Resumen

FUENTES, Pamela. Between Sexual Claims and Calls for Economic Justice: Political and Ideological Divisions during the World Conference of the International Women's Year. Mexico 1975. Secuencia [online]. 2014, n.89, pp.163-192. ISSN 2395-8464.

The World Conference of the International Women's Year was held from June 19 to July 2 1975. With the participation of more than 9 000 people from 133 nations. The conference, organized by the United Nations, was the first and largest attempt to analyze gender inequality from a global perspective. This article analyzes the international context in which the conference took place and many of the discussions it sparked at the time: from the optimism about the positive results that would result from the global meeting to opinions that ridiculed or were indifferent to a "woman's meeting." In particular, the analysis focuses on the discourse about the concept of "woman," since this reflects the competing perspectives that participants expressed at the conference. Ideological constructions about what "being a woman" meant played a central role in the daily confrontations between women from countries in the so-called First and Third Worlds. Women from economically developed nations were perceived by the press and certain Latin American delegates as interested solely in sexual matters, such as lesbianism, abortion and prostitution. Conversely, the ideal of Third World women was related to social justice and economic equality. With this analysis, this essay seeks to contribute to the understanding of the construction of female identities in a global context and show that these constructions are closely related to political, economic and cultural struggles in national and international contexts.

Palabras llave : Conference; feminism; women; identities; UN.

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