Women in Argentina During the 1960s

Abstract

The 1960s represented a particular moment of social, cultural, and political unrest in the midst of which the contours of a modern Argentina-consumerism, secularization, the realignment of political forces, changes in daily life, the transformation of gender relationships-began to emerge. It is striking, however, that despite the recent historical recovery of this period and the revolution in women's history, women's voices are absent or at best relegated to a few footnotes. A gender perspective-one that incorporates the relationships between men and women, the impact of social changes in the family, gender roles, the private dimensions of life, etc., and their effects on social and psychological formations-is also lacking (Kelly-Gadol, 1984). For the women, now between 40 and 50, who began to participate in the public sphere during this period, these reconstructions not only call into question their own memories but also puzzle them when contrasted with the experiences of participants in the student movement, politics, and street battles, among others. As many writers have pointed out, the 1960s were a period of various cleavages worldwide. In the core countries, the emergence of student movements symbolized by the French May 1968 implied a broad questioning of the consumer society. In Latin America, Africa, and Asia, anticolonial, national-liberation, and socialist movements were consolidated, and in the East movements in opposition to the system gathered strength. In Argentina the 1960s were years of modernization and secularization in the sociological