Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 4

III. T he A rgentine F eminist U nion and its L egacy (1970-1976) UFA's memoirs have traced the birth of the organisation back to the repercussions of a statement made by filmmaker María Luisa Bemberg, at the time of the 1971 premiere of her film Crónica de una señora (Barracchini and Bemberg , 1973). The filmmaker's public statement, related to her contacts with American feminists, appealed to other women in Argentina who have quickly contacted her by mail. These first gatherings were aimed at developing a reading group, held at the Café Tortoni in downtown Buenos Aires. Then, thanks to the feminist Gabriella Roncoroni Christeller, an Italian aristocrat, the group's meetings were held at a venue in the Chacarita neighborhood, owned by her family . 1 Although both figures have had some significance in Argentine intellectual circles, the organisation's decision at the time was to pursue a horizontal activism, without personal traits or hierarchies . 2 In this sense, those who studied the organization (Grammático, 2005; Trebisacce, 2010; 2014; Trebisacce and Torelli, 2011; Bellucci, 2014) have shown how left-wing entryism in the embryonic experiences of feminism was a kick-start for the constitution of other types of structures, based on mechanisms that, although minority, were deliberative and horizontal . 3 However, this horizontality in feminist activism has also been an attraction for militants who questioned the misogynistic modalities prevailing in other political structures. For example, there is the case of a group called New Woman ( Nueva Mujer ) that joined the UFA after an internal split in 1973 and brought to it much of Following the narrative of Mabel Bellucci (2014), the development of the UFA has come hand in hand with the "double militancy" in the period and the penetration made by left-wing parties (Nari, 1996). Of course, that articulation has not been free of tensions, not only because of the differences in the logic of participation in feminism and on political left, but also because of the disparity between the discipline of the parties and the horizontal formation of these feminist nuclei. This articulation has led to mistrust between the two political spaces. 1 In 1986, María Luisa Bemberg and Gabriella Roncoroni created the first school of education for peace in South America, called Escuela del Siglo Nuevo, which has operated on feminist premises in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Chacarita. 2 The newborn group has been made up of women who would later occupy prominent places in later feminist organizations: Nelly Bugallo, Leonor Calvera (1990), Alicia D'Amico, Marta Miguelez, Hilda Rais, Sara Torres, among others (Trebisacce and Torelli, 2011; Cano, 1982). 3 Entryism has been understood as the political tactics of some left- wing parties to broaden their social base and recruit militancy beyond their immediate circle, mainly due the process of political radicalization of the left between the 1960s and 1970s. its ideological polysemy. According to Mirta Henault, one of Nueva Mujer activists who joined the UFA militancy, the group has had the following modality: At the beginning, the activities were mainly about studying and deepening theories. We had the plan to make a series of publications which, to a certain extent, succeeded: for example, the book Las mujeres dicen basta (“Women say: enough!”). The group was small: it was made up of friends, and no outside work was done. I understand that UFA is a more radical movement; it could be compared to the radical feminists of the United States. We have a more social openness, an approach more related to the class struggle. I believe that there are no priorities: you cannot talk about women's liberation without social liberation, and vice versa. Today I dare say that feminism — as it was understood in the United States — makes no sense in Argentina, which is a dependent country. There is a risk that the groups will become sects far removed from reality. Nueva Mujer was disbanded due to the impact that political and social issues had on us. In one way or another, we all continue to fight for women's liberation (Stories by Gisella Casares and Alicia Creus in the magazine Revista Panorama , October 1973). Catalina Trebisacce’s approach has added to this complexity. She notes that the recruitment of feminists has provoked a threatening contrast for other left-wing expressions. Admissions to the UFA organization has been less rigid, clandestine, and more comparable to a call for readers (Trebisacce, 2010, p.39; Delmonte Allasia, 2012). A further innovation of the feminist experience in the seventies was the method used for training political cadres, which also emulated the methodology of international, American and European feminism: awareness (Aránguez Sánchez, 2019), and had the following particularities: That's how I entered an awareness group and suddenly I found myself sitting among strangers who had to tell personal things, about private life. It was a shock. A topic was proposed, and then all the women began to speak using the same sentence: "Well…, mine is very particular”. And after listening to each other, we found the points in common, something very shocking. For me, the experience of these groups was important. I understood firsthand that personal matters are political. There was always a coordinator who marked the time, you could not overdo it. You had to learn to listen to other people who were not your best friends: they were other women. And then, you had no choice but to get out of the shock, because it was impossible not to get emotionally involved. It became necessary to go out to think, to draw conclusions and write them down. (Soto, 2010). As a result of its lack of hierarchies and personalist politics, there have been few bursts of this founding event. The memory goes back to several stories in the newspaper La Opinión , between 1972 and 1975, referring to the protests Mother's Day (Trebisacce and Torelli, 2011) associated with the following slogan: "This day is the candy to make us accept 80 hours of unpaid weekly work. Congratulation’s mum! Have a rest Volume XXII Issue IV Version I 30 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 © 2022 Global Journals A Rebellion of the Girls: Traces of Feminist Memory in Argentina