“Sin senderos prefijados”

the defense of feminist autonomy in the pages of Brujas (1981-1996)

Abstract

Between the years 1980 and 1990, several Latin American countries, like Argentina, Brazil and Chile, returned to the democratic path. Nevertheless, it was during this same period that many adopted or strengthened neoliberal projects. This profound political change, marked by the diminished role of the State, was accompanied by a rapid expansion of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the incorporation of some points on the feminist agenda by the State. This new socio-political order resulted in the process of “onguization”, that is, structural changes that started to model the NGOs, which started to develop projects, financed by international cooperation agencies, containing, in most cases, specialized and paid teams. Many social movements have become institutionalized, including Latin American feminist collectives. This fact led to important questions about the movement’s capacity for autonomy and the effectiveness of such projects in transforming the female reality. That is, it was questioned whether this new field of action would cause a replacement of the former activist by the “gender specialist”, reducing the tonic of feminist engagement. Faced with these questions, this article seeks to present how this debate appeared in the magazine Brujas, published by the Asociación de Trabajo y Estudio de la Mujer “25 de noviembre” (ATEM), in Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1983 and 1996.