Women Made Visible: Feminist Art and Media in Post-1968 Mexico City
408
Women Made Visible: Feminist Art and Media in Post-1968 Mexico City
408Paperback
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Overview
In post-1968 Mexico a group of artists and feminist activists began to question how feminine bodies were visually constructed and politicized across media. Participation of women was increasing in the public sphere, and the exclusive emphasis on written culture was giving way to audio-visual communications. Motivated by a desire for self-representation both visually and in politics, female artists and activists transformed existing regimes of media and visuality.
Women Made Visible by Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda uses a transnational and interdisciplinary lens to analyze the fundamental and overlooked role played by artists and feminist activists in changing the ways female bodies were viewed and appropriated. Through their concern for self-representation (both visually and in formal politics), these women played a crucial role in transforming existing regimes of media and visuality--increasingly important intellectual spheres of action. Foregrounding the work of female artists and their performative and visual, rather than written, interventions in urban space in Mexico City, Aceves Sepúlveda demonstrates that these women feminized Mexico's mediascapes and shaped the debates over the female body, gender difference, and sexual violence during the last decades of the twentieth century.
Weaving together the practices of activists, filmmakers, visual artists, videographers, and photographers, Women Made Visible questions the disciplinary boundaries that have historically undermined the practices of female artists and activists and locates the development of Mexican second-wave feminism as a meaningful actor in the contested political spaces of the era, both in Mexico City and internationally.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496213242 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2019 |
| Series: | The Mexican Experience |
| Pages: | 408 |
| Sales rank: | 756,918 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda is an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Official City
The Battle for the Official City
In the summer of 1975 a tune by urban troubadour Oscar Chávez was heard on radio stations and performed live at peñas (live music venues) throughout Mexico City. In a style that mixed the traditional Mexican corrido with the trendy "Nueva Canción de Protesta" (Latin American Protest Song), Chávez popularized the highlights of the first United Nations International Women's Year conference (IWY), celebrated in Mexico City from June 19 to July 2:
Don't be surprised, in June of 75, a thousand women gathered in Mexico City to speak badly about men.
They came from all over the world to proclaim that it is unfortunate that there are still women without purpose in life who continue to praise the macho.
The women told the president of the congress, general solicitor Mr. Pauyada, because you are a man you won't preside over our congress.
(Chorus) Absolute freedom is a woman's goal, but please do not stop doing that which we spoke about ... even if it is only as a favor or with pain ... to preserve honor or keep up appearances ... to satisfy sexual desires or even without will or love ...
Then, Allende's widow did a very good thing, she asked for the expulsion of the Chilean delegation ...
The women demanded the legalization of lesbianism, polygamy, abortion, and prostitution ...
They praised Indira, Golda, and Isabelita, all liberated women but also very pushy.
Because they were decent ladies, only they were considered liberated, and the entrance to the congress was denied to my poor fellow countrywomen.
Guerilla fighters, seamstress, farm workers, prostitutes, beggars, and petty thieves were all left out in the cold.
Besides recounting the top events of the conference in various verses, the song described an alteration to the soundscapes of the city brought about by the convergence of hundreds of foreign women who gathered to speak ill of men. But certainly by 1975, the chatter of 1,200 delegates attending the UN's IWY celebration and 4,000 more participating in the parallel non-governmental forum La Tribuna de La Mujer was not the only thing altering Mexico City's mediascapes. In preparation for the UN's IWY celebration the government of president Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1971–76) secured equal rights legislation for women in 1974 through the modification of article 4 of the Mexican Constitution, thus marking an important milestone in the achievement of the yet to be accomplished gender equity. The reforms were put in place after a series of hearings between government officials and representatives of several women's organizations, including members of various feminist collectives. During that time in Mexico, as elsewhere, a renewed feminist movement was burgeoning. As early as 1971 a group of professionals, students, and militants from left-leaning organizations had begun to organize lively street demonstrations throughout Mexico City to demand the end of discrimination against women at all levels of society and their right to self-determination, including sexual freedoms. They established small consciousness-raising groups, joined women workers' movements across the country, organized conferences, hosted radio shows, and published articles discussing the emergence of new wave feminism elsewhere inviting Mexican women to join their cause. The broadcast and live performance of Chávez's song was one of the many creative expressions carried out throughout the decade in response to the attention brought to women's issues by the hosting of UN's IWY celebration, the demands of a new generation of feminist activists, and government reforms targeting women's rights.
Echeverría's administration began with a nationwide campaign for democratization known as apertura democrática (democratic opening). It aimed at siding with disenfranchised and defiant sectors of the population in order to redeem his popularity and that of the ruling party, as both had been severely damaged after the 1968 student massacre. In order to do so, the president implemented a series of reforms that targeted economic, political, and cultural sectors in hopes of crafting an image of himself as an international Third World ambassador. The hosting of the IWY celebration as well as a campaign to extend full rights of citizenship and social equality to women played an important role in supporting such a goal.
On the economic and political front, Echeverría broke the unstated pact between the private sector and the Partido de la Revolución Institucional (PRI) by promoting economic nationalism through supporting the establishment of numerous parastatal industries. By expropriating more than 35,000 hectares of commercial agricultural land and redistributing more than 25,000 hectares in northern Mexico, he earned the belligerency of commercial agricultural leaders. In addition, his 1975 edition of libros de texto gratuitos (public text books) enraged the Catholic Church and conservative sectors of the population. Moreover, prominent private art collectors turned to smuggling valuable pieces of art in order to avoid their expropriation due to his campaign to build a registry of valuable material culture and reforms to laws that protected the cultural patrimony of the nation. These actions, along with the kidnappings and assassinations of prominent industry leaders by emerging guerrilla groups, convinced many businessmen to join the opposition.
At the same time, Echeverría tried to appease the Left through different means, such as tacitly allowing the establishment of workers' unions; attempting to start a dialogue with university students; welcoming refugees from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Nicaragua; releasing political prisoners; and adopting a foreign diplomacy rhetoric that favored third worldism against the imperialist forces of the United States. Furthermore, by welcoming young functionaries into his cabinet, he attempted to craft a youthful image for the party and for himself — an image more aligned with 1930s Cardenismo than with the immediate generations of PRI presidents, who had turned to the right politically since the mid-1940s. However, at the same time, he continued to support a system of surveillance to spy on activists and leaders of left-wing urban and rural organizations, including feminist activists, thus sustaining the traditional use of violence and repressive tactics to dispel public gatherings and demonstrations on the streets of Mexico City and elsewhere in the country.
These seemingly contradictory strategies would characterize his time in office. His democratic opening functioned as a strategy of co-optation following the hegemonic impulses of the ruling PRI, which played an important role in the development of what many have labeled "a schizoid political culture" throughout the twentieth century. In Echeverría's case, the schizoid nature of his policies became even more pronounced as he aimed to appease all sectors of the population, particularly those on the Left, while covertly engaging in a dirty war to eliminate urban and rural unrest. Nonetheless, some of his reforms — particularly in the cultural sector and women's rights — led to the establishment of governmental institutions and to the opening of discussions that would, to a large degree, establish the terms of debate in the decades to follow.
By the time President Echeverría Álvarez took office, Mexico City was already considered one of the world's mega-cities, with a population estimated at eight million. The city's growth and development had started in the 1940s, as the Mexican government turned to the right of the political spectrum and the capital began to enjoy economic growth due to the adoption of the Import Substitution Industrialization model (ISI). Between the 1940s and 1960s Mexico City more than doubled in size and became the showcase of the country's economic growth. Changes in population were accompanied by a large investment in urban infrastructure — expressways, tunnels, overpasses, subway systems, and concrete housing projects — aimed at turning the nineteenth-century Haussmann urban plan into a city more in tune with an international modernist model.
The spoils of the economic development acquired symbolic recognition as Mexico City was elected to host important international events — the signing of the Tlatelolco Treaty (1968), the Olympic Games (1968), and FIFA's World Cup (1970). The hosting of international events was an opportunity to invest in urban infrastructure while at the same time such infrastructure showcased the modern standards of living of Mexico City residents. However, not all the population benefited from such standards of living. Rather, all these public works altered the social fabric of the city. Many neighborhoods were bulldozed to make way for overpasses, and a network of interlocking freeways made vehicle traffic the priority over the majority of pedestrians, who needed to learn how to navigate the recently inaugurated subway system (1967–69). At the same time, rural to urban migration caused serious overcrowding and a growth in slums and illegal settlements. A lack of employment accelerated male patterns of migration that altered the traditional arrangement of the Mexican family. More and more urban women became the sole providers for their families, many living in poverty and turning to informal work (prostitution, begging, or domestic work).
All these changes prompted adaptations in the ways that Mexicans kept informed and connected. By then, broadcast media — television in particular — had become an important tool for keeping the public informed. Advances in broadcasting technology such as satellite networks (1968) and the use of video (1970) expanded the reach and the velocity with which information could be transmitted via television broadcasting.
In Mexico, as elsewhere, the growth of broadcast media during the second half of the twentieth century was consistent with the development of capitalism in the world but also responded to more local concerns. On the one hand, the growth of consumer culture required the use of broadcasting media to promote products on a massive scale; on the other hand, the Mexican government sought to use these media to incorporate a mostly illiterate society into a national project in crucial need of renovation. According to some reports, between 1950 and 1970 the number of television sets throughout the country soared from 100 receivers to 4.5 million. Even though the majority of viewers lived in Mexico City, television stations had been established in twenty-nine of thirty-two states (estados) by the end of the 1960s. A fundamental part of the renovation of the national project was a change in the government's pronatalist polices. In order to align the country with international standards that encouraged population control as a condition for development, by 1974 Echeverría's government launched a media campaign promoting birth control methods. Advances in broadcasting media were crucial to such a campaign. Another important change in broadcast media was the increased participation of women in the industry. One of the outcomes of IWY was to raise public consciousness with respect to the changing roles of women in society and particularly to transform the ways in which the media tended to reinforce traditional attitudes and portrayals of women that were both degrading and humiliating. In tune with this resolution, both private and public television broadcasters began to foster the participation of women as anchors, producers, and reporters.
During the 1970s, reforms in the film and television industries not only supported the Mexican government's needs and aligned with international patterns; they also accelerated transformations within Mexico City's intellectual sectors. In turn, these changes opened up spaces of expression for the kind of emerging visual letradas addressed in this study. By then Mexican intellectual sectors were already marked by a shift from an exclusive emphasis on literate-print culture toward an embrace of the audiovisual communication media of the era (television, video, and film) and the increased participation of women in the public sphere. The growing importance of audiovisual communications would require further adaptations on the part of this sector, which was also confronted with the increased participation of private interests and independent academic institutions in cultural matters. State reforms in the cultural sector and broadcasting industry led to the opening of media spaces from which various visual letradas launched divergent conceptions of women's bodies.
By the time transnational new wave feminism made Mexico City the stage of its demands, the dreams of turning the city into a model of modernity had been seriously shattered. The ISI model began to show signs of exhaustion and so did the city. Reports and studies flooded the media, warning of a series of catastrophes awaiting the city if population growth and construction development were not halted. The dreams of progress and modernization were shattered principally by the violent attack against students unleashed on Mexico City streets.
In effect, on October 2, 1968, just days before the inauguration of the Olympic Games, government forces massacred hundreds of protesting students in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, located just north of the city's downtown district. The site also happened to host a leading modernist housing complex project, Nonoalco-Tlatelolco, designed by architect Mario Pani and commissioned by President Miguel Alemán. The killings turned the flagship model of modernization into a site of violence and bloodshed. The attacks against students revealed the amount of violence that the ruling party, the PRI, was willing to unleash in order to preserve the status quo and made visible a political and social crisis that had been brewing all over the country in the past decades. The Tlatelolco massacre unleashed a crisis that represented an overall disaffection with the dominant social, political, and cultural structures that ruled Mexican society, which were symbolically embodied and put into practice by the Mexican government. Three years later, on June 10, 1971, a second attack, known as the Corpus Christi massacre, against students by the paramilitary group Los Halcones (the Falcons) sent Mexico City residents a reminder of the continued state of violence in which they were living. The Corpus Christi massacre resulted in the killing of several students near the entrance of a subway station, altering the symbolic meaning of the recently inaugurated line 2 of the transit system (1970) and turning La Normal subway station into a site of remembrance for the killings rather than a signifier of progress. These two events significantly altered the meanings attached to material symbols of modernity and progress. They unveiled the shallowness of the PRI's inclusive revolutionary rhetoric and converted the already contested streets of Mexico City into a battleground, as a growing number of political and civil organizations, grassroots movements, and feminist collectives made it the site from which they would enunciate their demands, in spite of fears of repression. As I discuss throughout part 1, state bureaucracies, government institutions, private media conglomerates, and independent academic departments as well as myriad grassroots and political organizations would become active players within this battle for symbolic presence throughout Mexico City streets.
While information about the killing of students did not flow freely through official media channels, the residents of Mexico City shared information about these events through street theater, graphics, graffiti, and billboards produced by several students and activists. At the time a renewed interest in collectivism was emerging in Mexico, as elsewhere, and many students who had participated in the protests of 1968 or had links with other counterculture movements began to establish art collectives. Filmmakers, writers, visual artists, protest singers, feminists, gay and lesbian activists, and rock musicians established a wide range of different collectives and initiatives seeking aesthetic and political freedom of expression. Confronted with massive urban changes (including overpopulation, bulldozed neighborhoods, and pollution) and the memories of their experiences in the student movement, the majority of these collectives made Mexico City the stage, the media, and the content of many of their expressions. For instance, reflecting on Mexico City's growing population, the art collective Suma (1976) developed a series of visual icons that represented all characters in the city (the bureaucrat, the unemployed, the migrant, the beggar, the construction worker, etc.) and used them to paint urban murals (graffiti) on the streets of Mexico City. Similarly, members of Grupo Mira (1977), after having participated in the production of graphics for the 1968 student movement, began to produce a series of print portfolios entitled Comunicados Gráficos, in which they addressed urban problems faced by rural migrants, such as unemployment and lack of health and sanitary services. Some of these art collectives aimed at building alternative links with existing and emerging oppositional political groups and forces while attacking official cultural institutions and experimenting with different media and aesthetic languages. Performative practices such as street happenings or theatrical plays were renewed as one of the most subversive means to reach wider audiences, build coalitions, and demand civil rights. Yet other artists and intellectuals located themselves within Echeverría's third worldist platform by joining his cabinet or embracing Latin American protest music to counter the imperialistic influence of English rock music. These variegated series of movements sought to effect social change and contest established structures of power and institutions. However, the majority of these collectives did not build meaningful links with the feminist movement, despite the collaboration of many feminists with various art collectives. Feminism in the early 1970s was, and sometimes still is, perceived by many in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America as an imported imperialist ideology and a distraction from more pressing social injustices afflicting Latin America as a region.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Women Made Visible Part 1. Feminizing the City 1. The Official City 2. The Media City 3. The Embodied City Part 2. The Archival Practices of a Visual Letrada 4. The Archival and Political Awakenings of Ana Victoria Jiménez 5. Secret Documents and Feminist Practices 6. Performing Feminist Art Part 3. Protesting the Archive 7. Interrupting Photographic Traditions 8. Feminist Collaborations in 1970s Mexico 9. POLArizing the Archive Conclusion: New and Emergent Visual Letradas Notes Bibliography Index