I thought this book was an important piece of feminist history that gives light to women who not only had an impact on women's rights but also how the leaders behind women's rights movements impacted the modern notions of human rights on a global scale. Even though the book was told through dizzying stories of multiple treaties, delegates, movements, organizations, and changing ideologies, what I find interesting about this history is that it's not just a history of the Pan-American women's rights movement, but also a history of the counter movement that established itself within the Pan-American movement circles. I am specifically referring to not only Doris Stevens, but also Ms. Gildersleeve. One can possibly add Bertha Lutz into the group as well before she realized that the American and British women she thought she could count on and aspired to didn't favor Pan-American feminism. Then there is the fact that American and British representatives diminished the importance of women's rights, especially its anti-imperialist message, after the end of World War II and the Breton Woods Conference. The switch from an American feminist vanguard at the beginning of the book that used beliefs of racial superiority to justify their leadership in feminist organizations, to a reactionary group of delegates after the United States became the world's economic and political power that made claims that women's rights are unnecessary because there is no need to separate men's rights from women's rights does not surprise me.
Rafael, your summary about this book would be perfect to describe it to people who are curious about the book, but not sure the meaning of the title "Feminism for the Americas". Marino's book gives agency to a group of women who have not received their fair amount of credit by bringing their own interpretation of feminism to the international stage. However, the conflict was whose interpretation would be consider. That conflict is at the heart of the book, and Marino's argument is backed by the conflict over ideas.
I would go so far as to say it is much more than a feminist history. It is really leading me to rethink what I thought I knew about international relations in respect to the formation of human rights treaties following WWII.
This book was very different form the previous books that this class has had to read this semester. I am no expert on women's history, so I learnt a lot from this book by Marino. I want to talk about that Stevens was an antagonistic person, especially during the conference in Uruguay in which Stevens caused distraught among the attendees because of her conservative and anti-left views. Stevens's views became more entrenched by her death in 1963. She was the most fascinating figure in the book, and I believed her portrayal by Marino helped make her argument that it was Latin American feminists who would be the driving force of the human rights movement. Every good story needs a villain, but at the same time, they need to be believable. I hope other people can chime in and say what they think about the book.
Marino's book is a great asset to anyone interested in feminist history and the utilization of several individual narratives to tell a broader narrative concerning "Pan-American" feminism was a brilliant way to present the information. I think it very important to the larger narrative of American (meaning continent) history that narratives such as these are made more accessible and widely known to a broader audience for both its cultural and historical significance. It wont be, but it should.
Additionally, this is why we can't have nice things...
"Yet, at this same meeting that defined a Pan-American agenda for human rights, the united States overturned resolutions against colonialism and against anticommunist repression... There after the US government used the newly created Organization of American States (OAS) that replaced the Pan-American Union as a tool to fight perceived communist threats in the hemisphere and justify intervention against left-wing movements or governments that challenged US capitalist's hegemony."
"After the Cuban Revolution, 'Pan-Americanism' came to mean the militarization of the hemisphere."
"Yet, the US government largely controlled the meaning of 'human rights' in the region, using a defense of individual rights to justify CIA-and US military- led coups against democratically elected leaders... In reality, these actions resulted in human rights violations and countless deaths of civilians." 🤬🤬🤬
Jason, I really wanted to put stickies on all the pages that referenced U.S. capitalism for you. The idea that the protection of women has been and continues to be used as justification for military invasions and continued occupation is disturbing and perhaps one of the key takeaways of this book--we allow the United States narrative to dominate the media without many stopping to reframe these stories through the lens of the women we are supposed to be protecting as we kill their children, destroy their infrastructures, poison their water supplies....
Jen, awesome perception! I also found it interesting/disgusting that the narrative of the "helpless woman" who needs "saving" can also be linked to the "justification" of lynching in the South, and how this patriarchal culture can utilize these tropes of supposed "chivalry" to mask the worst atrocities and most inhuman behavior. All the while maintaining a dominant narrative of covert misogyny and overt patriarchy throughout most of US history in order to subjugate women and define them as collectively "second class." Which also relegates a portion of the working population to a cultural position of subservience; and don't even get me started on the hyper-exploitation of reproductive and social labor.
I really enjoyed the narrative structure of using the six women's activism and relationships to work on recovering the story of Latin American feminism. Some things that struck me: the imperialist and colonial mindset of the U.S. throughout the time period caused most of the difficulties these women faced. That the United States continues to lag in things like maternity rights, equal pay, and other goals of the Latin American women's movement is telling. It's 2019 and we still don't have ERA in the U.S. I thought the argument that how women are treated is a domestic issue and not an international one was fascinating, and that it continues to be used to justify U.S. policy is intriguing to me--especially in light of human trafficking. I thought the story of how Betz "discovered" her Latin American-ness was also interesting--that she had always assumed that her European roots gave her a whiteness the Americans and Europeans didn't acknowledge forced her to adopt the double consciousness that WEB DuBois introduced. I also liked the story of how the Cuban mother smuggled weapons to the rebels in Cuba while carrying her children through the forested areas harkened back to the discussions we had reading WE DREAM TOGETHER about how the roles of women are given only brief mentions when they are so integral to the larger story.
It was also interesting to read about how Latin American countries were more willing to legislate "family" issues, meaning that women's rights were sometimes more advanced there than in the U.S., where federal law often defers to state law in that regard. The U.S. definitely still holds on to the idea that we are more socially advanced and that we provide a model for other countries. It was interesting that the only U.S. women to recognize the leadership and further advancement of Latin American countries came from U.S. women who learned Spanish, traveled to Latin America, and effectively listened to Latin American feminists. I think Mary Cannon was the only example given of a U.S. woman who reversed her view that Latin America needed to "catch up" to the U.S.
I did find Bertha Lutz's lack of self-awareness interesting as well. Elite ties to European schools and language training could not overcome American and British preconceived prejudices of Latin American backwardness. However, it is interesting that the time period in this book overlaps with much of the Getulio Vargas regime in which the local press was racializing the nation according to region. From a local perspective Bertha Lutz would have been in a national environment that praised the southern region of Brazil for its industrial capacity and thus its intellectual progress, whereas the north was deemed backwards because of its African-descendant majority. The double consciousness she felt upon meeting Anglo-Saxon women in the international women's movement probably stemmed from the promotion of European heritage within her national context.
This book analyzes the tug of war over the women's rights agenda in the Americas, highlighting the essential work of women "from Mexico down" (p. 191). Marino brought up in the introduction that her book revises the notion that this time period was uneventful for feminism, because in fact the action was taking place in Latin America. Some of the arguments here, such as that the women's rights agenda should be inclusive of anti-racism, anti-imperialism, workers' rights, etc. have only recently become widely accepted in mainstream U.S. feminism. White women's voting rights have typically been centered in histories of U.S. and European feminism, and it was illuminating to read that Doris Stevens' got pushback against her insistence on that platform that nearly a century ago. Other American women argued that women's suffrage meant very little under a fascist dictator or if racist realities in their country prevented them from exercising that right. Suffrage was incorrectly identified by white, imperialist-minded feminists as the yardstick by which to measure the progress in their agenda. Marino strongly argues that Latin American women were arguing for more inclusive goals which were, ultimately, also more successful in that they reached more people.
Reading about Stevens' leadership was fascinating, and she used her privilege to keep her power. She was not the only woman to come from an elite background and believe that made her a natural leader of the movement. For the first years of her "reign," Stevens effectively limited the platform of Latin American feminists by isolating them through language barriers and financial barriers. In this way, she was able to continue pushing her views and maintaining control. Her colonial-minded actions put the U.S. imperialist mindset on display, but other leaders, such as Bertha Lutz, also had racial and class privilege and had internalized the imperialist mindset.
I agree that it was fascinating to see Doris Stevens get pushback against her single-focus agenda/yardstick a century ago and to compare that to the issues we see in feminism today. To the extent that we accept your premise that anti-racist, anti-imperialist, workers’ rights issues, etc. have been generally accepted by mainstream U.S. feminism today (I agree that this is generally the case among younger feminists, but we still see a lot of generation-clash on these issues between the Boomers and those of us who are Gen X/Millenials), we also see plenty of the same kinds of infighting and wrangling happening within feminist, and, more generally, progressive political circles of all stripes today. We may say that we accept the need for broadly intersectional feminism today, but I see daily evidence of the need for folks (including me, of course) to check our privilege, think about issues through an anti-racist lens, etc. as well as the real struggles many of us face when a broadly intersectional feminist agenda causes some of us to feel alienated and unheard when that broadly “intersectional” agenda rejects other parts of our identities.
Back to the book: Stevens absolutely used her privilege to maintain her power, and clearly was not open to divergent viewpoints. I was fascinated, however, to read the accounts of various other feminists’ attempts to unseat Stevens, and how the inability of Lutz to find solidarity with Spanish American feminists (maybe this happens later, as I’m still reading) to unseat Stevens even as she was pretty much offered the opportunity to do so during her visit to Buenos Aires following the Montevideo conference in 1933 was fascinating.
What we definitely see highlighted in the book are the problems that a non-intersectional feminism generates, but part of me wonders if the author is telling too neat a story along those lines, and whether we should be less judgmental and more willing to live with/grapple with complexity in these analyses. For example, the discussion of the differences in sexual morality/politics set out in the author’s discussion of the divide between Lutz and Stevens seems to indicate that there is a genuine culture/moral clash there, and real questions to be asked about the ways in which clashing beliefs about women’s sexuality and its role in mediating relationships of all kinds play into the development of different camps within the feminist movement.
Katharine Marino’s Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement fits the them or our readings in telling stories that have been underrepresented in “traditional” History courses. What i found interesting about this book was the layering and division in Feminism. The struggle to push an feminism on international levels, so that it did not become hierarchical was inspiring. The inclusion of Doris Stevens was vital for Marino’s argument and narrative. The other readings we have read lead up to this quite nicely. The Latin American nations had been bullied by Imperial Europe and the United States. This caused the awakening of their national identity. These nations learned how to fight for themselves and our protagonists in the novel fought for their belief.
Hola Dalina, I also found the struggle within the feminist circles to be very intriguing. These circles are still informed by the cultures where they originate from. I have found that one of the main reason that Latin American nations haven't gone back to being colonized, is the grassroots activism such as the feminismo americano.
Marino's "Feminism for the Americas" argues that the vanguard of the feminist movement was the Feminismo Americano which, in part, was led by non-elite, mixed race Latin American women. I really enjoyed how this women sought to decolonize the feminist movement by broadening its scope and couldn't help but to make connections with the American republic modernity's inclusive discourse for its time. Both instances were articulated when people of more humble beginnings than the elite, get to participate in the development of these ideas. However, I never understood why Ofelia Dominguez, Clara Gonzales, and Vergara viewed Luisi with such solemnity. I understand that Luisi was the first major Latin American feminist but, early in the twentieth century, she was a racist and believed in the superiority of the white female reformers, at the same time that a "whitening" process was taking place in Uruguay and was viewed as a sign of "racial progress" (Pg 22-23). Luisi disliked Stevens, who was the biggest "villain" in this book, because Stevens considered her, and her Latin American counterparts, racially inferior. It seemed that Luisi's problem with Stevens was that the North American didn't recognized her whiteness, or as I like to say, she was not invited to the " white girls party." Martino never explained why the other feministas, reached out to her. Were they not aware of Luisi's racial prejudices? Didn't they hear or read her white supremacy views? Or did Luisi change over time? Without this explanation, it reads incongruous to see how feministas that fought to extend social rights to women of different ethnic and class backgrounds, would want to side with Luisi.
I’ve been reading about the issue of women’s nationality rights and marriage in my immigration history class this semester, so seeing how this played out on the international stage (and especially how far ahead many Latin American countries were of the U.S. on this issue) makes this book particularly compelling.
More generally, however, it’s particularly of personal interest to me to examine the personal politics of movement leadership (having been engaged in some of this myself in other contexts), and of the divides that arise between those who advocate a narrow goal to which they try (sometimes in bull-headed fashion) to build the support of a broad-based coalition versus those who advocate wide goals but reject/dismiss their partial allies who are not willing to sign on to all of the broad issues they advocate. Here, of course, I’m looking at examples such as Stevens, for all her flaws, and her narrow focus on political and legal equality versus Gonzales, Dominguez, Luisi and their movement toward socialist and communist organizing. The economic imperlialist implications (i.e., last week’s dollar diplomacy writ small) of Stevens’ unwillingness to finance participation of Latin American feminists who did not sufficiently pander to her are infuriating, as is Stevens’ myopic inability to see the physical and political realities of feminists in countries dealing with dictatorship, revolution, etc. vs. the relatively stable politics of the early 20th century U.S. and the result that prescriptions that make sense in one context aren’t the top priority in others. That said, the author is really hard on Stevens for trying to maintain a single-minded focus on narrower issues — part of the issue is obviously Stevens inappropriately trying to direct others’ agendas, but it seems that Lutz’s cold decision to throw Stevens under bus by scheming to wrench away control of the IACW from her even as she sought Stevens’ support to get herself named a delegate to the 1933 Montevideo conference doesn’t generate the same level of criticism from the author.
What this raises for me is the question of why there continued to be a push to create a pan-American/western hemisphere centered movement feminism centered on common goals when the political realities were so different in different parts of the hemisphere. A common Spanish American or even, leaving the problems with Lutz’s beliefs about Spanish American feminists aside, a Latin American feminism makes sense to me, but it seems like Canadian and U.S. feminists are developing on a separate track/timeline, so when it became clear that these pan-American organizations were doing more harm than good, my question is why there remained a focus on creating more of them rather than walking away from the project entirely and simply drawing inspiration (rather than direction/marching orders) from those organizing in other countries.
This book is really working to open my eyes in regards to several different issues. I had really bought into the idea of the "doldrums" between first and second wave feminism and this book is now causing me to reassess other texts I have read that made claims about the possibilities within that period which I couldn't really process. The idea of racism in the context of U.S. imperialism, rather than European colonialism, as a major factor in driving the development of a broad human rights agenda is also something relatively new to me. The development of pan-American feminista is really demonstrating that aspect of Latin American agency acting on the rest of the world, which I had always suspected existed but couldn't pinpoint an example, as a potent force acting in unexpected ways through an unexpected (to me) set of actors. That these conferences laid the groundwork for human rights treaties challenges the perspective I had from a background in politic science with international relations and diplomacy as one focus. It shows that what I thought were largely top down products were in fact largely driven by a broad movement. The alliance with the Popular Front and Communist parties also challenges the narrative of the US as the principle defender of human rights, often standing in hypocritical contrast to other actions, which I had always interpreted as an expression of soft power politics during the Cold War. This books makes a strong case that positions it not only as a vital revision of US understandings of the feminist movement but also of the development of international human rights law.
Hello Kurt, You and I are in the same boat for considering Racism in the US human rights attitude. This reading brought a new perspective to our previous readings. Similar to how Vanderbilt exploiting Nicaragua, but also helping them overthrow William Walker. I remember in my Intro to US history 2 class colonizing a region or staying away from indigenous peoples would be used as Racist Human Rights agendas (should you enlighten people or would unenlightened individuals poison your society).
I found the reading to be really interesting and it keyed me in to a lot of new perspectives withing feminism that I wasn't privy too. It made me think about how nowadays we think of intersectionality feminism as the most inclusive form, but perspectives of women that are affected by class, economic status, political party etc. are rarely given a voice. Would it take a fourth wave of feminism to address these issues? How can we make feminism not just more inclusive, but also work more effectively for women in non-Western countries? Is that even realitically possible?
I thought this book was an important piece of feminist history that gives light to women who not only had an impact on women's rights but also how the leaders behind women's rights movements impacted the modern notions of human rights on a global scale. Even though the book was told through dizzying stories of multiple treaties, delegates, movements, organizations, and changing ideologies, what I find interesting about this history is that it's not just a history of the Pan-American women's rights movement, but also a history of the counter movement that established itself within the Pan-American movement circles. I am specifically referring to not only Doris Stevens, but also Ms. Gildersleeve. One can possibly add Bertha Lutz into the group as well before she realized that the American and British women she thought she could count on and aspired to didn't favor Pan-American feminism. Then there is the fact that American and British representatives diminished the importance of women's rights, especially its anti-imperialist message, after the end of World War II and the Breton Woods Conference. The switch from an American feminist vanguard at the beginning of the book that used beliefs of racial superiority to justify their leadership in feminist organizations, to a reactionary group of delegates after the United States became the world's economic and political power that made claims that women's rights are unnecessary because there is no need to separate men's rights from women's rights does not surprise me.
ReplyDeleteRafael, your summary about this book would be perfect to describe it to people who are curious about the book, but not sure the meaning of the title "Feminism for the Americas". Marino's book gives agency to a group of women who have not received their fair amount of credit by bringing their own interpretation of feminism to the international stage. However, the conflict was whose interpretation would be consider. That conflict is at the heart of the book, and Marino's argument is backed by the conflict over ideas.
DeleteI would go so far as to say it is much more than a feminist history. It is really leading me to rethink what I thought I knew about international relations in respect to the formation of human rights treaties following WWII.
DeleteThis book was very different form the previous books that this class has had to read this semester. I am no expert on women's history, so I learnt a lot from this book by Marino. I want to talk about that Stevens was an antagonistic person, especially during the conference in Uruguay in which Stevens caused distraught among the attendees because of her conservative and anti-left views. Stevens's views became more entrenched by her death in 1963. She was the most fascinating figure in the book, and I believed her portrayal by Marino helped make her argument that it was Latin American feminists who would be the driving force of the human rights movement. Every good story needs a villain, but at the same time, they need to be believable. I hope other people can chime in and say what they think about the book.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMarino's book is a great asset to anyone interested in feminist history and the utilization of several individual narratives to tell a broader narrative concerning "Pan-American" feminism was a brilliant way to present the information. I think it very important to the larger narrative of American (meaning continent) history that narratives such as these are made more accessible and widely known to a broader audience for both its cultural and historical significance. It wont be, but it should.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, this is why we can't have nice things...
"Yet, at this same meeting that defined a Pan-American agenda for human rights, the united States overturned resolutions against colonialism and against anticommunist repression... There after the US government used the newly created Organization of American States (OAS) that replaced the Pan-American Union as a tool to fight perceived communist threats in the hemisphere and justify intervention against left-wing movements or governments that challenged US capitalist's hegemony."
"After the Cuban Revolution, 'Pan-Americanism' came to mean the militarization of the hemisphere."
"Yet, the US government largely controlled the meaning of 'human rights' in the region, using a defense of individual rights to justify CIA-and US military- led coups against democratically elected leaders... In reality, these actions resulted in human rights violations and countless deaths of civilians."
🤬🤬🤬
Jason, I really wanted to put stickies on all the pages that referenced U.S. capitalism for you. The idea that the protection of women has been and continues to be used as justification for military invasions and continued occupation is disturbing and perhaps one of the key takeaways of this book--we allow the United States narrative to dominate the media without many stopping to reframe these stories through the lens of the women we are supposed to be protecting as we kill their children, destroy their infrastructures, poison their water supplies....
DeleteJen, awesome perception! I also found it interesting/disgusting that the narrative of the "helpless woman" who needs "saving" can also be linked to the "justification" of lynching in the South, and how this patriarchal culture can utilize these tropes of supposed "chivalry" to mask the worst atrocities and most inhuman behavior. All the while maintaining a dominant narrative of covert misogyny and overt patriarchy throughout most of US history in order to subjugate women and define them as collectively "second class." Which also relegates a portion of the working population to a cultural position of subservience; and don't even get me started on the hyper-exploitation of reproductive and social labor.
DeleteI really enjoyed the narrative structure of using the six women's activism and relationships to work on recovering the story of Latin American feminism. Some things that struck me: the imperialist and colonial mindset of the U.S. throughout the time period caused most of the difficulties these women faced. That the United States continues to lag in things like maternity rights, equal pay, and other goals of the Latin American women's movement is telling. It's 2019 and we still don't have ERA in the U.S. I thought the argument that how women are treated is a domestic issue and not an international one was fascinating, and that it continues to be used to justify U.S. policy is intriguing to me--especially in light of human trafficking. I thought the story of how Betz "discovered" her Latin American-ness was also interesting--that she had always assumed that her European roots gave her a whiteness the Americans and Europeans didn't acknowledge forced her to adopt the double consciousness that WEB DuBois introduced. I also liked the story of how the Cuban mother smuggled weapons to the rebels in Cuba while carrying her children through the forested areas harkened back to the discussions we had reading WE DREAM TOGETHER about how the roles of women are given only brief mentions when they are so integral to the larger story.
ReplyDeleteIt was also interesting to read about how Latin American countries were more willing to legislate "family" issues, meaning that women's rights were sometimes more advanced there than in the U.S., where federal law often defers to state law in that regard. The U.S. definitely still holds on to the idea that we are more socially advanced and that we provide a model for other countries. It was interesting that the only U.S. women to recognize the leadership and further advancement of Latin American countries came from U.S. women who learned Spanish, traveled to Latin America, and effectively listened to Latin American feminists. I think Mary Cannon was the only example given of a U.S. woman who reversed her view that Latin America needed to "catch up" to the U.S.
DeleteHi Jen,
DeleteI did find Bertha Lutz's lack of self-awareness interesting as well. Elite ties to European schools and language training could not overcome American and British preconceived prejudices of Latin American backwardness. However, it is interesting that the time period in this book overlaps with much of the Getulio Vargas regime in which the local press was racializing the nation according to region. From a local perspective Bertha Lutz would have been in a national environment that praised the southern region of Brazil for its industrial capacity and thus its intellectual progress, whereas the north was deemed backwards because of its African-descendant majority. The double consciousness she felt upon meeting Anglo-Saxon women in the international women's movement probably stemmed from the promotion of European heritage within her national context.
This book analyzes the tug of war over the women's rights agenda in the Americas, highlighting the essential work of women "from Mexico down" (p. 191). Marino brought up in the introduction that her book revises the notion that this time period was uneventful for feminism, because in fact the action was taking place in Latin America. Some of the arguments here, such as that the women's rights agenda should be inclusive of anti-racism, anti-imperialism, workers' rights, etc. have only recently become widely accepted in mainstream U.S. feminism. White women's voting rights have typically been centered in histories of U.S. and European feminism, and it was illuminating to read that Doris Stevens' got pushback against her insistence on that platform that nearly a century ago. Other American women argued that women's suffrage meant very little under a fascist dictator or if racist realities in their country prevented them from exercising that right. Suffrage was incorrectly identified by white, imperialist-minded feminists as the yardstick by which to measure the progress in their agenda. Marino strongly argues that Latin American women were arguing for more inclusive goals which were, ultimately, also more successful in that they reached more people.
ReplyDeleteReading about Stevens' leadership was fascinating, and she used her privilege to keep her power. She was not the only woman to come from an elite background and believe that made her a natural leader of the movement. For the first years of her "reign," Stevens effectively limited the platform of Latin American feminists by isolating them through language barriers and financial barriers. In this way, she was able to continue pushing her views and maintaining control. Her colonial-minded actions put the U.S. imperialist mindset on display, but other leaders, such as Bertha Lutz, also had racial and class privilege and had internalized the imperialist mindset.
I agree that it was fascinating to see Doris Stevens get pushback against her single-focus agenda/yardstick a century ago and to compare that to the issues we see in feminism today. To the extent that we accept your premise that anti-racist, anti-imperialist, workers’ rights issues, etc. have been generally accepted by mainstream U.S. feminism today (I agree that this is generally the case among younger feminists, but we still see a lot of generation-clash on these issues between the Boomers and those of us who are Gen X/Millenials), we also see plenty of the same kinds of infighting and wrangling happening within feminist, and, more generally, progressive political circles of all stripes today. We may say that we accept the need for broadly intersectional feminism today, but I see daily evidence of the need for folks (including me, of course) to check our privilege, think about issues through an anti-racist lens, etc. as well as the real struggles many of us face when a broadly intersectional feminist agenda causes some of us to feel alienated and unheard when that broadly “intersectional” agenda rejects other parts of our identities.
DeleteBack to the book: Stevens absolutely used her privilege to maintain her power, and clearly was not open to divergent viewpoints. I was fascinated, however, to read the accounts of various other feminists’ attempts to unseat Stevens, and how the inability of Lutz to find solidarity with Spanish American feminists (maybe this happens later, as I’m still reading) to unseat Stevens even as she was pretty much offered the opportunity to do so during her visit to Buenos Aires following the Montevideo conference in 1933 was fascinating.
What we definitely see highlighted in the book are the problems that a non-intersectional feminism generates, but part of me wonders if the author is telling too neat a story along those lines, and whether we should be less judgmental and more willing to live with/grapple with complexity in these analyses. For example, the discussion of the differences in sexual morality/politics set out in the author’s discussion of the divide between Lutz and Stevens seems to indicate that there is a genuine culture/moral clash there, and real questions to be asked about the ways in which clashing beliefs about women’s sexuality and its role in mediating relationships of all kinds play into the development of different camps within the feminist movement.
Katharine Marino’s Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement fits the them or our readings in telling stories that have been underrepresented in “traditional” History courses. What i found interesting about this book was the layering and division in Feminism. The struggle to push an feminism on international levels, so that it did not become hierarchical was inspiring. The inclusion of Doris Stevens was vital for Marino’s argument and narrative.
ReplyDeleteThe other readings we have read lead up to this quite nicely. The Latin American nations had been bullied by Imperial Europe and the United States. This caused the awakening of their national identity. These nations learned how to fight for themselves and our protagonists in the novel fought for their belief.
Hola Dalina,
DeleteI also found the struggle within the feminist circles to be very intriguing. These circles are still informed by the cultures where they originate from. I have found that one of the main reason that Latin American nations haven't gone back to being colonized, is the grassroots activism such as the feminismo americano.
Marino's "Feminism for the Americas" argues that the vanguard of the feminist movement was the Feminismo Americano which, in part, was led by non-elite, mixed race Latin American women. I really enjoyed how this women sought to decolonize the feminist movement by broadening its scope and couldn't help but to make connections with the American republic modernity's inclusive discourse for its time. Both instances were articulated when people of more humble beginnings than the elite, get to participate in the development of these ideas.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I never understood why Ofelia Dominguez, Clara Gonzales, and Vergara viewed Luisi with such solemnity. I understand that Luisi was the first major Latin American feminist but, early in the twentieth century, she was a racist and believed in the superiority of the white female reformers, at the same time that a "whitening" process was taking place in Uruguay and was viewed as a sign of "racial progress" (Pg 22-23). Luisi disliked Stevens, who was the biggest "villain" in this book, because Stevens considered her, and her Latin American counterparts, racially inferior. It seemed that Luisi's problem with Stevens was that the North American didn't recognized her whiteness, or as I like to say, she was not invited to the " white girls party."
Martino never explained why the other feministas, reached out to her. Were they not aware of Luisi's racial prejudices? Didn't they hear or read her white supremacy views? Or did Luisi change over time? Without this explanation, it reads incongruous to see how feministas that fought to extend social rights to women of different ethnic and class backgrounds, would want to side with Luisi.
I’ve been reading about the issue of women’s nationality rights and marriage in my immigration history class this semester, so seeing how this played out on the international stage (and especially how far ahead many Latin American countries were of the U.S. on this issue) makes this book particularly compelling.
ReplyDeleteMore generally, however, it’s particularly of personal interest to me to examine the personal politics of movement leadership (having been engaged in some of this myself in other contexts), and of the divides that arise between those who advocate a narrow goal to which they try (sometimes in bull-headed fashion) to build the support of a broad-based coalition versus those who advocate wide goals but reject/dismiss their partial allies who are not willing to sign on to all of the broad issues they advocate. Here, of course, I’m looking at examples such as Stevens, for all her flaws, and her narrow focus on political and legal equality versus Gonzales, Dominguez, Luisi and their movement toward socialist and communist organizing. The economic imperlialist implications (i.e., last week’s dollar diplomacy writ small) of Stevens’ unwillingness to finance participation of Latin American feminists who did not sufficiently pander to her are infuriating, as is Stevens’ myopic inability to see the physical and political realities of feminists in countries dealing with dictatorship, revolution, etc. vs. the relatively stable politics of the early 20th century U.S. and the result that prescriptions that make sense in one context aren’t the top priority in others. That said, the author is really hard on Stevens for trying to maintain a single-minded focus on narrower issues — part of the issue is obviously Stevens inappropriately trying to direct others’ agendas, but it seems that Lutz’s cold decision to throw Stevens under bus by scheming to wrench away control of the IACW from her even as she sought Stevens’ support to get herself named a delegate to the 1933 Montevideo conference doesn’t generate the same level of criticism from the author.
What this raises for me is the question of why there continued to be a push to create a pan-American/western hemisphere centered movement feminism centered on common goals when the political realities were so different in different parts of the hemisphere. A common Spanish American or even, leaving the problems with Lutz’s beliefs about Spanish American feminists aside, a Latin American feminism makes sense to me, but it seems like Canadian and U.S. feminists are developing on a separate track/timeline, so when it became clear that these pan-American organizations were doing more harm than good, my question is why there remained a focus on creating more of them rather than walking away from the project entirely and simply drawing inspiration (rather than direction/marching orders) from those organizing in other countries.
This book is really working to open my eyes in regards to several different issues. I had really bought into the idea of the "doldrums" between first and second wave feminism and this book is now causing me to reassess other texts I have read that made claims about the possibilities within that period which I couldn't really process. The idea of racism in the context of U.S. imperialism, rather than European colonialism, as a major factor in driving the development of a broad human rights agenda is also something relatively new to me. The development of pan-American feminista is really demonstrating that aspect of Latin American agency acting on the rest of the world, which I had always suspected existed but couldn't pinpoint an example, as a potent force acting in unexpected ways through an unexpected (to me) set of actors. That these conferences laid the groundwork for human rights treaties challenges the perspective I had from a background in politic science with international relations and diplomacy as one focus. It shows that what I thought were largely top down products were in fact largely driven by a broad movement. The alliance with the Popular Front and Communist parties also challenges the narrative of the US as the principle defender of human rights, often standing in hypocritical contrast to other actions, which I had always interpreted as an expression of soft power politics during the Cold War. This books makes a strong case that positions it not only as a vital revision of US understandings of the feminist movement but also of the development of international human rights law.
ReplyDeleteHello Kurt,
DeleteYou and I are in the same boat for considering Racism in the US human rights attitude. This reading brought a new perspective to our previous readings. Similar to how Vanderbilt exploiting Nicaragua, but also helping them overthrow William Walker. I remember in my Intro to US history 2 class colonizing a region or staying away from indigenous peoples would be used as Racist Human Rights agendas (should you enlighten people or would unenlightened individuals poison your society).
I found the reading to be really interesting and it keyed me in to a lot of new perspectives withing feminism that I wasn't privy too. It made me think about how nowadays we think of intersectionality feminism as the most inclusive form, but perspectives of women that are affected by class, economic status, political party etc. are rarely given a voice. Would it take a fourth wave of feminism to address these issues? How can we make feminism not just more inclusive, but also work more effectively for women in non-Western countries? Is that even realitically possible?
ReplyDelete-Alexandra