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19 Constructing New Democratic Paradigms for Global Democracy the contribution of feminisms virginia vargas Social movements—and feminisms as an expression and part of them—are not unfamiliar with eras of transformation or their contradictions, limitations, and sensitivities . In this most recent period, social movements’ modes of operating have changed in response to the challenges raised by the cultural, political, social, and economic climate of the new millennium. The conditions and impetus for the rise of the second wave of Latin American feminisms were dramatically different from those prevalent today. Feminist politics emerged in Latin America early on in the struggle against dictatorships, authoritarian governments, and seemingly democratic governments, against which confrontation and deep mistrust had been growing . Perhaps for this reason the strategies of second-wave feminisms, in the early stages, focused more on civil society itself rather than interact with, much less negotiate with, states and governments. It was within civil society that feminisms flourished, creating a multiplicity of groups, networks, gatherings, feminist calendars , symbols, and subjectivities. This consolidation produced a series of epistemological ruptures that gave way to new interpretative models of reality. By “politicizing” private life, feminists took on “women’s discontent” (Tamayo 1997), generating new categories of analysis, new visibilities, and even a new language to name that which previously had no name; domestic violence, sexual harassment, marital rape, and the feminization of poverty are some of the new meanings that feminism placed at the center of democratic debates. Throughout this process, Encuentros Feministas de América Latina y el Caribe (Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentros)—held from 1981 to the present—have been crucial in reactivating the historically internationalist character of feminisms, connecting experiences and strategies, and expressing the progress, tensions, and conflicts that result from the great variety of feminist explorations throughout the region. The transition from the eighties to the nineties was accompanied by new political , ideological, economic, and cultural scenarios that influenced feminism and social movements in general. New political arenas opened up during the nineties, with the spread of democracy as a form of government. There was a newfound validity for the discourse of rights, and emphasis was placed on the expansion of citizenship by civil society and social movements, as well as by states. However, they 319 had different perspectives (or at least they attempted to, without always succeeding ). Civil society and especially feminist focus on rights appeared as a rebellious and conflictive terrain of dispute, producing permanent “wars of interpretation” (Slater 1998) and promoting alternative meanings to state hegemonic discourses that were partial and exclusionary. Feminisms sought not only access to equality but also recognition of diversity and difference, access not only to existing rights but also to the process of discovering and permanently expanding rights, thus creating new social meaning. The struggle for the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights, as not only women’s rights but also as a constitutive part of the construction of citizenship, is an example of this process. The transformations of the nineties significantly influenced the dynamics and forms of social movements and, among them, feminism: the neoliberal logic impacted not only the economy but also the social and cultural spheres. Neoliberalism accentuated the trend from a movement-based logic to a more institutional logic, as well as the tendency in society toward the privatization of social behavior and a growing fragmentation and individuation of movements’ collective action, generating a “me culture,” as Norbert Lechner states, “reluctant to become involved in collective commitments” (2007, 311). Economic, political, and sociocultural globalization opened new fields of action for social movements, including feminisms, and new landscapes of struggle for citizen rights in a globalized world. The dramatic levels of exclusion in each country, together with changes in the nature of the nation-state and its increasing inability to respond to citizens’ needs, gave rise to new struggles and areas of advocacy, regionally and globally. Substantial impetus was provided at an international level through the United Nations, which developed new global agendas throughout the 1990s in its summits and world conferences on topics relevant to contemporary democratic life. A significant sector of feminist organizations was active in disputing meanings and perspectives at each one of these international conferences. Thus feminists became fundamental actors in the construction of democracy in regional and global civil societies, broadening the spaces of proposition and confrontations. Undoubtedly the multiplication of feminist struggles and the emergence of other processes and social actors brought about changes in how feminist (understood in a...

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