The Trajectories of Feminism in Columbia
Maria Emma Wills
Introduction: Methodological concepts and options.
The main purpose of this report is to present an evaluation of the process during which a sensitive outlook on gender subordination and discrimination opened a path through Colombian institutions and civil society[1]. The work covers the period from 1980 to 1999.
In this study, the term civil society implies descriptive and qualitative[2] features. The latter articulate the formation of a civil society with that of a democratic regime. When innumerable expressions of collective action coalesce and give rise to an inclusive and vital sphere of public debate we may conclude that both a civil society and a democratic regime are on their way to consolidation (Fraser, 1997). It is within these spheres of debate that various movements, networks, organizations and individuals acquire the required abilities to build a democratic decision making process: applying pressure, accepting dissent, managing conflict and constructing consensus. In other words, it is in the sphere of debate that individuals are transformed into citizens. There, in these arenas, through dialogue and debate, individuals become aware of their own interests, needs, challenges, values and personal definitions of “the good life” but also of those they share or which conflict with those of others. The transformation of an individual into a citizen within the public sphere additionally implies that the person discovers her/himself as a subject imbued with rights and obligations that makes him/her a member of a political community
The concept of public sphere refers to the idea that a society is not only made up of individuals, institutions and social organizations but also of different publics who often confront each other under asymmetric circumstances. For example, the views of an official public may enter in conflict with those shared by a counter-public, and a weak public may exist along side a strong one (Fraser, 1997). These different publics need not dissolve within a Global Public Sphere. Each sphere should retain its own specificity. However, bridges and articulations amongst them are necessary if their plurality is to avoid social and political fragmentation and instead of giving rise to a democratic arena[3].
The concept of public also refers to the possibilities of promoting “consciousness transformations” through the gestation and circulation of diverse discourses. Counter-discourses circuits circulate world views that have the potential of stimulating the creation of non-traditional identities.
In addition to these considerations, in this report, gender is understood as a concept which makes visible the cultural constructions of sexual differences. The social understandings of the masculine and the feminine, more than being biological classifications, are the product of historical power arrangements. These understandings are the result of pacts reached among various powerful agents who, once they come to an agreement, impose the terms on the whole of society by using either seductive or violent methods. In its historical dimension, gender also points at the fact that modernity and the democratic revolutions originally instituted asymmetric power relations between the masculine and the feminine. On the one hand, when democratic regimes emerged, the public arena became associated with masculine attributes and behavior (reason, calculation) while the private and intimate were articulated with qualities seen as exclusively feminine (emotion). This dualized social world legitimized women’s exclusion from public debate and from institutional decision making. In addition to exclusion, modernity although emancipatory in other terrain, ended up by assigning a devalued or invisible role to the private sphere. Thus, this process surreptitiously assigned subordinate positions to women with reference to those of men (Wills, 1999). Seen in this historical context, gender assumes a wholly political nature. It attempts to reveal and transform the arrangements under which social relations are produced and in which women are still subordinated or excluded from power due to their sex.
From the articulation between the concepts of civil society, the public sphere and gender arises the central research object of this work. This paper attempts to reconstruct the manner in which second wave[4] feminist discourse started to circulate in Colombia and foster the formation of diverse and specifically feminist movements (first journey). It then undertakes the reconstruction of the way a feminist sensitivity and outlook penetrated four fundamental spaces: the academic (second journey), state-institutional (third journey), law (fourth journey) and popular movements (fifth journey). In each road, an effort to periodize the penetration is made. Meanwhile, this work seeks to evaluate the directions which this penetration has adopted in the different fields --whether it targets a deep transformation of gender inequities or their maintenance. The work discusses if the insertion of a gender outlook supports democratic ideology and practice or to the contrary contributes towards the consolidation of intransigent mentalities incapable of dialogue and with an excessive inward bias (the Ghetto syndrome). Before examining these ideas, the general Colombian context behind these dynamics is summarily described below.
I. The General Context
Synthesizing the global transformations which have affected Colombia over the last two decades is not an easy task. Contradictory social and political patterns permeate the country. Colombia is no longer a country with guerrilla presence, as was the case in the past. It is now a nation with diverse armies imbued with conflicting ideologies and interests[5]. Alongside the war dynamic, during the last twenty years a democratic language and set of initiatives have prospered. New substantive rights inscribed in the 1991 Constitution provide additional components for analysis. Finally, during other times it has been stated that Colombia was going through devastating political crisis, which however did not affect good national economic performance; nowadays, on the contrary, Colombian politics and economy are simultaneously in crisis. A debased war, affirmation of the democratic discourse and a severe economic crisis are the overlapping dynamics that characterize the moment and which propel the country in opposing directions.
A public opinion climate very distinct from today’s existed in Colombia in 1980, this paper’s date of departure. The State, as part of its social relations regulatory function, undertook repressive actions legitimized by a National Security Doctrine discourse. This doctrine attempted to defend the nation, then conceived as one and indivisible, from any type of external interference, particularly communist (Leal, 1992: 20). The left was considered to corrupt the nation fundamentally conceived as Christian and democratic. Militants, sympathizers and mere alleged participants were severely persecuted and punished under that Doctrine. In addition, the leftist parties and peasant, union, student and feminist[6] organizations were interpreted by the official discourse as “transmission belts” of communist positions. This would be dangerous to the stability of the order and therefore such these expression were repressed. These were times of “Focalized” paranoia in the State security apparatus directed towards any expression of “civil” dissent against the repressive State.
During the 1970’s, such a climate of fear, intolerance and repression was not exclusive to Colombia: dictatorial regimes also existed in other Latin American countries. The fact that second wave feminist ideas circulated within these repressive contexts would explain the opposition acquired by the great majority of these movements over the continent (Sternbach, Navarro, Chuchryck Alvarez, 1992)
In Colombia, both political and official expressions of opposition were the product of a society educated to fear pluralism and differences (ethnic, racial, class, gender…) during many years and in spite of its democratic discourse. In 1980, the effects of a Concordat based regime[7] still permeated the country, defining the nation as one and indivisible and above all, catholic (Wills, 1999 b). More than in other Latin American countries, the Church played a central role in the solidification and reproduction of the Colombian official order. Church insertion was felt not only in religious spheres but also in educational and political fields. Religious interference in the political arena had pernicious effects: political struggles easily acquired the fundamentalist bias of religious crusades impeding the construction of a sphere for public debate. More than representing ideological tendencies, the existing political parties and forces were inspired by “absolute truths”, or non-negotiable discourses. Each respective identity became enclosed within their own inward looking arguments.
During the 1980’s, society underwent gradual and irreversible processes of secularization associated with the effects of diverse changes[8]. An additional trend also surfaced, rather timidly at the start, to reject the use of the violent conflict resolution methods employed amongst both the State and the insurgency. To mention the case of intellectuals, in the early 1980’s, sympathies existed between that group and the establishment and/or the guerrillas. Today, some intellectuals still articulate themselves with poles of armed power. However, contrary to the intellectual climate of that time, others have now sharply disassociated themselves from war related dynamics and armed actors. No longer do such individuals desire to be associated with “one side or the other” (Sanchez, 1999). Finally, a more global process utilizing discourse to defend the right of diversity also plays a role within these particular Colombian circumstances.
If we compare the language of the 1980’s with the discourse of the end of millennium, the reflexive ideas on the good and the bad are still present. However, a recent tendency strongly argues for a search towards consensus based on respect for differences including accepting and positively valuing conflicts.[9] In this sense, certain sectors of Colombian society have begun to internalize a pluralistic cannon basic to democracy. It is interesting that these efforts have not been able impede the consistent expansion of war related dynamics across the whole national territory. In fact, the actors involved in the war are deeply suspicious of those who define themselves as non-participants. More concretely, this mistrust often takes the form of terror and in extreme cases, assassination. In contrast to the 1980’s, today’s situation could be characterized as one of “diffused paranoia”. Civilian victims are rarely able to discern the identity of the armed actors executing an attack. Thus, the unarmed population has been enclosed by violations authored by various groups.
1. First journey: from absolute feminists to secular democratic feminists.
Colombian feminism has traveled a path characterized by both transformation and paralysis. When the behavior of these movements is examined, at four crucial points and milestones during these two decades, this tendency becomes more evident. We shall describe the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter of 1981, the National Constituent Assembly of 1991, the preparations for the IV Beijing Summit and the defense of the Equal Opportunity Plan. That Plan initiated during the 1998 presidential campaign and eventually culminated as a lobbying process with the National Planning Department the year thereafter.
1.1. The prolegomena[10]
Feminist discussions were born in Colombia during the 1970’s. Self-consciousness groups formed in various cities around the country in that decade. These organizations were inspired by ideas found in books and the contributions of some women who traveled outside Colombia to later return impregnated with feminist polemics which had shaken other countries. Members contributed to this process by preparing bibliography cards while others translated key texts and started journals, most of which, although intense, were short lived. Other women encountered, mostly by chance, Marxist feminist thought then circulating in clandestine editorials. In addition to these channels, others events during that decade generated worldwide impacts on women’s[11] discrimination. In spite of the prudish atmosphere which permeated those times, radical slogans like “All penetration is Yankee!”, “Oh Family: may tongues of fire rain on you” or the classic “my body is mine” became common. In the words one pioneer feminist in Colombia, “it was during the 1960’s when we became aware that we were victims and discovered a particular hate”.
At that time “everything was in intellectual effervescence”. Debates on innovative topics such as the relationship between the body and power, the role of the State and women’s liberation in addition to demands for certain rights, such as abortion (exceptional in this most Catholic country) were all new of the day. Those were times of profound theoretical readings, debates with militant colleagues and fears of repression. But they were also times of dreams and expectations, and unlike today, of political enchantment.
It was in that atmosphere when a Venezuelan woman from a group called La Conjura arrived in Colombia during 1979. She proposed the idea of holding a First Latin American Feminist Encounter in Bogotá to several Colombian feminists.
1.2. The First Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter - 1981.
Two variables must be taken into account to clearly understand the discussions between feminist movements and currents on the First Latin American Feminist Congress (1981). The origin of the majority of feminists from that generation and the distinct conceptions which had inspired those women’s liberation movements were behind the two views.
Most feminists interviewed[12] recognized that “we are all from the left wing, a very absorptive left”. Many of the women who had initiated their militancy within that perspective did not have a clear feminist project, but neither did they “believe in the white bridal dress nor marriage”.
Other currents also formed part of this complex field of left wing militancy, less prone to accept non-class related proposal (for example the Marxist Leninists, ML in the jargon of the left, and the Communist Party). These organizations often adopted “Circumspect, prudish, established and false” altitudes regarding the topic of gender.[13] Women who left their original militant organizations were subject to a deep and unforgiving divorce.
Other women found their roots in the Trotsky camp. This movement was probably the most open to arts and culture at that time: the closest to the bohemian world and novel topics on the political agenda. Feminists in that group did not feel the same urgent need to break from their leftist parties, as did other women. Even though the women mentioned above rejected relations with political parties, the other feminists considered such a double matrimony to be possible (relations with the left and with feminism) and felt that a double bond would not betray either of the two causes.
The often painful memories left from previous participation in militant groups profoundly marked ruptures which would later divide the feminist camp. It must be mentioned that these types of divisions were not peculiar to Colombian feminists nor would they disappear over time. Feminist/political party relations or class and gender ties would continue to incite worn out polemics at each successive Latin American and Caribbean Encounter (Saporta, Navarro, Chuchryck and Alvarez, 1992).