The Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentros () are a series conferences which began in 1981 to develop transnational networks within the region of Latin America and the Caribbean. The main focus of the conferences was to discuss and evaluate how women's marginalization and oppression could be eliminated given the existing economic and political systems by forming networks and strategies to create alternatives to existing norms. At times contentious, the various conferences explored what feminism meant—whether it was an inclusive movement or limited by social class, racial make-up, or sexuality; whether it was militant or passive; whether it was political, social, or economic; whether it was designed to work within patriarchal systems or needed to create new systems; and even whether accepting funding invalidated being feminist. Numerous initiatives recognizing diverse groups of women, such as Black and indigenous women, lesbian women, and various cultural and economic groups were spawned by the dialogues. The conferences are an ongoing attempt to negotiate strategies in an attempt to change region-wide policy agendas toward women.
History In 1975, the United Nations approved the celebration of International Women's Year. As part of the celebrations they held the First World Conference on Women in 1975 in Mexico City. At that meeting, it was proposed that the following decade be proclaimed UN Decade for Women and follow-up meetings to assess progress be held in 1980 and 1985. The General Assembly adopted a World Plan of Action with recommended targets for governments to integrate women's equality, development and participation in peace initiatives. For the first time, institutional collection within the UN evaluated the extent of problems and conditions of women in varying nations, specifically separating data by sex to bring to light the level of inequality and discrimination towards women. It was also one of the first international meetings of organized lesbians from multiple countries and cultures. Attitudes within the member nations and the UN itself began to change as a result of the focus on women brought about by the conference. The conference connected women to other women in their struggles, as well as increasing governmental understanding of the needs of their constituent women. In turn, this led to a surge in women's activists coming together across the globe and the development of the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentros.
The diverse struggles of women throughout Latin America and the Caribbean had led by the 1970s to a rejection of feminism and the dubbing of women's movements as bourgeois outcropping of imperialists. The abuse of women by the military regimes in Latin America through the decade between 1970 and 1980 as well as a shared colonial and neocolonial experience made women aware that gender issues needed to be re-examined as human rights challenges. The Encuentros were conceived as a means for women to share their diverse perspectives and create alternative strategies for coping with the marginalization which they experienced in the predominant patriarchal and masculinist societal structures in which they lived. The conferences were devoted to developing strategy to address economic inequality, fallout of colonialism and neocolonialism, political suppression, racism, and sexism, in the hopes of creating new collective methods to deal with health, political representation, poverty, violence and the invisibility of women's voices. Ideologically, there was a recognition that women's rights were curtailed in both capitalistic and socialistic systems. The question became whether one should try to work within an existing system to improve women's agency, or advocate for change outside any existent political sphere.
First Encounter, Bogotá, Colombia 1981 The First Encuentro was held in Bogotá in 1981 with 200 feminists and representing fifty NGOs from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.At this foundational meeting it was important for the women to discuss how they would define feminism. On the one hand were groups dismissing feministas as elites with no understanding of the political and social reality of middle- and lower-class women, and on the other hand, there were políticas or political militants, who were seen as radical leftists intent on continuing the revolutionary upheavals from which the various countries had so recently emerged.Feminists argued that they were not focused on obtaining practical (feminine) goals, but rather wanted relevant, strategic (feminist) focus. The militants stressed that the only way to reach all women was with "leftist party organizing and revolutionary mobilization".
The divide, in many ways mirrored the Cold War geopolitical divides of whether economics, racism, or sexism was the more important factor in the subordination of women. This in turn led to discussion of whether existing systems needed reform, by institutionalizing feminist ideals, or whether women's issues needed to remain outside the political realm and maintain their autonomy and focus, instead of focusing on converting male leftists' policies to include women. The polarized positions were not resolved at the conference, leading to additional controversy in Peru; however, the conference attendees made a pledge to honor the Mirabal sisters and mark November 25 as a day to rally against violence toward women, which would later be adopted by the United Nations as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in 1995.
Second Encounter, Lima, Peru, 1983 The Second Encuentro was held in Lima from 19 to 22 July 1983. Expecting a crowd of 300 participants, organizers were stunned when over 600 women arrived. The group contained representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, as well as many women living in exile in England, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. Based on the theme "Patriarchy in Latin America", topics included economic development; empowerment; family; feminist history, literature and research; health; sexual violence; and sexuality. Though no specific program to address lesbian issues and lesbophobia was planned, Claudia Hinojosa, Juanita Ramos (Juanita Díaz-Cotto) with other lesbians organized a workshop, which was attended by around 200 participants. It was one of the first region-wide forums where issues were openly discussed and created the foundations of bonding Latina lesbians into support networks to work for their inclusion. Another unplanned topic emerged with the participation of the exiles and a letter read from a political prisoner from Bolivia. The discussion broadened to encompass women who were harassed and arrested for attempting to organize workers.
As with the previous conference, the polarization between whether women should create their own spaces or integrate with male-dominated spaces sparked debate and there was discussion on whether classism and the need to eliminate the struggle in social hierarchy was more important that gender struggle. Because the perception lingered that feminists represented white and mestiza, middle-class values, conflicts erupted with those who made up the majority of women working in the movement, i.e. poor, working-class, and indigenous, Afro-Caribbean or Afro-Latina. State oppression and rampant poverty, had politicized many women who had previously been ignored in the fight for women's rights. In response to their dire economic situation, human rights abuses, and political repression, these more radical constituencies demanded to be heard and included in strategies.
Third Encounter, Bertioga, Brazil, 1985 The Third Encuentro was held in Bertioga, a municipality in the state of São Paulo in 1985. Representatives came from fourteen Latin American countries, as well as from Canada, Europe, the Netherlands Antilles and the United States with over 850 women in attendance. Coming in the midst of the Latin American debt crisis, CIA interference and U. S. military involvement in Latin America and the Caribbean, tensions at the conference were high. The question of inclusion was brought to the fore when a group of shanty town women from Rio de Janeiro arrived and asked to be admitted without paying the registration fee. Some thought they had been commandeered to attend to make a political statement about exclusion.
In spite of the controversies, there were inclusionary programs added to the overall agenda such as workshops for the first time held on racism and one held to discuss Nicaragua and the Sandinista Revolution. Lesbianism was included as part of the official conference programs and a series of workshops were held on lesbian issues. Out of the conference, the idea for the First Latin American and Caribbean Lesbian Feminist Encuentro was born. The event was planned to take place in Cuernavaca, Mexico, one week before the Fourth Encuentro.
Fourth Encounter, Taxco, Mexico, 1987 The Fourth Encuentro was held in Taxco, in Mexico's Guerrero state in 1987 and was attended by over 1,500 women, many of whom came from adjoining Central America and were new to the concepts of feminism. Debate over who was a feminist intensified with those who had a long history in the movement frustrated at the lack of understanding of the grassroots activists who had recently joined in the dialogue. Those on the opposite side of the debate drew up a document outlining the "myths of the feminist movement", which became an important tool in the ongoing discussions of inclusion. The ten myths included: 1. feminists are uninterested in power, 2. feminists practice politics in other ways, 3. all feminists are the same, 4. women are naturally united because of their gender, 5. feminism is only a policy of women towards women, 6. the movement is only small groups of women, 7. having specified spaces for women guarantees processes will be positive, 8. feminists apologize for being woman, 9. personal feminism is automatically political, and 10. consensus is democracy. By reiterating their differences and discussing them, there was recognition that the myths were the source of frustration and that their diversity did not necessarily divide their purpose. By acknowledging that it was not necessary for them to select a hegemonic path nor a homogeneous one, they were able to resolve the differences between them and recognize that feminism wasn't a concept that could be possessed or owned by any one group and that greater inclusion expanded their reach.
Fifth Encounter, San Bernardo, Argentina, 1990 The Fifth Encuentro was held in San Bernardo del Tuyú in 1990 with around 3,200 participants. There was a marked increase in the number of networks throughout the region confirming that identity strategies had replaced the previous discussion of whether feminism should move forward in autonomous groups. The lesbian feminist network which had formed at an earlier conference and the Latin American and Caribbean Black Women's Network formed in San Bernardo, were two of the organizations striving to build solidarity with the feminist movement through addressing the specific areas of marginalization. Organized by a committee of Argentines and Uruguayans, the event was planned to take place at the union hall of the Argentine Federation of Light and Power Workers (es) (), but the venue was canceled abruptly for political reasons. Instead the community opened doors to malls, gyms, cafés, hotel lobbies and meeting rooms to facilitate the women.