Feminist periodicals and political crisis in Mexico: Fem, debate feminista, and la correa feminista in the 1990s

Feminist Studies

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 151-169

  Biron, Rebecca E ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039019717     PISSN: 00463663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3178251     Document Type: Review

References (26)

1. These interviews were conducted for a study on the history of the women's movement in Mexico City and involved professors and directors of the Interdisciplinary Women's Studies Program of the Colegio de México, the Gender Studies Program of La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the Women's Studies Program of La Universidad Autónoma de México-Xochimilco; also, La Regional de Mujeres, CICAM, Marta Lamas, Berta Hiriart, and Ximena Bedregal, among others.
2. Many other publications for women, by women, or about women, especially those involving poor women in Mexico City who organize around demands for access to potable water, sewage systems, electricity, pavement in the developing colonias, and so forth, vigorously oppose the use of the adjective "feminist" to describe their ideas and actions. I am principally referring here to pamphlets, cartoon booklets meant to educate women about their human rights, and other tracts distributed by organizations such as the National Coordinating Council of the Popular Urban Movement.
3. Francesca Miller's Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1991), for example, offers an assessment of the distinction between Latin American feminism and "Euro-U.S." feminism. Miller states the widely accepted premise that Latin American thinkers are more attuned than other feminists to the concrete suffering of all victims of unjust socioeconomic structures: In 1990 the Latin American women's movement is distinguished by several characteristics. The emphasis on individual fulfillment that characterized the mainstream women's movement in the U.S. in the 1970s and early 1980s remains muted in the Latin American context. . . . The women's attempt to raise public consciousness about the circumstances of women merged with the attempt - by socialists, liberal reformers, liberation theologians, revolutionaries such as the Tupamaros - to raise public consciousness about the plight of the poor. The fusion of a radical critique of economic, political, and social injustice with a gendered analysis has resulted in a syncretic understanding that has transformed both feminism and the politics of social change in Latin America and has deeply influenced the global women's movement. (P. 244) I agree with Miller's claim that Latin American feminism is generally allied with broad social concerns and has been influential in "the global women's movement." However, my comparative assessment of three Mexican feminist periodicals shows a much more complex series of relationships at play both among Mexican feminisms and along with European and U.S. feminist thinking - which I see no reason to reduce to "emphasis on individual fulfillment."
4. The phrase "Mexican feminism" can be useful for contextualizing struggles, arguments, and theories; it suggests that feminists who live in Mexico have specifically (but not only) Mexican concerns. "Mexican concerns" implies first a relation to the state, a problematic interweaving of national identity and disaffection with the nation; second, concerns are interests, but they are also problems to be solved - worries.
5. Miller, 187.
6. For an excellent and concise review of the editorial and economic evolution of fem in its first ten years, see Elena Urrutia's "Una publicación feminista," fem 10 (December 1986-January 1987): 9-11.
7. Miller, 209.
8. Francesca Gargallo's critique of fem is an aside in a broader discussion of Mexican feminists' uses of the essay as form. Her analysis mainly involves close readings of essays published in debate feminista which further the initial rhetorical strategies featured in fem's early years.
9. According to La Licenciada Patricia González at the fem headquarters (telephone interview, Mexico City, 28 June 1995), fem publishes 8,000 copies of each issue and sells approximately 2,000 through subscriptions (national and international - the exact percentage of each was unavailable) and another 4,000 through bookstores and distributors throughout Mexico. fem provides approximately 900 complimentary copies to schools, universities, and a limited number of activist organizations.
10. fem 1 (October-December 1976): 3.
11. fem 18 (February 1994): 3.
12. Marta Lamas (interview in the offices of debate feminista, Mexico City, June 7, 1995) reported that she publishes 2,000 copies of each issue, selling approximately 1,000 in bookstores and distributing approximately 300 general complimentary copies, as well as donating copies to political groups through the distribution network of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD). She describes debate feminista as "a journal for the political class, and for leaders of the popular movements, meant to provide theoretical tools which the leadership can use in their activism."
13. Teresa de Lauretis, Nancy Fraser, Julia Kristeva, Marguerite Duras, Joan W. Scott, Margaret Atwood, John Updike, Simone de Beauvoir, Ursula K. LeGuin, Rosario Ferré, Chantal Mouffe, Jean Franco, and Gloria Anzaldúa, for example, have all been published in debate feminista. So has George Will.
14. Marta Lamas has been on the editorial board of fem since its founding.
15. See "Chiapas: Latin America's First Post-Communist Rebellion," New Perspectives Quarterly 2 (spring 1994): 54-58, for Carlos Fuentes's particularly lucid discussion of how the rebellion forced liberal and leftist groups in Mexico City to articulate their positions on violence as a form of resistance to the PRI (Partido Revolucionano Instituciona) and NAFTA.
16. As evidence of the ethnic diversity within politicized and organized people in Chiapas, a group report on a meeting/workshop held in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, on 19-20 May 1994, concerning "Women's Rights in our Customs and Traditions" ("Los Derechos de las mujeres en nuestras costumbres y tradiciones") mentions, for example, the participation of Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, and Mame representatives from various Chiapan communities such as San Juan Chamula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Motozintla, La Independencia, Oxchuc, Teopisca, Ocosingo, Chenalhó, Chanal, and Pantelhó. See "Mujeres indias, derecho y tradición," in Chiapas ¿y las mujeres qué? ed. Rosa Rojas (Mexico City: CICAM, 1994), 177.
17. See debate feminista 9 (spring 1994): 8.
18. Marta Lamas, paper delivered at the National Feminist Congress, El Museo de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City, 15 Jan. 1994.
19. A potential example of that negative dynamic for women's interests in radical social movements is the fact that the reproductive rights clause from the "Revolutionary Law regarding Women" was never even mentioned in the EZLN's 1 Mar. 1994, list of demands from the government (prepared by the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command, Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena-Comandancia General. The "Petition from the Indigenous Women," number 29 out of the 34 demands, is reprinted in Chiapas ¿y las mujeres qué? 151-52. For a complicated exchange between Marta Lamas and el Subcomandante Marcos (leader and spokesman for the EZLN) on the question of whether the failure to mention abortion rights represents the active subordination of women's voice in the EZLN, see their texts, published in La Jornada on 29 Apr. and 11 May 1994. Lamas accused the EZLN of supporting the recriminalization of abortion in Chiapas because of undue influence from the Catholic church. Marcos angrily defended the EZLN's ideological autonomy from the church, answering that the EZLN demands regarding women came directly from the indigenous Zapatista women themselves and not from any male or institutional leadership. He pointed to radical class difference as an explanation for Lamas's "confusion": "The compañeras say they don't ask for abortion clinics because they don't even have birthing clinics, and that climbing hills carrying loads of firewood is something that no penal code takes into account (and neither does some newspaper article, I would add)." This reference to self-induced abortion - intentional or not - as a result of "typical" campesina physical work, ends Marcos's letter. The implication is that the Zapatista women's demands for assistance in economic stability, nutrition for their children, childcare facilities, health clinics for women and men, and markets for selling their artesanía are more urgent and practical demands than the decriminalization of abortion and that if those indigenous women need to have abortions, they can usually take care of it themselves. Marcos's rhetorical strategy of appealing to what the compañeras say - and not what he would say - works to discredit Lamas's position as a "journalist" and privileged woman from the city. For Lamas, however, Marcos's repetition of the argument so familiar to many feminist participants in other human rights protests around the world (that such "specialized" rights for women should wait until the more generalized oppressions are removed) confirms the appropriateness of debate feminista's position and the real danger of the imposition of masculinist power structures in/after even the most radical social movement. I believe it is still too early in the EZLN's history of broad public presence to determine its level of autonomy from "outside" institutions or whether it will promote profound freedom and dignity for women within its own working structure in the long run. It is clear, however, that Marcos considered Lamas's critique important enough to merit a direct response; his public reply to her editorial indicates that avowedly feminist interventions - even coming from Mexico City - carry weight with the EZLN. This type of open debate keeps women's issues visible and can only strengthen the forces for social change.
20. A potential example of that negative dynamic for women's interests in radical social movements is the fact that the reproductive rights clause from the "Revolutionary Law regarding Women" was never even mentioned in the EZLN's 1 Mar. 1994, list of demands from the government (prepared by the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command, Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena-Comandancia General. The "Petition from the Indigenous Women," number 29 out of the 34 demands, is reprinted in Chiapas ¿y las mujeres qué? 151-52. For a complicated exchange between Marta Lamas and el Subcomandante Marcos (leader and spokesman for the EZLN) on the question of whether the failure to mention abortion rights represents the active subordination of women's voice in the EZLN, see their texts, published in La Jornada on 29 Apr. and 11 May 1994. Lamas accused the EZLN of supporting the recriminalization of abortion in Chiapas because of undue influence from the Catholic church. Marcos angrily defended the EZLN's ideological autonomy from the church, answering that the EZLN demands regarding women came directly from the indigenous Zapatista women themselves and not from any male or institutional leadership. He pointed to radical class difference as an explanation for Lamas's "confusion": "The compañeras say they don't ask for abortion clinics because they don't even have birthing clinics, and that climbing hills carrying loads of firewood is something that no penal code takes into account (and neither does some newspaper article, I would add)." This reference to self-induced abortion - intentional or not - as a result of "typical" campesina physical work, ends Marcos's letter. The implication is that the Zapatista women's demands for assistance in economic stability, nutrition for their children, childcare facilities, health clinics for women and men, and markets for selling their artesanía are more urgent and practical demands than the decriminalization of abortion and that if those indigenous women need to have abortions, they can usually take care of it themselves. Marcos's rhetorical strategy of appealing to what the compañeras say - and not what he would say - works to discredit Lamas's position as a "journalist" and privileged woman from the city. For Lamas, however, Marcos's repetition of the argument so familiar to many feminist participants in other human rights protests around the world (that such "specialized" rights for women should wait until the more generalized oppressions are removed) confirms the appropriateness of debate feminista's position and the real danger of the imposition of masculinist power structures in/after even the most radical social movement. I believe it is still too early in the EZLN's history of broad public presence to determine its level of autonomy from "outside" institutions or whether it will promote profound freedom and dignity for women within its own working structure in the long run. It is clear, however, that Marcos considered Lamas's critique important enough to merit a direct response; his public reply to her editorial indicates that avowedly feminist interventions - even coming from Mexico City - carry weight with the EZLN. This type of open debate keeps women's issues visible and can only strengthen the forces for social change.
21. La Correa Feminista 8 (January-March 1994): 1.
22. Ibid., 2.
23. Ibid., 1.
24. "There are many elements of analysis that are waiting to be written about, if it's true that the war in Chiapas has entered a period of recess. It is in a latent state until the peace accords are signed and carried out. From within feminism, it will be necessary to expand this reflection and for now this issue of La Correa Feminista presents a series of suggestions for approaching a phenomenon which introduced into the prospects of Mexican society some variables which were practically unthinkable before the first of January." (Ibid., 5).
25. According to Ximena Bedregal (interview, Mexico City, 30 May 1995), the first printing of Chiapas ¿y las mujeres qué? of 600 copies, completed in December 1994, was sold out in Mexico almost immediately, with approximately 100 of those being bought in Chiapas itself. Another 600 were subsequently printed and also sold. CICAM is currently preparing a second edition of the book, with additional, more recent articles and reports.
26. One of the same characteristics which contributed to fem's radical feminist attitude in the 1970s - the participation of women from a variety of different countries on the editorial board - is also true of CICAM and the contributors to La Correa Feminista today. There may be, then, a strong relation between exile status in Mexico and absolute faith in the transformative power of feminist activism and social theory.