The World March of Women: Popular Feminisms, Transnational Struggles

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Carmen Leticia Díaz Alba
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211015323
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211015323

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 240, Vol. 48 No. 5, September 2021, 96–112

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211015323

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

96

The World March of Women

Popular Feminisms, Transnational Struggles

by

Carmen Leticia Díaz Alba

Translated by

Margot Olavarria

The World March of Women is an example of the transnationalization of popular

feminism from below as defined by four elements: the diversity of women’s struggles,

grassroots women as political subjects, alliances with mixed movements, and popular

education as a feminist methodology. Class analysis is most prominent, with tensions and

challenges linked to attempts to address issues of heteronormativity and racial colonial-

ism, in part because of differences between local spaces in a global network and between

relatively more localized and transnationalized scales of practice.

A Marcha Mundial das Mulheres é um exemplo de transnacionalização do feminismo

popular desde abaixo definido por quatro elementos: diversidades nos obstáculos das mul-

heres, as mulheres de raiz como sujeitos políticos, alianças com movimentos mistos e edu-

cação popular como metodologia feminista. A análise de classe é mais proeminente, com

tensões e desafios ligados às tentativas que abordam questões de heteronormatividade e

colonialismo racial, em parte por causa das diferenças entre espaços locais dentro de uma

rede global e entre escalas de prática relativamente locais e transnacionalizadas.

Keywords: Popular feminism, Transnational feminism, Social movements,

Transnationalization, Popular education

Social movements in Latin America have historically been marked by the

broad participation of grassroots women. At the same time, feminists in the

region have long sought to work with women in popular movements.

Tensions notwithstanding, there have been efforts to make the class compo-

nent visible in feminist movements and to question gender inequalities within

mixed movements. Women’s different realities—rural, indigenous, black,

working-class, urban, lesbian—make the construction of diverse feminisms

Carmen Leticia Díaz Alba is a professor of Latin American history and politics and researcher at

Intituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente and the author of “Building Transnational

Feminist Solidarity in the Americas,” in Pascale Dufour, Dominique Masson, and Dominique

Caouette (eds.), Solidarities Beyond Borders (2010). Margot Olavarria is a translator living in New York

City. This article is based on interviews and participant observation with activists in the World

March of Women in Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico between September 2012 and November

2015. The author is grateful for the feedback on the first version of this article during the panel

“Pasts, Presents, and Futures of Popular Feminisms in Transnational Struggles for a Better World”

at the 2016 international congress of the Latin American Studies Association in New York.

1015323LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211015323LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESDíaz / POPULAR FEMINISMS, TRANSNATIONAL STRUGGLES

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Díaz / POPULAR FEMINISMS, TRANSNATIONAL STRUGGLES 97

necessary. The World March of Women is a transnational movement that

brings together a diversity of organizations, feminist movements, and grass-

roots women who identify with popular feminism. In Latin America, the

March resonates strongly with left-wing feminist movements that have iden-

tified with its political goals, especially in the wake of protests against free

trade in the region. What are the discourses and practices of the March around

popular feminism? What are the tensions that are generated when moving

from the local to the transnational scale?

This article analyzes the March experience as a case of transnationalization

of popular feminism from below. In this regard, I identify four elements: the

diversity of women’s struggles, grassroots women as political subjects, alli-

ances with mixed social movements, and popular education as feminist meth-

odology. I argue that class analysis continues to be most prominent in

transnational popular feminism, exposing tensions between this emphasis

and attempts to approach heteronormativity, as well as racial and colonial

issues. These tensions are partly the result of differences between local spaces

in a global network, and they are also expressed among practices that are rela-

tively more localized or more transnationalized. Finally, I suggest three chal-

lenges confronting the March in the transnationalization of popular feminism:

tensions around lesbianism constructed as a local-transnational tension, the

gap between women who mobilize in the streets and those who construct

transnational discourses, and the challenge of multilingual and intercultural

communication and translation.

Latin america and PoPuLar Feminism

Latin American women’s struggles have been widely documented (Alvarez,

2000; Alvarez etal., 2014; Jaquette, 2009; Maier and Lebon, 2010; Safa, 1990;

Vargas, 2008). As Gisela Espinosa (2011) says, the history of feminism is written

by many voices and from different political strategies, since women experience

gender inequalities intersected by multiple forms of oppression: patriarchy,

capitalism, racism, colonialism, heterosexism. Given women’s diversity, the

ways in which gender subordination is experienced, perceived, and confronted

are ever changing. Therefore, the feminist movement’s political strategies are

also diverse. Although the problems differ, feminists share a struggle for equal-

ity, freedom, and autonomy. However, it would be almost impossible to speak

of a single agenda, and the relationship between women of popular move-

ments and the so-called historical feminists has not been without tension.

Indigenous and working-class women’s gender struggles have met obstacles

both in mixed organizations of which they are part and in components of the

feminist movement that, consciously or not, have placed less emphasis on the

demands of working women, women from poor urban neighborhoods, and

peasant or indigenous women (Espinosa, 2011).

Following Espinosa’s (2011) work, I refer to “popular feminism” as the

struggle to transform relations of oppression between men and women in

which “the popular” is defined not necessarily in terms of its origin but in

terms of the idea that social change will involve the people as a whole and not