“My body my decision,” reads a slogan written on the back of an activist during a march in Lima in 2019. Credit: Walter Hupiú / IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Sep 27 2024 (IPS)

The struggle for women’s right to decide in Latin America and the Caribbean, for their access to legal, safe and free abortion continues in the region, with some countries fully criminalising it, others with severe regulations, and a few guaranteeing better conditions, while threats of regression persist.

This Saturday 28 September marks, as every year, the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, launched in 1990, at the 5th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting, held in Argentina.

Since then, the international day of action for safe abortion has been nurtured by the agreements reached at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994, which recognised sexual and reproductive rights as part of human rights, and by the mandates of Human Rights Committees demanding that countries decriminalise abortion and protect the rights of girls, adolescents and women.

“This is a historic struggle of the feminist movement. We have made progress in the recognition of women’s human rights in the region, but those related to sexual and reproductive rights and abortion continue to be polarising; however, we have no doubt that they must be integrated into our rights as a whole”.“We have seen the great influence of right-wing fundamentalist religious groups in countries where abortion is criminalised and in others where it is barely advancing on the grounds of risk to the woman's life, malformations and danger to health”: Aidé García.

So said Aidé García, director of the non-governmental organisation Catholic Women for the Right to Decide in Mexico and former director of the organisation’s Latin American network, present in 10 countries.

The activist spoke to IPS from New York, where this September she takes part in several meetings in the framework of the High-Level Segment of the 79th General Assembly of the United Nations and the Summit of the Future.

About 51% of the more than 660 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are women. This population faces diverse gender inequalities, according to a joint report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and UN Women in 2023.

The report claims that three out of every 10 women in the region live in poverty; one out of every 10 has experienced violence and, in addition, the maternal mortality rate is 87.6 per 100,000 live births.

In this context, preventing women who freely decide from terminating a pregnancy or persecuting and criminalising them for doing so, aggravates the violation of their human rights, with the connivance between the prevailing patriarchy, the Catholic Church and now even more of evangelical denominations.

A study by the Guttmacher Institute revealed that in 2010-2014 there were 6.5 million induced abortions in the region. When these are performed in unsafe conditions due to legal barriers or lack of economic resources, they cause many deaths and harm women’s overall health.

The other side of the coin is forced maternity.

Aidé García, Mexican social worker and women’s and human rights activist, former coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean network Catholics for the Right to Decide. Credit: Courtesy of Aidé García

A scenario with gaps

“There is great inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean on the issue of abortion,” said García, who is a social worker and feminist with vast experience in contributing to debates on this issue in Mexico and in international forums.

“We have seen the great influence of right-wing fundamentalist religious groups in countries where abortion is criminalised and in others where it is barely advancing on the grounds of risk to the woman’s life, malformations and danger to health,” she said.

Among the 10 countries or territories where abortion is fully criminalised are Belize, El Salvador, Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Suriname.

Cuba was the first to fully decriminalise voluntary termination of pregnancy in the region, in 1965, followed by Guyana in 1995. Then, in this century, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, first in 13 states and then at the federal level.

In most, legislation regulates it only under the restricted grounds – and in many cases full of obstacles to its implementation – of rape, health and risk to the pregnant woman’s life, non-consensual artificial insemination, and foetal malformations incompatible with life.

The most favourable frameworks are in Colombia, where abortion is legalised during the first 24 weeks of gestation, Argentina and Guyana, where it is legal up to 14 weeks, Uruguay and Mexico, with up to 12 weeks, and Cuba during the first quarter.

The color green has spread from Argentina to other Latin American countries, to demand the right of women and feminist movements to legal and safe abortion. Credit: Walter Hupiú / IPS

These legal loopholes for access to abortion also reflect the resistance to recognising women’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy.

“We are fighting for respect for the autonomy and the possibility that women and people with gestational capacity have to decide about our reproduction. We demand the recognition of the moral authority that is ours, because from a Judeo-Christian culture where the religious sphere often intervenes, women who make decisions about sexuality are blamed”, said García.

She drew attention to political, religious and economic interest groups in the region that seek to preserve a fundamentalist tradition that denies women decision-making and public and political participation.

“It has to do with a patriarchal and misogynist sense of the role that we are assigned in society, and that is a great struggle that we have in feminism because at the end of the day, it is about the control of our bodies”, she stressed.

Women and feminist movements in Latin America are fighting to spread throughout the region the tide of green scarves, which emerged in Argentina, with which they fill the streets in several demonstrations a year and which symbolise the struggle for the right to legal and safe abortion.

Brenda Álvarez, a feminist lawyer from Peru, director of the organization Proyecta Igualdad, which follows cases of women criminalized for the crime of abortion. Image: Courtesy of Brenda Álvarez

Criminalised and persecuted

Brenda Álvarez is a lawyer and president of Proyecta Igualdad, a non-governmental organisation in Peru, which through its Green Justice line provides legal counsel to prevent criminalisation in the care of obstetric emergencies related to abortion, a dramatic and little known reality in the country.

With 33 million people, the South American country is one of the most restrictive in the recognition of women’s reproductive rights. Since 1924, abortion has been criminalised, except for therapeutic reasons, when the life of the pregnant woman is in danger or there is a risk of serious and permanent damage to her health.

The struggles of feminists and women’s movements in recent decades to decriminalise abortion have come up against the opposition of conservatives linked to Catholic and evangelical religious groups, to the point that, although therapeutic abortion celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024, the protocol for its implementation is barely 10 years old, and with limitations.

“In the midst of the pandemic, we learned of the case of Diana Aleman, a Venezuelan irregular migrant who died in a public hospital due to the criminalisation of abortion and the harassment she experienced. As we followed the case, we realised it was not the only one, that more people were experiencing this situation and were being prosecuted,” Álvarez told IPS at her office in Lima.

She said that women who go to health facilities for an obstetric emergency related to abortion are poor and vulnerable, uninformed of their rights, and in these circumstances face state violence.

“It is not only poor medical care or harassment at the time of service, but also dealing in the emergency room with interrogations by the police, the prosecutor’s office, even with samples taken by representatives of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, as was the case of a teenager a few weeks ago who arrived unconscious with pneumonia and septic shock. That’s how they wanted to take her statement,” she revealed.

In 2020-2021 they carried out the Being Born with Uterus study, which states that each year more than 184 police reports for abortion and more than 633 of prosecutorial investigations are filed in Peru. “It was alarming, even cases of therapeutic abortion that are not punishable were prosecuted, we found 55; and we found sentences including adolescents,” she explained.

Health personnel report obstetric emergencies if they suspect abortions under the questionable article 30 of the General Health Law No. 26842, and “the authorities are ready to respond as if there were no serious crimes to prosecute in the country”. Álvarez explained that the guarantee of due process is not fulfilled and that these are illegal processes.

“This is problematic because often the only evidence that ends in a conviction for abortion is the statement taken from women, girls and adolescents in health services in a context of coercion and absolute lack of legal protection,” she denounced.

Among the impacts of the criminalisation of abortion on women’s lives, she mentioned the loss of employment and mental health opportunities, the uncertainty that having a criminal record entails for the possibility of finding a job, the cost of going to the justice system “even when the legal defence is ex officio, which, we have seen, is not effective and part of the conviction system”.

In addition to the urgency of decriminalising abortion, she said there is a need to promote citizen empowerment by creating tools so that women can know and exercise their rights when they go to a hospital with an obstetric emergency. In this regard, her organisation has developed outreach and awareness-raising materials.

A feminist activist with the sign “I want my uterus free” during the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting held in Lima. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

Improving the law and risks in the region

Twelve years ago, Uruguay passed the law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy up to 12 weeks of gestation, an important step forward in the region and the result of a long struggle by women and feminists for the legalisation of abortion. The law also established grounds for abortion in cases of serious health risk to the woman, rape and malformations incompatible with life outside the womb.

Soledad Gonzales, a political scientist specialising in gender issues, told IPS from Montevideo that there is a need to work for a new law that would remove the persistent restrictions.

In practice, this means barriers to the exercise of the right, such as the interdisciplinary board that evaluates the woman’s request, the appointment she must undergo to inform her of alternatives, and the five-day waiting period after which she either ratifies her will to end the pregnancy or not, in order to proceed according to her decision.

“A new law is in order. For example, women do not always realise they are pregnant after three months. They end up having abortions clandestinely, having started the abortion legally,” she said.

Gonzales said that the chances for this proposal, on which women’s and feminist organisations agree, will depend on the results of the Uruguayan general elections on 30 October.

García, from Catholic Women for the Right to Decide, also said that the risks of setbacks in women’s reproductive rights, such as the freedom to decide about their bodies and access to abortion in safe and free conditions, depends on the positions of governments, whether they are conservative or progressive.

“This is part of the historical struggle that leads us to never lower our guard,” she said.

Emma Watson, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2016 (IPS)

Achieving gender equality has long been one of the United Nations’ top priorities yet the word feminism has only recently begun to find its way into speeches at UN headquarters.

Croatia’s Vesna Pusic, one of 12 candidates for the post of UN Secretary-General, explained why she thought her feminism made her suitable for the UN’s top job, during a globally televised debate, on 12 July.

“I happen to be a woman, I don’t think this is enough, I happen to be a feminist and I think this is (important),” Pusic said, to applause from the diplomats and UN staff filling the UN General Assembly hall.

Pusic joins other high profile feminists at the UN including British actor Emma Watson, whose September 2014 speech about her own feminism gained worldwide media attention.

More recently, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told UN Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at a UN meeting in March 2016 that there shouldn’t be such a big reaction every time he uses the word feminist.

“For me, it’s just really obvious. We should be standing up for women’s rights and trying to create more equal societies,” he said.

Perhaps more significant though than these speeches is Sweden’s recent election to the UN Security Council on a feminist foreign policy platform.

Sweden will join the 15-member council for two years in January 2017, the same month that the new Secretary-General will take office. There are hopes that the UN’s ninth Secretary-General, will be the first woman to lead the organisation, with women making up half of the 12 candidates currently under consideration.

“There could be a lot of elements coming together to finally create some momentum for progress,” Jessica Neuwirth, one of the founders and Honorary President of Equality Now told IPS.

Even the number of female candidates running represents a change for the UN, Natalie Samarasinghe, Executive Director of the United Nations Association UK told IPS.

“Not only has no woman ever held the UN’s top job, but just three of 31 formal candidates in previous appointments have been female.”

The push to select a female Secretary-General has seen all candidates, both male and female, eager to show their commitment to gender equality.

Whoever is selected will be continuing on work already started by current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said Neuwirth, who believes that Ban has shown a commitment to gender equality at the UN, even if he may not use the word feminist to describe himself.

“I’m not a person who really lives or dies on the words, I think what people do is really much more important than what they call themselves,” said Neuwirth, who is the director of Donor Direct Action, founded to raise funds for frontline women’s groups.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard (Ban) use the word feminist, definitely not to describe himself,” she added. “On the other hand as somebody who had the privilege of working at the UN during his tenure I did see first hand the efforts he made to increase the representation of women at the UN at the highest levels, he made a very conscious effort to increase those numbers.”

“It’s still not 50:50 and it’s even slid backwards which is disappointing, but he showed that one person can make a big difference.”

Samarasinghe also noted that even if the word feminist is not explicitly used at the UN, its meaning is reflected in the UN’s many objectives for achieving gender equality.

“Feminism is about women and men having equal opportunities and rights – something reaffirmed countless times in UN documents, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights onwards.”

However Samarasinghe noted that the word feminist remains controversial. The UN’s 193 member states include many countries which lag far behind outliers such as Sweden and Canada on gender equality.

“Being a feminist is a complete no-brainer. It’s like having to explain to people that you’re not racist. But clearly the word is still controversial so we have to keep using it until people get it,” she said.

Emma Watson noted in her high profile UN speech, that the word feminist is not as easy to use as it should be.

“I decided that I was a feminist, and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists.”

“Apparently, I’m among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, and anti-men. Unattractive, even,” said Watson.

In late 2015, some media reported that Watson had said she had been advised not to use the word feminist in her speech.

Neuwirth who was present when Watson made her speech told IPS that Watson’s choice of words ultimately had a strong impact.

“That was an incredible event, I mean the level of emotion in that room was so high it was kind of shocking to me.”

“There were so many diplomats there, which was a good thing, and it was just really a powerful speech that she made, and it moved them, you could just see visibly that it moved them,” said Neuwirth.

However since Watson’s speech, progress on gender equality at the UN has not always been easy.

Media organisation PassBlue, which monitors gender equality at the UN, has noted that the number of women appointed to senior UN positions has been slipping.

When Sweden takes up its position on the Security Council, it will have big strides to make on both improving women’s representation in decision making positions at the UN and enacting policies which promote gender equality more broadly.

In fact, it is anticipated that all 15 permanent representatives on the UN Security Council in 2017 will be men, unless the United States chooses a woman to replace Samantha Power, who is expected to leave her post by the end of 2016.

Sweden hopes to use its seat on the Security Council to increase women’s involvement in negotiating and mediating peace agreements, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said at a media briefing hosted by Donor Direct Action on 30 June.

Neuwirth welcomed Wallstrom’s comments, noting that in Syria, for example, women continue to be shut out of peace negotiations.

Syrian women “are trying to play a meaningful role in the negotiations over Syria, which are totally a mess,” she said, “yet these women really just are struggling so hard to get even inside a corridor let alone to the table.”

“Why wouldn’t they just give these women a little more of a chance to see if they could do better, because it would be hard to do worse?”

Emma Watson launching the HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 Initiative at the end of January in Davos for UN Women. Credit: UN Women/Celeste Sloman

By Josh Butler
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 2015 (IPS)

It launched in a blaze of social media glory with a viral speech that rocketed around the world, and five months on from the launch of U.N. Women’s groundbreaking HeForShe campaign, the real work is well underway.

The campaign, designed to recruit men and boys as key players in the gender equality movement, burst into life in September 2014 with a passionate speech from British actress Emma Watson on the floor of the United Nations in New York City.

The Harry Potter star’s speech has since been seen by millions around the globe, as the HeForShe launch and Watson’s remarks went viral worldwide.

“I have realised that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop,” she said at the U.N.

“It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals… How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?”

HeForShe asks men to stand up for women’s rights and gender equality, to address inequality and discrimination faced by women worldwide. The overarching goal is gender equality by 2030.

U.N. Women presented a campaign update to the U.N. on February 9, outlining its accomplishments so far: billions of media impressions; millions of dollars donated; over 200,000 men pledging their support to the movement; and the new “Impact 10x10x10” program to bring on governments, universities and corporations as partners, recently launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “I think it’s attainable, but it’s a question of political will. Will people with power exercise that power? Even though it looks bleak now, I believe women’s equality is coming.” -- Terry O’Neill, President of the National Organisation for Women

“Once men start questioning the dynamics of gender inequality, men take responsibility for changing them, alongside women,” the U.N. Women briefing heard.

Elizabeth Nyamayaro, senior advisor at U.N. Women and head of the HeForShe campaign, called it a “rallying call” and “solidarity movement for gender equality.”

“We need to shift the way things have been done. A new approach was needed, there is a need for men to be part of this dialogue,” she told IPS.

“This is something that can’t just be for women alone to solve. It’s about men recognizing this is their struggle too.”

Just five months old, HeForShe is arguably already one of the most well recognised gender equality campaigns to ever exist, but women’s groups hold mixed opinions on the goals, ideology and value of the movement.

Liesl Gerntholtz, Executive Director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told IPS she was concerned that, ironically, men were seemingly being valued more than women in this gender equality campaign.

“The concern is that it is very easy for women’s voices to be usurped. That in shifting the focus to men, you run the risk of making women invisible again,” Gerntholtz said.

“There needs to be a conscious effort to keep women’s voices front and centre of these campaigns.”

She spoke of attending women’s rights conferences and summits where the entire panel of speakers were men, without a single female voice.

“Even in the U.N., with explicit decisions to look for gender parity in a discussion, I’ve been to events and panels that are all men. [HeForShe] might run the risk of replicating these risks of inequality and disempowerment,” Gerntholtz said.

Terry O’Neill, President of the National Organisation for Women, said HeForShe was a good starting point but was not the miracle cure for gender equality.

“The campaign does not address all the aspects of equality that need to be addressed. It simply says, feminism is good for men and for women, and that’s indisputable,” she told IPS.

“I think it’s attainable, but it’s a question of political will. Will people with power exercise that power? Even though it looks bleak now, I believe women’s equality is coming.”

Gerntholtz was skeptical of HeForShe’s broad goal “to end gender inequality by 2030,” as outlined by said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

“What are the indicators of gender equality that we are talking about? Is it access to education, participation in government and the corporate sector, a reduction in the number of women experiencing violence? The difficulty in an aim like that is it is very vague,” Gerntholtz said.

“It is important, what we use as markers on the road. It is an ambitious goal.”

When asked by IPS what indicators HeForShe would measure when assessing gender equality, Nyamayaro did not point to any specific examples.

“We’re looking for parity across every single level of society, whether in the home, workplace or community,” she said.

“We’re looking for lasting, concrete change… action from the grassroots, bottom up.”

Nyamayaro pointed out the Impact 10x10x10 project as HeForShe’s next substantial action, where she hoped meaningful change could be accomplished.

A one-year pilot initiative, the project will “engage governments, corporations and universities as instruments of change positioned within some of the communities that most need to address deficiencies in women’s empowerment and gender equality,” according to a release from U.N. Women.

“Each sector will identify approaches for addressing gender inequality, and pilot test the effectiveness of these interventions,” the release continues.

Nyamayaro said 10x10x10 would be a key part of HeForShe’s upcoming agenda, with further plans to be unveiled on International Women’s Day in March and a big one-year anniversary celebration in September.

“A lot needs to be done at the government and corporate level, and in terms of universities, with half the world’s population under 30 and the amount of violence on college campuses, we thought we could really do something there,” she said.

While Gerntholtz made clear her reservations over HeForShe, she said she generally supported the campaign’s goals.

“The women’s movement has been moving towards understanding that we need to include men and boys in the solution. We can’t just see them as perpetrators of violence, but as partners in eradicating violence,” she said.

“Using Emma Watson helps popularise feminism and makes it a legitimate choice for young men. It’s important she reaches the next generation, who will hopefully take leadership roles.”

O’Neill said the National Organisation for Women looked forward to tracking the progress of HeForShe.

“It’s really all hands on deck. We need all the help we can get,” she said.

“We need the U.N. to be loud and strong for women’s equality. HeForShe is one part of what’s needed, but it isn’t the be all and end all.”

Follow Josh on Twitter @joshbutler

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Ultra-Orthodox worshipper Jenny Menashe argues with Rabbi Nahum Weiss. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM, Jun 12 2013 (IPS)

The struggle for gender equality and Jewish pluralism took a highly symbolic turn on Sunday at the Western Wall, Judaism’s most revered site and emblem of unity, as a group of women known as “Women of the Wall” prayed legally and in a way they saw fit.

For 24 years, the Women of the Wall, a Jewish feminist group, have demanded the right to carry and read aloud the Holy Book of Judaism at the Western Wall (“Kotel”, in Hebrew) while wrapping themselves in prayer shawls, donning phylacteries and wearing skullcaps.

According to the Jewish Orthodox Law, only men may don the Tallith, the Tefilin and the Kippa and read the Torah aloud while praying during religious ceremonies. As such, the women’s demand is anathema to Jewish Orthodoxy, Israel’s prevailing stream of Judaism.

The conservatives, reformist, progressive and liberal movements with which the Women of the Wall are affiliated, though prominent in the United States, are a minority in Israel.

The Kotel’s esplanade on Sunday resembled a fortified battlefield, with two opposing camps deeply divided on religious duties and gender rights readying themselves for yet another showdown."It's a shame we're relegated to pray like lepers."
-- Ya'ara Nissan

Approximately 300 women, who intended to mark the first day of the Jewish month of Tamuz in full regalia, fought their way through a crowd of similar size of infuriated ultra-Orthodox men.

“These women want to tear Judaism apart. Secular Jews wouldn’t dare falsifying the word of God, but these women, they change Judaism from within,” warned Nahum Weiss, rebbe of a Talmudic school.

Hundreds of police officers – at least two per woman – were deployed between the two camps to prevent the violence that characterised the previous monthly prayer, when Yeshiva boys and seminary girls hurled garbage, diapers and eggs at the Women of the Wall.

This time, men let loose a flood of abusive invectives against the women: “Go pray with the Muslims!”; “Go home to America!”; and “You don’t belong here!”

Jenny Menashe, from the group Women for the Wall, the Women of the Wall’s Orthodox alter ego and whose motto is “preserving the sanctity of the wall”, called on fellow male coreligionists to “allow women to handle these women”.

Placards read, “You make up a new religion, built a new wall!” The group Women of the Wall responded with an Orthodox Hassidic hymn, “The whole world is a narrow bridge; above all, don’t be afraid.”

Policewomen escorted the women to the Kotel’s female section, where they were kept behind barriers to avoid further conflict with Orthodox worshippers. A prayer-like lamentation arouse from the male section to cover the women’s prayers. To practice their faith at the Kotel, men have at their disposal a space twice as large as the women’s.

“It’s a shame we’re relegated to pray like lepers,” deplored Ya’ara Nissan, “It shows what happen to women when they get out of the kitchen.”

A turning point

Two months ago, as if abiding by Orthodox edicts, the police would arrest women for praying at the Kotel in their own way. But on Apr. 25, the Women of the Wall won a historic victory in the long struggle for recognition of their practises and against the Orthodox authorities in charge of prayer rules at the holy site.

Judging that their unorthodox behaviour does not disturb the peace and that, on the contrary, ultra-Orthodox Jews are those who cause disorder, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Women of the Wall could pray at the wall.

Judge Moshe Sobel, an Orthodox Jew himself, wrote in his decision that the Women of the Wall’s practices constitute neither a violation of “local custom” nor a provocation.

The court also ruled out police interpretations of a previous Supreme Court ruling from 2003, stating that women are neither forbidden from holding their own prayer services at the Kotel nor required instead to congregate at the nearby Robinson’s Arch.

“Today the Women of the Wall liberated the Western Wall for the entire Jewish people,” clamoured Anat Hoffman, the organisation’s chairwoman.

In response to the court ruling, Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz protested, “I implore the authorities as well as the silent majority who care deeply for the Kotel to prevent extremists from turning it into a site of antagonism between brothers.”

On Sunday, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis called for married and seasoned men to demonstrate their opposition to the Women of the Wall, instructing the hot-tempered single pupils to remain in their Talmudic schools, so as not to turn the protest into yet another unmannerly and disgraceful brawl.

But instead of the thousands expected, only hundreds answered the call.

By and large, the prayer service was peaceful. A few eggs landed at the feet of the Women of the Wall’s male supporters. “They planned a demonstration of force and demonstrated their weakness,” noted one.

“They’re getting used to us,” Hoffman observed cautiously. “The Kotel is a place for all communities and streams of Judaism,” declared spokeswoman Shira Preuce, adding, “The Orthodox Rabbinate fears women empowerment, fears changes.”

A shifting political balance

Indeed, Orthodox Judaism is gradually losing power in Israel.

The political landscape is now such that the Orthodox lobby at the Knesset is unusually weak, and ultra-Orthodox legislators sit in the opposition with liberal, progressive and Arab parties. The relationship between state and synagogue is now shifting in favour of more progressive Jewish currents.

A draft conscription law could break the ultra-orthodox Jews’ longstanding exemption from serving in the Israeli army, while non-Orthodox rabbis now receive state salaries and Jewish Israelis are allowed to marry under any rabbinical council within Israel.

Most women in Cuba are unaware of the struggle it took to gain recognition of women’s rights. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Ivet González
HAVANA, Nov 28 2012 (IPS)

There are no purple billboards on city streets, and no public service announcements on television to mark the date. But many different voices in Cuba remember that this year marks the centennial of the birth of the local feminist movement, a platform for fighting for equality and against gender-based violence.

“On this 100th anniversary, we need to paint the island purple,” historian Julio César González Pagés told IPS, referring to the colour that symbolises feminism around the world.

Cuba does not have any self-described feminist organisations at this time, even though the feminist current of thought has its followers here and is studied in universities. The anniversary “is passing without much glory,” lamented González Pagés, who invited everyone to pay tribute to the Cuban women who stood up to fight for their rights in 1912, as well as those who have continued their legacy.

It was in November of 1912 that the Partido Popular Feminista (Feminist Popular Party) was born. And in December the Sufragistas Cubanas (Cuban Suffragists) and the Nacional Feminista (Feminist National) parties were founded, marking the start of a political movement that was aimed first and foremost at winning the vote for women. And other women’s rights associations continued to emerge.

The movement persevered until winning most of its demands, such as the 1917 parental rights law and the 1918 divorce law, which made Cuba the first Latin American country to legalise divorce. However, the right to vote was not fully exercised until 1934.

“Ideas about women’s emancipation had existed in the country since long before,” said González Pagés, coordinator of the Ibero-American Masculinity Network. “But they became more visible in 1912, when women came together in feminist organisations.”

“When we appropriate that philosophy, we can fight for equality and against gender-based violence,” the activist said this month during a series of concerts that are being held in eight provinces as part of a prevention campaign.

Between January and March of this year, González Pagés and singer Rochy Ameneiro led a tour through 11 Cuban provinces in an effort to fight violence in music. The tour, which was called “All Women Against the Current,” included concerts, workshops for art students, and visits to places that are important in the history of Cuban women.

Many Cuban feminists applauded the creation in July of a national network for connecting the efforts of people and institutions for gender equality. The idea came up during a talk sponsored by the Mirta Aguirre Department of Gender and Communication at the José Martí International Institute of Journalism.

In separate efforts throughout the year, various organisations, universities, media outlets, blogs and others have discussed the feminist movement in Cuba, which went into decline after 1939. In response to the debates over this date, writer Teresa Díaz Canals called for a moment of “collective reflection.”

“We have to come to an agreement and clarify that the history of women is not just the history of feminists,” she said in an interview with IPS. “We cannot toss out our legacy to the ‘mute ones,’ our mothers,” she said. For her, many people continue to confront machismo “quietly, without making any declaration of faith or winning any battles.”

National oblivion has thicker layers, which writer Inés María Martiatu tears apart as a way of vindicating the struggle of black women in Cuba.

“Ignorance about Afro-feminism in Cuba reduces the history of the movement to a certain era, and emphasises the leadership of middle- and upper-class white women,” she told IPS.

“When black and poor women are excluded or minimised, that history is incomplete,” said Martiatu, who is the co-author, along with Daysi Rubiera, of the compilation Afrocubanas: historia, pensamientos y prácticas culturales (Afro-Cuban Women: History, Ideas and Cultural Practices), published in 2011. The conditions they live in and their demands have been different, she said.

And other voices highlight the struggle of lesbians for their rights.

To fight against that oblivion, historian and researcher Raquel Vinat de la Mata has devoted many years of her life to highlighting the role of women in the 19th century. “It is painful that we still do not have a book about women’s history,” she lamented, holding an unpublished book about the biographies of outstanding Cuban women.

“The lack of information about the Cuban women’s movement and its actions has really hurt us,” she said. “People tend to think that we were just given all of our rights, and that is why many women do not do more to defend the ones they have,” said Vinat de la Mata, who said she has observed “a resurgence of machismo” in society today.

Cuban women earn the same wages as men, have access to free abortion on demand, and enjoy paid maternity leave and shared paternity, among other benefits. At the end of 2011, women held 43.3 percent of seats in parliament and 36.7 percent of leadership posts, and made up 61 percent of university students.

However, women workers face a double workday, given that they shoulder most domestic work, and they are a minority in jobs with high economic remuneration and decision-making power. And inequalities include the persistence of gender-based violence, although no statistics exist to reflect its magnitude.

After the decline of the first wave of feminism, which was described as liberal, the struggle slumped until it reappeared as part of the leftist guerrilla forces that won the 1959 revolution.

Vinat de la Mata recalls those years “very fondly,” when she was one of the anonymous protagonists of the “revolution within a revolution.”

She was referring to the emancipation of women within the socialist transformations that began at the time. In 1960, various organisations in the country merged to form the Federation of Cuban Women, the only legal group representing women in Cuba today.

Through the Federation, women have increased their participation in the public sphere, for example. In 1993, the Asociación de Mujeres Comunicadoras (Association of Women in Communication), Magín, was created, to work for gender awareness in the media. But it never received the official authorisation it requested, and was shut down in 1996.

“Feminist awareness should not be based solely on an organisation, but on each one of us,” Vinat de la Mata said. “It has cost those of us who are feminists today a lot of work to open the way,” she said, recalling the stigma that was associated with the term “feminist” until the 1980s, when studies on women and gender emerged in Cuba.