In July of last year, several mem- bers of the Argentine planning committee that had drawn up the guidelines for a national curriculum resigned when they discovered that changes to their proposal had been made, apparently by the Minister of Education under pressure from the Catholic Church. Mention of Darwin and Lamarck had been eliminated, references to sex educa- tion had been erased, and the word "gender" had been replaced by "sex." The Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, Hector Aguer, defended the removal of the word "gender," arguing that its use "intended to provoke an ideological shift and to generate a new conception of the human person, of subjectivity, mar- riage, the family and society. In short, what is proposed is a cultural revolution." Using the word gender "as a purely cultural construct, detached from the biological," he warned, "makes us into fellow trav- elers of radical feminism." Bishop Aguer went on to quote well-known U.S. feminist Shulamit Firestone's Jean Franco is the author of Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico (Columbia University Press, 1990) and a member of NACLA's editorial board. She wishes to thank Marta Lamas, Tunana Mercado, Rosa Maria Fort and Kemy Oyarzcn for providing material for this article. The Dialectic of Sex to highlight the "dangers" of feminism. Firestone applied Marxist dialectics to the male/female relationship, said Aguer, "in order to reach the con- clusion that Marx had not dared to make: namely to modify the sexual condition of woman to liberate her from maternity and her dependence on the family." While it may be amusing to think of the Catholic Church hierarchy wading through feminist theory, its attempts to demonize feminism by associating it with communism should not be taken lightly. The fact that the debate over gender has sur- faced simultaneously in recent months in many different Latin Am- erican countries suggests that this concern for semantics masks a sur- reptitious campaign against wo- men's and gay rights. For post-1960s feminism, gender refers to socially constituted differ- ences between masculine and femi- nine. This definition of gender is considered a dangerously destabi- lizing concept in Latin American circles close to the Catholic Church, one that undermines the natural relations of marriage and reproduc- tion. According to critics of "gen- der," once people accept that differ- ences between men and women are socially constructed and hence modifiable, then the road is open for legalized abortion, the accep- tance of homosexuality, the recog- nition of "irregular" families, and the collapse of family values. The touchiness of the Church on this matter can be read as a reaction to the growing number and influ- ence of feminist and women's groups. While only a handful of feminist organizations existed in Latin America two decades ago, now hundreds of women's organi- zations throughout the region define themselves as "feminist." Women have also become prominent actors in grassroots social movements. While these two sectors of the Latin American women's movement have their differences, there is an ongo- ing effort by many groups to bridge the divide. In fact, some sectors within the grassroots women's movement have become increasing- ly receptive to feminist political goals, including the championing of reproductive rights. The Church views this trend with alarm. By challenging the word "gender" and alternative definitions of family, the Church hopes to strike a blow at the very foundations of feminism. The Catholic Church's position appears to be out of touch with pub- lic opinion. For example, it contin- ues to oppose birth control, even though most Latin American women favor the use of some form NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6UPDATE / FEMINISM While it may be amusing to think of the Catholic Church hierarchy wading through feminist theory, its attempts to demonize feminism by associating it with communism should not be taken lightly. Hundreds of Latin American delegates participated in the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995. of artificial contraception. A poll taken in Lima after President Alberto Fujimori's recent decision to make contraception available to poor families is a case in point. The poll showed that 95% of the popula- tion believed in God, yet 80% also said that Peruvians agreed with using contraceptives. Likewise, the Church considers abortion a "grave sin," yet it is widely practiced in the region. Given the difficulties of access to contraceptive methods, abortion has become a major form of birth control in Latin America. In Chile, there are an estimated 170,000 abortions a year. One out of every two pregnancies in Mexico and one out of every three in Peru ends in abortion. Since abortions are performed clandestinely and often in less than optimal conditions, this is also a pressing health issue for Latin American women. Abortion is the fourth most common cause of maternity deaths and the third most common cause of hospitalization in Mexico. In Colombia, 74.5% of maternal deaths are the result of botched abortions. "Family" is the other sensitive issue, not only because of gay and lesbian households but also because the Church's ideal of a married cou- ple as the pillar of society is unreal- istic for many Latin American women. In the poorest sectors of so- ciety, women often bring up chil- dren on their own. In Chile, for example, 40% of all families are not headed by a married couple. Of every seven babies born in that country, one is the child of an ado- lescent, and in 61% of those cases, the baby is the offspring of an unmarried mother. nstead of recognizing these real- ities, the Vatican is trying to dis- credit feminism. In order to do this, the Church uses trendy-sound- ing rhetoric which equates feminist platforms with imperialism. The bishopric of Argentina recently argued that abortion is a form of "modern biological colonialism inspired by powerful nations that impose their decisions on those of weaker peoples who cannot make themselves heard." He urged the faithful to stand up against this "col- onialism." The Catholic Church's defense of the poor--especially in these neoliberal times-is a praise- worthy goal, and the argument that the North is imposing population policies on the South is not without some validity. But for many women in the hemisphere, abortion is not an absolute good-it is, rather, a des- perate remedy. Precisely because its position is so rigid (neither abortion nor con- traception) and has such little rela- tion to reality, the Vatican must woo women by other means. In a clear fence-mending move prior to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Pope John Paul II addressed a Letter to Women in which he thanks them for their devotion, and praises their mission as mothers, wives, daughters, work- ers and nuns. In his letter, the Pope recognizes that women have frequently been marginalized and even reduced to slavery, and he expresses regret that certain "sons of the Church" might have contributed to women's oppression. He refrains, however, from exploring the reasons for this situation on the grounds that "it would not be easy to attribute pre- cise responsibility considering the strength of cultural sedimentations that, through the centuries, have formed people's mentalities." What the Pope does not seem to realize is that, when he refers to the obstacles that impede women's full incorpo- ration into social, political and eco- nomic life, he needs the word "gen- der" in order to explain the "cultur- al sedimentations" that account for inequalities. It is in the world conferences organized by the United Nations that the Vatican is most active in its campaign against feminism and reproductive rights. The Vatican's Vol XXIX, No 4 JAN/FEB 1996 7UPDATE / FEMINISM In Ciudad Segundo Montes, El Salvadoc residents meet to organize observer status at the United Nations gives it the right to partic- ipate in these UN conferences--a right not accorded to any other reli- gious group. As Cecilia Olivares of the Free Choice Information Group (GIRE) in Mexico points out, "Despite its status as observer, the Vatican-a state that includes nei- ther women nor children in its terri- tory and whose members don't have sex and do not reproduce since they have made a vow of chastity-- places obstacles in the way of deci- sions on the sexual and reproductive lives of millions of people on the planet." In the planning stages of the Rio de Janeiro Conference on Envi- ronment and Development (1992), the Cairo Conference on Population and Development (1994), and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995), the Vatican was vocal on questions of family, marriage, divorce and reproductive health. For example, the Church put pressure on Latin American governments to send anti-abortion delegates to the Cairo conference. Argentine President Carlos Menem was recruited to the cause, and tried to get a declaration affirming the sacredness of life from the moment of conception included in the Presidential Summit Meeting of Latin American leaders held in Cartagena just before the Cairo confer- ence. Once that conference got underway, the Vatican allied itself with Islamic funda- mentalists in an attempt to scut- tle documents favoring repro- ductive rights. When it was unsuccessful in its bid to erase certain clauses from the final documents, the Vatican resorted to insisting on bracketing phrases it considered controversial, including "family group" and "gender." Harshly criticized for its heavy-handed approach in Cairo, the Church shifted gears in the preparations for the Beijing conference, initiating an all- out ideological war against the con- cept of gender. A key battlesite was the "Draft Platform for Action," a preparatory document for the Beijing conference. The platform is a complex document that deals with a vast number of women's issues-- from population to the feminization of poverty to violence against wo- men. One objection raised by Vat- ican spokesman Joaquin Navarro- Vals was that the word "gender" was used more frequently than the word "mother."Archbishop of Tegucigalpa and president of the Latin American Episcopal Conference, Oscar Rodriguez, asserted that the aim of the Beijing conference was "to force society to accept five types of gen- der: masculine, feminine, lesbian, homosexual and transsexual." The preparatory document gives no evi- dence to support such a claim. "The differences between women's and men's achievements and activities," the draft platform states, "are still not recognized as the consequences of socially constructed gender roles rather than immutable biological differences." But, of course, this was precisely the definition of gender that the Vatican found perturbing. The news that the word "gender" was unacceptable quickly surfaced in Latin American discussions prior to Beijing. In Chile, it began even before Josefina Bilbao, minister of the National Women's Service (SERNAM), had published the gov- ernment position paper on Beijing. In an interview with Politica y Sociedad, she tried to wiggle out of the controversy by defining gender according to the Dictionary of the Royal Academy as "a group of beings who have one or various characteristics in common." Once the position paper was pub- lished and being debated in the Senate, Bilbao attempted to sidestep the issue of gender altogether, focusing instead on the conference themes of poverty, education and political participation, as she would do in the paper she later presented at the Beijing conference. A group of conservative senators, however, challenged the position paper, cen- tering their attack on the use of the word "gender." The senators com- plained that "many people use the word without further clarification, claiming that masculine and femi- nine respond merely to cultural and sociological constructions and not to biological conditions that consti- tute the psychology of woman and man. According to this conception, the difference between the sexes does not have a natural origin, a view that has consequences for the individual, for the family, and for society." These "ambiguous ideas" were declared unacceptable. The alternative position paper that the senators came up with, although eventually defeated, is illustrative of what lies behind the struggle over the meaning of gen- der. Every Chilean, said the dissi- dent senators, had the constitutional duty to preserve "the essential val- ues of Chilean tradition." They claimed to be defending that tradi- tion against "value-oriented total- itarianism" (code for feminism), which they argued would allow all kinds of unnatural practices. These senators defined the family as the stable union of men and women within marriage, and they deemed inadmissable any term or action that threatened the family or "admitted that persons of the same sex might constitute a family." Senator Herndn Larrain Fernmndez remind- ed Bilbao that she herself had declared that homosexual families were not "part of Chilean reality." Larrain also argued that reproduc- tive rights implied a view of repro- duction in a "purely animal context, dehumanized the concept of sex, and opened the door to the argu- ment in favor of abortion." These rights were described as "highly inconvenient and dangerous." Clearly, the senators' position is an argument for the exclusion of gay men and women from citizenship and the criminalization of abortion. The Catholic Church has also found itself pitted against multilateral lending institu- tions over population-control poli- cies. The World Bank and the Inter- American Development Bank see these policies as a way to reduce poverty and facilitate women's par- ticipation in the wage-labor force. Latin American governments are caught in a bind between this imper- ative to "modernize" and opposition to birth control and abortion coming from the Church and other conserv- ative groups. Peru illustrates the hard choices that neoliberal govern- ments face on this issue. In his inau- gural address to the nation on July 28 of last year, President Fujimori unexpectedly broke ranks with other Latin American countries on the issue of birth control, announcing that the state would facilitate access to family planning for poor families. "We have been and shall continue to be a pragmatic government, without taboos or 'sacred cows,"' he said, in a pointed reference to the Church. "Peruvian women must be in con- trol of their own destinies." Fujimori was playing the mod- ernization card, appealing to multi- lateral lending instituions by promising that by the year 2000 poverty would be reduced by 50% and that 50% of social spending would be targeted for women. A government document drawn up in 1993 and obtained by the Peruvian journal Oiga revealed exactly how large the population problem loomed in the government's scheme of things. The document forecasted that, at its current growth rate, within four decades Peru would have to support "a pop- ulation of eight million hungry une- ducated and unemployed people in a climate of absolute poverty and deeply inured delinquency." For those belonging to this "social sur- plus," the document recommended vasectomies for men and tubal liga- tion for women. Not surprisingly, this language led to comparisons between Fujimori's population con- trol and the Nazi's "final solution." Church leaders denounced it as a proposal "for the 'mutilation' of men and women by the power of darkness." Fujimori answered his critics in a speech at Beijing, where he charac- terized himself as "a blue-jeans President" in touch with contempo- rary problems. He announced that a "social miracle," which would boost women from mere survival into productive development, would follow his "economic miracle." However, this claim to be protecting women rings hollow given that Fujimori has demolished workers' rights, including health and safety regulations for women in the work- place. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church continues its virulent opposition to reproductive rights. The gender debate that it has prompted in Latin America is clearly a smoke screen The Catholic Church's virulent opposition to the word "gender" is clearly a smokescreen for a vicious attack on women's rights. for a vicious attack on women's rights. Not only is the Church fight- ing a losing battle, but more seri- ously, its campaign has obscured the real issues. The Beijing confer- ence, if it achieved nothing else, registered the fact that "women's issues"-including their human rights-have moved to the fore of the world's political agendas. Both multilateral lending institutions and feminist groups are in favor of pro- moting sex education, making con- traception widely available to women, and decriminalizing abor- tion. It seems clear, however, that these common stances rest on fun- damentally different assumptions. While Latin American feminists see these issues as essentially about the rights of women to control their own lives, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are primarily interested in popula- tion control. Illegal abortion, per- haps the most inflammatory issue, is a significant threat to women's health in Latin America, and crimi- nalization only serves to perpetuate the problem. On the other hand, emphasis on birth control and abor- tion rights to the exclusion of women's education, development, and changing role in society is just as questionable. It is these debates that should have been foregrounded and not the struggle over the use of the word gender.
