The purpose of this paper is to analyse some aspects of the itinerary of feminism in Argentina in the last twenty years so as to understand its current challenges and drawbacks. In this context, we also consider it interesting to review the influence of European feminist production on local feminism.

In Latin America, the deployment of feminisms has generally been very closely related to women’s movement and their specific social demands, which has limited the development of feminist practice. In the case of Argentina , after almost two decades of democratic opening, the absence of a deeper and more substantial debate

points out the need of articulating processes of reflection and internal criticism with political practice. This is especially so because the latter is being carried out by a large part of feminism in political parties and in several state and/ or international organisations.

In our country, as well as in other Latin American countries, feminism has concentrated less upon the development of thought, reflection and research than upon issue-centred political practices , due to the proliferation, since the eighties, of NGOs involved in equal opportunities, health and reproductive rights, abortion and its depenalization, and sexual violence against women, as well as in the enforcement of the quota law, and the establishment of methods to follow up and evaluate government compliance with the Action Platform subscribed in the 4^th World Conference on Women in 1995, in Beijing, China. In the academic field , studies from the gender perspective have prevailed, encouraging training, rather than research. The poor or almost absent local production has prevented confrontation of our own experiences and practices with writings from abroad, such as Europe, which appear in several publications, so as to work out those ideas and reflections and develop our own feminist production, according to our "situated" and "embodied" knowledge. ⁽²⁾

In this paper, we think it is important to recover, even if briefly, our feminist memory of the last decades, to distinguish between local feminist actions in the eighties and in the nineties, so as to be able to identify our present situation.

We must remember that in the seventies, feminism was still in an embryonic stage. From 1975 to 1980, due to the military dictatorship, repression and ideological persecution, feminism lost visibility in public life, although several groups of women got together to study this subject. Though this was the most important restriction for the development of the feminist movement, we can point to others such as: the influence of the Catholic Church, one the one hand, and of psychoanalysis on the other. In addition, we should consider the difficulties that collective feminist work entails and the situation of those women with fewer economic resources, whose demands- promoted through the participation of many feminists- were their priority . Since then, a fracture between feminist practice and some women's theoretical work on the subject of women has also been observed.

As regards the ways of feminist political intervention, there were diverse stances: while some women considered that they should work only in autonomous institutions, free from political parties, others sustained the need for a redefinition of politics in general, incorporating aspects such as: domestic work, sexuality, and the relationship between sexuality and reproduction, among others.

Feminists of the eighties take over some of the standpoints raised in the previous decade, before the military coup in 1976. It is necessary to point out that the differences between the feminism of the eighties and of the seventies were theoretical, for they were linked to other ideological positions, such as socialism, anarchism and liberalism. These differences will be also seen in the different strategies of feminist politics. In this sense, let us remember that in the feminist movement of the seventies, some of its outstanding representatives were women for whom feminism had more to do with daily, private life matters such as sexuality, identity, rape, etc., than with conventional politics.. At the same time, other groups stated the need to keep feminism independent from political parties. However, they emphasised the importance of the relationship with other social movements and the women’s movement, paying special attention to the specific claims of women.

Since the 1980s, together with the return of democracy, a wide array of community, cultural, political, labour union, professional and academic organisations have been created, whose founding members have been many feminists

Some of these structures have acquired legal status as foundations or associations, obtaining in many cases local or international funding for women-oriented activities such as assistance, training, consciousness raising or research.

In this decade, feminist demands are circumscribed to the field of civil and political rights. Labour claims are related to achieving equal opportunities, on the one hand, and to law amendments on family civil rights on the other, particularly concerning divorce and marriage, joint custody of children and protection of the rights of children born out of marriage. . Violence against women is another important issue. Claims are also being made about free election of maternity, including the right to abortion. The issue of free election of sexuality is beginning to be raised as well^{. (3)}

The women’s movement with its present characteristics starts towards the end of 1983, with the participation of women from feminism, human rights movements, political parties and labour unions , organising the Multisectorial de la Mujer ( Multi Sector Women´s Group).

Later on, lesbian and housewives groups and women from mixed organisations joined up. The first collective commemoration of March 8^th, International Women’s Day, was organised by the "Multisectorial" of Women. The presence of a very large group of women also gave rise to the National Women’s Meetings , which have been held every year since 1986. Since then, constant tension between the women´s movement and feminists has become evident regarding subjects such as depenalization of abortion. Although that collective experience has lost dynamism, it has allowed some feminists to reflect over the meaning of women making politics ⁽⁴⁾. By the end of the decade, the Women´s Subsecretary is created as a sign of legitimisation of the importance of the participation of women in the democratic life of the country.

In the nineties, a large part of feminism is fragmented, working in public institutions and NGOs , in which the most outstanding political practices of feminism are legal reforms, negotiation, and participation in political parties, in the State or in international organisations. The street is no longer the place for voicing legal claims, protest and collective feminine manifestation , as it had been two decades before.

In this decade, feminists and women from political parties promoted the struggle for the quota law. Likewise, the battle for depenalization of abortion in the process of the Constitutional Reform of 1994 gave way to the creation of "Mujeres Autoconvocadas por el Derecho a Decidir" (Self Appointed Women for the Right to Decide). This coalition rose as a way of resisting the attack by Carlos Menem´s government to impose the right to life since conception in the National Constitution, and it succeeded in frustrating this purpose.

3 Feminismos por feministas :"Fragmentos para una historia del feminismo argentino 1970-1996" Travesías CECYM, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1996.top

All in all, feminism in the nineties goes through processes of institutionalisation, privatisation and fragmentation, which are obstacles for the creation of common spaces with feminist contents. This process undergoes a crisis at the VII Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting in Cartagena, Chile, in 1996. There, the strongest differences in feminists' ways of intervention became evident: between those who emphasise institutional work and those who place the emphasis on cultural and symbolic change within the self denominated autonomous current. In view of this dichotomy, an important number of feminists take up a critical stance of imposed situations, giving place to the expression of dissonant voices regarding hegemonic feminisms. ⁽⁵⁾

In short, local feminism develops in the seventies from self-reflection groups, aiming to self-recognition as a feminist collective and with a greater emphasis in this singularity. In the eighties, accompanying the democratisation process, feminism aims more towards reforms in legislation. At the same time, having a closer bond with the women´s movement, its objectives remain limited to historical claims and the pressing demands of the larger women´s collective. In addition, there would be a later fragmentation in the nineties with the spread of NGOs and a greater strengthening of the participation in the State apparatus and international organisations. As a result, local feminism has not been able to create its own space and it has becomes subsidiary to other types of logic: one, responding to the necessities of women in general and, more recently, to the institutional logic, within the politics of what is possible in the State.

Not having produced a thought of our own has deprived us from a feminist genealogy enabling us to trace a continuity between our practices and those of our mothers and grandmothers ⁽⁶⁾ . In other words, we lack an imaginary to contain the collective memory of women and feminists. To make matters worse, institutional and private resources devoted to the investigation of subjects other than those with a practical application are scarce.

Owing to these limitations, due to the lack of studies and reflections of our own, papers coming from United States and Europe have produced all sorts of effects, ranging from ephemeral fascination and acritical acceptation to rejection due to their foreign origin. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and productions, when translated, have filled in a vacant space, although they respond to different experiences and contexts.

We should not forget, however, that since the eighties, there have been different women´s research and study groups and centres, some of which have been specially connected with feminist political practice. Other groups, interested in the field of "Women Studies" are closely related with psychoanalysis. It is only since 1987 that these have become a Postgraduate at Buenos Aires University, in the faculty of Psychology under the influence of the American model , emphasising the gender category. It is true that this category has originated many interesting studies, but it nevertheless has some restrictions

Regarding this, Rosi Braidotti has remarked that this notion of gender includes neither symbolism nor semiotics, but focuses instead on what is concrete and social. ⁽⁷⁾
What later on were called "Women’s Studies" or "Gender Studies" incorporate this perspective into their different disciplines. Nevertheless, these studies remain, generally, within the boundaries of the disciplines themselves. In some cases they are limited to training women for the development of public policies or for working in specialised institutions such as Women’s Secretaries, family courts etc. Generally speaking, these studies have not been enough to give rise to a dynamic forum of debate and reflection about feminist practices.

Towards the turn of the eighties and in the nineties, the visits of European thinkers such as Celia Amorós, Giulia Colaizzi, Francoise Collin, Rosi Braidotti and Mary Nash, and the workshops and seminars featuring these authors, sponsored by the Instituto de Estudios de Género (Institute of Gender Studies) at Buenos Aires University, allowed us to get acquainted with their productions as well as to increase our interest in their different lines of thought. We should also remark the existence of publications that have contributed to the popularity of both American and European authors, such as the Mexican journal "Debate feminista" (Feminist Debate), which has devoted many a page to Italian thought. And in Argentina, the magazines "Mora", from the above mentioned institute (IEEE), and "Feminaria", which is already more than 12 years old. We believe that taking advantage of the richness of those author¨s works is of the outmost importance for promoting critical and creative feminisms. This will allow us to overcome hegemonic feminism, whose energy is only at the service of the politics of rights and other historical claims, locked up in the institutional and trapped in attaining only what seems possible.

Feminist action concentrated on institutions, particularly on the State apparatus and international organisations somehow naturalises certain logics which , on the contrary, feminism has been deconstructing through the notions of politics, representation, equality and also, on the basis of the limits of rights. The results obtained up to now in the field of rights, both in the approval and in the enforcement of laws, have been poor. This shows that working in "the other’s" field without having strengthened a "room of our own" , in Virginia Woolf´s words, not only weakens feminist intervention as regards a change in subjectivity as well as a transformation of representations and the realm of symbolism , but also neutralises it in a foreign territory. The paradox would be that the search for "certainties" in laws and rights that depend on State politics for their enforcement becomes "uncertain" and, in some cases, may even backfire, within a system such as Argentina’s, which still excludes and discriminates.

A feminism that does not reflect, question, investigate, promote deconstruction of its own practice , can be open neither to other perspectives nor to the development of a contextualised thinking. On the contrary, to work empirically without a real feminist background shows the paradox of being, in some way, functional to what we want to change.

This paradox contains another not less disturbing paradox: the women’s collective disowns the very same feminism which promoted many of the changes and benefits obtained for women in the last two centuries.

In our view, these paradoxes show the deactivation and the impoverishment of current feminism in Argentina. They also exhibit a pressing necessity of feedback , both from an external source and from our own thought , so as to give ourselves back the transforming passion and the possibility of giving rise to critical and "situated" discourses that will dare help forward a subversive thinking-doing /thought-action .

How can we overcome the current conceptual schemes of a paradigm that imposes the criterion of reason and excludes desires, emotions and transforming passion?

How can we foster the existence of vital feminisms able to break the cunning of what is hegemonic, with an action resulting in the production of the collective potentialities, generating new desiring anchorages and instituting political refoundations?

We believe that focusing just on the outside without giving way to the creation of a policy of singularity, to the possibility of surmounting the boundaries that will enable us to walk, individually and collectively, along different itineraries does not allow for the generation of a subjective metamorphosis. In Sandra Harding´s words, this would be the possibility of "reinventing oneself as someone else" ⁽⁸⁾

.In this line of thought, we agree with Rosi Braidotti, when she stresses as "intensive reading" of the feminist position not only voluntary commitment to values and political beliefs, but also in terms of: passions or desires that support and maintain it. ⁽⁹⁾

In an effort to move towards more complex thinking in our feminist thinking -doing , towards a feminism that pushes its borders forward or changes positions, the political incorporation of knowledge with emotions and feeling with thought would liberate emotions fed on passion. We believe that changing the ways of thinking facilitates the invention of possible to make up a feminist imaginary with a poetical touch. Shall we be able to use our ideas as a chisel?

Buenos Aires, July 2000

Lucila Díaz Ronner e-mail luciladr@arnet.com.ar

Teresa Azcárate e- mail sibila@arnet.com.ar

8 Harding Sandra , Whose Science?Whose Knowledge? Open University Press,1991 top
9 Braidotti Rosi, Nomadic Subjects, ColumbiaUniversity, New York,1994 top