“The Sexual Politics of Murder”: Translating Simone De Beauvoir in Latin America

Jadwiga Pieper-Mooney, University of Arizona

This study picks up Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) at seventy, showing that her critique of patriarchy and her discussion of the constructed meanings of “woman” have contributed important tools in Latin American women’s mobilization against multiple forms of gender-based violence. Drawing on examples from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, I acknowledge de Beauvoir’s contributions to critiques of gender inequalities, and to feminist formations and activism in the 1970s. In 1976, de Beauvoir argued that “a lot of homicide is in fact femicide” and demanded that “the sexual politics of murder” be recognized (Russel, 1977, 2012). The main part of this analysis explores the translations of de Beauvoir’s critiques as tools in Latin American women’s mobilization against femicide in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 8. From Role Models to Representation to Struggles for Rights: Translating Understandings of Gender and Sexuality