Out of the ShadowsBy Jo Fisher
Latin America Bureau, 1993. $23.95. Reviewed by Mara Ochoa.
Out of the Shadows looks at the important role women have played in struggles against military dictatorships in four countries: Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. Women from these countries were interviewed, and they tell their inspiring stories of the fight against their oppressors.
In all four countries, the military stayed in power through violence and terror, torturing and killing anyone who spoke up against the regime.
In Chile women organised communal kitchens to fight hunger and poverty. In Uruguay they worked hard to be involved in and accepted by trade unions that were dominated and run by men. In Paraguay peasant women were starting to organise themselves against the regime and found they also had to fight against machismo at home and in the community. In Argentina the women came together to find their children and grandchildren, who disappeared when the dictatorship kidnapped, tortured and murdered thousands.
Women also describe their fight against the poverty which they saw throughout their communities. For many women it was these poor conditions and the lack of education, health and welfare services, which drove them to become actively involved, as they witnessed their families and people suffer injustices and inequalities.
Most of the women interviewed were housewives who stayed at home to raise their children. Most had never been involved in any women's rights organisation and had never identified themselves as feminists. Working-class women thought that most of the demands the women's movement made were not relevant to their situation. They became politically conscious through the material conditions they saw their families suffer. The women saw the fight against this inequality as a "natural" extension of their roles as mothers.
In the introduction, Jo Fisher outlines the situation women face in Latin America and in particular the role machismo plays, as well as the class differences.
Out of the Shadows portrays working-class women in Latin America developing grassroots feminism, a feminism they could relate to. Laura an Argentinean woman, said: "Feminism may help explain reality but it has to be adapted to the conditions of people. In some senses we are feminists but we want it to have its proper meaning — an Argentine feminism for the mass of Argentine women."