The womens movements in the Southern Cone and Brazil.

The introduction to this essay on womens movements in Argentina Chile Uruguay and Brazil outlines the economic crisis faced by Latin American countries in the 1980s the impact of the resulting structural adjustment on women the ways in which women created communal organizations to respond to this crisis and the impact of this response on womens empowerment. The essay continues with a description of developments in each country since the mid-1970s especially political factors that have contributed to the feminist movement. Five issues are highlighted: 1) the increase in womens visibility during the military regime that combined the womens movement with the political struggle against oppression 2) the linking between 1975 and 1985 of the struggle for democracy with the economic struggle and the struggle to overcome injustices in the private sphere 3) the increased relevance of mothers in erasing boundaries between public and private grief and in raising gender consciousness 4) efforts to create a womens movement linking impoverished women with women active in political parties and feminists and 5) the broadening of the concept of politics that followed womens recognition of private sphere authority structures as political issues.