Feminism and Social Reform

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Feminism and Social Reform

• Popular Culture the Tango

2
Feminism and Social Reform in Argentina

• Education and Reform
• Three paths to feminism in Latin America
  education, work issues and political issues
  (motherist politics, resistance to dictatorship,
  political party politics)
• Significance of literacy to female-focused
  politics
• Implications of Sarmientos efforts to promote
  both female literacy and female educators
• Role of normal schools ensure a dominant role
  for middle class females in education as work and
  as process
• Working class often needed literacy to
  communicate efforts
• Use of adult education schools by Socialists
• Publication of Socialist and Anarchist newspapers
  with female focused content Even the Radicals
  organized women

3
Feminism and Social Reform in Argentina

• Education and Reform
• Earliest feminists ranked as first to enter male
  professions
• Cecelia Grierson, first female physician to
  graduate from UBA Medical School, 1889
• Granddaughter of Scottish immigrants
• All female relatives were teachers and midwives
  from Entre Ríos
• Created Bs As branch of International Council on
  Women
• Set of first school of nursing in Argentina to
  limit influence of Catholic Church
• Supported Socialist feminism and favored reforms
  of the Civil Code before voting rights

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Feminism and Social Reform in Argentina

• Education and Reform
• Earliest feminists ranked as first to enter male
  professions
• Gabriela Laperrière de Coni, born in France
• Educated as a writer
• Came to Argentina and worked as socialist
  journalist to advocate better working conditions
  for women
• Promoted anti-tuberculosis campaign of husband,
  Emilio R. Coni
• Feminists organized to found Argentine
  Association of University Women, 1902
• Comprised of doctors, dentists and teachers

5
Carlos Gardel
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Feminism and Social Reform in Argentina

• Education and Reform
• Role of Argentine Socialist Party
• Believed in equal work for equal pay, divorce,
  civil code reforms, protective legislation for
  women
• Advocated rights of immigrants, participation of
  women in politics
• Problem even more difficult for women to get
  citizenship than men
• Only those married to famous men could hope for
  citizenship
• Anti-clerical and many anti-female laws linked to
  Canon Law

7
Feminism and Social Reform in Argentina

• Education and Reform
• Role of Anarchist Movement
• Anticlerical and anti-marriage
• Anarchist women had particularly clear views of
  private patriarchy drawn from the experiences
  with their colleagues!!
• Major Gender Reforms prior to 1930
• 1907 Protective labor legislation for women and
  children
• 1913 Ley Palacios
• 1924 Expanded labor laws
• Reforms of the Civil Code to empower married
  women
• Lost battles adoption laws, divorce laws, female
  suffrage