Feminism For The Americas: The Making Of An International Human Rights Movement

Description

This book chronicles the dawn of the global movement for women's rights in the first decades of the twentieth century. The founding mothers of this movement were not based primarily in the United States, however, or in Europe. Instead, Katherine M. Marino introduces readers to a cast of remarkable Latin American and Caribbean women whose deep friendships and intense rivalries forged global feminism out of an era of imperialism, racism, and fascism. Six dynamic activists form the heart of this story: from Brazil, Bertha Lutz; from Cuba, Ofelia Domingez Navarro; from Uruguay, Paulina Luisi; from Panama, Clara Gonzalez; from Chile, Marta Vergara; and from the United States, Doris Stevens. This Pan-American network drove a transnational movement that advocated women's suffrage, equal pay for equal work, maternity rights, and broader self-determination. Their painstaking efforts led to the enshrinement of women's rights in the United Nations Charter and the development of a framework for international human rights. But their work also revealed deep divides, with Latin American activists overcoming U.S. presumptions to feminist superiority. As Marino shows, these early fractures continue to influence divisions among today's activists along class, racial, and national lines. Marino's multinational and multilingual research yields a new narrative for the creation of global feminism. The leading women introduced here were forerunners in understanding the power relations at the heart of international affairs. Their drive to enshrine fundamental rights for women, children, and all people of the world stands as a testament to what can be accomplished when global thinking meets local action. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 Prologue. Feminismo americano......Page 14 1. A New Force in the History of the World......Page 26 2. The Anti-imperialist Origins of International Women’s Rights......Page 53 3. Feminismo práctico......Page 80 4. The Great Feminist Battle of Montevideo......Page 109 5. The Birth of Popular Front Pan-American Feminism......Page 133 6. United Fronts for Women’s Rights and for Human Rights......Page 158 7. Mobilizing Women’s Rights as Human Rights......Page 183 8. The Latin American Contribution to the Constitution of the World......Page 211 Epilogue. History and Human Rights......Page 238 Acknowledgments......Page 250 Notes......Page 254 Bibliography......Page 328 A......Page 354 C......Page 355 E......Page 357 G......Page 358 I......Page 359 L......Page 360 M......Page 361 N......Page 362 P......Page 363 S......Page 364 V......Page 366 Y......Page 367