collaborative work done with María Luisa Femenías and Alicia Gianella in 1991, we pointed out—borrowing Lefevbre's notion of virtual object—the need to think about a complex egalitarian society as a structure that does not exist but that could exist. Even though we are suspicious of philosophical localisms, our concern about utopian issues is not random. On our continent, the need for deep social changes is much greater than in developed countries. As women and as Latin Americans, we cannot reject political ideals that utopian thinking makes possible. This chapter explores such thinking. While we cannot offer a concrete future, we can suggest a model for a possible future. Traditionally, a divorce has existed between utopia and philosophy insofar as we have not considered utopian thinking as philosophical. We wonder if the separation between utopia and philosophy echoes the dichotomous zeal frequent in patriarchal thinking that often leads to false dilemmas. If this were so, it would be worth examining much more closely the relationship between utopia and philosophy to determine if a utopian

150

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ

component can work in feminist theory. In this sense, the aim of this chapter is to show that utopian thinking is in force in feminist theory. We assume that a utopian dimension—acting as a sort of regulative ideal— is a necessary component in this field because, taking into account what we consider better social organization, an interpretation of the past and of the present, and the impulse of practices geared to its fulfillment, are possible. 1. Conceptual Arguments As “utopia” and “utopianism” are polysemic terms, making several distinctions among these concepts and those with which link to them is useful to clarify in what sense we hold the utopian dimension in feminist theory. The concept of utopia varies and is extremely complex. Its complexity stems largely from its history. As a kind of thinking that has attracted poets, philosophers, social theoreticians, statisticians, architects, sociologists, theologians, novelists, and science fiction writers, the forms and functions of utopia have considerably changed over time. For some thinkers, utopias are those belonging to antiquity, for example, those of Hippodamus of Miletus, which Aristotle transmits in book 2 of his Politics, or that in Plato’s Republic and Laws, and the narration of Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias. Some others go further back: utopias are those of the Golden Age and Paradise. But in its strict sense, utopia has an exact date of birth, 1516, and a father, Sir Thomas More. He discovered the land of Utopia, he was the first one to give it a name and describe it as a place beyond the boundaries of the real world. Before the publication of his work, the word did not exist. Thomas More coined it. Perhaps the concept of utopia did not exist either, at least the way More devised it. The scheme he introduced became classic: the author tells what a traveler who has seen an unexplored land tells him and he goes to great lengths to describe to him the social structure of this distant and isolated country, an invention which does not exist. Utopia means “non-existent place,” “no place,” and “nowhere.” It is the island that is nowhere, the place that does not exist anywhere real. In some preliminary verses, the poet in More’s Utopia indicates the close relationship between “utopia” and “eutopia,” which means “the good place.” In the following centuries, this double aspect has been present in utopian literature that has made use of the imaginary to project the ideal, and has made an attempt to live in a world that cannot be, but where one looks forward to staying. The exact title of More’s Utopia is Libellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus de optimo republicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia. Using “de optimo,” More adopted a formula in fashion in

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

151

Renaissance times. But one cannot speak of the “best state of the republic” under the present political conditions. Nobody would presently formulate political proposals keeping in mind the optimal. In the sense it takes on in More’s Utopia, “nowhere” portrays a society that is unimaginably different from our present day. In some versions of this tradition, utopia is a dream, a kind of game showing how we could view ourselves, or better still, a literary reversal of habits and roles that reenforces the status quo for the rest of the calendar, similar to the ritual of the change of roles once a year. Beyond the sense in More’s work, the terms “utopia” and “utopianism” have had different uses that share the reference to the imaginary, to the ideal, or to both. The occasional use of these words as pejorative or vague terms deprives them of any genuine utility, for example, in the consideration of an unlikely or implausible proposal as “utopian.” In another use related to this one, “utopian” means what is unacceptable because it is different from the customary or from that which contains radical demands. Similarly, people call dreams, fantasies, and expressions of private ideals “utopian” as if desire and utopia were synonymous words. Under “Utopias” and “Utopianism” in Edwards’ Encyclopedia, George Kateb indicates that these terms have wide coverage even when used in a neutral way; people can regard almost any kind of idealism—a view of the good life, the stating of fundamental principles, or the search for main reforms—as “utopian.” People call any literary description of imaginary societies “utopian” even though it might refer to totalitarian horrors or it might be a futuristic speculation of scientific and technological possibilities with no connection to any kind of idealism. According to the same author, the variety of uses shows a lot of historical experience, and it often shows the predominant attitudes about social change in general. Nevertheless, it suggests keeping “utopia” to refer to speculation: In whatever literary form, concerning ideal societies and ideal ways of life, in which perfection defined in accordance with common prepossessions and not personal predilections, is aimed at. Perfection is conceived of as harmony, the harmony of each man with himself, and with the man, and with the men around him. The tradition of utopian thought, in this restricted sense, is thus made up ideas and images of social harmony (Kateb, p. 213). In a similar manner, Levitas says that the approaches to utopia have been in terms of one, or more than one, of these three aspects: form, content, and function (Levitas, pp. 4–5). In its first and original meaning, what distinguishes utopia is its literary form. The approaches that take form as the

152

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ

main feature of utopia tend to consider that form as that of literary fiction, almost “science fiction” in the widest sense of the word. From this perspective, utopia is above all a work of imaginative fiction in which the central topic is the good society and this makes it different from similar works. Its outstanding feature is the elaboration of the idealized sociopolitical topic in the domain of narrative fiction (Bouchard, p. 78). From this point of view, utopia is not a theoretical treatise or a course of action. Its distinctive feature is that of a literary form used for social analysis and criticism, a feature that has often led social theoreticians to discredit it. Utopia deals with many of the same issues as customary social theory does, but in its own way, which is very effective as far as it focuses common problems from an uncommon perspective and in a different light. The current way to approach utopian constructions is perhaps in terms of their content. From this view, the question is to define what a utopia is, to identify the thematic components a text must have and also the criteria it should respond to for consideration as a utopia. If one appeals to content, one distinguishes utopia from other forms of the ideal society, from other treatments of the good city, as the myths of a Golden Age, the beliefs in the coming millennium, or philosophical speculation on the ideal city. Undoubtedly, fictitious elements exist in those modalities, but in none of them the defining form is, as in utopia, narrative fiction. Even though the main feature of utopia is imaginative fiction, and a series of identifiable ingredients exist in utopian texts, the approximation to utopia in terms of form and of content is restrictive. Other kinds of thinking also belong to the utopian canon and to get near utopia in terms of function is then better. We cannot define utopia just by taking into account its literary form. We cannot define utopia even by its content since different utopias show different and even opposite contents. If a lack of thematic unity exists, we must seek unity in its functional structure. To find the functional structure of utopia, we need to move beyond content of particular utopias. Sargisson favors an approach that privileges function. She rejects approaches that view utopia as a perfect program of action for the future and indicates that this characterization does not fit contemporary feminist utopianism. She defends a transgressive utopianism that privileges process over product and tries to conciliate utopianism and post-structuralism (Sargisson, part III). If we focus on utopia in terms of function, we can make a distinction between utopia as traditionally understood and “utopian thinking” or “utopianism.” We try to give an account of its features as a “thinking structure.” As long as they are forms of literary genre, we usually distinguish the different utopias from utopian thinking or utopianism understood as creative and critical thinking that projects alternative social worlds that could achieve

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

153

better forms based on rational and moral principles, or descriptions of human nature and its history, or conceivable technological possibilities. The imaginative capacity of utopian thinking comes from the criticism of a hostile reality and seeks to propose the form of changing those conditions of existence as, for example, social inequality, economic exploitation, or sexual repression. Detaching utopia from utopian thinking is difficult because they mutually imply one another. Sargisson, for example, identifies them when she considers utopias as forms of utopian thinking, whereas thinkers such as Ernst Bloch and Herbert Marcuse make a distinction between “abstract utopias” and “concrete utopias” according to the role utopian thinking plays in them. Whereas the first are the product of dreams, the second are those based in theoretical social criticism. Other authors regard abstract ones as “utopias” with a pejorative connotation, but they call utopian thinking the concrete ones. In utopias, considered as a genre, human nature is malleable for the better: thus, the classical utopias mentioned above conceive of perfect communities and use the term “eutopia ,” the place of happiness or bliss, in the sense of More's work. But utopias exist that, while sharing the idea of human flexibility, show manipulation of human beings for the worse, in which case they are distopias, places of disorder. Utopian thinking or utopianism inspires production of utopias and plays a genuine role in relation to future change of existing social conditions, from the rigorous criticism of reality. Granted, in this context we set aside the utopian socialists’ thinking as a pre-scientific moment in sociology. Although the relationships between the features of utopian thinking are diverse and dealing with each of them in isolation is difficult, let us now consider them. Utopian thinking: – is critical of social reality, – works as a motivation for change, – is intentional (intentions related to life in society), – has imaginative capacity, – follows a method, and – is transgressive. We will first analyze how criticism and motivation interconnect. Utopian thinking is a form of social criticism that helps to make the present relative by projecting alternative worlds and that can lead to feasible changes and to better social organization by exploring concrete alternatives and realizable possibilities. In this way, utopian thinking acts as a motivating force, and as a generator of changes, because thinking about improvement of the status

154

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ

quo while giving sense to critical compromise favors the achievement of a real change in political action. Max Horkheimer introduced the third characteristic, intentionality, as a distinctive feature of utopian thinking. Arnlhem Neussüs, who agrees on the importance of this characteristic, indicates that the most distinctive feature of utopian intention does not consist of the positive determination of what one wants but of the denial of what one does not want, which results from criticism. He makes a distinction between intention in relation to form and intention in relation to content. He says that, concerning content, utopian intention shows up in different conceptions about a better future, and formally we express these conceptions in different ways. Utopian images have changed throughout history according to the needs of societies and individuals but they share the critical refusal of the present aiming at a better future. Some authors also make a distinction between social utopian intention and that belonging to persons as individuals. In this way, these authors define utopian thinking as an individual strategy of survival when an undesirable situation exists that comes from a hostile field. For example, this is the resource used by the leading female character in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, and also in literature. On the other hand, authors such as Raymond Ruyer believe that the best definition of utopian thinking is not through intention but through the utopian method closely related to imagination. The utopian way is a mental experiment of possibilities in which imaginative capacity takes part. Utopian method belongs to the realm of theory and speculation; yet, in a nontraditional sense, it is not the knowledge of what exists but a game of the possible enlargements of reality. Ruyer states that the utopian method is near the hypothetical-deductive method regarding the context of discovery—though it is much more daring for the use of analogies—and the form of mental experiment. Ruyer adds that one reaches true utopia when, using the utopian as starting point, this experiment with possibilities opens the gates to a new world. This world, albeit reduced, will be complete anyway. Utopia always refers to a total structure of the world, at least to the wholeness of a social and human world (Ruyer, p. 180). For Ruyer, utopia has a function of criticism and one of construction, and the utopian method allows reaching the junction of critical, fantastic, scientific, or constructive dimensions of utopia. As Ruyer wrote L’Utopie et les Utopies in l950, we believe that this particular moment has to do with his attempt to show that utopian method is scientific and, therefore, he posits it as a form of the hypothetical-deductive method; however, his interpretation does not match with canonical ones which consider crucial the context of justification and not that of discovery. In this way, the methodological

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

155

character of utopianism, differentiating it from a mere whimsical game, is interesting to assume. Going back to the above characteristics, from the intertwining of criticism, imagination, and method, transgression appears. This is the one that differentiates utopian thinking from critical traditional theoretical discourse, whether scientific or philosophical. Utopianism considers transgression a norm, achieving deep comprehension of social reality through separation and breaking of the status quo as a consequence of the critical stance. According to Louis Marin, utopian criticism is ideological because it is not self-criticism (Marin, p. 93). The relationship between utopia and ideology has a long tradition, but before starting to discuss it, we consider it necessary to point out some additional issues about the links between utopia and utopianism. When we speak of utopia, we must differentiate between utopian thinking or utopianism and utopias as models. Utopianism is a structure of thinking and in this sense it is formal. It is a way of thinking that demands the presence of a regulative ideal, of a virtual object, non-existent as real but existent as a possible condition of the interpretation of the present reality and as orientation of different kinds of practice. Utopias as models are utopias with content, detailed or less detailed descriptions of organizations, structures and possible social relations. To characterize utopian thinking, we can take the central idea of “nowhere,” of “extraterritoriness.” From that “nowhere” we can cast a glance over the external world, at our own reality, which suddenly appears strange, which we can no longer dismiss. The field of what is possible opens beyond the present; it is a field of other possible ways of living. This development of new possible perspectives defines the most important function of utopia. The different utopian models are modes in which we radically rethink the nature of our social life. Utopias as models may lead us to future forms. But as structure, utopian thinking is open, it does not determine which is the nature of the future, but instead it sets an imaginative tendency toward something radically different. That may not be the best, and it may not even be better than the present. It points to new options yet unexplored. When we speak of utopian thinking as constitutive of philosophical theory of gender, we consider “utopia” not as escape, but as criticism of the present social structure built upon relationships of power that entail hierarchy and, therefore, discrimination ; utopia is a criticism made in the light of a regulative ideal that represents another structure. We are not thinking of a painting of the best of all possible societies. In any case, to think that only one world may exist that is the best for all human beings, given the complexity of their peculiarities and relationships, may seem, if

156

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ

not impossible, at least extremely difficult. The idea that a society exists that is the best for all sounds incredible. And the idea that, if one exists, we know enough to be able to describe it is far more incredible. When we speak of utopian thinking, we think of the vision of possible imaginable societies where we would most prefer to live, and where people would choose to stay. In making this characterization we intentionally avoid judgments of value. We do not mean that a society in which people prefer to live is better than one where people do not choose to stay. It is only more desirable. We can imagine a society where living is possible, that need not contain everyone else now alive in the real society, and it may contain beings that have never actually lived. We can imagine a society where gender relations are not hierarchical relations assigned by power. But we must imagine that those who live in it will have the same rights of imagining possible societies and to choose whether they prefer to stay where they live or to emigrate. Utopian thinking does not consist of a conception of a possible society. Rather, it consists of the possibility of building utopias, many different and divergent communities in which people lead different and divergent kinds of social relationships. Utopianism is a framework for utopias. By this we mean that the utopian structure is a form that may consist of different co-existent or successive contents, devised upon the grounds of the existing reality but not trapped in it. As the existing reality is historical and contingent, the trial and correction of models is necessary, bearing in mind, as regulating idea, a possible society that is preferable to choose. The provisional status of its diverse models thus characterizes utopianism (Nozik, pp. 298–310). Worth noting is that this does not commit us to an idea of progress because progress implies advancement toward something that is better than before. And as we have already pointed out, we do not favor the idea of the best of all possible worlds. If we supposed that only one kind of reality exists that is the best for all, the problem of deciding how to know which one is the best would exist. We can decide that such and such a model is the best and confront this model with the model put forward by somebody else as the best. An external criterion should exist, a pattern of measure that might allow us to decide which of those is the best, a sort of platonic paradigm. In addition, supposing one existed, we should be able to get to know it. We must therefore give up the false supposition that only one kind of society exists that is best for all. Nozick says: Given the enormous complexity of man his many desires, aspirations, impulses, talents, mistakes, loves, sillinesses, given the thickness of his interwined and interrelated levels, facets, relationships (compare the thinness of the social scientists' description of man to that of the novelist’s), and given the complexity of interpersonal institutions and

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

157

relationships, and the complexity of coordination of the actions of many people, it is enormously unlikely that, even if there were one ideal pattern for society, it could be arrived at in this a priori (relative to current knowledge ) fashion. And even supposing that some great genius did come along with the blueprint, who could have confidence that it would work out well? (Nozik, p. 313). When we speak of utopia, then, we must differentiate between utopianism or utopian thinking and utopias properly, that is between the framework and the particular communities within the framework. In consequence, trying to make a particular description of a particular community is not worthless. Allowing us to describe a particular community is what the framework is for. The different models, which need not be detailed plans of the structure and working of a society (the blueprints which Karl Popper was against, as we will see later), are interesting and necessary. These are the ways of giving shape to the utopian form, which is necessary to every movement with transformative intentions. We must insist that the desirability, even if shared by all human beings, does not guarantee by itself that a society is morally good. Yet, it guarantees that they all share the same possibilities and prerogatives, that real equality exists, a condition of possibility of a morally good society but also condition of possibility that all its inhabitants may have, using Amelia Valcarcel’s ironic paradox, the same right to do evil (Valcárcel, pp. 169–184). 2. Ideology and Utopia Utopia, as different from ideology, stands out as a clear genre: in its selfdescription utopia calls itself utopia and recognizes itself as such. Works exist called utopias, like More’s, but no author intends to make ideology. Karl Mannheim already in 1929 linked ideology with utopia. For Paul Ricoeur, Mannheim is the first to place within a common conceptual framework ideology and utopia, which he describes as incongruent forms, each in its own way, in discrepancy with the present reality. This highlights its character of representations but, while ideology legitimates the existing order, utopia breaks it down. Ricoeur, like Mannheim, examines the concepts of ideology and utopia within the same conceptual framework. His hypothesis is that the “conjunction of these two opposing or complementary functions typifies what could be called social and cultural imagination.” Ideology and utopia share a high degree of ambiguity: they have a positive and a negative aspect, a constructive and a destructive role, a constitutive dimension and a pathological dimension. And in both, pathological aspect appears before the constitutive one, which requires us to

158

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ

work from the surface to the bottom when we wish to strip its structures. Ricoeur maintains that we may clear up the polarity between these two aspects within utopia, and within ideology, by exploring the polarity between ideology and utopia. We do not intend to delve deeply into Ricoeur’s analysis of ideology. We are interested instead in considering some points of his approach to the concept of utopia that we find useful, some of which coincide with the above characterization of utopianism. Ricoeur indicates the need to seek the permanent and positive features of ideology and utopia. Thus he distinguishes three levels in which utopia works as ideology does. First, if ideology is deformation, utopia is fantasy, which is completely unrealizable. It verges on madness, it is an evasion exemplified by the evasion of literature. Second, if ideology is legitimization, utopia is an alternative to the existing power. At a third level, just as the best function of ideology is to preserve the identity of a person or group, so the best function of utopia is to explore that which is possible, “the lateral possibilities of reality.” With utopia is as with ideology. At first glance, utopia has a pejorative connotation: it is nothing but a kind of social dream, which represents, to a great extent, an escapism from the logic of action. At its most superficial level, utopia is fantasy, madness, evasion, something completely unrealizable. Here utopia removes all questions about the passage from present to future; it does not offer any help to determine which is the difficult path of action or to operate in that path. People often consider utopia a kind of schizophrenic attitude to reality, as a way of escaping from the logic of action by means of a construct built outside history. This is a pathological aspect of utopia. For Ricoeur to start from this pathological meaning of utopia and to delve deeper into it to get to a level in which we could find a function of utopia comparable to the integrating function of ideology is possible If we move from this superficial aspect to the second level, utopia represents a challenge to the present authority. In that sense, utopia aims to face the problem of power. It may offer an alternative to that power or an alternative kind of power. And the question of power is the point of junction of utopia and ideology. Utopia constitutes an imaginative variation on power (Ricoeur, pp. 17, 35, 392–393). Both ideologies and utopias refer to power: an ideology is always an attempt to legitimize power, whereas utopia is always an attempt to replace existing power with something different...Utopia addresses reality; it attempts to change reality. The intention of utopia is likely to modify what has already been established...[T]he impulse of utopia tends to modify reality.

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

159

Utopia works its way to show the gap between the pretensions of authority and the beliefs of citizens in any legitimacy system. The result of reading a utopia is that it questions what currently exists; it makes the real world look alien. We generally feel tempted to state that we cannot live in a different way from the one we live now. But utopia introduces certain doubts, which destroy the evident (Ricoeur, p. 394). According to Kumar, utopia is not only a dream, as it is a dream that calls for realization (Kumar, pp. 1–2). Consequently, it always has one foot in reality. Although the intention of utopia is to demolish reality and criticize it, utopia also wishes to keep a certain distance from any present-day reality, manifested in its orientation toward the future. It sets an ideal we aim at, but which we never fully achieve. Utopia achieves this health function because of the notion of “nowhere.” To be here, we must be able to be nowhere (Ricoeur, p. 36). A fundamental structure of reflexiveness, which we can apply to our social roles, may be the capacity to think of a vacuum from which we can cast a glance at ourselves (Ricoeur, pp. 37–38). The goal stated here is not truly realizable but it is not impossible either. One of Ricoeur’s general conclusions on utopias that we deem interesting is that they put forward the ambiguity to pretend that they are realizable, but at the same time they admit that they are the products of fancy, something impossible. Utopia has an interesting potential as an instrument to explore possible social change. It does not accept or intend to describe things the way they are, but it attacks them and proposes paradigms that oppose true reality. It is opposing and proposing, critical and visionary. It opposes when it proposes. It can oppose because it proposes. On visionary horizons, no solutions to present-day problems exist, but at least tools exist, which allow us to present them in a more accurate way. Therefore, as an attracting goal it is a source of practices. Through an exercise of imagination a move away from the present unsatisfactory situation occurs (Bouchard, pp. 76–78). Utopia describes an impossible state of perfection that, however and paradoxically, in a true sense is not beyond the reach of humanity. It is here, although it is not here now. The value of utopia is not in its relation with present-day practice but in its relation with a possible future, and with those practices leading to achieve it. Its practical use is to overstep the immediate reality to depict a condition whose clear desirability draws us on, like a magnet, even though desirability does not imply it must be a morally good condition for everybody. The fact that it is a utopia does not mean that it must be a eutopia, in the “optimal” sense in which More linked these notions of his work (Kumar, p. 3).

160

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ 3. Utopianism, Feminism, and Philosophy

Utopia has been in and out of fashion since its beginnings, five centuries ago. However, it has had outstanding relevance as a form and as a way of thinking. Our times have strongly attacked utopia, for instance, for its way of proceeding and for its basic assumptions about the nature of society and humanity. It must lead, so the claim goes, to tyranny and totalitarianism. Our times have linked utopia with progress, increasing happiness and faith in reason, ideas mocked as a result of a lot of twentieth century events. Anti-utopists do not believe that utopia is unrealizable but just the opposite. What scares them most is the invincible madness of humanity. Popper says that only three assumptions can save utopianism: the platonic belief in an absolute and immutable ideal; that rational methods exist to determine what the everlasting ideal is; and what are the best means to obtain it. Only these assumptions might revoke the statement that utopian methodology is completely sterile. Even Plato and his closest followers should admit that the first assumption is not valid and that no rational method to determine the final goal exists, but, at least, some of imprecise intuition. In this way utopian engineers, lacking rational methods, must solve their differing opinions not through reason but through strength, through violence. Utopianism, Popper adds, links to estheticism, with the will to build up a universe better and more rational than ours, and free from its ugliness as well (Popper, pp. 161–164). We think Popper´s claim is coherent with his belief that the only rational method is the scientific method and what really matters is the context of justification. He plays down whatever may relate to the context of discovery—the kind of imprecise intuition that he refers to might belong to it, that is, to the realm of creativity today revalued. Yet he extends to social sciences and to politics what really belongs to the field of natural science; and this, in time, leads him to reject other ways of thinking as irrational, and to state that therefore they lead to violence. He then confronts utopian society, closed and violent, with a pluralist and open society based only on rational argumentation. According to Popper, rational argumentation can take place by itself without contamination from irrational factors and which advances along gradual but not revolutionary changes. An anti-utopian attitude like Popper´s derived from his philosophical conviction and of the history of our century. Popper bears nazi utopia in mind. But one thing is a reasonable pessimism and a totally different one is the repudiation of utopia on these grounds (Kumar, pp. 90–91). Different voices for other reasons proclaim “the death of utopia.” Nevertheless, the richness of its resources enables utopia to survive and revive. Utopian conceptions are a must in politics: it can sink without them into a soulless vacuum or in sheer instrumentalism with no goal or vision.

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

161

Yet, this does not mean that we should deal with them as if they were blueprints. Unlike Popper, Ricoeur revalues utopia as it is able to break into “the thickness of reality,” and to redescribe life. Reasons to urge and look for a renewal of utopia exist. In fact, utopian thinking should not end up as if it were a rigid painting behind which history does not exist, and in which time stops, and everything must respond to the model; in this sense, we should not view them as blueprints. From Ricoeur´s standpoint, the death of utopia would mean the death of society. A society without utopia would be dead as it would not have a project or a goal in the future. Now that everything has been blocked owing to all these systems that failed but which cannot be defeated—such is my pessimistic appreciation of our time—utopia appears to be our resource. It could be an escape but it is also the tool of criticism. It is likely that special times will call for utopias. I wonder whether our present reality might be one of those times, but I would not like to sound prophetical; this is a different issue (Ricoeur, p. 394). . At the turn of the century, as Kumar says The most vital currents of utopianism are to be found within the newer social movements that have arisen in response to the novel problems of late industrial society. Chief among these is contemporary feminism is central. The recent face of the feminist movement owes much of its driving force to the entry of women into the world of work in unprecedented numbers. New problems have arisen for relations between men and women, the rearing of children, the arrangement of household work– which have given rise to a movement for interpreting and adjusting to the changes. The cultural expressions of the movement have been notable for their depth and intensity (Kumar, pp. 101–102). A great part of feminist utopias are also ecotopias, ecological utopias, going back as far as Herland. These utopias often associate male domination with exploitative and destructive uses of science and technology. Feminist theory, whether philosophical or not, may inevitably cling to utopia. Where else would women be free and equal, but in a place that is nowhere? No society, up to now, has granted women material and symbolic equality with men, as Bouchard affirms; even science fiction and masculine utopias have dealt with the question of the relation between the sexes in a regressive and conservative way.

162

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ Most utopianists have simply ignored the question of the role and position of women; that’s why, if the goal of utopia is to identify and try to solve serious social problems, the social status of women did not constitute, for most utopianists, a major problem, as female inferiority had become a truism. And when they have approached the issue, little have they contributed to the improvement of women's condition (Bouchard, p. 91).

In this way, when feminist philosophy makes a point of its utopian dimension, it must leave aside a component that is present in many utopias: the return, the forgetfulness of something belonging to the past or the need to recover the origins or a “lost paradise.” In its critical and transforming sense of reality, acting as a pole of attraction, a utopia generates practices, so much so that a fundamental political choice exists in female utopias, as Marcelle Marini observes: Are feminist action and thought temporary in the sense of a way to achieve a really mixed society which does not exist in our real history? Or are we trying to build up a female society and culture, parallel to male society and culture, with its own rules and thought out as substitutes of existing one? This raises two different attitudes. The first case conceives action and feminist institutions as a necessary mediation for women to have a role as actresses on the political and cultural arena one day. In the latter, the goal is the advent of a society in which the female element should be the only way of engendering, sex separate society, or sexless, androgynous, as a result of reabsorbing the differences. Those two utopias, somewhat clearly formulated, give rise to different strategies at present (Marini, p. 54). Feminist theory revalues utopianism, and it recovers traditional features of utopia but rejects those that do not coincide with the present state of the theory or those overcome socially and historically. The frame on which the concept of utopia used by feminists works, for the most part, stems from the studies on the construction of meaning through language and the construction of subjectivity which resulted from the poststructuralist and postmodernist movements. If we compare the main features of utopianism and feminism, they share the transgressive and critical character, and their criticism gears toward, in this case, patriarchal society challenging the hierarchical system and bipolar oppositions. They both share the stress on the role of imagination, that is to say, the one which handles hypothetical constructions akin to those of literature and even those coming from mathematics; however, as they are explicitly imaginative, critics accuse utopianism and feminist thinking, the same as literature, of not developing logical and rational argumentation and, therefore, leave them outside the realm of philosophy.

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

163

Besides coincidences, differences between utopia and feminism exist. For example, they differ in their outlining of a perfect society and the necessity of devising a blueprint—common features to utopia—because the idea of perfection and the establishing of blueprints are closed and, on the one hand, they tend toward essentialist solutions; and, on other, they do not allow for changes and counter-movements. On the contrary, feminist thinkers exist, whether philosophers, sociologists, or psychologists, who open new conceptual niches making emancipation schemes possible when they make criticism through utopianism. These authors consider using the putting forward of utopias as a different way, albeit legitimate, of making theory. They hold a different criterion of theorization, as far as this kind of conceptualization leaves aside the stability and the certainty of the search for conclusions for an open approach allowing for continual reformulations. The feminist standpoint views utopian criticism as an analysis of the social change understood as process and, consequently, does not propose a closed scheme, it objects to planning binary oppositions which fall into false dilemmas, but it keeps the difference and the imperfection in a much wider opposition. We believe that feminism and utopianism are compatible since feminism, born as a social movement, holds a radical subversive potential, and, that is why, utopianism provides it with a comfortable position for criticism. Engaging in social changes; as a last resort, feminist philosophy sets to contribute to a change of the disadvantageous situation of women. If this is so, feminist philosophy cannot be lacking in utopian dimension. In this context “utopia” does not mean a social dream that is impossible to put into practice, but consists of criticism made in the light of a likely future that may give rise to the design of practices. The fact that we should consider the philosophical theory of gender as utopianism results directly from the questioning of the place of human beings and their relations with one another. This space, however defined, is part of social life. Changing or transforming this space brings about changes and deep transformations having to do with personal identity, sexual choice, family arrangement, nurture habits, and educational patterns. That changed space is still nowhere. Although utopia is a framework, that is, utopian thinking is a necessary and fruitful component of the philosophic theory of gender, many utopian models are not yet quite attractive and put forward a rigid portrait of a society that they assume to be good. One of the first feminist utopias, Herland, published in 1915 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a socialist American feminist, portrays a kind matriarchal society which has long ago eliminated men, and women give birth to their children through an ecstatic act of parthenogenesis.

164

BACH, ROULET, AND SANTA CRUZ

Without getting to such imaginative extremes, some hold that if women can get to those positions which have always and traditionally belonged to men, to a full participation in politics—and men, at the same time, to the domestic world—society will then change for the better. Along these lines, some present day feminists and a part of the American feminists belonging to the movement of women of the nineteenth century, firmly believe that society will improve with the access of women to the public sphere because of the inherent virtue of women, that is, owing to their intrinsic moral superiority over men. For some women who celebrate difference, such as Monique Wittig, women are intrinsically good and men intrinsically evil. We do not share this view—or the one underlying the former utopia—as it conceals a new biologist essentialism: it encapsulates the belief that women are superior to men, as a result of their physical identity as women. On the other hand, we share Hester Eisenstein’s view: With Nancy Chodorow, I believe that women, like men, are socially produced beings, and can change. And with Jane Addams, I believe that women are perfectly capable of being corrupted by power, but up to the present historical moment simply have not been given the opportunity (Eisenstein, p. xiv).

WORKS CITED Bouchard, G. (1988). “Les utopies féministes et la science-fiction,” Imagine 44. Eisenstein, Hester. (1983). Contemporary Feminist Thought, Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall & Company. Kateb, George. (1967). “Utopias and Utopianism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5, ed. Paul Edwards. N.Y. & London: McMilliam Publishing Company Inc. & The Free Press. Kumar, K. (1991). Utopianism. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. Levitas, Ruth. (1975). The Concept of Utopia. Hemel Hempstead, Philip Allan. Marin, Louis. ( 1975). Utópicas, juegos de espacios. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Marini, Marcelle. (1990). “D’ une création minoritaire à une création universelle,” Les Cahiers du Grif 45. Marks, Elaine and de Courtivon, I. (1980). New French Feminisms. An Anthology. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press.

Feminist Philosophy and Utopia

165

Neussüs, Arnlhem. (1992). “Dificultades de una sociología del pensamiento utópico,” Sociología de la utopía, edited by B. Muniesa. Barcelona: Editorial Hacer. Nozik, Robert. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Blackwell. Popper, Karl. (1981). “Esteticismo, perfeccionismo y utopismo,” La sociedad abierta y sus enemigos. Barcelona: Paidós. Ricoeur, Paul. (1997). L’idéologie et l’utopie. Paris: Seuil. Ruyer, Raymond. (1992). “El método utópico” in Sociología de la utopía, edited by B. Muniesa. Barcelona: Editorial Hacer. Sargisson, Lucy. (1996). Contemporary feminist utopianism. London: Routledge. Valcárcel, Amelia. (1991). “El derecho al mal,” Sexo y filosofía. Barcelona: Anthropos.

This page intentionally left blank

Twelve UNTHINKING GENDER: THE TRAFFIC IN THEORY IN THE AMERICAS Claudia de Lima Costa

1. Introduction In post-colonial formations, in light of the reconfiguration of knowledges and the contemporary remapping of all kinds of borders (geographic, economic, political, cultural, libidinal, and so forth), the problematic of translation has become a recent domain of feminist contention. Through what routes do feminist theories, along with their foundational concepts, travel in the Americas and how do their translations vary in different historical and geographical contexts? What are the mechanisms and technologies of control that, together with other contextual factors, oversee the transit of the theories across territorial borders? What readings do feminist analytical categories receive when moving from one context to another? What is the place of enunciation that feminist subjects, especially feminist academics, occupy in the midst of the transit in theories across the North-South axis and vice-versa? In what ways does a person’s location in gender, race, sexuality, class, institutions, and others, overdetermine which theories and authors translators choose and how they interpret or appropriate the theories? Who, in the end, defines what constitutes theory in the first place? I borrow my use of the term translation from Tejaswini Niranjana’s (1992) deployment of the concept. It does not refer to discussions about the strategies for intra, interlingual, and intersemiotic process in the area of translation studies proper, but to debates on cultural translation most prevalent in recent writings on ethnographic theory and practice (Asad, 1986, pp. 141–164). Cultural translation, as Niranjana notes, does not assume that the context of translation is one of symmetry between languages, but its premise is the view that any process of description, interpretation, and dissemination of ideas and worldviews always already intertwined with relations of power and asymmetries between languages, regions, and peoples.

168

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

2. The Traffic in Theories Scholars have spilled much ink over the travels of theories across different topographies and through itineraries that are ever more complex (Edward Said, 1983; Radhakrishnan, 1996; Caren Kaplan, 1996; Inderpal Grewal and Kaplan, 1994). In the traffic of theories, Mary John (1996) stresses two points. First, the theories that travel more easily are those articulating such a high level of abstraction that they render irrelevant any question of context (for example, deconstruction, post-structuralism, and so on). Second, while crossing territories, local readings continuously appropriate and transform theories, acquiring a more composite structure. As John argues, forged at different levels of abstraction, feminist theories fall under this category; they make simultaneous use of several registers. As a result of such travels, the link between theory and place—which in many ways has been an imagined one (Grossberg, 1997)—begins to be radically disrupted. In the contemporary scenario of fragmented identities, “contact zones” (Pratt , 1992)—instead of center and peripheries—and border epistemologies, incumbent upon the feminist critic is to scrutinize the processes of cultural translation of feminist theories and concepts such as gender, experience, and woman so as to develop what critics have dubbed “a geopolitical or transnational ability to read and write” (Friedman, 1998; Spivak, 1992) toward the articulation of “transnational feminisms” (Grewal and Kaplan, 1994). This task demands mapping the dislocations and continual translations of feminist theories/concepts and examining the constraints that mechanisms and technologies of control, together with other contextual forces, impose in the transit of theories across borders. Ideas and concepts—which are never totally “pure” or “native”—flow out from locations that are already imbricated with other places and saturated by other ideas and concepts and subjects of enunciation, opening up routes that attend closely to a rhizomatic logic: no identifiable point of origin nor an unequivocal end point exists. James Clifford (1992) already pointed out that although theories linke to some places, theories should conceive places as an intersection of several itineraries that are, in turn, the result of different histories of belonging, immigration and exile. In the specific case of feminist theories, John (1996) indicates this task becomes far more complex given that feminists produce analytical categories in the (dis)encounter of heterogeneous feminist formations, and as a response to the differences of race, class, sexual orientation, nation, language, tradition, and so forth. In a sharp discussion on feminism, experience, and representation, Chilean cultural critic Nelly Richard (1996) indicates that, in the global division of labor, the traffic in theory to and from metropolitan centers and

Unthinking Gender

169

peripheries remains tied to an unequal exchange: while the academic center theorizes, it expects the periphery to supply case studies. In other words, the academic center reduces the periphery to the practice side of theory (or, in another perverse binary opposition, to the concrete body as opposed to the abstract mind of metropolitan feminism). Trinh Minh-ha vividly captures the inscription of the experiences of Third World women in the Western feminist repertoire when, reflecting on her own status as an immigrant woman of color in the U.S., she says, Now I am not only given the permission to open up and talk, I am also encouraged to express my difference. My audience expects and demands it; otherwise people would feel as if they have been cheated: We did not come here to hear a Third World member speak about the First (?) World. We came to listen to that voice of difference likely to bring us what we can’t have, and to divert us from the monotony of sameness (Bulbeck, 1998, p. 207). 3. Translation as Discursive Migration In this context of the transnational traffic in theories and concepts, the question of cultural translation becomes quite pertinent and constitutes a unique space from which to take on critical analyses of representation and power and the asymmetries between languages, on the one hand and to examine and situate the practices of the construction of the subject of feminism on the other. In her lucid study of translation in the context of the construction of the colonial subject, Niranjana (1992) reveals forcefully the extent to which practices of translation, rooted in authoritative Western philosophical assumptions about representation, reality, and knowledge, were collusive in concealing the violence present in the construction of this subject. In deploying some kinds of representation of the other, these practices of translation reinforced hegemonic conceptions of the (colonized) other, constituting this other—to recall Said’s words—as an object without history, thereby losing sight of the other as having always been a historical effect of such discursive practices. As Niranjana indicates, the practice and theory of translation arose from the need to disseminate the Gospels: “traducir,” in Spanish, means to translate and to convert. In juridical terminology, curiously, the meaning of translation is “undue appropriation” (Huaiss and Cardim, 1999). For Niranjana, the term translation is not reducible to a linguistic process but problematically situates itself between the acts of reading and interpreting. To theorize the process of cultural translation (to translate translation) requires an analysis of the different economies within which the

170

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

sign of translation circulates. According to Spivak (1992), for a feminist critic to become a translator of a translation, the critic will have to go beyond an intimate reading of the text in hand toward an equally intimate reading of the social text, paying special attention to the relations between textual logic and rhetoric on the one hand, and social logic and rhetoric on the other. Due to the intense migration of concepts and values that accompany the travels of texts and theories, often a concept with a potential for political and epistemological rupture in a particular context, when carried over to another context, may become de-politicized. For Hillis Miller (1996), this happens because any concept carries within itself a long genealogy and a silent history that, transposed to other topographies, may produce unanticipated readings. However, a theory’s openness to translation is a result of the performative, not the cognitive, nature of language. According to Hillis Miller, theories are ways of doing things with language, one of them being the possibility of activating different readings of the social text. When introduced to a new context, the kinds of readings a theory may enact may radically transform this context. Any translation will always entail defacement: when theory travels, it disfigures, deforms, and transforms the culture and/or discipline that receive it. In this sense, Spivak argues that a translator, regardless of how much of a traitor she also might be, must strive to be a sagacious critic of the terrain of the original, and a superlative reader of the social text. 4. Translation Practices and the Traffic in Gender As sagacious critics of the original and superlative readers of the social text, how can feminists in the North and South contribute to a practice of translation that offers disturbance to hegemonic narratives of the other, of gender and of feminism itself, making visible the asymmetrical relations between regions, languages, and institutions? In other words, how can we think through the gap of translation and account for the multiple forces (racial, sexual, economic, and so on) that overdetermine translation practices along with its strategies of containment? Francine Masiello (1996), in her remarkable reflection on cultural translation as one amid many technologies of gender and discursive games of academia, discusses the role of the feminist critic as a mediator of the gender narratives that circulate along the North-South axis, among which are the testimonio and other accounts produced in the ethnographic encounter between the feminist academic and the “third world (Latin American) native” woman. In her scrutiny of some of these (feminist) cultural mediators, Masiello poignantly argues that, despite their avowedly good intentions, these critics, in their respective works, end up re-inscribing a romantic and nostalgic picture of the Latin American courageous/heroic

Unthinking Gender

171

woman in the theoretical repertoire on the North or constructing Latin America, as Richard already pointed out, as the authentic body of abstract mind of the North. Following Richard’s advice in seeking “the grooves and interstices of metropolitan theory that can be used to twist or divert in its favor the paradigm of the Other,” Masiello provides a positive assessment of the work that cultural mediators in Feminaria (Argentina) and in the Revista de Critica Cultural (Chile), for example, are doing to interrupt those modes of representation that reinforce hegemonic views of the other. Her article makes a crucial contribution to how to think of translation as disruption. I am presently doing research on the ways that the most influential feminist academic journals in Brazil (Revista Estudos Feministas and Cadernos Pagu) make interventions/mediations in the traffic in theories in the Americas. Another way of assessing the political gains and/or losses in the traffic in theories within feminism is to look at the uneven migrations of one of its foundational categories, gender. In an earlier work I reflected on the travels of the category of experience from the context of U.S. poststructuralist feminist theory into the context of Brazilian homeless women (Costa, 1998). According to Mary Hawkesworth (1997), in the proliferation of research on gender from the 1980s on, people can find in the vast literature multiple, not always well articulated, meanings and usages of the concept. For the sake of illustration, society has defined gender as an attribute of individuals, an interpersonal relation, a mode of social organization, a structure of consciousness, a triangulated psyche, and internalized ideology. It has also characterized gender in terms of status, sex roles, and sexual stereotypes; has defined gender as a product of attribution, socialization, and disciplinary practices; and has described gender as an effect of language, a mode of perception, and as a structural feature of labor, power, and cathexis, and so forth (Hawkesworth, 1997, pp. 650–651). Intrigued by Simone de Beauvoir’s statement that someone is not born a woman, but becomes a woman, I am making explicit the place of enunciation of the feminists (Western, white, heterosexual, middle class) to emphasize that when we invoke de Beauvoir as signaling an epistemic rupture in feminist theories, we are deploying Eurocentric feminist narrative. Before de Beauvoir, many black feminists (some ex-slaves) had already deconstructed the category of women in their writings and speeches. In the 1960s and 1970s a heated debate began against any kind of biological determination in favor of social constructionism. As Linda Nicholson (1999) explains, distinguishing between sexed bodies (biological) and gender (character, personality, behavior), feminist constructivists, although accepting the premise of a fundamental biological difference between the sexes, affirmed that different social contexts give different meanings to the

172

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

“facts” of biology. The base/superstructure view of gender introduced this concept not to displace sex, but to supplement it. For Nicholson, sex continued to play a key role in the elaboration of the meaning of gender. Gayle Rubin’s celebrated formulationthe sex/gender systembiology developed into a base for the construction of cultural meanings. Hence, Rubin did not question the binary categories of Western thought. For Nicholson, we can say the same for the idea of a sexualized (and racialized) sexed body: Nicholson understood gender as that which women shared (given their sex), and racial and class factor, among others, were indicative of what differentiated one woman from another. In the mid 1980s the sex/gender binary paradigm suffered many attacks by lesbian feminists and women of color, who questioned the racism and heterosexism implicit in the category of gender. Audre Lorde was one of the first black feminists (along with other third world women of color living in the U.S.) to elaborate a multicultural view of gender based on the notion of a “house of difference.” In discussing the United States feminist debates on difference since the late 1960s up to the 1990s, Nancy Fraser (1996) identifies three major theoretical transitions: first, a notion of difference as resting exclusively on “gender difference” (one which posits a radical hiatus between women and men, and argues for the primacy of gender domination); in the 1980s it shifts to a second, more elaborated, view of differences as existing between men and women, and among women as well (this perspective emerged primarily among lesbians, women of color, and third world feminists living in the U.S. in response to the widespread myopia in mainstream white feminism). The present third focus singled out by Fraser, and which builds on the previous one, emphasizes “multiple intersecting differences” between and within women (Fraser, 1996, p. 202). A major factor contributing to the second trend has been the recognition that manifold layers of subordination (such as race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, religion, and so forth) irreducible to gender oppression alone, fractures the social field. These mutually imbricated layers of subordination axes of difference, with each category having articulatory effects on the others in specific historical and geographic contexts, open up positions for subjects to occupy while setting theoretical and political agendas. The third approach expands significantly the concepts of gender to conceive it as part of a heterogeneous ensemble of mobile, shifting, and transforming relationships. Concurrent with the discourses on difference articulated by subjects situated in the peripheries of capitalist, patriarchal, racial, and sexual hegemonies, other feminists such as Judith Butler, Joan Scott, Jane Flax, and Denise Riley (to cite only a few well-known voices in Latin American feminist academic circles), in their attempts to avoid a base/superstructure conception of gender, have suggested an alternative epistemological place

Unthinking Gender

173

from which to (un)think gender in a more productive way. Working from within post structuralism and its theoretical take on language, these scholars argue that gender is a knowledge or discourse that constitutes sex and sexual difference. Succinctly put, the Butlerian view argues that gender is a regulatory fiction or linguistic effect that creates a false unity between sex, gender, sexuality, and desire. It also constructs binary oppositions between male and female that are incompatible with the immense human variation. Therefore, the male or female gender designates an inhabitable ontological place. Joan Scott (1988), in the same vein as Butler (1990), contends that gender is a useful category of analysis because it enables the apprehension of the complex connections among several forms of human interaction. More than pointing out to a (constructed) difference between the sexes, gender is a way of signifying power relations and bringing into visibility complex cultural processes. As such, we must understand it as an active process that structures the multiple fields of social life intersected by the different vectors of oppression. Taking the poststructuralist road, Scott argues for a definition of gender as one crucial meditating element in the relation between the text and its context, the symbolic and the material. Outside this framework, the category is void of any theoretical and politically meaningful content. North-American feminist theory’s emphasis on difference (a response, in the social terrain, to political pressures from women of color and lesbian feminists in the U.S.), together with the deconstruction of identity categories (an outcome, in the epistemological terrain, of the advent of post structuralism), led many North-American academic feminists to proclaim the disintegration of gender in light of the fractures of class, race , sexuality, age, historical particularity, and other individual differences constitutive of the postmodern heteroglossia. Susan Bordo has argued against this theoretical position (Bordo, 1990). Other feminists, contesting the dispersal of women and gender, amply criticized what they viewed as a dangerous trend in the 1990s: the emergence of “feminism without women” (Modleski, 1991). Still other feminists exist who, confronting a devastating scenario of volatile bodies and evasive analytical categories, reducing everything to parodic performances, reaffirmed the need to fight against the atomization of differences by asserting a positive identity for women through the articulation of differences among them within the structures of domination that directly or indirectly produced those differences in the first place (Benhabib, 1995). While these theoretical debates on gender took hold in the U.S. academy, State and inter-governmental agencies in the Americas amply adopted the gender category in their public policies and social programs directed toward promoting “gender equity.” Sonia E. Álvarez (1998), analyzing feminist incursions in the State during the political opening toward

174

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

gender, argues that feminist critiques of women’s oppression and subordination often became diluted and neutralized in the discourses and practices of these institutions. In Álvarez’s words, Despite the undeniable role that local and global feminist lobbies had in promoting international gender norms, they indirectly inspire these “pro-gender” modern state discourses, and the “incorporation of woman in development” is not always inspired in feminism. The assiduous feminist criticism of the subordination of women is often translated and distorted in the practices and discourses of the State. As an official of the mayor’s office in Cali explained, “now the thing has changed. It’s no longer that radical feminism of the 1970s. Now it’s the perspective of gender.” (Álvarez, 1998) While states and inter-governmental agencies unabashedly embraced gender, the Vatican, during its preparation for the 1995 Conference on Women in Beijing, and fearful of the consequences that the use of the word gender might bring, such as the acceptance of homosexuality, the destruction of the (patriarchal) family, and the dissemination of feminism, was orchestrating an intractable attack on the concept of gender, associating it with a “sinister foreign influence” (Franco, 1998). As Franco tells us, in the auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires’s warning, the use of the word gender as “a purely cultural construct detached from the biological . . . would make us into fellow travelers of radical feminism” (Franco, 1998, p. 281). Where do persons position themselves in this setting in which the words most often used to refer to gender and woman are destabilization, dislocation, and discontinuity, on the one hand, and sinister influence on the other? How to advance the emancipatory project of feminism in light of the manipulation and tergiversation of the category gender by institutions such as the Vatican and the State? In other words, as feminists engaged in struggles against oppression and exclusion (be it in social movements or in classrooms teaching anti-canonical readings of canonical texts), how can people speak of difference without indifference? How to translate these burning interrogations into other contexts? Donna Haraway (1991), Teresa de Lauretis (1987), Amy Kaminsky (1993), and Marta Lamas (1996), among many others, have shown the difficulties that the word gender faces when it lands in the context of Romance languages in its southbound journey. Despite the multiple meanings of the word ‘gender’ in Portuguese, the Brazilian academy celebrated its arrival effusively in some quarters. My intention is not to provide a detailed cartography of the routes of gender in the Brazilian context. Instead, I offer some reflections on the uses and abuses induced by

Unthinking Gender

175

the translation of gender in the Brazilian setting, pointing out the political consequences of these translation practices. One gain brought about by the use of gender as an analytical category, when allied to structuralist and poststructuralist-inflected debates, was the epistemological denial of any kind of essentialism associated with the category “woman.” Nonetheless, in the context of the women’s and feminist movements, the acknowledgement of difference, through the analytical passage from Woman to women, had already happened. To state that the concept of gender introduced the discourse on difference into feminist theory is to fall into metalepsis. In other words, to see the emergence of discourses on difference as the result of feminist theory’s intervention in the social text is to ignore the extent to which women’s and feminist movements were the catalyst of a new way of thinking about women and gender relations, and not vice-versa. The incipient heteroglossia in these movements, refracting their internal differences, had long ago contributed to the interrogation of any essentialist position, especially concerning notions about human nature, masculine or feminine. Yet, the use of gender did allow feminists to understand and explicate with greater acumen the complex and fluid relations and technologies of power. Some excesses followed the indiscriminate translation and adoption of gender. 5. Gender(ed) Readings/ Feminist Readings: The Brazilian Context of Reception Although gender was not a “sinister influence” in the Latin American context, as an analytical category it nonetheless did leave room for depoliticizing moves. Albertina Costa (1996), in a perceptive assessment of the field of women’s studies in Brazil, argues that radical social transformations, such as migration, urbanization, the expansion of mass-communication media, industrial modernization, improved educational standards and opportunities, and falling fertility rates that took place under authoritarian rule in the 1970s, had deep implications for women’s social status that resonated in the rigid bureaucratic structures of the academic system. As increasing numbers of female students entered the humanities and social sciences, women’s issues became central to their academic concerns. In addition, university structural reforms, the expansion of graduate courses, and government incentives for scientific research (which fostered the creation of independent research centers funded mainly by international foundations) all contributed in significant ways to the appearance of research projects prioritizing women’s issues. Costa also argues that, in the larger context of economic modernization, social injustice and repression, and “in accordance with the then

176

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

predominant paradigms of dependency theory, the Latin American version of Marxism, and modernization theory” (Costa, 1996, p. 39), the applied research areas privileged were labor, population, and development, which rapidly became the “ghetto” of feminist interventions. In light of increased repression by the military regime, women has to temporarily “postpone” the then incipient public debates about their emancipation, which took place mostly among leftist middle-class urban militants, but the debates reemerged in the academic context in the form of scholarly interest in women’s issues. This particular constellation of economic, political, and historical factors helped shape a type of feminism that, in the words of Anette Goldberg (1989), was “good for Brazil.” As Costa explains, During these years the priorities of campaigning were to have a significant effect on the orientation of research which gave priority to diagnoses of the inadequate living conditions of poor women; on the one hand, they emphasized the explanation of female subordination as determined by socioeconomic structures and on the other they acquired a strongly missionary connotation. Women’s Studies’ initially marked tendency toward social intervention meant that no clear separation emerged between the concerns that emphasized public policy and development and those tending toward reflection and study (Costa, 1996, pp. 39–40). Goldberg’s illuminating study of the history of feminism in Brazil explains that “feminismo bem comportado” (well-behaved feminism) was a response to, among other things, a generalized fear of repression that forced consciousness-raising and other political groups into hiding. Goldberg’s essay is also an excellent bibliographical resource for mapping the trajectory of Brazilian academic feminism. Consequently, reflections transpiring in consciousness-raising groups, which might effect vital theoretical and methodological ruptures, did not engender academics’ research interests in women’s issues. On the contrary, by keeping the private and the public separate (despite the authoritarian regime constantly violating the rift between the two), by not directly questioning men’s oppression of women, and by prioritizing the general struggles against inequality and repression over women’s specific struggles, feminist academics may have inadvertently helped keep invisible the relations of power that permeate all realms of the social fabric. Furthermore, they faced pressures by their academic colleagues and research agencies to adhere to sanctioned scientific standards. All things considered, understanding why in its initial moments academic feminism in Brazil did not present a more thoroughgoing challenge to the scientific canon is not difficult.

Unthinking Gender

177

In the 1980s, as Goldberg (1989) explains, several events would fundamentally shift the trajectory of academic feminism in Brazil. This transition period during the waning of authoritarianism enabled the articulation of new social movements along with the configuration of new political subjects and identities. Political amnesty also allowed for the return from exile of feminists who had become deeply influenced by European women’s movements. Upon their return to Brazilian soil, they introduced new debates into the feminist agenda about the relationships between sex and gender, equality and difference, public and private, and about pluralism (the valorization of difference). As Costa (1988) suggests, the belated appearance of issues of difference in Brazilian feminist circles was due to the dilemmas confronted by the left vis-à-vis the military dictatorship. The concerted leftist opposition to the regime, Costa writes, greatly contributed to the dilution of differences and represented an obstacle to the manifestation of different autonomous trends within feminism. During this period, women’s studies as a field expanded and diversified to include new research topics (for example, sexuality, the body, the study of daily life, the women’s movement) and disciplinary areas (for example, history, anthropology, literature, politics, communication, and so forth). The establishment of several university women’s/gender research centers also characterized the 1980s. In the late 1980s, under the influence of feminist theoretical debates abroad, gender as an analytic category came to replace the category “woman.” According to Ana Alice Costa and Cecilia Sardenberg (1994), the displacement of woman by gender has resulted in a contradictory outcome. On the one hand, this conceptual shift in principle presents feminists with a chance to leave the “ghetto” of women’s studies “to conquer a new space of reflection at a broader level, one that would cross over into other areas of knowledge so as to incorporate not only women but the scientific community as a whole” (Costa and Sardenberg, 1994, p. 394). On the other hand, the use of the category gender in many instances introduced a change of label and not of content: studies continued to conceptualize woman as a pre-existing essence, not taking into account the social and relational construction of category. The increased focus on gender studies (as opposed to women’s or feminist studies) did not succeed in breaking down the divisive walls of the traditional disciplines via more interdisciplinary practices, and it also signaled a growing depoliticization of academic feminism that further accentuated the rift between “theory” and “praxis” and consequently deepened the tension between feminist academics and activists. Due to the inflexibility of university undergraduate curricula, Brazil implemented women’s studies in a “top-down” manner: it initially appeared in graduate courses and universities offered it only sporadically at

178

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

the undergraduate level for optional credit (Costa, 1996). As Costa and Sardenberg write, “Academics,” in incorporating the concept of gender, threw it away instead of assimilating it or making it more accessible to significant sectors of the women’s movement. Immediately, the category “gender” started to be used as a replacement for the term “woman” in all instances of the movement. Trade union demands incorporated “gender claims!” Popular movements, including women’s movements, followed this practice. Once more women became invisible. In the academy, this state of affairs would not be different. Many of the so-called gender studies are nothing more than studies of women’s issues. Similarly, the various university nuclei and professional associations research groups constituted with the objective of studying gender relations remain closed off in the ghetto of women’s studies. In Brazil . . . for the academy it is much easier to assimilate “gender studies” than “feminism,” which has always been identified by some sectors with advocacy and not with proper scientific endeavor. Therefore, for a number of academics, gender studies was more appealing in the sense that they continued doing “women’s studies” without running the risk of being identified with feminism. They are what feminist activists have referred to, in a derisive way, as generics [genéricas] (Costa and Sardenberg, 1994, pp. 395–396). The search for scientific rigor and excellence (as defined by conventional positivist social scientific standards) and an orientation toward empirical studies coupled with the rigid structure of the university impeded dialogue among feminist scholars in different disciplines, considerably hindering the development of interdisciplinary practices and theoretical-methodological discussions and also the questioning of the scientific canon, a fundamental facet of much feminist scholarship. According to Castro and Lavinas (1992), this lack of dialogue in the broader epistemological sense has led feminist scholars in Brazil to what they call “intellectual endogamy,” when they cite only themselves in their writings. Brazilian academic feminism remains poised at the crossroads of two distinct theoretical currents. One road takes us to French structuralism, with its emphasis on complementarity (along with the ideal of equality and denial of difference), while the other summons us toward North American post structuralism, with its emphasis on otherness and the politicization of difference (Machado, 1997). According to Machado (1997), French feminism and its foregrounding of difference through deconstruction did not fully enter the fields of anthropology, sociology, and history in France. Its institutional place remained in literary and psychoanalytic studies.

Unthinking Gender

179

As M achado indicates, in France feminists working in the fields of anthropology, sociology, and history did not challenge the canon of these disciplines, but introduced, through feminism, new thematic issues and analytical approaches. In the United States, on the contrary, feminists in the academy carried out far more radical interventions in the established canon and invented new epistemologies. An outcome of this particular mix of theoretical tendencies in Brazilian feminism in the 1980s and early 1990s is that a large number of its practitioners in the social sciences (in contrast to many, if not most, feminist scholars in the humanities) embraced the term “gender studies” more willingly than their literary counterparts, who still held on to the signifier “woman.” Social scientists perceived gender as being a more scientifically rigorous term than women’s or feminist studies. Women’s studies appeared too essentialist and feminist studies sounded too militant, not objective or systematic. This controversy nicely captures that to gauge how well gender travels, people need to examine thoroughly the analytical and historical constraints inhabiting the articulation of difference (John, 1996). Another crucial constraint, which I explored in an earlier article, is that Brazilian universities are, to this day, among the most elitist and whitest of institutions. As Scott (1988) herself stated, worried about the ease with which gender had entered the academy, Gender seems to fit within the scientific terminology of social science and thus dissociates itself from the (supposedly strident) politics of feminism…It does not carry with it a necessary statement about inequality or power nor does it name the aggrieved (and hitherto) invisible party” (Scott, 1988, p. 31). We may observe another problematic appropriation of gender within Brazilian and Latin American feminism in general, with inauspicious effects for this field of study (effects that were already taking shape in the 1990s) in the inordinate proliferation of masculinities studies. The logic of translation, in this case, operates as follows. Because gender is a relational concept, the focus of gender entrusted researchers dedicated to unveiling the perverse workings of the gender system with a heavier burden: to study women they had to study men as well. At present, the Brazilian academy has fully consolidated this proclivity in gender studies largely due to generous grants from government agencies and national and international philanthropic institutions. A focus on men and masculinity was a result of the need to better understand men’s participation in women’s reproductive health and emerged as a research agenda for feminists in Latin America after the conferences on reproductive health and

180

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

on violence in Cairo (1994) and the discussion of domestic and sexual violence against women at the Beijing Conference (1995). Teresa Valdes has offered an analysis of the emergence of masculinities studies as one of three research areas for feminists in the region (Valdes, 2000). I do not intend to condemn wholesale masculinities studies in Brazil. The tendency to shy away from the articulation of a feminist critical perspective is worrisome. At a national gender studies conference at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, I heard a paper presentation in which the author’s proposal was to analyze men’s perceptions of abortion. Despite the fresh insights and new interrogations that the preoccupation with men and masculinities brought to feminist analyses of gender and sexuality, we still lack sufficient accounts of women’s perceptions of abortion. To abandon female accounts of this experience in order to dedicate ourselves to the contemplation of men’s experiences appears a bit hasty at this time. As if women becoming gender in the 1980s were not enough, I fear that, from the 1990s on, gender is becoming masculinities and men are once more at the focus of analytic attention. Apparently, we have come full circle to the starting point, the pre-history of feminist studies. As a reviewer in the United States wrote about the ever expanding scholarship on masculinities, Too often the study of masculinity seems to come at the expense of the study of women, with the unfortunate implication that questions about women have become uninteresting or are so familiar that they no longer need to be asked. Moreover, when focused on the burdens of gender and the fragility of bonds between men, this scholarship tends to ignore the persistent links among masculinity, patriarchal power, and privilege (Rachel Adams, 2000, pp. 467–468). Adriana Piscitelli (1998), also expressing some unease over, on the one hand, the recent explosion of masculinities studies and, on the other, the growing distance between feminist studies and gender studies in the Brazilian academic context, identifies a problematic tie between masculinity and men. She writes, To study masculinities, centering them in their association with men, imposes limitations for analyses from a gender perspective. But that is not all. Concrete analyses examining the relations of masculinities, hegemonic or subaltern, have shown us the nuances in masculinities. They have revealed at the same time a lack of an equivalent complexity regarding femininities. And here is what I consider “perverse.” Conscious, from a relational perspective, of the risks that an emphasis in femininities might entail (risks that have been exhaustively debated

Unthinking Gender

181

in feminist circles) I cannot but consider the ‘sciences of masculinity’ as a fall back (Piscitelli, 1998, p. 154). I should note that other, more politically progressive appropriations of gender have existed in the Brazilian context. One example comes from Millie Thayer’s (1999) incisive study of the North-South travels of the concept. The author shows how the discursive migration of gender and its eclectic and contextually-specific translations were more radical than allowed by most models of unilateral transmission between North and South of the Americas. Her work illuminates the diversity of forces (for example, financing from international institutions) and discourses (for example, discourses about citizenship and rights) implicated in such geographical dislocations. Thayer makes evident how these factors complicate endlessly any movement of concepts and categories across geographic, political, and epistemological boundaries. Her argument is that, in the instance of the nongovernmental organization SOS Corpo, the migration of gender did not result in depoliticized translations/appropriations. In the Brazilian context of struggles for democratization, the SOS Corpo collective discursively articulated gender to the concept of citizenship, thus becoming a crucial instrument for demanding political rights in a movement that went from the gendered body to body politics. Thayer concludes by arguing that economic and discursive barriers prevent feminist theories and concepts from treading in the opposite direction (South-North). Incumbent upon the transnational feminist movement is to open up spaces that would allow for more horizontality and symmetry in the global flux of theories, concepts, and identities. 6. Beyond Gender? Gender, despite being one of feminist theory’s most important propositions (Flax, 1990), still remains on fragile epistemological ground, especially given its history of inappropriate translations, partly overdetermined by historically contextual factors. Norma Alarcón (1990) has already criticized the use of gender as a central concept in feminist theory. According to her, an account of the mechanisms through which someone becomes a woman must include other modes of subject-constitution that go beyond the male/female opposition. For instance, in societies in which asymmetries of race and class are fundamental organizing principles, to become a woman should also include relations of opposition to other women. This means that feminists should equally question and explain, and not take as their starting point, the category of woman, and the ways they construct this category.

182

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

In light of the above controversies around translations of gender, we need to reassess its legacy to appraise the extent to which the concept still remains anchored in a feminist transformational project. Such a reassessment of gender might reveal conceptual confusions that have beset the uses of the category and misunderstandings about the operations of power that undergird it. To heed Marilyn Strathern (1988) and Oyeronke Oyewumi’s (1998) advice, one final pertinent observation is that the Eurocentric metanarratives of gender does not usually take into account evidence from other cultural contexts. Hence the need exists for feminist criticism to be constantly reflexive of its particular place of enunciation. To deal with the above complexities vis-à-vis the construction of subjects, we urgently need to go beyond gender analyses. Following Friedman’s (1998) suggestion, we can move toward a cartography of identities. This entails two things. First, to conceive of identity as physical and discursive spaces structured by the operations of power. Never fixed, these spaces consist of fields in movement. Second, to abandon any binary view of identity. The notion of a geography (or cartography) of identities enables us to better map the geopolitical terrains constitutive of identities, including the contact zones and borderlands inhabited by (contemporary) hybrid identities. To conclude tentatively, following the fluid perspective on gender (and identity) suggested above, questions about the travels of theories and cultural translation, and about cultural mediations acquire theoretical relevance and political urgency.

WORKS CITED Adams, Rachel. (2000). “Masculinity without Men,” Gay and Lesbian Quarterly: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 6.3, pp. 467–478. Alarcon, Norma. (1990). “The Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called my Back and Anglo-American Feminism,” Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras, ed. Gloria Anzaldúa, San Francisco, Calif.: Aunt Lute Books, pp. 356–369. Álvarez, Sonia E. (1998). “En que Estado está el Feminismo? Reflexiones Teóricas y Perspectivas Comparativas.” Work presented at the Seminario International “Experiencias de Investigación desde una Perspectiva de Género” of the Programa de Estudios de Género, Mujer y Desarrollo. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Colombia. 6–9 October. Asad, Talal. (1986). “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology,” Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, eds.

Unthinking Gender

183

James Clifford and George Marcus. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, pp. 141–164. Benhabib, Seyla. (1995). “Subjectivity, Historiography, and Politics: Reflections on the Feminism/Postmodernism Exchange,” Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange, ed. Seyla Benhabib, et al. N.Y.: Routledge. Bhabha, Homi. (1988). “The Commitment to Theory.” New Formations 5, pp. 5–23. Bordo, Susan. (1990). “Feminism, Postmodernism, and Gender-Scepticism,” Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda Nicholson. N.Y.: Routledge. Bulbeck, Chilla. (1998). Re-orienting Western Feminisms: Women’s Diversity in a Postcolonial World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Butler, Judith. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. N.Y.: Routledge. Castro, Mary and Lena Lavinas. (1992). “Do feminismo ao gênero: a construção de um objeto,” Uma questáo de género, eds. Albertina Costa and Cristina Bruschini. Rio de Janeiro: Rosa dos Tempos/Fundação Carlos Chagas, pp. 216–251. Clifford, James. (1992). “Traveling Cultures,” Cultural Studies, eds. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler. N.Y.: Routledge, pp. 96–112. Costa, Albertina. (1996). “Women’s Studies in Brazil, or the Tightrope-Walking Strategy,” Brazilian Issues on Education, Gender, and Race, eds. Elba S. Barreto and M.L. Dagmar. São Paulo: Fundação Carlos Chagas, pp. 37–47. –––-. (1988). “E viavel o feminismo nos tropicos? Residuos de insatisfação-São Paulo, 1970.” Cadernos de pesquisa-Fundação Carlos Chagas 66 (August), pp. 63–69. Costa, Ana Alice and Cecilia Sardenberg. (1994). “Teoria e praxis feminista na academia: os nucleos de estudos sobre a mulher nas universidades brasileiras.” Revista Estudos Feministas, 2:numero especial, pp. 387–400. Costa, Claudia de Lima. (1998). “Off-center: On the Limits of Theory and Lived Experience.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Delauretis, Teresa. (1987). Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. Flax, Jane. (1990). Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Postmodernism in the Contemporary West. Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press.

184

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

Franco, Jean. (1998). “Defrocking the Vatican: Feminism’s Secular Project,” Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures: Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements, ed. Sonia E. Alvarez et al. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Fraser, Nancy. (1996). “Equality, Difference, and Radical Democracy: The United States Feminist Debates Revisited,” Radical Democracy: Identity, Citizenship, and the State, ed. David Trend. N.Y.: Routledge, pp. 196–208. Friedman, Susan S. (1998). Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Goldberg, Anette. (1989). “Feminismo no Brasil contemporâneo: o percurso intelectual de um ideario político.” Cadernos Bib 28, pp. 42–70. Grewel, Inderpale and Caren Kaplan. (1994). Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. Grossberg, Lawrence. (1997). “Where is the ‘America’ in American Cultural Studies?” Bringing It All Back Home: Essays on Cultural Studies. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, pp. 287–301. Haraway, Donna. (1991). “‘Gender’ for a Marxist Dictionary: The Sexual Politics of a Word,” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. N.Y.: Routledge. Hawkesworth, Mary. (1997). “Confounding Gender.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 22.3, pp. 649–685. Huaiss, Antonio and Ismael Cardim. (1999). Webster’s Electronic Dictionary, English/Portuguese; Portuguese/English. São Paulo: Editora Record. John, Mary. (1996). Discrepant Dislocations: Feminism, Theory, and Postcolonial Histories. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Kaminsky, Amy. (1993). Reading the Body Politic: Feminist Criticism and Latin American Women Writers. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Kaplan, Caren. (1996). Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourse of Displacement. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Lamas, Marta. (1996). “Usos, Dificultades y Posibilidades de la Categoría ‘Género,’” El Género: La Construcción Cultural de la Diferencia Sexual. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Pueg. Machado, Lia Zanotta. (1997). “Estudos de Gênero: Para Alem do Jogo entre Intelectuais e Feministas,” Gênero Sem Fronteiras, ed. Monica Raisa Schpun. Florianopolis: Editora Mulheres, pp. 93–140.

Unthinking Gender

185

Masiello, Francine. (1996). “Tráfico de Identidades: Mujeres, Cultura y Política de Representación en la Era Neoliberal.” Revista Iberoamericana 62.76-77, pp. 745–766. Miller, J. Hillis. (1996). “Border Crossings, Translating Theory: Ruth,” T h e Translatability of Cultures: Figurations of the Space Between , eds. Sanford Buddick and Wolfgnag Iser. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, pp. 207–223. Modleski, Tania. (1991). Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a “Postfeminist” Age. N.Y.: Routledge. Nicholson, Linda. (1999). “Interpreting Gender,” The Play of Reason: From the Modern to the Postmodern. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, pp. 53–76. Niranjana, Tejaswini. (1992). Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism and the Colonial Context. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Oyewumi, Oyeronke. (1998). “De-Confounding Gender: Feminist Theorizing and Western Culture. A comment on Hawkesworth’s ‘Confounding Gender.’” Signs: Journal of Women in Contemporary Culture 23.4, pp. 1049–1062. Piscitelli, Adriana. (1998). “Gênero em perspectiva.” Cadernos Pagu 2, pp. 141–155. Pratt, Mary Louise. (1992). Imperial Eyes. N.Y.: Routledge. Radhakrishnan, Rajagopalan. (1996). Diasporic Mediations: Between Home and Location. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minneapolis Press. Richard, Nelly. (1996). “Feminismo, Experiencia y Representación.” Revista Iberoamericana 62.176-177, pp. 733–44. Said, Edward. (1983). The World, the Text and the Critic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Scott, Joan W. (1988). Gender and the Politics of History. N.Y.: Columbia University Press. Spivak, Gayatri C. (1992). “The Politics of Translation,” Destabilizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist Debates, eds. Michele Barrett and Anne Philips. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, pp. 177–200. Strathern, Marilyn. (1998). The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Thayer, Millie. (1996). “Traveling Feminisms: From Embodied Women to Gendered Citizenship.” Translated into Portuguese in Cadernos Pagu.

186

CLAUDIA DE LIMA COSTA

Valdes, Teresa. (2000). “Estudios de género para el siglo XXI en América Latina: algunas notas para el debate.” Paper presented at the 22nd International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Miami. 16–18 March.

Thirteen PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND SEXUALITY Alicia H. Puleo Translated from Spanish by Philip Jaggs

1. Philosophizing About Sexuality: A Form of Politics The different concepts of sexuality in Western philosophical thought are not immune from the social and political changes taking place around them. This is not new or surprising in view of the interrelation between economic, political, and cultural phenomena, whatever sense we may attribute to the causality among them. However, we can only clearly understand a fundamental aspect of the previously mentioned relationship from the categories created by feminism since the concept of sexuality is closely linked to the conflictive relation of sex groups in patriarchal societies (anthropological data suggest that no other groups have ever existed). Feminists were pioneers in considering sexuality to be politics. Even before such a famous thinker as Michel Foucault became for many the main theoretician on the construed historical and cultural character of sexuality, feminist thinkers had begun to turn their thoughts in that direction and had done so from a perspective that hardly drew the attention of Foucault: patriarchal domination. Yet, several years before La volonté de savoir (1976) (the first volume of The History of Sexuality), in Sexual Politics, Kate Millet developed the theory of the political construction of sexuality. An analysis of contemporary literary texts allowed her to denounce the functioning of a self-interested fusion between Eros and Thanatos in the practice of power. The discourses on sexuality that I analyze here form part of the modern processes of the constitution of males and females and of their mutual relationships. The majority includes acts of self-designation (the philosopher talks like a man to other men, defining shared masculinity) and of heterodesignation (he defines women, reinforcing the link between equals through masculine complicity and the determination of the Other).1

188

ALICIA H. PULEO 2. The Reaction to Enlightened Feminism and to Suffrage

Even though Descartes did not deal in particular with the question of the ontological status of women, his dualism and the excellence that he attributed to the intellect allows us to suppose that the intellect, as it was independent from the body, was the same in men and women. Sex was merely a contingent particularity that did not reflect any fundamental characteristic. It was not an ontological destiny. The dualism res cogitansres extensa was to allow the first totally coherent theoretical manifestation of feminism in the work of the Cartesian Poulain de la Barre who began a series of demands in the seventeenth century maintained in the following century by others such as Madame Lambert, Olympe de Gouges, and the Marquis de Condorcet. Later in Spain, Benedictine Jerónimo Feijoo represented this emancipatory impulse in the Age of Enlightenment. In his Defensa de las mujeres, he uses arguments similar to those of Poulain de la Barre, affirming the equality of the intellectual faculties of both sexes, and to those of Josefa Amar y Borbón who, in her Discurso sobre la educación física y moral de las mujeres, develops a treatise that, in its defense of the need to enlighten women, coincides in the moral appreciations of the Marquise de Lambert. 2 Together with this line of the Enlightenment that insists on the importance of laws and education in the construction of what today we would call “gender,” appears another approach, essentialist and biologicist in nature, begun successfully in the work of Doctor Pierre Roussel, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Thought of the Enlightenment could not fail to be interested in the causal relationship linking physical and mental states. La Mettrie’s materialism did not receive a favorable reception, but the development of the natural sciences was influential in philosophical reflection that, with regard to the question of the difference between the sexes, went from Cartesian dualism to materialist monism. In the Enlightenment, we can find two contrasting tendencies: criticism of gender stereotypes and the foundation of these same stereotypes in nature (after their re-modeling to fit the emerging middle class). Recently acquired knowledge of nature was to legitimize the old asymmetry of power between the sexes with renewed arguments, established not through the language of religion but through that of “science.” Developed through medicine, a new discourse sustained that gender translates sexuality, conceived as a mysterious force that governs the individual’s conduct and especially, as one might have expected, women’s lives. Except for the case of the Marquis de Sade, whose influence the surrealists felt later in the twentieth century, in the sphere of philosophy not until the crisis of reason did sexuality occupy a privileged place in metaphysics. Arthur Schopenhauer opened this new era when he found in

Philosophy, Politics, and Sexuality

189

sexuality the “pure and unmixed” manifestation of the Will to Live, which constituted ontological fundamentals. Deeply influenced by the development of natural science, the author of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and Edward Von Hartmann, who continued the essentials of his theories, saw woman as the trap that the species lays for the individual to reproduce itself, beyond the interests and rational conventions of the masculine ego that, deceived by beauty, fails Ana Alice to see the future mother hidden inside each attractive young girl. Both philosophers are faithful to the medical theories of the time that considered women as conditioned by the uterus and by her destiny to become a mother. The hysterization of women’s bodies, their reduction to the uterus, is, as Foucault pointed out, part of a “sexuality device” by which science takes over from religion and constructs the identity of individuals, making their social control more efficient and subtle. Basic biographical knowledge demonstrates that Schopenhauer reacts violently against the intellectual pretensions of women, reflected in the figure of his mother, who presided over a literary salon and who wrote works that, in their day, enjoyed greater repercussion than those of her son. The absence of women who stand out because of their intellect is not what generates such negativity; instead, their presence, perceived as a threat to the future, generates such discourse. The immemorial identification of women and sexuality acquires a new terminology: Eve and the serpent, so often represented with voluptuous feminine curves, now receive the name of The Will to Live. This is a blind force that takes the place of Kantian noumenon. Underlying the phenomenical world is universal energy. However, as a direct representative of The Will to Live, woman is less guilty than man as her cerebral development is less and the ganglionic system is dominant in her. Her moral responsibility in the continuation of the chain of grief of human beings is not as great as that of men. Schopenhauer interprets homosexuality to be a sign of the male’s lesser dependence with regard to instinct. This is a mistake in the choice of object, proving the weakness of natural dictates in the sex characterized by rational activity. All reference to lesbianism is absent despite being a frequent topic in erotic literature and painting of the previous century. The asceticism that he preaches in the face of the horror of nature and its eternal cycle of birth, pain, and death does not prevent him from justifying the moral of the double norm. He thus affirms that a man’s ability to fertilize women explains his natural polygamy whereas feminine adultery is unacceptable. For Schopenhauer, we should interpret rape as a strategy of the unconscious will to achieve its reproductive ends. The extraordinary popularity acquired by Schopenhauer’s theories is largely due to the central role that he gave sexuality in metaphysics and to

190

ALICIA H. PULEO

the philosophical basis attributed to misogyny. The bourgeois model of the woman-mother locked away at home and the man as upholder of the family thus acquired the position of nature: an oppressive nature that limits individual masculine freedom. If, in the previous century, in line with demographic needs, women had been criticized for not responding sufficiently to the model of mother and had been urged to heed the voice of nature, Schopenhauerian pessimism and his enthusiastic public despise for them being pure nature.3 The concept of double bind developed by the school of Palo Alto often appears to preside over patriarchal dynamics. The Spanish reception of Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard’s ideas in Miguel de Unamuno lacks the misogyny of these authors. Woman is the mother but she embodies the agape, not the eros. In Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, the main characteristic is compassion.4 His Don Juan’s Doña Inés is, as Unamuno himself indicates in the prologue, “maternal and virginal,” sister and mother, and redeemer. This difference may be due to many causes, from personal to philosophical, but among the most relevant for the purpose of our analysis are the influence of the Catholic cult of the Virgin-Mother as a fundamental mediating figure and the less strongly emphasized feminist claims in the south of Europe at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. If contemporary philosophical discourse, which identifies woman with sexuality, came about as a reactive phenomenon in the face of attempts by some enlightened women to universalize civil and political rights and reach the status of an autonomous individual, typical of modern democracies, we can logically assume that these were reflected with less force where these pretensions were weaker. Perhaps the tradition of identifying woman with sex reaches its greatest metaphysical development in Schopenhauer, but with Otto Weininger it reaches its crudest intellectual expression and the adhesion of numerous readers from the moment of publication of the famous book Sex and Character (1902). In it, sexuality is merely an “appendix” of the life of man. This may objectivize it, or make it conscious. The case of woman is different: Man knows his sexuality. Woman, on the other hand, is not aware of it and is able to question it, as woman is merely sexuality. She is sexuality itself. As woman is merely sexual, she is not aware of her sexuality, as in order to make any observation duality is necessary, something which is impossible for man, both from the psychological as well as anatomical viewpoint, as he is not solely sexual. He can, if he wishes, impose limits or allow it to be free, in other words deny it or accept it, be a Don Juan or be an ascetic.5

Philosophy, Politics, and Sexuality

191

For Weininger, as for the majority of the men of his time, two types of women existed: the mother and the prostitute. Whereas the objective of the woman is to have children, and this responds to the general characterization of women made by Schopenhauer, the prostitute seeks merely the phallus. But, in the depths of every mother, our author maintains, something of the prostitute always exists, whereas the “absolute prostitute” is a purer kind. Between both extremes we find the whole of womanhood, a combination of these two elements in different measures. A similarity can be observed in Freud’s theory of the search for the penis through the birth of a male child. Basing himself on Plato, Weininger contrasts love and sexuality. Perfect love does not require carnal union. Sexual availability in a woman lowers her in the eyes of a man. Augustinian asceticism dictates its affirmation that sexuality belongs to the “kingdom of the unclean.” Given the characterization of women as mere sexuality, he explains the feminist movement as a biological phenomenon of inter-sexuality. Some women with masculine characteristics and, therefore, with aspirations above the rest, draw others to imitate them at specific periods in history. Henry James maintained the same viewpoint in the novel The Bostonians. The sense of family that this explanation reflects parallels the “masculinity complex” with which Freud interpreted the behavior of women who challenged the limits of their gender. Medical interest in inter-sexual states at the end of the century is closely connected to the strength of suffrage at this time. The eminent Spanish endocrinologist Gregorio Marañón supported the theory of bisexuality common to all human beings. The absolute man and the absolute woman do not exist. As with the Freudian theory of bisexuality, this duality allows him to explain through biology the appearance of characteristics and behavior that do not correspond to gender models, thus deactivating the delegitimizing force of the dominant model. The Eve-Mary duality of religion or Weininger’s mother-prostitute remain latent in the opposition established between “voluptuousness and maternity” as forces that cancel each other out. For Marañón, voluptuousness is “a virile energy and, therefore, antagonistic to feminine energy, which is the desire for a maternal function.”6 As with Unamuno , the eternal feminine is essentially the mother. He affirms that the sensual Carmen and the intellectual Madame de Warens are not feminine. Sexuality and culture are still the domain of masculine freedom. 3. Revolution and Transgression Later, when sexuality ceased to be a chain that tied the individual to the species but instead liberation in the face of the oppressive bourgeois order,

192

ALICIA H. PULEO

the figure of the mediating woman took on a new meaning based on the old identification of woman with nature and sexuality. In this short space I cannot refer to all the aspects and implications of such theories that I have examined in depth in other more extensive works.7 I will focus on differentiating the two main currents of the questionable conceptualization of sexuality. First, surrealism (in the line of André Breton) and the Freudian left with a positive figure of woman as the promoter of the gnoseological and/or social revolution. Second, the transgressive eroticism of Georges Bataille, who elevates the prostitute to the mediator of evil conceived as the sovereign liberating experience. Both currents move within an essentialist interpretation of sexuality but contain major differences that are not foreign to their respective political options. Reich, in the Rousseauian tradition of the natural man, proposes the return to the lost paradise, linking sexual liberation to political liberation. Some slogans painted on walls by students in the streets of Paris during the events of May 1968 reflected this proposal. Written on the walls of the Sorbonne was “The more I make love, the more rebellious I feel, the more I feel like making love.” According to Reich, sexual repression creates the necessary conditions for political domination. Initially it was matriarchy , the primitive communism of freedom and happiness. From the anti-psychiatric standpoint, David Cooper proposes the politics of the orgasm to undermine the normal bourgeois conscience. 8 The sex drive is real and the I is a mask that must be destroyed by orgasmic potential. The aim is to create a new man. Unlike Reich, Marcuse prefers to situate the matriarchal at the end of history, when polymorphic sexuality has defeated genital tyranny or the ingenuity of the established powers. In accordance with the reflections of Adorno and Horkheimer, Marcuse sees in woman the revolutionary pulsional subject who can play the role left by the proletariat…on the condition that she is not contaminated by the occupation of positions of masculine power as was the aim of liberal feminism of the moment.9 By virtue of her exclusion from civilization, woman, historically linked to nature, is the only one capable of reconciling man with it and endowing the world once more with sense. In his particular version of the Hegelian theory of the progress of humanity, the patriarchal and the repression of sexuality are the necessary moment of negation that precedes a non-repressive pleasurable future of sublimation that is not repressive and freedom. As for the main theoretician of surrealism, the future is feminine and in it will be a return of repressed nature. From a completely different viewpoint, Georges Bataille agrees on the liberating qualities in sexuality. However, arguing against a sexual revolution that would put an end to modesty and prohibitions, Bataille advocates transgressive eroticism. It is clear that transgression can only exist

Philosophy, Politics, and Sexuality

193

when previously established limits exist. Feminine modesty is, therefore, the essential barrier that preserves the existence of pleasure. This opposition of the theory of transgression toward all sexual revolution should lead us to reconsider some feminist criticism of it that is too absolute. The fact that the “sexual revolution” involves androcentrism, and that it probably involves an adaptation of patriarchy does not mean that the social transformation that it brought about was totally negative for women. We cannot idealize previous conditions. Bataille compares the heterosexual relationship with sacrifice. Eroticism has a gratuitous thanatic element, irreducible to the bourgeois administrative reason of the useful: [Violence] is desired like the action of the one who strips his victim, whom he desires and wants to penetrate. The lover causes the disintegration of the woman he loves as the blood-thirsty sacrificer causes that of the man or of the sacrificed animal. In the hands of the one who assaults her, the woman is de-possessed of her being. Together with her innocence, she loses that firm barrier that separated her from the rest and made her impenetrable. She is abruptly exposed to the violence of the sexual game unleashed in the reproductive organs. She is exposed to impersonal violence that overcomes her from outside.10 Bataille feels that modern democracy, which respects the rights of every individual, ends up canceling out the sovereignty of each and every one. The working woman and the wife can not be the true object of desire as they belong to the world of instrumental reason in which the sexes begin to melt into each other. Only the prostitute, an essential figure in society can be so. 11 As Habermas underscores, whereas for Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno the oppressed part of subjective nature conceals the possibility of “happiness without power,” for Bataille this nature reaches its plenitude in violence. 12 “Fundamentally, the impulse of sovereign man turns him into an assassin.” 13Therefore, eroticism, sacred animality whose hidden nucleus was to be discovered by the Marquis de Sade, would play a fundamental role in his proposal of libertarian socialism as the overcoming of bourgeois society and of communism. Excessive energy in the organism and in society will otherwise be consumed in war. Again we find woman in the role as mediator, this time the incarnation of eroticism, saving society from destruction in an act of substitutive sacrifice. According to Bataille, the “solidary” spirits who protest against the miseries of prostitution do not understand that the prostitute is a key figure in civilization as a target of aggressiveness, of ontological hate concealed within eroticism. This is not a totally new idea as the Marquis de Sade had affirmed in La philosophie dans le boudoir that the only way to neutralize

194

ALICIA H. PULEO

adequately the despotism that beats in the heart of man is to channel it through prostitution so that it does not alter political order. For Bataille, man has a thirst for the infinite, a negation of all limits, even of those that he himself has imposed, such as the taboos affecting sexuality. Fascinated, although critical, faced with the phenomenon of Nazism, worried by the weakness of the social fabric atomized in European democracies (a problem that he classifies as the decadence of virility, as is shown in his article “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in which the terms “virility” and “virile” appear on numerous occasions), he exalts the unifying function of rites and myths. His theory of transgressive eroticism is undoubtedly a modern variation of the regenerating myths of the pact between males. The diffusion and enthusiastic acritical acceptance in progressive intellectual media of this theory of transgressive eroticism is probably due its exaltation of the intrageneric masculine link at a time when we witness women forming part of the previously prohibited world of paid work, culture, and politics. Is this a philosophical anticipation of the pornographic fantasies of the modern audiovisual industry? 4. Final Considerations Nature, sexuality, and woman are concepts that we have found to be closely linked in the philosophical thinking examined. Alternatively interpreted as good and evil, these three categories combine to form a symbolic redefining of the relations between the sexes at a moment when they are undergoing a process of change in society, challenged by the claims for equality. At best, revolutionary discourse (for example, in Wilhelm Reich) uses categories that are the result of a process of reification by which they are comprised. Women are thought of as the other, removed from dominating instrumental reason. Herbert Marcuse appeals for the conversation of this salvaging purity that is no longer chastity but the liberation of the urge in a contra-cultural omission of that autonomous bourgeois “I” in modernity that women newly arrived in the public sphere (real parvenus) claim as a right. To express this in the words of Celia Amorós, women are once more “identical” but now with a soteriological mission: “Women have always been identical, unlike males who have always created between themselves spaces of equals in the sense, not exactly of egalitarian spheres but of equals whereas males as members of the generic, as such, have the power and in which, therefore, it is important to distinguish who is who.”14 Mediators for good or evil , a link in the chain that ties the species, sympathetic redeemers, original, pure, and liberating mature or “cursed nature” who by their sacrifice prevent the mutual destruction of man, the essence of women, in these conceptualizations of sexuality, is still hetero-

Philosophy, Politics, and Sexuality

195

designed as a correlation of masculine self-designation. This subsidiary reaches its maximum expression in the theory of Bataille who is presented by her author as a peace project for the democratic society of equals. Today, Schopenhauerian asceticism arouses little enthusiasm and the utopian perspectives of the Freudian left have too many followers. On the other hand, Bataille ’s transgressive eroticism appears to inspire hegemonic representations of sexuality, which does not mean it influences them in each case but rather that the philosopher was able to capture (and contributed to projecting), in his great lines, the direction of the construction of sexuality in modern mass societies. This direction is not the only one but is one of the primary ones. Only feminist thinking can show the political component of this discourse of transgression that is linked to the great transformation of the relationships between the sexes in modern democracies.

NOTES 1. Celia Amorós, “Notas para una teoría nominalista del patriarcado,” Asparkía. Investigación feminista, no. 1, Castellón: Publicaciones de la Universitat Jaume I (1992), pp. 41–58. 2. Jerónimo Feijoo, Defensa de las mujeres [Defense of women] (Teatro crítico universal, Volume I, Discourse XVI). Josefa Amar y Borbón, Discurso sobre la educación física y moral de las mujeres [Discourse on the physical and moral education of women] (1790). 3. Elisabeth Badinter, L’amour en plus. Histoire de l’amoure maternal (XVIIeXX siècle) (Paris: Flammarion, 1980). 4. Miguel de Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida [The Tragic Sense of Life] (1913). 5. Otto Weininger, Sexo y carácter [Sex and character], trans. Felipe Jiménez de Asúa (Barcelona: Editorial Península, 1985), p. 99. 6. Gregorio Marañón, La evolución de la sexualidad y los estados intersexuales [The evolution of sexuality in intersex situations] (Madrid: J. Morata, 1930), p. 246. 7. Alicia H. Puleo, Dialéctica de la sexualidad. Género y sexo en la filosofía contemporánea [Dialectic of sexuality. Gender and sex in contemporary pilosophy] (Madrid: Cátedra,1992). 8. David Cooper, “La politique de l’orgasme,” in Sexualité et politique, Documents de Congrès International de Psychanalyse (Milan, 25-28 November 1975). 9. Herbert Marcuse, “Marxismo y feminismo,” Calas de nuestro tiempo (Barcelona: Icaria, 1976). 10. Georges Bataille, L’Erotisme (Paris: Ed. Du Minuit, 1957), pp. 100–101. 11. Georges Bataille, Histoire de l’erotisme. Oeuvres completes, VII (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), pp. 122–123. 12. Jurgen Habermas, El discurso filosófico de la modernidad [Philosophical discourse on modernity], trans. Manuel Jiménez Redondo (Madrid: Taurus, 1989). 13. Georges Bataille, Annexes. Oeuvres completes, VIII, p. 515.

196

ALICIA H. PULEO

14. Celia Amorós, Tiempo de feminismo. Sobre feminismo, proyecto ilustrado y postmodernidad [The age of feminism. On feminism, the Enlightenment, and postmodernity] (Madrid: Cátedra, 1997), p. 211.

Fourteen THE ETHICS OF PLEASURE Graciela Hierro “Whoever controls your pleasure controls you.” —Lezek Kolakowski 1. Introduction In this chapter I engage in a philosophical reflection on relevant aspects of morality currently accepted in Latin America. In the course of my reflection, I employ the perspective of gender based on a hedonistic idea of sexual ethics. This perspective is useful in orienting moral decisions made in pursuit of personal development. My reflection groups the most pleasurable erotic relationships together with all other relationships on the understanding that they contribute to social well-being. I begin by clarifying the gender perspective underlying my reflections. Next, I defend a theory of ethics, and a type of moral argumentation, a possible critique of morality. The morality I will critique is a version of a double sexual morality with regard to the issues of free love, divorce, homosexuality, contraception and other related issues. I am not setting forth my own moral view of these problems. Instead, I am presenting examples of critique, based on rational criteria that agents of morality may use. I conclude with a commentary on hedonistic ethics . The central principal underlying the ethics of pleasure is that pleasure is the purpose of life. I refer to three levels of sexual pleasure: sexuality, eroticism and love. 2. The Gender Perspective “We are not born women—or men—society converts us into women—and men.” —Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex Sex-gender systems are a combination of social practices, symbols, representations, norms, and values that societies draw up based on anatomical physiological sexual difference, and that give meaning to the satisfaction of sexual impulses, the reproduction of the human species, and in general, to all forms of social relationships between people. (De Barbieri, 1992)

198

GRACIELA HIERRO

The gender assigned to us at birth confers on us, as sex-determined beings, a place in the social hierarchy. This place justifies the subordination of the female gender to the male gender, in all known social organizations. Gender is socially constructed sex. The foundation of the gender perspective is the observation of differences between the two genders, which influence theory and practice, producing contradictions, which are evident to rational scrutiny. 3. Ethics “Ethics is the easiest of all the sciences; a very natural thing, given that each person has the obligation to construct them for himself or herself, to extract for herself or himself, from the supreme principle that is rooted in her or his heart, the rule applicable to each case that occurs….” —Arthur Schopenhauer, The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics Ethics constitutes the philosophical reflection on practiced morals. Ethics involves a rational process that analyzes the significance of concepts, and determines the validity of moral decisions. Ethics gives legitimacy to judgments based on the logic of moral reasoning. In essence, ethics is the study of morality, in the same way that psychology is the study of individual behavior and sociology is the study of human social or group conduct. Moral ethics or philosophy constitutes the science of the formation of moral conscience, the foundation of “the art of living.” People acquire a moral conscience the first time they experience the value of other people, remaining in the process of formation for the rest of their lives. Moral conscience questions which actions respect the value of people, and which actions diminish that value. The value of a person is her or his dignity. We say that someone is a person “of conscience” if he or she tries to act in a way that accords dignity to himself or herself, and to any other people affected by that person’s decisions. Ethical decisions are personal and non-transferable, and no one can escape developing her or his own system of ethics. This may happen with less or more moral conscience and intellectual dexterity, with the aim of personal development and social solidarity, as Schopenhauer affirms in the quote cited at the beginning of this section. 4. Good and Evil In human experience, a basic sense exists that things are not the way we suppose them to be. Given that we have a moral conscience, we are able to reflect on what happens to us and also to imagine better life alternatives. In relation to the natural and social world, we are aware of our lacks and needs, and of what we do not have but would like to have. For example: we prefer

The Ethics of Pleasure

199

not to feel cold or hungry, not to be in danger of harm, accidents, or death, and not to suffer earthquakes or illness. For human beings, being safe from the aggressiveness of and attack by other people and avoiding the arguments of family or neighbors is better. The two categories of good and evil result from a generalization of human experience, of what people consider agreeable or disagreeable. The two categories are the result of universalizing negative and positive experiences as people have lived them over time. Good and evil arise out of the memory of the human species, of what humans deem best to avoid and of what humans deem worth repeating, and they become maxims, prescriptions, norms, and laws that govern conduct in a general sense. Such maxims, prescriptions, norms, and laws shape the ideas as to what humans regard as good or evil in each country and geographic region. The ideas as to what humans regard as good or evil vary according to historical era and life cycle, and according to a person’s changing situations and knowledge. We express our ideas and beliefs regarding good and evil in our ethics. 5. Morals Morals, or morality, consist of all the forms of behavior or standards of conduct, which communities teach to all their members, expressly with the purpose that the members adhere to them. Morality is a social institution in its origins, in its sanctions, and in its function. Morality takes shape within the community life of human beings. In the everyday dealings of human beings, one with another, the need arises to decide which conducts to follow and which to avoid, and thus the group prescribes maxims of action and approves or sanctions regulations. Moral norms vary from time to time, and from place to place, and make up the sum total of humanity’s experiences. Morality changes according to geographic locality, historical era, social class, gender, and life cycle. The prevailing ideology of the time, the climate of opinion, and the background of its development affect morality (Graciela Hierro 1993). 6. Religion and Morals The Judeo-Christian religious tradition is the one most familiar in Latin American cultures. This religion sustains the idea of a divine legislator who lays down moral rules. Followers have to obey the rules to please the divinity, but within the commonly accepted view of Christian morality, the divine legislator also takes into account the well being of his creatures. The Judeo-Christian tradition has unquestionably influenced occidental morality. However, the moral values of all the people who have embraced Christianity have, in turn, influenced Christian morality.

200

GRACIELA HIERRO

The assertion that morality is impossible without Christianity or another religion has no foundation. All societies throughout history have had a morality, understood as a collection of perspectives regarding how their members should behave. Assuming that morality without religion has no underlying support, is wrong. Religion itself also requires rational support. Nevertheless, if religion declines, this does not affect the existence of morality, but does affect the content of moral codes. 7. Sexual Morality In Christian and post-Christian societies, the commandment of sexual morality is foundational. These societies express this commandment in the affirmation that sexual relationships should be exclusively heterosexual, and that no sexual activity should occur outside marriage. Marriage is an institution that is supposed to last for life and exist for the purpose of procreation. In the event of the death of one partner to the marriage, the other may marry again. Marriage partners must not be close blood relations. These societies prohibit marriage between parents and their own children, and the marriage between siblings. Variations in attitudes regarding divorce also exist, even in cases where some “offense” has taken place that would legitimize the separation. Such “offenses” include adultery, desertion, physical or mental cruelty, and other categories. The moral norm prohibits cohabitation without marriage, homosexual relationships, contraception, voluntary abortion, and artificial insemination. Violation of this norm is wide in regard to sexual behavior, and the existence of a double sexual morality can, in principle, put this norm into question. 8. Double Sexual Morality: A Mexican Interpretation Sexual morality exists as one and the same for men and women, children, young people, and the elderly. However, the application of standards differs with regard to, for example, the conduct of men and women in similar cases. This is why we refer to a “double” sexual morality, in the asymmetrical consideration of moral prohibitions and recommendations. The matter in question is a different standardization in patriarchal societies, more lax for men and stricter for women. For example, this double criterion only enforces premarital abstinence for “nice girls,” and accepts female prostitution for “the others,” as a measure of prudence to “save” those who will become mothers. The justification of this asymmetrical standardization has been through claims that this is “natural,” given the difference between the male and

The Ethics of Pleasure

201

female sex-genders with regard to consideration of sexual desire (Hierro 1990). 9. A Look at What is Considered “Normal” Humanity has made spectacular advances along the path toward the control and overcoming of so-called “natural states.” Humans have configured and adapted these states to their own ends, thereby creating the human cultural “habitat.” Yet areas of human experience exist where humams hold up “the natural” as the supreme criterion. In the area of morality in particular, humans put forward “the natural” as the determining factor, and thus make the assertion that moral standards appear as they arose in their original form out of “human nature.” They say that male sexual desire is uncontrollable “by nature,” and female sexual desire is weaker, and that therefore women can postpone it. Nevertheless, what humans morally approve depends on the interpretation made of the biological functions of the sexes, which functions are set up as the basis of what humans consider to be “natural.” Society holds up the reproductive function of the human species as a framework of reference for sexual moral prescription, obviously for the importance reproduction represents in the perpetuation of the species. In the last instance, moral standardization depends on the role in procreation historically assigned to each of the genders making up the couple. History shows us how what men consider to be good or valued conduct, is not generally so for women, as already mentioned above. Permissible moral behavior has never been identical for both genders. The justification given for this is that the two genders do not carry out the same function within the process of procreation. Throughout time, but with different nuances, consideration of different conduct among men and women, generalized to include non-genital conduct, has led to the appearance of a double moral standard that is sexual, and that permeates the whole sphere of morally sanctioned conduct. The main feature that distinguishes male positive sexual morality from female sexual morality is the asymmetrical consideration of orgasmic pleasure. Society morally accepts that men exercise their sexuality in order to obtain pleasure, but does not do so in the case of women. A strict code for women exists with regard to obtaining sexual gratification. The immediate explanation offered for this is that male sexual pleasure does not bring about objective consequences. The male does not conceive. No visible signs appear in the male body to show that he has initiated the exercise of his genital sexuality. Objective proof appears immediately in the female body. The loss of the hymen is proof of the initiation of genital relations, which develops into irrefutable evidence in pregnancy, the product of which is a new being, and

202

GRACIELA HIERRO

this has enormous social repercussions. That is why patriarchal power regulates female pleasure in accordance with hegemonic interests, which are always male. What the community considers “natural” for a man is to enjoy his sexuality; what it considers “natural” for a woman is procreation. Out of social interest, the entire community must watch over and regulate human reproduction, controlling female pleasure. Male sexuality can be a matter of personal choice; thereby consummating the sexualization of power (Hierro 1998). 10. The Sexualization of Morality As we see in studies by Michel Foucault (1984), since the nineteenth century morality has centered around sexual conduct, bringing about the gradual sexualization of morality. Morals have become centered within the sphere of the sexual, resulting in the formulation of strict norms for each gender. In Mexico, a minimum of sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage is the generally accepted idea of what society considers moral for women. For men, what society considers moral is the maximum of sexual activity before, during, and after marriage. As mentioned above, this double sexual moral conforms to the “ideals” of life according to gender. For young women, the ideal, the meaning of life and their exclusive job, is marriage. The primary objective of marriage is not love or the company of the partner, but instead procreation within a family. The most valued female task is dedication to the home and to the role of wife and mother (Hierro 1990, p.195). In this sense, the maximum personal value of a woman, when young, centers on preserving her virginity, at least to all outward appearances, to increase her chances of a good marriage. The young, single woman who makes love before marriage and without the immediate prospect of marriage, may seriously damage her chances of marrying, or at least reduce the possibility of contracting a “good” marriage. For a young woman, a “good” marriage means the union with a good provider. For a young man, on the other hand, a “good” marriage means the union with a young, attractive, submissive woman, who is a good housewife and wants to procreate to form a family. The most significant male value within sexual morality is not to achieve love, but to demonstrate his virility, this being defined in terms of libidinal capacity. This is why, for male morality, taking advantage of every opportunity to demonstrate masculinity is of the utmost importance. Where this does not happen, the community may interpret the conduct negatively, leading to a doubting of that man’s virility or, worse still, the possibility of considering him to be homosexual.

The Ethics of Pleasure

203

11. A Criticism of Gender Gender (male or female) constitutes the weightiest factor among the elements that condition and make up a double sexual morality. People commonly understand the norms as being the dispositions that determine whether a conduct qualifies as good or bad in the case of standards of morality. Generally norms are “medium” or “fine,” or teleological. The “de jure” or expressed formulation of a norm appears to be the same for both genders. However, the “de facto” experience is that an unspoken prescription exists that regulates “masked” actual conduct, or what people actually do. Double sexual morality has come about because the female and male genders do not share political equality. Society considers the female gender to be different, registering the difference as inferiority, particularly in all areas that pre-suppose a hierarchy. Society regards this view as “natural,” moral, prudent, convenient, and just, whether within the sphere of the family or workplace, or whether within the social, political, or religious spheres. This circumstance is a direct consequence of patriarchal organizations, which are the model for almost all current human institutions, independent of the political and economic regimen prevailing in contemporary societies. Women are gradually overcoming the double sexual morality as they fight for the ethical and political equality of their gender. This starts to happen when women become aware that difference does not signify inferiority, and enter a system of education that favors an egalitarian view, and that permits a personal consideration of women that goes beyond the traditional biological roles of wife and mother. Women with access to culture and personal prestige overcome this attitude of moral asymmetry. The gravest problem for women in their fight for equality, and their struggle to overcome this double sexual morality, is how to reconcile their desire for motherhood with the desire for personal development and the opportunity to contribute to society. This conflict arises because, when women join the workforce, they continue to be the partner responsible, almost exclusively, for care of the children, housework, and family rituals. Thus, women are actually holding down two or three jobs at the same time (Hierro 1990). 12. The Hedonistic Sexual Ethic “The old Puritan used to repress sex but was passionate; we the new Puritans liberate sex but repress love.” —Michel Foucault A History of Sexuality Volume 1

204

GRACIELA HIERRO

Sexuality with a diversity of choice is not the only topic of morality. Yet this topic concerns us all deeply. We express in practice our most profound moral convictions partly because of our sexuality. We, as individuals, have little influence over what happens in the world, principally in matters affecting the salvation of humanity, such as the threat of nuclear war, ecological disasters, conflicts between the generations regarding gender, class and race, and illnesses such as cholera and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Making decisions regarding our sexual conduct within our personal life is up to us, and if we are teachers, doctors, or politicians, we also have to make decisions in our public life, in all instances making use of our moral conscience (Atkinson, p.9). In the next section, I will deal with the perspective of a hedonistic sexual ethic involved in moral decisions made in pursuit of personal development in beginning erotic relationships and contributing to social well-being. 13. What is Considered Good, and Hedonism “We call something ‘good’ so that it should be good, we call good whatever we wish for.” —Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza, Ethics In this section I aim to identify hedonism with ethics, its place, arguments, and purpose. This perspective considers pleasure to be good, and takes evil to be displeasure, differentiating it from suffering. Suffering is a matter of physical or psychological illness, which the art of therapy (medicine, psychoanalysis, or psychiatry) can relieve. Evil is a failed attempt to achieve good and produces remorse. Evil is not knowing the appropriate way of achieving a person’s pleasure because of a failure to listen to the person’s body. The body is the profound “I,” self-intuition: the ethical dimension of the “inside” which makes space for peace with oneself. Ethics of the “outside” is conciliation with others; a tighter bond with our loved ones, looser with everyone else, except for the fallacy of omnipotence which assumes the capacity of “I” to resolve and change the being and doing of others. According to hedonism, a person’s duty centers around the pursuit of pleasure; pleasure is survival, vitality, authenticity, laughter, joyfulness, sociability, eroticism, and love, in effect everything that constitutes living well. The life-cycle conditions our perception of pleasure, and that is why the hedonistic view of ethics does not lay down rules, but instead criteria for orienting our moral decisions. These criteria are prudence, solidarity, justice, and equity. A responsibility toward oneself and others permeates all of these criteria. Rules are only useful at moments of stress, when we have no time to

The Ethics of Pleasure

205

think, and we act obeying the maxims of conduct that we all possess, in line with that knowledge of morality inculcated in us from an early age. 14. Sexuality, Eroticism, and Love An analysis of sexual conduct will demonstrate that sexuality, eroticism, and love are not synonyms. Each involves different experiences, and complies with different functions. Sexuality achieves consummation, and can end in satiety. Purely genital activities appear to not need feelings, mystery, or seduction. What they appear to need instead is gymnastics and the success of enterprise, centering around discovering the prey—the subject of that desire—employing the necessary strategy, and liquidating the victim. Propaganda about the feat is an important part of sexuality conceived this way. 15. Eroticism Separating eroticism from pornography is essential. Pornography seeks to excite sexually, utilizing whatever means; it is etymologically related to prostitution. Some sexual elements pertain to eroticism, and others to pornography. Pornography is a description of the corporal mechanics of an amorous encounter. Eroticism is the directing of such sensations toward aesthetic senses. Eroticism intimately unites with pleasure, and needs seduction and mystery. Eroticism builds on a slow outpouring of desire, which gradually encounters its satisfaction, and that satisfaction may not necessarily be in genital consummation. The final aim of eroticism is not satiety, but the conservation of emotion, and it covers an infinite number of affective and aesthetic manifestations. In the erotic novel, for example, no sexual scenes may exist. Erotic climate characterizes the ambiance. Eroticism is vitality, and liberation of the libido. Eroticism is the integration within the totality, the discovery of the beauty, harmony, equilibrium, and passion of the giving within the encounter. Displeasure is the failure of pleasure, which pre-supposes the failure of eroticism. Within this ethical perspective, suffering does not have any purifying significance. The only justification of suffering is as a condition of the possibility of pleasure or as “necessary pain,” as for example, in the case of undergoing an operation with the aim of a restoration to health. Paradigmatically, the greatest pleasure is eroticism, and what is aesthetic in a relationship we interpret as a full comprehension of sensation plus beauty, with the predominance of sensuality.

206

GRACIELA HIERRO 16. Love

When talking about love, quoting Ovid, that first century master of the “Art of Loving” is the best way to begin. He directs his advice toward the Romans, but it is also useful for the Mexican woman or man, when Ovid says: “The Roman who is ignorant of the art of loving, read my verses and, thus taught by the reading, love.” At the end of these lessons directed first toward men and then toward women, Ovid asks that, in gratitude for the pleasure thus obtained, men and women should keep in mind: “Ovid was my tutor.” We learn to love, and our great teachers have been Ovid, Plato, Diotima, and Shakespeare in times gone by. More recently, Erich Fromm, Erica Jong, Colette, and others widely known for literature on love have been our teachers. Love pre-supposes the exercise of eroticism, as suggested above, plus the supreme content of affectivity, a preoccupation with the other, and a forgetting of self in the mutual giving of oneself to the other. Love is extremely difficult to achieve, and requires affection, care, responsibility, commitment, and eroticism. When a person lives love, it constitutes the supreme sense of existence. When a person loses love, that person experiences the most painful sense of bereavement. Love of self is what guides ethical decisions, with prudence, solidarity, justice, and equity. The maxim of St. Augustine expresses all of this: “Love, and do what you will,” for that way you cannot go wrong.

17. Conclusions In this chapter I followed the course set out at the beginning, making reference to current morality in the sexual sphere, all of which constitutes a “double sexual morality.” Utilization of the gender perspective has allowed us to raise criticism against morality in its asymmetrical version with regard to the two genders. I have put forward a bird’s-eye view of ethics as a moral philosophy for legitimizing morality as we live it. I concluded by expressing some ideas about sexuality, eroticism, and love, based on the hedonistic sexual ethic that should guide our sexual conduct. In this chapter, I do not offer any rules, value judgments, or prescriptions regarding correct sexual conduct, because I consider this to be a matter of personal choice, freely assumed by moral subjects, given that what makes us human is being constitutionally moral. We are all free beings who have dignity: free because we have to act, evaluate our conduct, and legitimize it rationally, basing our decisions on values freely chosen,

The Ethics of Pleasure

207

supported by our knowledge of reality, and our ideals of life. All of the above goes toward comprising our dignity.

WORKS CITED Apel, K.O. (1992). Toward a Macroethics of Humanity. Mexico: School of Philosophy and Letters, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Aristotle. (1983). Nicomachean Ethics. Book I, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Atkinson, R. (1965). Sexual Morality. London: Hutchinson & Company. De Beauvoir, Simone. (1949). The Second Sex. France: Gallimard. De Barbieri, Theresa. (1992). “On the Category of Gender,” The Inter-American Sociology Review, No. 2, May-August, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Foucault, Michelle. (1984). A History of Sexuality. France: Gallimard, Vol. III (The Care of the Self). Hierro, Graciela. (1998). Ethics and Feminism. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ———. (1990). “Mexican Bourgeois Double Morality vs. The New Moral of Equality,” Moral and Civic Standards and Practices in Everyday Life, ed. Juan Manuel Ramírez Saiz. Mexico: Center for Inter-disciplinary Research into the Humanities, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico: Miguel Angel Porrúa, Grupo Editorial. ——. (1993). The Ethics of Liberty. Mexico: 4 Torres y Asociados. Ovid. (1975). The Art of Loving. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Schopenhauer, Arthur. (1965). The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. Madrid: Aguilar. Spinoza, Baruch. (1958). Ethics. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

This page intentionally left blank

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Celia Amorós (Spain). Doctor of Philosophy. Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Specializations: existentialism, political philosophy, and feminism. Publications: Hacia una crítica de la razón patriarcal; Søren Kierkegaard o la subjetividad del caballero; Participación, Cultura, Política y Estado; Jean-Paul Sartre: Verdad y Existencia; Tiempo de Feminismo; Diáspora y Apocalipsis (Estudios sobre el nominalismo de Jean-Paul Sartre). Editions: Actas del Seminario permanente de Feminismo e Ilustración (1988-1992); Feminismo y Ética; Historia de la Teoría Feminista; 10 Palabras Clave sobre Mujer; Feminismo y filosofía. Co-Founder of the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Ana Maria Bach (Argentina). Faculty member in the Department of Economic Sciences. Doctoral candidate. Publications: Filosofía: Fuentes y actividades (co-authored); Mujeres y Filosofía (co-authored). Selected Articles: “Sujeto sin género: La conceptualización del sujeto en Teresa de Lauretis,” and others co-authored with María Isabel Santa Cruz and Margarita Roulet. Co-Founder of the Asociación Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofía and member of the editorial board of Hiparquía. María Luisa Femenías (Argentina). Doctor of Philosophy. Professor and researcher at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata and the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Coordinator of the Workshop on Critical Readings on Gender in the Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Género (Universidad de Buenos Aires). Specializations: Aristotelian philosophy and gender theory. Her publications include Mujeres y Filosofía (co-authored), Cómo leer a Aristóteles, Inferioridad y Exclusión; Sobre sujeto y género and numerous articles in national and international journals. Co-Founder of the Asociación Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofía and member of the editorial board of Mora: Revista de los Comités Interinstitucionales para la Evaluación de la Educación at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Francesca Gargallo (Italy-Mexico). Novelist, historian, and Doctor of Philosophy in Latin American Studies. Participant in the philosophy seminar Horizontes de la Democracia en América Latina: espacio público y subjetividad at the Centro Coordinador y Difusor de Estudios Latinoamericanos at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Selected publications: “El feo encuentro de la necesidad,” “Institución dentro y fuera del cuerpo,” and “La diferencia sexual.”

210

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Graciela Hierro (Mexico, died 30 October 2003). Doctor of Philosophy. Director of the University Program in Gender Studies and Professor of Ethics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Selected publications: Ética y Feminismo; Naturaleza y fines de la educación Superior; De la domesticación a la educación de las mexicanas. Editions: Perspectivas feministas; La naturaleza femenina; Diálogos sobre filosofía y género; Estudios de género. Member of the Mexican chapter of the Sociedad de Mujeres para la Filosofía of the Comités Interinstitucionales para la Evaluación de la Educación. Claudia de Lima Costa (Brazil). Ph. D. in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor of Literary Theory, Feminist Theory, and Cultural Studies at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Florianopolis. Co-Editor of the journal Estudos Feministas. Numerous publications on cultural studies, feminism in Latin America, gender theory, and feminist ethnography. Current research on feminism and the translation of theory in the Americas, with emphasis on Brazilian academic feminism. Her project, “Theories in the Latin/a Americas and the Transnational Politics of Translation,” is housed in the Latina/Latino Studies Department and the Chicano/Latino Research Center at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Adriana Marrero (Uruguay). Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology of Education from the Universidad de Salamanca. Chair of the Department of Sociology and researcher at the School of Social Sciences of the Universidad de la República in Montevideo. Member of the Grupo de Montevideo. Numerous publications on sociology of education, university education, and education and democracy. Selected articles: “La sociología comprensiva de Max Weber,” “A favor del usuario: algunas reflexiones sobre la libertad de elección en materia educativa,” “La descentralización educativa en Colombia: claroscuros de una reforma necesaria.” Amy Oliver (United States). Ph. D., Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religion; Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, American University, Washington, D.C. PastPresident of the Society for Iberian and Latin American Thought (SILAT) and current or former member of various committees of the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division. Selected publications: Edition with scholarly introduction to Leopoldo Zea's The Role of the Americas in History: Latin American subject editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy; “El drama de la conciencia y la identidad universal: temas del pensamiento hispánico del siglo veinte,” “Values in Modern Mexican Thought.” Member, editorial board, Cuadernos Americanos.

About the Contributors

211

Maria Julia Palacios (Argentina). Professor of Philosophy. Former Dean of the School of Philosophy and Humanities at the Universidad Nacional de Salta. Responsible for the Comisión de la Mujer. Numerous editions and articles on women's rights, philosophical foundations of rights equality and philosophy of history. Selected titles: ¿Historia de las mujeres o historia noandrocéntrica?; Defender los derechos humanos ; Reflexiones feministas de fin de siglo; Encuentros históricos (co-authored); “Beijin... ¿y despues?”, “Libertad de la mujer y derecho a la vida: derechos irreconciliables?”, “La mujer y la política.” Maria Esther Pozo Vallejo (Bolivia). Sociologist. Masters in Higher Education. Doctoral candidate at the Universitat de Barcelona. Faculty member at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón. Chair of Humanities and Gender at the Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón. Senior official for Human and Cultural Development of the Mayoral office of Cochabamba. Numerous articles on the situation of indigenous, Bolivian women and women who work in the coca industry. Alicia Puleo García (Argentina-Spain). Doctor of Philosophy. Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the Universidad de Valladolid. Member of the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Selected publications: Dialéctica de la sexualidad en la filosofía contemporánea; La ilustración olvidada; Conceptualizaciones de la sexualidad e identidad femenina; Filosofía, género y pensamiento crítico; Cómo leer a Schopenhauer. Collaborator on numerous editions and special issues of journals. Preparer of non-sexist materials for secondary education for the Ministry of Education and Science in Spain. Margarita Roulet (Argentina). Faculty member and researcher at the School of Philosophy and Letters of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Former Secretary of the Department of Philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Selected publications: Mujeres y Filosofía (co-authored); “Los estudios feministas: algunas cuestiones teóricas,” co-authored with María Isabel Santa Cruz, “Experiencia e identidad de género” co-authored with Ana María Bach, “Teorías y prácticas de género.” Co-founder of the Asociación Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofía and member of the editorial board of Hiparquía. María Isabel Santa Cruz (Argentina). Doctor of Philosophy. Professor and researcher in ancient philosophy and gender theory. Chair in ancient philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Selected publications: La genese du monde sensible dans la Philosophie de Plotin; Mujeres y Filosofía

212

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

(co-authored); “Sobre el concepto de igualdad; algunas observaciones”; “Actualidad del tema del hombre: Los estudios de la mujer”; “Feminismo y utopismo.” Co-Founder of the Asociación Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofía and its president since 1989. Member of the editorial board of Hiparquía. Ofelia Schutte (Cuba-United States). Ph. D.. Professor of Philosophy and Director of Women's Studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Selected publications: Beyond Nihilism: Nietzsche without Masks; Más allá del nihilismo: Nietzsche sin máscaras; Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in Latin American Thought; numerous articles on feminism (especially multiculturalism and gender, and Luce Irigaray's concept of the subject), Latin American philosophy, and continental philosophy. Participant in conferences and congresses in Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico. Norma Vasallo Barrueta (Cuba). Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology and Director of the Center for Women at the Universidad de la Habana. Numerous articles on delinquency, marginality, and subjectivity of women. Selected articles: “La evolución del tema Mujer en Cuba,” “Social Sujectivity of Women. A Study of Cuban Women: Different Roles and Different generations in Cuba in the Special Period” and “La mujer cubana ante los cambios económicos: impactos en su subjetividad.” Participant in professional development programs at Hunter College, the International Center for Research on Women, and Carleton University. Martha Zapata Galindo (Mexico-Germany). Doctor of Philosophy. Also studied sociology at the Universidad de Guadalajara. Faculty member at the Latin American Isntitute of the Free University of Berlin. Numerous publications on social and political philosophy, constructivist methodology, new social movements, discourse theory, and feminist theory. Selected publications: Triumph des Willens zur Macht. Zur Nietzsche-Rezeption im NS-Staat; “Filosofía de la liberación y liberación de la mujer”; “Más allá del machismo. La construcción de masculinidades”; “Mannerphantasien in der Philosophie. Eine feministische Annaherung an Peter Sloterdijks Denken”; “Condition Feminine.”

INDEX Abella de Ramírez, María, 32 abortion(s), 1, 3, 11, 12, 25, 34, 79, 80, 81, 180, 200 abstraction, 168 academic(s), v, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 43, 50, 62, 63, 64, 68, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 149, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180 Acción Popular de la Integración Social, 4 Acevedo, Marta, 3, 15 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 81, 204 activism, 1, 5, 6, 32, 83 Adams, Rachel, 180, 182 Adorno, Theodor, 192, 193 Agencias Especializadas en Delitos Sexuales, 7 agency, 48, 69 Alarcón, Norma, 181 Allende, Salvador, 78 Álvarez, Sonia E., 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 173, 174, 182 Amar y Borbón, Josefa, 188, 195 Amorós, Celia, vi, 76, 85, 109, 134, 135, 194, 195 androcentrism, 96, 100, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 192 Anglocentrism, 131 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 130, 135, 182 Argentina, 39, 43, 79, 104, 107, 108, 135, 149, 171 Arguedas, Sol, 79 artificial insemination, 34, 200 Asad, Talal, 167, 182 Atkinson, R., 204, 207 autonomy, 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 73, 75, 82, 141, 145 banality, 104, 105, 107 baptism, 123 Barbieri, Theresa de, 2, 6, 17, 198, 207 Barre, Poulain de la, 188 Barrios de Chungara, Domitila, 32

Bartra, Eli, 84 Bastos, Romero, 6 Bataille, Georges, 192, 193, 194, 195 Batlle y Ordóñez, José, 31, 32 Beauvoir, Simone de, 78, 171, 197 Bedregal, Ximena, 13, 16, 85, 148 Beijing Conference, 91, 174, 180 Benhabib, Seyla, 135, 146, 148, 173, 183 Bennett, Vivienne, 3, 16 Bernal, Aspe, 15, 16 Betancourt, Ana, 22, 29 Bianchi, Susana, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 biological, 34, 36, 37, 112, 171, 174, 191, 201, 203 birth control, 80 bisexuality, 191 Blázquez Graf, Norma, 6, 16 Bloch, Ernst, 153 blood, 122, 193, 200 Bock, Gisela, 100, 102, 107, 108 bod(y)(ies), 1, 12, 26, 27, 73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 83, 84, 96, 98, 104, 123, 169, 171, 172, 173, 177, 181, 188, 189, 201, 202, 204 Bolivia, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 128 border(s), 9, 132, 133, 134, 167, 168, 182 Bordo, Susan, 173, 183 Bouchard, G., 152, 159, 161, 162, 164 Braig, Marianne, 10, 17 Brazil(ian), vii, 9, 39, 77, 79, 85, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183 Bulbeck, Chilla, 169, 183 Burkhard, Cristiane, 2, 17 Butler, Judith, 17, 130, 132, 135, 172, 173, 183 Calvo, García, 118 capitalism, 10, 80, 111, 139, 141, 143, 145

214 capitalist(ic), 2, 111, 142, 143, 145, 172 Cardim, Ismael, 169, 184 career(s), 7, 26, 36, 45, 48, 50, 58, 62, 63, 66, 67, 70 Castellanos, Rosario, 32, 78, 85 Castro, Mary, 135, 141, 144, 147, 148, 178, 183 Castro-Gómez, Santiago, 141, 144, 147, 148 Catholic Church, 11, 32, 75, 79, 190 celibacies, 120 Center for Higher Education, 89 Centro de Apoyo a la Mujer Margarita Magón, 5 Centro de Atención Integral a la Víctima de Violencia Intrafamiliar, 7 Centro de Atención para Mujeres Violadas, 2 Centro de Información y Desarrollo Humano en América Latina, 2 Centro de Investigación y Lucha contra la Violencia Doméstica, 5 Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de, 22 chauvinism, 109, 118 child(ren), 23, 39, 48, 49, 65, 66, 67, 79, 80, 81, 98, 117, 123, 146, 161, 163, 190, 191, 200, 203 Chile(an), 43, 73, 77, 78, 79, 84, 85, 86, 168, 171 Chodorow, Nancy, 164 citizen(ship), 8, 44, 89, 91, 121, 145, 146, 147, 159, 181 civil rights, 14, 33, 36, 77, 122 class, 9, 1, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 25, 26, 34, 39, 51, 74, 84, 88, 89, 91, 101, 102, 105, 111, 112, 119, 128, 133, 140, 167, 168, 171, 172, 173, 176, 181, 188, 199, 204 Clementi, Hebe, 105, 108 Clifford, James, 168, 183 Coalición de Mujeres, 3 Coalition of Feminist Women, 80 Colectivo Cine Mujer, 1

INDEX Colectivo de Lucha contra la Violencia contra las Mujeres, 4 Collin, F., 122 Colombia(n), 77, 79, 85, 141, 182 communit(y)(ies), 68, 81, 90, 91, 106, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 139, 153, 156, 157, 177, 199, 202 compensation, 36, 37 Condorcet, Marquis de, 188 Conquistadors, 21 consciousness, 1, 8, 10, 11, 14, 22, 23, 27, 33, 41, 73, 78, 79, 80, 82, 84, 90, 134, 171, 176 construction, 8, 73, 76, 77, 80, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 92, 97, 100, 105, 108, 129, 133, 137, 141, 154, 162, 169, 172, 182, 187, 188, 195 consumerism, 81 contextual(ization), 87, 167, 168, 181 Continuous Home Survey, 45, 46 contraception, 197, 200 Convención Nacional de Mujeres por la Democracia, 6 Convención Nacional por la Democracia, 12 Cooper, David, 192, 195 Coordinadora Benita Galeana, 5 Coordinadora Feminista del Distrito Federal, 6 corporality, 73, 76, 81, 82 Costa Rica(n), 79, 145 Costa, Albertina, 175, 183 Costa, Ana Alice, 177 crime(s), 3, 6, 109 criticism, 35, 61, 75, 81, 96, 100, 129, 141, 143, 144, 152, 153, 154, 155, 161, 162, 163, 174, 182, 188, 192, 206 Cuba(n)(s), v, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 73 Cuevas, María de las, 22 cultural capital, 7 Debate Feminista, 13 Decade of the Woman, 32

Index democrac(y)(ies), 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 40, 82, 87, 149, 190, 193, 194, 195 dependency, 49, 133, 176 depoliticization, 15, 177 Descartes, René, 187 desire(s), 67, 78, 86, 97, 138, 139, 151, 156, 173, 191, 193, 201, 203, 205 development, 9, 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 26, 27, 40, 43, 44, 63, 68, 74, 75, 77, 79, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 95, 96, 103, 106, 134, 139, 155, 174, 176, 178, 188, 189, 190, 197, 198, 203, 204 difference, 9, 2, 13, 36, 40, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 60, 61, 75, 76, 77, 78, 83, 84, 85, 90, 100, 107, 109, 110, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 138, 142, 143, 144, 145, 163, 164, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 188, 190, 197, 201, 203 discourse, 10, 14, 23, 28, 35, 52, 54, 57, 60, 73, 77, 81, 90, 92, 99, 104, 117, 129, 131, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 155, 172, 173, 174, 175, 181, 187, 188, 189, 190, 194, 195 discrimination, 14, 21, 22, 25, 26, 40, 45, 50, 92, 132, 138, 155 distopia, 153 diversity, 8, 15, 73, 89, 91, 127, 132, 142, 143, 144, 145, 181, 204 divorce, 24, 25, 34, 37, 38, 44, 149, 197, 200 Doble Jornada, 5 domestic sphere, 26 domestic work, 2, 4, 12, 25, 49, 130 domination, 1, 6, 10, 11, 74, 75, 79, 98, 100, 101, 104, 109, 111, 112, 128, 161, 172, 173, 187, 192 dualism, 187, 188 Duhet, Paule-Marie, 125, 126 Dussel, Enrique, 141

215 economy, 7, 26, 27, 28, 80, 82, 87, 89, 90, 127, 142 Ecuador, 37, 77, 128 education, 4, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 36, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 70, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 98, 137, 163, 175, 188, 195, 203 Eisenstein, Hester, 164, 165 El Salvador, 73, 84 emancipation, 12, 24, 79, 137, 138, 147, 163, 176 empowerment, 14 Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe, 12 Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres, 6 Encuentros Feministas Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 8 Enlightenment, 76, 85, 90, 125, 126, 129, 188 Enríquez Rosas, Rocío, 10, 17 equality, 2, 4, 23, 24, 27, 36, 37, 44, 45, 70, 75, 76, 77, 79, 82, 91, 92, 98, 101, 121, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 139, 146, 157, 161, 177, 178, 188, 194, 203 equity, 2, 128, 131, 173, 205, 206 eroticism, 140, 143, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 204, 205, 206 essentialism, 107, 110, 111, 163, 164, 175, 179, 188, 192 ethics, viii, 9, 40, 74, 80, 85, 138, 140, 146, 148, 197, 198, 199, 204, 206, 207 ethnic(ity), 8, 12, 26, 51, 78, 82, 89, 90, 91, 92, 100, 101, 102, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 146, 172 eutopia, 150, 153, 159 Eve, 189, 191 everyday life, 28, 43, 54, 55, 90, 98, 177 evil, viii, 141, 157, 164, 192, 194, 198, 199, 204 exploitation, 23, 77, 138, 140, 153

216 famil(y)(ies), 9, 4, 5, 10, 14, 26, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 57, 60, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 74, 77, 80, 81, 87, 90, 98, 111, 112, 122, 130, 140, 163, 174, 189, 191, 199, 202, 203 Farge, Arlette, 101, 104, 105, 106, 108 Federación Nacional para la Liberación y los Derechos de la Mujer, 3, 11 feelings, 73, 205 Feijoo, Benedictine Jerónimo, 188, 195 Fem, 2, 7, 15, 17, 18, 19 Femenías, María Luisa, 3, vi, 40, 127, 134, 135, 149 Firestone, Shulamith, 122 First Congress on Legalized Abortion, 80 Fischer, Amalia, 85 Fischer, P., 14, 17 Flax, Jane, 172, 181, 183 formalization, 50 Foro de la Mujer, 1 Foucault, Michel, 187, 189, 202, 204, 207 Franco, Jean, 118, 174, 184 Fraser, Nancy, 131, 133, 135, 172, 184 fraternity, 121, 123, 124, 139 free love, 37, 197 freedom, 25, 49, 50, 74, 80, 84, 85, 87, 101, 133, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144, 146, 189, 191, 192 Freud, Sigmund, 122, 140, 191, 192, 194 Friedman, Susan, 168, 182, 184 García Canclini, Néstor, 143, 144, 148 gender, 9, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 25, 33, 34, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 60, 64, 68, 70, 75, 76, 78, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 116, 120,

INDEX 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 155, 156, 163, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 188, 191, 197, 198, 199, 202, 203, 204, 206 Gener, Miguel, 23 General Law of Population, 80 General League of Workers, 23 geography, 24, 91, 127, 167, 172, 181, 182, 199 Gianella, Alicia, 134, 135, 149 Giddens, Anthony, 47, 71 global(ization), 8, 14, 15, 19, 52, 59, 104, 106, 132, 137, 139, 142, 143, 145, 168, 174, 181 Goldberg, Anette, 176, 177, 184 Gouges, Olympe de, 114, 125, 188 Grajales, Mariana, 23 Grewal, Inderpal, 168 Gross Domestic Product, 44 Grossberg, Lawrence, 168, 183, 184 Grupo Autónomo de Mujeres Universitarias, 2 Grupo de Educación con Mujeres, 4 Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida, 5 Guadarrama, Pablo, 141 happiness, 138, 139, 153, 160, 192, 193 Haraway, Donna, 174, 184 Hartmann, Heidi, 111, 112, 119, 125 Hawkesworth, Mary, 171, 184, 185 health, 4, 27, 80, 82, 92, 179, 205 hedonism, 197, 204, 206 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 112, 123, 141, 147, 192 hegemon(y)(ies), 73, 74, 78, 118, 129, 131, 169, 170, 171, 172, 180, 195, 202 Henríquez, Camila, 24 heterodesignation, 112, 187 heterogeneity, 89, 127, 143, 144 heterosexual(ity), 75, 79, 80, 81, 84, 171, 172, 193, 200 hierarch(y)(ies), 46, 64, 75, 76, 82, 84, 129, 155, 198, 203

Index Hierro, Graciela, viii, 11, 74, 85, 86, 197, 199, 201, 202, 203, 207 high school(s), 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 66 Hinkelammert, Franz, 141 historiography, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106 Hobbes, Thomas, 116, 123 homogeneity, 73 homosexual(ity), 86, 174, 189, 197, 200, 203 Hopenhayn, Martin, 141, 142, 144, 148 Horkheimer, Max, 154, 192, 193 household, 34, 48, 49, 55, 161 housework, 22, 49, 203 Huaiss, Antonio, 169, 184 hybridity, 143 hysterization, 189 Ibarra de Piedra, Rosario, 3 idealism, 112, 151 identit(y)(ies), 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 73, 74, 76, 78, 79, 82, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 120, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 144, 158, 163, 164, 168, 173, 177, 181, 182, 189 ideolog(y)(ies), vii, 9, 75, 108, 157, 158 imagination, 134, 142, 154, 155, 157, 159, 162 immaturity, 57, 58, 61 immigration, 168, 169 imperialism, 141 income(s), 28, 45, 46, 47, 50, 60 indigenous, 21, 22, 39, 75, 96, 128, 129, 131, 140 inequalit(y)(ies), 2, 23, 24, 26, 45, 50, 51, 69, 84, 98, 100, 101, 127, 130, 134, 139, 153, 176, 179 Inés de la Cruz, Sor Juana, 31 institutionalization, 4, 5, 8, 14, 149 intentionality, 154 internalization, 64 International Women’s Year, 2, 4, 8, 32, 79, 87

217 interpretation, 52, 60, 107, 110, 111, 116, 117, 119, 150, 154, 155, 167, 192, 201 inter-sexuality, 191 invisibility, 98, 129 Irigaray, Luce, 113, 125 James, Henry, 168, 183, 191 job training, 27 John, Mary, 2, 34, 35, 40, 148, 168, 179, 184 justice, 9, 14, 35, 39, 40, 61, 70, 74, 77, 130, 131, 133, 138, 139, 146, 147, 204, 206 Kaminsky, Amy, 174, 184 Kant, Immanuel, 128, 141, 147, 189 Kaplan, Caren, 2, 168, 184 Kateb, George, 151, 165 Kierkegaard, Søren, 190 Kirkwood, Julieta, 73, 74, 85 Knecher, Lidia, 96, 107 knowledge(s), 36, 56, 58, 60, 63, 68, 70, 75, 82, 83, 87, 88, 90, 101, 104, 106, 116, 118, 138, 141, 142, 147, 154, 157, 167, 169, 173, 177, 188, 189, 199, 205, 207 Kumar, K., 159, 160, 161, 165 La Morada Women’s Center, 84 La Revuelta, 1, 78 labor market, 4, 25, 26, 60, 62, 66 Lagarde, Marcela, 90, 92 Lamas, Marta, 2, 5, 8, 10, 18, 80, 83, 85, 174, 184 Lambda, 2 Lambert, Madame, 188 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 21 Lau Jaiven, Ana, 2, 18 Lauretis, Teresa de, 174 Lavinas, Lena, 178, 183 law(s), 2, 10, 23, 24, 26, 27, 37, 57, 70, 74, 75, 80, 82, 83, 98, 116, 123, 127, 130, 131, 133, 137, 146, 188, 199 Le Goff, Jacques, 97, 107 Lefevbre, Henri, 149 legitimacy, 11, 14, 83, 114, 130, 131, 133, 137, 159, 198 legitimization, 114, 133, 158

218 lesbian(ism)(s), 2, 3, 8, 75, 76, 81, 86, 172, 173, 189 Lesbos, 2 Levitas, Ruth, 151, 165 liberation, 8, 39, 40, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 141, 144, 191, 192, 194, 205 literacy, 4, 26, 44 López Portillo, José, 3 López, Aralia, 73, 74, 78, 85 Lorde, Audre, 172 love, 66, 86, 140, 191, 192, 197, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206 Lovera, Sara, 13, 18 Luisi, Paulina, 32 Luna, Lola G., 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 107, 108 Lyotard, Jean-François, 137, 141, 147, 148 Machado, Lia Zanotta, 178, 179, 184 machismo, 34, 122 Mannheim, Karl, 157 Marañón, Gregorio, 191, 195 Marcuse, Herbert, 153, 192, 194, 195 marginalization, 5, 8, 10, 15, 34, 39, 79 Marin, Louis, 155, 165 Marini, Marcelle, 162, 165 Marquis de Sade, 122, 188, 193 marriage, 21, 24, 34, 37, 38, 77, 98, 125, 200, 202 Martí, José, 23 Marxism, 74, 80, 83, 100, 125, 141, 176, 184 masculinities studies, 179, 180 Masiello, Francine, 170, 171, 185 materialism, 188 matriarchy, 37, 192 media, 69, 81, 109, 117, 137, 175, 194 Menchú, Rigoberta, 32 mestizaje cultural, 144 Mexic(an)(o), v, viii, 9, 11, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 31, 32, 39, 40, 41, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 92, 108,

INDEX 143, 145, 148, 184, 200, 202, 206, 207 migration, 170, 175, 181 Miller, Hillis, 2, 170, 185 Millet, Kate, 187 Minh-ha, Trinh, 169 Ministry of Public Health, 27 minority, 69, 91 misogyn(ist)(y), 75, 117, 119, 120, 189, 190 Miyares, Alicia, 117, 126 modernity, 132, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147, 194 modernization, 8, 44, 83, 175 Modleski, Tania, 173, 185 Mogrovejo, Norma, 84, 86 Mohanty, Chandra, 132, 135 Molina Petit, Cristina, 116, 126 monogam(ous)(y), 34, 38 moral(ity)(s), viii, 74, 75, 81, 98, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206 More, Thomas, 36, 39, 125, 128, 150, 151, 153, 157, 159, 173, 206 Moser, Caroline, 87 mother(hood), 3, 5, 23, 27, 32, 44, 49, 64, 74, 75, 80, 81, 98, 104, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 130, 146, 189, 190, 191, 200, 202, 203 Mothers of the Disappeared, 80 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 146 Mouffe, Chantal, 130, 135 Movimiento Amplio de Mujeres, 6 Movimiento de la Liberación de Mujeres, 1 Movimiento Nacional de Mujeres, 1 Mujeres en acción solidaria, 1 Mujeres en Lucha por la Democracia, 5 Mujeres Trabajadores Unidas, 4 Müller, Viana, 112 multiculturalism, 132 Nash, Mary, 99, 106, 107 National Committee in Defense of Imprisoned, Persecuted, Disappeared, and Exiled Politicians, 3

Index National Council of Women, 32 National Health System, 26 National Suffragist Party, 24 National Women’s Movement, 80 nationalism, 75 Nazism, 194 neoliberal(ism), 7, 10, 15, 82, 87, 139, 141, 142, 143 Neussüs, Arnlhem, 154, 165 Nicaragua, 79, 85, 92 Nicholson, Linda, 171, 172, 183, 185 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 123 Ninth Congress of the Mexican Philosophical Association, 73 Niranjana, Tejaswini, 167, 169, 185 nominalism, 110, 111 non-governmental organization(s), 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 76, 82, 85, 87, 89, 92, 129, 181 Nora, Pierre, 97, 107 norm(alization)(s), 22, 50, 68, 75, 80, 81, 111, 128, 129, 133, 134, 138, 146, 155, 174, 189, 197, 199, 200, 202, 203 Nozik, Robert, 156, 157, 165 Oikabeth, 2 Oliveira, Orlandina de, 6, 18, 19 Ortega y Gasset, José, 124 Ovid, 206, 207 Oyewumi, Oyeronke, 182, 185 pact(s), 111, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 194 Panama, 85 Parra, Teresa de la, 32 Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 6 Pastor, Reyna, 104, 107, 108 patriarch(al)(y), 1, 2, 9, 11, 22, 37, 39, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 100, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 124, 125, 129, 140, 149, 162, 172, 174, 180, 187, 190, 192, 193, 200, 202, 203 Paz, Octavio, 31, 40 performativity, 104, 141, 144, 145 Perkins Gilman, Charlotte, 163

219 Perrot, Michèlle, 95, 103, 107 Peru(vian), 79, 82, 84, 85, 92, 93, 128 Pisano, Margarita, 73, 84, 86 Piscitelli, Adriana, 180, 181, 185 Plato, 37, 110, 120, 150, 160, 191, 206 pleasure, 9, 27, 81, 192, 197, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206 political (rights), 9, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 60, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 88, 91, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 112, 123, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 140, 141, 143, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 153, 162, 167, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 187, 190, 192, 193, 195, 203 politics, 9, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 28, 44, 69, 73, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 91, 98, 105, 107, 108, 110, 128, 131, 132, 133, 138, 146, 160, 164, 177, 179, 181, 187, 192, 194 Popper, Karl, 157, 160, 161, 165 pornography, 205 Portuondo, José Antonio, 22 positional objectivity, 134 positivist, 178 postcolonial, vi, 131, 132, 135, 143, 183, 184 postmodern(ism), 9, 85, 138, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147, 173 postmodernity, 137, 138, 140, 141, 144, 145, 146 poststructuralism, 162, 171, 173, 175, 178 potentia, 110 poverty, 4, 10, 12, 32, 75, 139, 140, 146 power, 2, 11, 14, 22, 29, 37, 38, 76, 79, 80, 81, 87, 89, 90, 96, 98, 99, 101, 102, 107, 110, 112, 114, 117, 120, 125, 129, 137,

220 138, 140, 145, 146, 147, 155, 156, 158, 164, 167, 169, 171, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180, 182, 187, 188, 192, 193, 194, 202 Pratt, Mary Louise, 168, 185 pregnancy, 34, 37, 80, 202 procreation, 200, 201, 202 Procuradería General de Justicia, 7 production, 11, 1, 9, 10, 15, 75, 82, 84, 88, 95, 97, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 128, 141, 142, 153 professionalization, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 prostitut(e)(ion)(s), 1, 3, 24, 98, 122, 125, 190, 191, 192, 193, 200, 205 protests, 5, 7, 10 psychology, 36, 66, 90, 104, 110, 198 public action, 73 public sphere, 7, 27, 28, 121, 164, 194 quotas, 8, 81, 83 race, 25, 101, 109, 122, 167, 168, 172, 173, 181, 204 racism, 91, 109, 110, 117, 140, 172 Radhakrishnan, 168, 185 rape, 1, 3, 21, 22, 109, 110, 115, 120, 132, 189 Rascón, María Antonieta, 2, 4, 19 rationality, 137, 138, 140, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147 Rawls, John, 35, 40 realit(y)(ies), 9, 5, 23, 24, 27, 35, 44, 51, 55, 57, 60, 69, 76, 77, 79, 83, 88, 89, 90, 100, 106, 110, 119, 133, 138, 139, 143, 145, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 169, 207 reciprocity, 119, 120, 123, 124 reflexive equilibrium, 134 Reich, Wilhelm, 192, 194 religion, viii, 11, 12, 40, 44, 98, 114, 127, 128, 131, 139, 140, 172, 188, 189, 191, 199, 200, 203 representation(s), 1, 9, 15, 27, 60, 76, 81, 83, 84, 122, 131, 138,

INDEX 139, 157, 168, 169, 171, 195, 197 reproduction, 1, 5, 10, 15, 68, 69, 76, 80, 81, 88, 197, 201, 202 resistance, 75, 79, 84, 92, 104, 129, 138, 144 rhetoric, 133, 145, 170 Richard, Nelly, 2, 144, 145, 148, 168, 171, 185 Ricoeur, Paul, 95, 107, 108, 157, 158, 159, 161, 165 Riley, Denise, 172 Rivera Garretas, Maria Milagros, 85 Rivers, Pitt, 122 Riz, Liliana de, 106, 108 Roig, Arturo Andrés, 141 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 121, 192 Roussel, Pierre, 188 Rubin, Gayle, 83, 172 Ruyer, Raymond, 154, 165 Said, Edward, 168 Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 5 Salud Integral para la Mujer, 5 sameness, 77, 169 Sánchez Vásquez, Adolfo, 141 Santa Cruz, María Isabel, vii, 135, 146, 148, 149 Sardenberg, Cecilia, 177, 178, 183 Sargisson, Lucy, 152, 153, 165 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 112, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120, 121, 123, 125 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 122, 188, 189, 190, 194, 198, 207 Scott, Joan, 101, 102, 107, 108, 172, 173, 179, 185 Second Feminist Congress on Latin America, 79 self-designation, 112, 115, 187, 194 Sen, Amartya, 127, 134, 135 Serret, Estela, 5, 19 sex, 5, 6, 21, 22, 23, 26, 35, 43, 47, 73, 75, 81, 83, 97, 102, 110, 113, 120, 128, 129, 162, 171, 172, 173, 177, 187, 189, 190, 192, 198, 201, 203 sexism, 37, 79, 109, 110 sexual harassment, 3

Index sexuality, 9, 1, 5, 27, 73, 76, 78, 80, 81, 98, 104, 110, 111, 167, 173, 177, 180, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206 sexualization, 202 Sindicato Nacional de Costureras 19 de Septiembre, 4 Sixth Feminist Meeting of Latin America and the Caribbean, 73 slave(s), 22, 112, 171 social constructionism, 171 social movements, 1, 3, 4, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 24, 69, 74, 90, 91, 96, 126, 140, 161, 163, 174, 177 socialization, 36, 47, 56, 70, 73, 74, 171 socio-economic, 49, 60, 100, 101 sociology, 90, 97, 153, 178, 179, 198 Somoza, Anastasio, 79 SOS Corpo, 181 Spinoza, Benedict Baruch, 204, 207 Spivak, Gayatri, 135, 168, 170, 185 Strathern, Marilyn, 182, 185 structuralism, 100, 152, 168, 173, 178 Stuart Mill, John, 34 subjectivit(y)(ies), 74, 162 subordination, 26, 77, 79, 84, 98, 132, 146, 172, 174, 176, 198 suffering, 104, 138, 204, 205 suffrage, 23, 34, 35, 39, 191 surrealism, 192 Tacitus, 122 Tarrés Barraza, María Luisa, 7, 9 testimonio, 170 Thayer, Millie, 181, 186 topos, 114, 115, 116, 117, 120 transgression, 155, 192, 195 translation, 134, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 175, 179, 182 transnational(ization), v, 1, 8, 9, 11, 14, 132, 133, 168, 169, 181 Tristán, Flora, 32, 92, 93 Tuñón, Esperanza, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 19

221 Unamuno, Miguel de, 35, 190, 191, 195 unemployment, 4, 45, 60 Ungo, Urania, 85 Unidad Popular, 79 uniformity, 127 United Nations (Development Program), 2, 4, 9, 32, 44, 70, 83, 129, 139, 148 United States, 23, 24, 31, 35, 37, 80, 83, 96, 103, 145, 149, 172, 179, 180, 184 universal(ism)(s), vi, 11, 13, 33, 75, 82, 105, 110, 111, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 146, 147, 189, 195 universality, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134 Universidad de San Andrés, 89 urbanization, 175 Urrutia, Elena, 6, 19 Uruguay, v, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 61, 71 utopia(s), 9, 74, 84, 86, 119, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 194 utopianism, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165 Valcárcel, Amelia, 125, 126, 157, 165 Valdes, Teresa, 180, 186 values, 48, 63, 68, 74, 77, 80, 81, 138, 142, 143, 170, 197, 200, 206 Vargas Lozano, Gabriel, 141 Vargas, Virginia, 82, 85, 92 Vaz Ferreira, Carlos, v, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 Vaz Ferreira, María Eugenia, 38 Venezuela(n), 32, 79 Verea, Palomar, 15, 16 victim(s), 4, 83, 99, 102, 193, 205 Vidales, Susana, 82, 85 Villa de las Rosas, 3

222 violence, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122, 129, 160, 169, 180, 193 virginity, 202 virility, 113, 115, 117, 194, 202 Von Hartmann, Edward, 188 vote, 24, 25, 26, 32, 39, 40, 77 Weininger, Otto, 190, 191, 195 wi(fe)(ves), 21, 22, 23, 44, 49, 64, 111, 122, 193, 202, 203 Wichterich, Christa, 14, 19 witch(es), 124, 125 Wittig, Monique, 164 Women’s Club of Cuba, 24

INDEX Women’s History, vi, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107 work(force), 11, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 22, 26, 27, 28, 32, 35, 38, 39, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 58, 60, 62, 65, 66, 68, 69, 73, 80, 82, 87, 88, 89, 95, 96, 97, 98, 106, 107, 110, 111, 132, 141, 144, 145, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 157, 159, 161, 171, 181, 188, 194, 203 World Action Platform, 91 Yañez, Mirta, 21, 23, 29 Zea, Leopoldo, 39, 41

VIBS The Value Inquiry Book Series is co-sponsored by: Adler School of Professional Psychology American Indian Philosophy Association American Maritain Association American Society for Value Inquiry Association for Process Philosophy of Education Canadian Society for Philosophical Practice Center for Bioethics, University of Turku Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Central European Pragmatist Forum Centre for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Centre for the Study of Philosophy and Religion, University College of Cape Breton Centro de Estudos em Filosofia Americana, Brazil College of Education and Allied Professions, Bowling Green State University College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference of Philosophical Societies Department of Moral and Social Philosophy, University of Helsinki Gannon University Gilson Society Haitian Studies Association Ikeda University Institute of Philosophy of the High Council of Scientific Research, Spain International Academy of Philosophy of the Principality of Liechtenstein International Association of Bioethics International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry International Society for Universal Dialogue Natural Law Society Philosophical Society of Finland Philosophy Born of Struggle Association Philosophy Seminar, University of Mainz Pragmatism Archive at The Oklahoma State University R.S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology Research Institute, Lakeridge Health Corporation Russian Philosophical Society Society for Existential Analysis Society for Iberian and Latin-American Thought Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust Unit for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona Yves R. Simon Institute

Titles Published 1. Noel Balzer, The Human Being as a Logical Thinker 2. Archie J. Bahm, Axiology: The Science of Values 3. H. P. P. (Hennie) Lötter, Justice for an Unjust Society 4. H. G. Callaway, Context for Meaning and Analysis: A Critical Study in the Philosophy of Language 5. Benjamin S. Llamzon, A Humane Case for Moral Intuition 6. James R. Watson, Between Auschwitz and Tradition: Postmodern Reflections on the Task of Thinking. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 7. Robert S. Hartman, Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story, Edited by Arthur R. Ellis. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 8. Archie J. Bahm, Ethics: The Science of Oughtness 9. George David Miller, An Idiosyncratic Ethics; Or, the Lauramachean Ethics 10. Joseph P. DeMarco, A Coherence Theory in Ethics 11. Frank G. Forrest, Valuemetrics‫א‬: The Science of Personal and Professional Ethics. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 12. William Gerber, The Meaning of Life: Insights of the World’s Great Thinkers 13. Richard T. Hull, Editor, A Quarter Century of Value Inquiry: Presidential Addresses of the American Society for Value Inquiry. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 14. William Gerber, Nuggets of Wisdom from Great Jewish Thinkers: From Biblical Times to the Present 15. Sidney Axinn, The Logic of Hope: Extensions of Kant’s View of Religion

16.

Messay Kebede, Meaning and Development

17. Amihud Gilead, The Platonic Odyssey: A Philosophical-Literary Inquiry into the Phaedo 18. Necip Fikri Alican, Mill’s Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill’s Notorious Proof. A volume in Universal Justice 19. Michael H. Mitias, Editor, Philosophy and Architecture. 20. Roger T. Simonds, Rational Individualism: The Perennial Philosophy of Legal Interpretation. A volume in Natural Law Studies 21. William Pencak, The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas 22. Samuel M. Natale and Brian M. Rothschild, Editors, Values, Work, Education: The Meanings of Work 23. N. Georgopoulos and Michael Heim, Editors, Being Human in the Ultimate: Studies in the Thought of John M. Anderson 24. Robert Wesson and Patricia A. Williams, Editors, Evolution and Human Values 25. Wim J. van der Steen, Facts, Values, and Methodology: A New Approach to Ethics 26. Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman, Religion and Morality 27. Albert William Levi, The High Road of Humanity: The Seven Ethical Ages of Western Man, Edited by Donald Phillip Verene and Molly Black Verene 28. Samuel M. Natale and Brian M. Rothschild, Editors, Work Values: Education, Organization, and Religious Concerns 29. Laurence F. Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan, Editors, From the Eye of the Storm: Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 30. Robin Attfield, Value, Obligation, and Meta-Ethics

31. William Gerber, The Deepest Questions You Can Ask About God: As Answered by the World’s Great Thinkers 32.

Daniel Statman, Moral Dilemmas

33. Rem B. Edwards, Editor, Formal Axiology and Its Critics. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 34. George David Miller and Conrad P. Pritscher, On Education and Values: In Praise of Pariahs and Nomads. A volume in Philosophy of Education 35. Paul S. Penner, Altruistic Behavior: An Inquiry into Motivation 36. Corbin Fowler, Morality for Moderns 37. Giambattista Vico, The Art of Rhetoric (Institutiones Oratoriae, 1711– 1741), from the definitive Latin text and notes, Italian commentary and introduction byGiuliano Crifò.Translated and Edited by Giorgio A. Pinton and Arthur W. Shippee. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 38. W. H. Werkmeister, Martin Heidegger on the Way. Edited by Richard T. Hull. A volume in Werkmeister Studies 39. Phillip Stambovsky, Myth and the Limits of Reason 40. Samantha Brennan, Tracy Isaacs, and Michael Milde, Editors, A Question of Values: New Canadian Perspectives in Ethics and Political Philosophy 41. Peter A. Redpath, Cartesian Nightmare: An Introduction to Transcendental Sophistry. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 42. Clark Butler, History as the Story of Freedom: Philosophy in InterculturalContext, with responses by sixteen scholars 43. Dennis Rohatyn, Philosophy History Sophistry 44. Leon Shaskolsky Sheleff, Social Cohesion and Legal Coercion: A Critique of Weber, Durkheim, and Marx. Afterword by Virginia Black 45. Alan Soble, Editor, Sex, Love, and Friendship: Studies of the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love, 1977–1992. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies

46. Peter A. Redpath, Wisdom’s Odyssey: From Philosophy to Transcendental Sophistry. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 47. Albert A. Anderson, Universal Justice: A Dialectical Approach. A volume in Universal Justice 48. Pio Colonnello, The Philosophy of José Gaos. Translated from Italian by Peter Cocozzella. Edited by Myra Moss. Introduction by Giovanni Gullace. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 49. Laura Duhan Kaplan and Laurence F. Bove, Editors, Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination: Theories and Practices. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 50. Gregory F. Mellema, Collective Responsibility 51. Josef Seifert, What Is Life? The Originality, Irreducibility, and Value of Life. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 52. William Gerber, Anatomy of What We Value Most 53. Armando Molina, Our Ways: Values and Character, Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 54. Kathleen J. Wininger, Nietzsche’s Reclamation of Philosophy. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 55. Thomas Magnell, Editor, Explorations of Value 56. HPP (Hennie) Lötter, Injustice, Violence, and Peace: The Case of South Africa. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 57. Lennart Nordenfelt, Talking About Health: A Philosophical Dialogue. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 58. Jon Mills and Janusz A. Polanowski, The Ontology of Prejudice. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 59.

Leena Vilkka, The Intrinsic Value of Nature

60. Palmer Talbutt, Jr., Rough Dialectics: Sorokin’s Philosophy of Value, with contributions by Lawrence T. Nichols and Pitirim A. Sorokin 61.

C. L. Sheng, A Utilitarian General Theory of Value

62. George David Miller, Negotiating Toward Truth: The Extinction of Teachers and Students. Epilogue by Mark Roelof Eleveld. A volume in Philosophy of Education 63. William Gerber, Love, Poetry, and Immortality: Luminous Insights of the World’s Great Thinkers 64. Dane R. Gordon, Editor, Philosophy in Post-Communist Europe. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 65. Dane R. Gordon and Józef Niznik, Editors, Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 66. John R. Shook, Pragmatism: An Annotated Bibliography, 1898-1940. With contributions by E. Paul Colella, Lesley Friedman, Frank X. Ryan, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis 67. Lansana Keita, The Human Project and the Temptations of Science 68. Michael M. Kazanjian, Phenomenology and Education: Cosmology, CoBeing, and Core Curriculum. A volume in Philosophy of Education 69. James W. Vice, The Reopening of the American Mind: On Skepticism and Constitutionalism 70. Sarah Bishop Merrill, Defining Personhood: Toward the Ethics of Quality in Clinical Care 71. Dane R. Gordon, Philosophy and Vision 72. Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg, Editors, Postmodernism and the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 73. Peter A. Redpath, Masquerade of the Dream Walkers: Prophetic Theology from the Cartesians to Hegel. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy

74. Malcolm D. Evans, Whitehead and Philosophy of Education: The Seamless Coat of Learning. A volume in Philosophy of Education 75. Warren E. Steinkraus, Taking Religious Claims Seriously: A Philosophy of Religion, Edited by Michael H. Mitias. A volume in Universal Justice 76. Thomas Magnell, Editor, Values and Education 77. Kenneth A. Bryson, Persons and Immortality. A volume in Natural Law Studies 78. Steven V. Hicks, International Law and the Possibility of a Just World Order: An Essay on Hegel’s Universalism. A volume in Universal Justice 79. E. F. Kaelin, Texts on Texts and Textuality: A Phenomenology of Literary Art, Edited by Ellen J. Burns 80. Amihud Gilead, Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 81. André Mineau, The Making of the Holocaust: Ideology and Ethics in the Systems Perspective. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 82. Howard P. Kainz, Politically Incorrect Dialogues: Topics Not Discussed in Polite Circles 83. Veikko Launis, Juhani Pietarinen, and Juha Räikkä, Editors, Genes and Morality: New Essays. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 84. Steven Schroeder, The Metaphysics of Cooperation: A Study of F. D. Maurice 85. Caroline Joan (“Kay”) S. Picart, Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche: Eroticism, Death, Music, and Laughter. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 86. G. John M. Abbarno, Editor, The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives 87. James Giles, Editor, French Existentialism: Consciousness, Ethics, and Relations with Others. A volume in Nordic Value Studies

88. Deane Curtin and Robert Litke, Editors, Institutional Violence. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 89.

Yuval Lurie, Cultural Beings: Reading the Philosophers of Genesis

90. Sandra A. Wawrytko, Editor, The Problem of Evil: An Intercultural Exploration. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 91. Gary J. Acquaviva, Values, Violence, and Our Future. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 92. Michael R. Rhodes, Coercion: A Nonevaluative Approach 93. Jacques Kriel, Matter, Mind, and Medicine: Transforming the Clinical Method 94. Haim Gordon, Dwelling Poetically: Educational Challenges in Heidegger’s Thinking on Poetry. A volume in Philosophy of Education 95. Ludwig Grünberg, The Mystery of Values: Studies in Axiology, Edited by Cornelia Grünberg and Laura Grünberg 96. Gerhold K. Becker, Editor, The Moral Status of Persons: Perspectives on Bioethics. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 97. Roxanne Claire Farrar, Sartrean Dialectics: A Method for Critical Discourse on Aesthetic Experience 98. Ugo Spirito, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. Translated from Italian and Edited by Anthony G. Costantini. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 99. Steven Schroeder, Between Freedom and Necessity: An Essay on the Place of Value 100. Foster N. Walker, Enjoyment and the Activity of Mind: Dialogues on Whitehead and Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 101. Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein

102. Bennie R. Crockett, Jr., Editor, Addresses of the Mississippi Philosophical Association. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 103. Paul van Dijk, Anthropology in the Age of Technology: The Philosophical Contribution of Günther Anders 104. Giambattista Vico, Universal Right. Translated from Latin and edited by Giorgio Pinton and Margaret Diehl. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 105. Judith Presler and Sally J. Scholz, Editors, Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 106. Dennis Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 107. Phyllis Chiasson, Peirce’s Pragmatism: The Design for Thinking. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 108. Dan Stone, Editor, Theoretical Interpretations of the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 109. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, What Is the Meaning of Human Life? 110. Lennart Nordenfelt, Health, Science, and Ordinary Language, with Contributions by George Khushf and K. W. M. Fulford 111. Daryl Koehn, Local Insights, Global Ethics for Business. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 112. Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, Editors, The Future of Value Inquiry. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 113.

Conrad P. Pritscher, Quantum Learning: Beyond Duality

114. Thomas M. Dicken and Rem B. Edwards, Dialogues on Values and Centers of Value: Old Friends, New Thoughts. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 115. Rem B. Edwards, What Caused the Big Bang? A volume in Philosophy and Religion

116. Jon Mills, Editor, A Pedagogy of Becoming. A volume in Philosophy of Education 117. Robert T. Radford, Cicero: A Study in the Origins of Republican Philosophy. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 118. Arleen L. F. Salles and María Julia Bertomeu, Editors, Bioethics: Latin American Perspectives. A volume in Philosophy in Latin America 119. Nicola Abbagnano, The Human Project: The Year 2000, with an Interview by Guiseppe Grieco. Translated from Italian by Bruno Martini and Nino Langiulli. Edited with an introduction by Nino Langiulli. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 120. Daniel M. Haybron, Editor, Earth’s Abominations: Philosophical Studies of Evil. A volume in Personalist Studies 121. Anna T. Challenger, Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey 122. George David Miller, Peace, Value, and Wisdom: The Educational Philosophy of Daisaku Ikeda. A volume in Daisaku Ikeda Studies 123. Haim Gordon and Rivca Gordon, Sophistry and Twentieth-Century Art 124. Thomas O. Buford and Harold H. Oliver, Editors Personalism Revisited: Its Proponents and Critics. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 125. Avi Sagi, Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein 126. Robert S. Hartman, The Knowledge of Good: Critique of Axiological Reason. Expanded translation from the Spanish by Robert S. Hartman. Edited by Arthur R. Ellis and Rem B. Edwards.A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 127. Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka, Editors. Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 128. Oscar Vilarroya, The Dissolution of Mind: A Fable of How Experience Gives Rise to Cognition. A volume in Cognitive Science

129. Paul Custodio Bube and Jeffery Geller, Editors, Conversations with Pragmatism: A Multi-Disciplinary Study. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 130. Richard Rumana, Richard Rorty: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Literature. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 131. Stephen Schneck, Editor, Max Scheler’s Acting Persons: New Perspectives A volume in Personalist Studies 132. Michael Kazanjian, Learning Values Lifelong: From Inert Ideas to Wholes. A volume in Philosophy of Education 133. Rudolph Alexander Kofi Cain, Alain Leroy Locke: Race, Culture, and the Education of African American Adults. A volume in African American Philosophy 134. Werner Krieglstein, Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other 135. Robert N. Fisher, Daniel T. Primozic, Peter A. Day, and Joel A. Thompson, Editors, Suffering, Death, and Identity. A volume in Personalist Studies 136. Steven Schroeder, Touching Philosophy, Sounding Religion, Placing Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 137. Guy DeBrock, Process Pragmatism: Essays on a Quiet Philosophical Revolution. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 138. ����������������������������������������������� Lennart Nordenfelt and Per-Erik Liss����������� , Editors, Dimensions of Health and Health Promotion 139. Amihud Gilead��, Singularity and Other Possibilities: Panenmentalist Novelties 140. Samantha Mei-che Pang, Nursing Ethics in Modern China: Conflicting Values and Competing Role Requirements. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 141. Christine M. Koggel, Allannah Furlong, and Charles Levin, Editors, Confidential Relationships: Psychoanalytic, Ethical, and Legal Contexts. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology

142. Peter A. Redpath, Editor, A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Étienne Gilson. A volume in Gilson Studies 143. Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, Editors, Explorations in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 144. Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, Editors, Scratching the Surface of Bioethics. A volume in Values in Bioethics 145. Leonidas Donskis, Forms of Hatred: The Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature 146. Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Editor, Interpretation and Its Objects: Studies in the Philosophy of Michael Krausz 147. Herman Stark, A Fierce Little Tragedy: Thought, Passion, and SelfFormation in the Philosophy Classroom. A volume in Philosophy of Education 148. William Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva, Editors, Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Perspectives. A volume in Contemporary Russian Philosophy 149. Xunwu Chen, Being and Authenticity 150. Hugh P. McDonald, Radical Axiology: A First Philosophy of Values 151. Dane R. Gordon and David C. Durst, Editors, Civil Society in Southeast Europe. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 152. John Ryder and Emil Višňovský, Editors, Pragmatism and Values: The Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume One. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 153. Messay Kebede, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization 154. Steven M. Rosen, Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space, Time, and Individuation. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 155. Albert A. Anderson, Steven V. Hicks, and Lech Witkowski, Editors, Mythos and Logos: How to Regain the Love of Wisdom. A volume in Universal Justice

156. John Ryder and Krystyna Wilkoszewska, Editors, Deconstruction and Reconstruction: The Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Two. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 157. Javier Muguerza, Ethics and Perplexity: Toward a Critique of Dialogical Reason. Translated from the Spanish by Jody L. Doran. Edited by John R. Welch. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 158. Gregory F. Mellema, The Expectations of Morality 159. Robert Ginsberg, The Aesthetics of Ruins 160. Stan van Hooft, Life, Death, and Subjectivity: Moral Sources in Bioethics. A volume in Values in Bioethics 161. André Mineau, Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics Against Human Dignity 162. Arthur Efron, Expriencing Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Deweyan Account. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 163. Reyes Mate, Memory of the West: The Contemporaneity of Forgotten Jewish Thinkers. Translated from the Spanish by Anne Day Dewey. Edited by John R. Welch. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 164. Nancy Nyquist Potter, Editor, Putting Peace into Practice: Evaluating Policy on Local and Global Levels. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 165. Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, and Peter Herissone-Kelly, Editors, Bioethics and Social Reality. A volume in Values in Bioethics 166. Maureen Sie, Justifying Blame: Why Free Will Matters and Why it Does Not. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 167. Leszek Koczanowicz and Beth J. Singer, Editors, Democracy and the Post-Totalitarian Experience. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 168. Michael W. Riley, Plato’s Cratylus: Argument, Form, and Structure. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 169. Leon Pomeroy, The New Science of Axiological Psychology. Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies  

170. Eric Wolf Fried, Inwardness and Morality 171. Sami Pihlstrom, Pragmatic Moral Realism: A Transcendental Defense. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values   172. Charles C. Hinkley II, Moral Conflicts of Organ Retrieval: A Case for Constructive Pluralism. A volume in Values in Bioethics 173. Gábor Forrai and George Kampis, Editors, Intentionality: Past and Future. A volume in Cognitive Science 174. Dixie Lee Harris, Encounters in My Travels: Thoughts Along the Way. A volume in Lived Values:Valued Lives 175. Lynda Burns, Editor, Feminist Alliances. A volume in Philosophy and Women 176. George Allan and Malcolm D. Evans, A Different Three Rs for Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 177. Robert A. Delfino, Editor, What are We to Understand Gracia to Mean?: Realist Challenges to Metaphysical Neutralism. A volume in Gilson Studies 178. Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson, The Curve of the Sacred: An Exploration of Human Spirituality. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 179. ����������������������������������������������� John Ryder, Gert Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Editors��, Education for a Democratic Society: Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Three. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values   180. Florencia Luna, Bioethics and Vulnerability: A Latin American View. A volume in Values in Bioethics   181. John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi, Editors, Problems for Democracy. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 182. David Boersema and Katy Gray Brown, Editors, Spiritual and Political Dimensions of Nonviolence and Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 183. Daniel P. Thero, Understanding Moral Weakness. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy

184. Scott Gelfand and John R. Shook, Editors, Ectogenesis: Artificial Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction. A volume in Values in Bioethics 185. Piotr Jaroszyński, Science in Culture. A volume in Gilson Studies 186. Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, Peter Herissone-Kelly, Editors, Ethics in Biomedical Research: International Perspectives. A volume in Values in Bioethics 187. Michael Krausz, Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self. A volume in Interpretation and Translation 188. Gail M. Presbey, Editor, Philosophical Perspectives on the “War on Terrorism.” A volume in Philosophy of Peace 189. María Luisa Femenías and Amy A. Oliver, Editors, Feminist Philosophy in Latin America and Spain. A volume in Philosophy in Latin America