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Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe
São Paulo, Brasil, Octubre 2005
Feminism
in democracies: Can the rules of the game be changed?
San José, 10 October 2005.
Feminist International Radio Endeavour,
FIRE/RIF (Maria Suárez Toro)
Can the rules of the game of democracy be changed with its own rules of the
game? That was the underlying question addressed at the opening session of the
10th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter, which started today in
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
More than 1,250 feminists from 26 countries of the region, along with
activists from the USA and Europe, congregated to rethink feminism and its
challenges. This focus is one of the objectives put forward by the Encounter
Organizing Committee, which is comprised of Brazilian activists from diverse
movements including those of black women, lesbians, young women, health,
sexual and reproductive rights, as well as the popular education movement and
the human rights movement, among others.
In their call, the organizers note that although "feminist political
practices have advanced, critical analysis in current debates and
deliberations among feminists of the region have not reflected the challenges
posed by these political practices. Greater effort is needed to revise
feminist thought."
This central theme was the focus of presentations by the first three women in
the first panel, all of whom are afro descendant feminists of the Latin
American & Caribbean region.
Epsy Campbell, Costa Rican legislator, talking as president of a
political party in her country, said that the rules of the game can be used to
change the game itself, and called on the audience to "create new
politics." She acknowledged, however, that "poverty in many social
sectors affects their participation" in these efforts. "We as
women, through equal participation (with quotas), with collective leadership
and from an ethic of respect and solidarity, are the ones who can best
accomplish these changes." She noted that achieving higher office
in politics cannot be the objective, but these positions do provide a tool for
redistribution to favor all. For this legislator, being accountable and
practicing solidarity is part of the ethics which should be characteristic of
the political practices of all women.
Ochi Curiel, an activist from the Dominican Republic, and a militant from
lesbian and afro descendant social movements, maintained that "democracy
is a form of social organization which needs to be questioned, abolished and
changed to other forms of participation, because democracy is not the only
form of politics, and it also strengthens and is rooted in patriarchal logic."
She affirmed that feminist logic should be integrated with daily life, with
the struggle to construct a free world that is different from that of today.
Ochi advocates building this new world collectively based on autonomy, and
as long as the transnationals keep gaining strength and poverty continues
growing, feminists and other social and political movements need to keep
defending their automous spaces. "The category of ‘woman" is
political…the crumbling of the world today requires a personal and
collective revolution. It is urgent, we needed to take back a feminist ethic.
We must subvert, disobey and reinvent ourselves and feminism, because there is
no other existing model."
Maria Betania Ávila, Brazilian activist, started her presentation by noting
that her participation in political struggle has been marked by tension
between joy, oppression and rebellion. She said that the feminism should
be reconceptualized, it "has to be reinvented," meaning that State
power cannot be confronted without a strong organized effort. The
radicalization of feminism requires that women position themselves as subjects
in accessing the different political spaces. Historically, State power
in Latin America has been defined and controlled by white, heterosexual men
linked to the global powers, great capitals, and subordinated to the interests
of the North. The democratization of social life is our task, along with our
radicalization related to patriarchy, capitalism and racism."
According
to Betania, "If feminism does not grow, expand, become popular and
radicalize social life, it will not be able to do so in the public
politics. As long as feminism does not confront poverty, it will not
radicalize; as long as it does not address issues of land distribution, it
will not radicalize; as long as it does not revindicate the control of women
over their own bodies, it cannot radicalize."
"The
hegemonic vision that liberal democracy and democracy are the same thing
is false, declared Betania. She noted that an important challenge is to
clarify: "How can we best address the question of power and powers? How
can women’s struggles in their daily lives, add up and be configured in the
women’s movement? How can we best combat authoritarian ways of doing
politics? Betania identified as challenges the development of a
"radical democracy": which includes the capacity to organize, along
with solidarity, generosity and critical capacity."
After the panel, participants in the audience discussed and debated the
different perspectives offered by the panelists. In
addition to this panel, the Encounter features about 100 workshops on a
variety of topics, as well as other panels focusing on: racism and
ethnocentrism; also on sexualities, lesbianism and young identities, along
with the theme of the final panel on October 11th entitled: Feminism: present
and future?.
Each
of the 10 Latin American & Caribbean Feminist Encounters, which have been
held for the past 24 years, involve feminists of the region meeting in a
specific location in the region to appraise current issues and trends in the
region and world and their implications and impact on the lives of women.
Participants at these events also celebrate their achievements and address
current challenges in their struggles to transform their societies from a
perspective designed to disrupt the patriarchal and neoliberal dynamics that
maintain oppression, discrimination, and subordination of women, fueled by
growing exclusion, marginalization and poverty.
The First Latin American & Caribbean Feminist Encounter was held in 1981
in Colombia, and since then, women of the region have met in Peru, Mexico,
Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, El Salvador, and Argentina. Agendas of
the events have reflected a mixture of what Avila called the tension between
"joy, oppression and rebellion" that shape discussion of the current
political context and practices, their meaning and recreation of their meaning
from diverse perspectives, designed to promote the transformation of the
oppressive continuum which has characterized the historical formation of
society and which today are shaped by the neoliberal model and patriarchal
fundamentalisms.
You may use this Press Release, citing the source: Feminist
International Radio Endeavour FIRE/RIF. For more information go to: www.radiofeminista.net
or write to: oficina@radiofeminista.net. For further information on the
10th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter visit: www.10feminista.org.br
.
This article was written in Costa Rica, based on the live internet
transmission from Brazil this morning by FIRE/RIF. You may write your own
reports anywhere in the world by listeninging to our live broadcast at www.radiofeminista.net
at the time indicated on that website.
Translated from Spanish by FIRE/RIF
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