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Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 431–433, 1999
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431
Pergamon
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF MEXICAN FEMINISMS
Sylvia Marcos
Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
Synopsis —
Globalization has influenced Mexican feminism—its politics are no longer strictly local o
egional; but at local level Mexican feminists continue to work towards demarginalising themselves and
occupying a more central position in Mexican politics. This article explores the development of femi-
nism in Mexico, its origins in earlier political struggles for freedom, and its development from the 1970s
according to local demands for women’s rights. In Mexico, particular ethnic and class divisions in society
have impacted upon feminism. The demands of Indigenous women are now being heard by the previ-
ously middle-class Mexican feminist movement, and this article depicts how the contradictions between
feminism and cultural traditions might be reconciled. The issue of co-ordinating women’s rights with hu-
man rights is also discussed, and it is argued here that it can be possible to integrate both according to
the demands of specific situations. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
In Mexico, the women’s movement has emerged
as a response to the characteristics of the large
social reality. The life of Mexican women is in-
scribed within a history that is the product of
two cultures: indigenous and Spanish. Mex-
ico’s history has tried to integrate that double
ancestry in its intents to construct a modern
nation.
The Mexican Women’s Movement has had
to struggle on the one hand with the oppres-
sive Catholic double moral that has impinged
on the lives of Mexican women and their rela-
tionships to their men: in sexuality, family,
work, social, and political contexts. On the
other hand, the indigenous ancestry has largely
een kept “invisible” within the movement as
in the larger social arena. Until the recent Zap-
atista uprising (January 1994), these ethnic de-
mands were hardly present in Mexican social
movements. Racism and ethnic discrimination
have shaped a socio-economic background
where poverty is often related to the physical
and cultural signs of belonging to one of the 56
indigenous groups living on our te
itory (Bis-
sio, 1995, pp. 384–387).
In the early 1970s, the emerging Mexican
feminism focused its goals on women’s rights,
o
owing much from the western feminist
movement’s demands (Lugo, 1985, p. 445;
Morgan, 1985, p XXXXXXXXXXThis movement demys-
tified the patriarchal double moral in relation
to sexuality, asking for access to abortion
ights, and debunking feminine stereotypes by
which a woman’s identity was made exclu-
sively dependent on having a husband and be-
ing a mother. Small consciousness-raising
groups allowed new critical demands to be ex-
pressed and articulated (Morgan, 1985, p. 443).
As a consequence, many women started writ-
ing, as well as getting involved in theatre, mov-
ies, and political activities (Lugo, 1985, p. 445).
Most of the women who committed them-
selves to the opposition parties of the left were
middle class (Neft & Levine, 1997, p. 354).
In 1976, the feminist groups started to work
in co-ordination with each other and formed
the “Coalición de Mujeres Feministas”. This
helped the feminist movement to be more
clearly defined as a social force. Three de-
mands contributed to unify the perspectives
prevailing within the different feminist groups
(Lugo, 1985, p. 446; Morgan, 1985, pp. 441–
443; Neft & Levine, 1997, p XXXXXXXXXXThese were:
1. Voluntary maternity (
maternidad volun-
taria
), including the right to sexual educa-
tion, to the use of contraceptives, and to
abortion on demand.
2. Struggle against sexual violence.
3. Lesbian (and gay) rights.
432
Sylvia Marcos
In accordance with these demands, the first
law project on voluntary maternity was elabo-
ated and presented in 1976 (Morgan, 1985, p.
441). In 1977, the first assistance centre fo
women victims of rape and sexual violence was
created (Neft & Levine, 1997, p XXXXXXXXXXDuring
these early years, the first feminist publica-
tions, like
FEM
and
La Revuelta
, started to
appear (Morgan, 1985, p XXXXXXXXXXRadio pro-
grammes on women’s issues from a feminist
perspective were initiated in 1980. The femi-
nist movement, which had started and grown
mainly in Mexico City, spread out to more
states of the Mexican Republic (Lugo, 1985,
pp. 445–446).
In 1979, the
Frente Nacional por la Liberación
y los Derechos de las Mujeres
(FNALIDM)
was founded. For the first time in the history of
Mexican feminism, the association pulled to-
gether women with very diverse perspectives,
not necessarily feminists (Lugo, 1985, p. 445;
Neft & Levine, 1997, p XXXXXXXXXXAmong them
were: members of the “Unión Nacional de
Mujeres” (Morgan, 1985, p. 442), linked to
the “International Democratic Federation of
Women”; activists from the left parties; elite
women from the P.R.I. (governing party);
members of lesbian groups; mothers of the dis-
appeared and of political prisoners (
las ma-
dres
); trade unionists and factory workers; or-
ganised u
an poor; and peasants. The main
goal of the FNALIDM was to create a political
force whose cohesion depended implicitly on
the universality of women’s oppression (it was
not until years later that the issue of differ-
ences among women was more explicitly elab-
orated, which allowed the construction of a
new kind of feminism) (Cha
am-Dernerse-
sian, 1992, p. 88; Lugo, 1985, pp. 445–446). This
pluralistic collaboration acquired momentum
during the eighties (Neft & Levine, 1997, p.
354). Women of the poor u
an sectors, fac-
tory workers and trade unionists, peasants,
and rural migrants living in shanty towns
started to co-ordinate their demands with
those of the feminist movement (Lugo, 1985,
p. 445; Momsen, 1991, pp. 41, 101). A large
women’s movement began to configure.
Difficult negotiations marked those years,
as the priorities of women living in precarious
conditions did not seem to be coincident with
those of middle-class women. However, many
of the latter were themselves of leftist affilia-
tion (Miller, 1986, p. 336) and gradually some
of them could start to share the priorities of
the poorer women. In the end, the filtering of
the properly feminist demands against “ma-
chismo” (patriarchal societal rule which
seemed to imply that men had all the rights
and women all the duties) started to be a sig-
nificant issue also for trade unionists, peasants,
and u
an poor women, who included these
debates into their political agendas (Cha
am-
Dernersesian, 1992, p. 83; Lugo, 1985, p. 445;
Neft & Levine, 1997, p. 354).
Since then, the main issue within the Mexi-
can feminist movement has been—in a nut-
shell—how to co-ordinate the rights of the dis-
possessed with specific women’s rights. The
Mexican feminist groups can all be placed
somewhere in the continuum from giving pri-
ority only to the rights of women i
espective
of class and ethnic issues, and, on the othe
hand, of privileging the rights of the disadvan-
taged i
espective of the rights of women
(Lugo, 1985, pp. 445–446).
According to some orientations in contem-
porary feminism, neither one nor the othe
pole should predominate (Cha
am-Dernerse-
sian, 1992, pp. 84–85; Jaggar, 1994, pp. 25–26;
Tong, 1993, p XXXXXXXXXXThis is what the “position-
ality theory” states (Cha
am-Dernersesian,
1992, p. 85). The intersections between gender,
class, and ethnic demands are not static. Con-
sequently, urges and priorities are themselves
in permanent flux.
In the 1990, we are witnessing the paradoxi-
cal appearance of two contradictory phenom-
ena. Much of the thrust of the new social
movements drives to a recognition and reap-
praisal of one of Mexico’s “forgotten” identi-
ties: the indigenous (Bissio, 1995, p XXXXXXXXXXIn
the streets of Mexico, recently, the voices of
hundreds of thousands of u
an supporters of
the Zapatistas proclaimed “Todos somos in-
dios” (we are all Indians). In spite of its accu-
acy, it was surprising to hear this motto in a
country where racism and ethnic discrimina-
tion had permeated all social strata, including
the social justice and the feminist movements
(Lugo, 1985, p XXXXXXXXXXThis impulse towards par-
ticularities and ethnic and cultural rights coun-
te
alances the internationalisation of the
women’s movement.
Globalization is influencing the way the
women’s movement is evolving: its politics are
no longer strictly local or regional. With the se-
ies of international United Nations meetings
Mexican Feminisms 433
on Population and Development that started
in Cairo and followed with the Beijing Women’s
Conference in 1995, the Mexican feminist move-
ment has been facing the interconnectedness
with women’s movements the world over. It
has had to internationalise its strategies (Mor-
gan, 1985, p. 443; Neft & Levine, 1997, p. 17),
and negotiate its priorities (Neft & Levine,
1997, p. 354).
Although a significant number of feminists
distrust the negotiations with the state and the
political power structure, a not negligible num-
er of other feminists are rapidly following this
pattern of globalizing strategies, aiming fo
change in the world order concerning gende
(Lugo, 1985, p. 446; Neft & Levine, 1997, p.
17). The participation in the “International
Women’s Health Movement” is one instance
of these ongoing interactions. The foremost
contemporary issue that congregates feminist
activism is “Reproductive Health” (Neft & Le-
vine, 1997, pp. 359–362). This ranges from the
ight to bodily integrity; activism against all
sorts of violence against women; the right to
control if, when, and how many children to
have; to the right to have a sensual and satisfying
sexual experience even beyond menopause.
It is important to stress that the
ley de las
mujeres
(Women’s Law), which is a basic doc-
ument of the Zapatista insu
ection in south-
ern Mexico (Miller, 1986, pp. 302–307; Lugo,
1985, p. 444; Morgan, 1985, pp. 442–443), es-
tablishes the right of women to decide if,
when, and how many children to have, as well
as the right of women to “bodily integrity”.
This indigenous Women’s Law considers that
violence against women, rape, and even the in-
tent of rape must be severely punished. It also
establishes the right of women to choose
whom they want to ma
y. These indigenous
demands, together with