by Roxanna Carrillo

This article forms part of the introduction to a Directory of Women's Centers in Latin America, to be published jointly by the Flora Tristan Women's Center in Peru and the International Women's Tribune Center, New York.

Toward the end of the 1970s a series of organizations began to emerge in Latin America, aimed at carrying out the visions and ideas of the global women's movement. As women's political consciousness developed through sharing experiences in small groups and as they sought to widen the path to women's liberation, women's centers took on the task of creating new space to try and satisfy women's needs.

One of the main aims of the feminist movement is to challenge and transform existing institutions. But it is not enough for women to become incorporated at decision-making levels. True change requires the creation of alternative institutions whose goals and internal structures we ourselves decide. Hence the importance of women's centers, which not only offer solutions to women's problems, hitherto ignored, but also put into practice the basic principles which guide our work.

When I was putting together a directory of women's centers in Latin America, I was able to list around 120, of which approximately 90 defined themselves as feminist organizations. It is interesting to note that, despite different beginnings, the process of working with women seriously and committedly usually led groups to a feminist position.

Women's centers in Latin America vary greatly in size, geographical location, level of feminist political consciousness, financial resources, internal structures and the ability to reach women from diverse social backgrounds. However they also have many services and programs in common, for instance providing legal aid, health services and advice on family planning and abortion, organizing women in poor neighborhoods, providing psychiatric help, supporting victims of rape and domestic violence and supplying information services. In addition, centers organize campaigns around various aspects of women's oppression, offer space and resources to other sympathetic groups, mobilize solidarity and human rights activities, organize different events, such as discussion panels, festivals and film shows, and produce publications and other materials for alternative communication. Some like the Centro de la Mujer Flora Tristan where I work have developed a multiple program linked to certain fields of research. Others such as the Centro de Ayuda a Victimas de Violacion (Rape Crisis Center) in Puerto Rico and the Centre de Informacion de Mujer in Sao Paulo. Brazil, basically focus on one theme, although their work is equally political, involving support for women and wider education in the community.

The Role of Women's Centers

The most important task of women's centers is to create space for women. In patriarchal society there are virtually no places where women can be together free of male interference. Any woman should be able to come to a women's center and share her problems with others already politically conscious of the daily causes of women's oppression.

In providing such space, centers have helped to identify women's real needs while at the same time developing strategies to resolve them. Take, for example, domestic violence. Before the existence of the women's movement a woman suffering this type of abuse had little escape beyond perhaps the sympathetic ear of a neighbor. Domestic violence was dismissed as a matter of fate and any woman who dared report her attacker to the police could expect little sympathy. In fact the very same people who were supposed to protect her would probably discourage her from registering her complaint on the grounds that it stemmed from a typical private dispute between the sexes. Not surprisingly, the victim lost all faith in the legal and police system and accepted her situation with silent resignation.

Through the women's movement we now know that the problem of women being battered in the home has little to do with bad luck, but arises from the deep-seated discrimination and inequality inherent in patriarchal society. And this understanding has enabled us to start tackling a situation previously thought of as insoluble. In battered women's refuges, self-help groups and programs of support for victims of domestic violence women start to gain strength, defend themselves and learn that the possibilities for changing their situation, common to so many others, lie in their own hands. This process of learning and gaining new consciousness may be long and painful, but the energy a woman discovers within herself is an essential step toward improving her life.

Women's centers have played a key role in the political awakening of women. Through study groups and discussions about personal and political experiences we have been able to collectively understand a lot about the roots of our oppression, as well as imagine what society would be like without it. Centers encourage a feeling of self-respect and pride based on the joint experience of being women and so establish bases of power for our movement.

Women's centers also contribute toward the growth of a truly international women's movement by spreading information about what women are doing in the rest of Latin America and the world. The exchange of ideas and experiences of organization, the feelings of solidarity we've gained from participating in various networks of women's communication have been very useful for expanding our own possibilities of work.

In any center of feminist activity it is important that the women involved control their own work. This requires an organizational structure flexible enough for everyone to participate in the aims and strategies of the group. Some groups, usually the smaller ones, are run entirely on the basis of collective decision-making. Others adapt in different ways to the complexities of trying to operate collectively on a large scale. Whatever the case, whether it be a matter of deciding on priorities for projects, establishing people's salaries or a question of personal politics, decision-making is never left to one central person but involves various different instances of internal consultation.

Conflicts and Dissatisfactions

Women's centers are by no means oases of harmony between people dedicated to the same political ideals. As alternative institutions whose fundamental aim is the radical transformation of society they inevitably face innumerable problems. Much of these stem from the socioeconomic and political context in which they operate. Others can be explained by the tensions produced between feminist principles and the demands of organizational efficiency. Or both. Whatever the reason, it is important that we carry on with exploring possible solutions.

The relationship between women's centers and the movement as a whole is the source of serious confusion. The women's movement is characterized in part by its indeterminate structure. Its actions and campaigns are open so that any women who feel like working on a certain theme can call a meeting and develop whatever actions they consider politically necessary at the time. When a group decides to form an institution, in this case a women's center, it has to define its objectives, decide how the work is to be done, select projects, find money, etc. - in other words establish a continual basis on which to operate. Included among its aspirations is the desire to be recognized as a legitimate mouthpiece by those who have the power to change women's situation. In this respect feminist institutions are committed to being efficient and accomplishing their projects even though they may not tie in with the more urgent demands and needs of the women's movement.

Confusion arises from the fact that, although women's centers do not set themselves up as "representing" the movement, the latter has come to rely on their minimal infrastructure and resources when it comes to implementing its actions. Consequently women working in centers often feel obliged to participate in every action, at the same time mistrusting initiatives taken by independent groups. 

I don't believe that centers should monopolize or lead the movement's initiatives, nor should those working outside institutions simply sit back and wait for other organizations to take action. Centers should strengthen the movement and lend it concrete visibility, but never allow it to become locked into the kind of dependent relationship that would inevitably lead to its bureaucratization. To say that center and movement aren't the same doesn't mean that one is more'important than the other. Even though they may sometimes appear to be in conflict, each is necessary and complements the other.

There are more problems connected with the structure of institutions. For instance, women's centers are generally in favor of shared tasks, often resulting in some kind of rotation system. But it is almost impossible for everyone to be equally qualified to do everything and, especially if we believe in encouraging each woman towards her own personal excellence, we need to accept that a certain level of specialization is necessary.

Internal leadership is also a frequent problem, , above all when the group concerned believes in the principles of non-hierarchical organization. A number of centers have suffered badly from conflicts of power. Although these often arise from political differences 1 think that the root of the problem lies in the fact that we have never really tried to define leadership from a feminist perspective. In rejecting the characteristics of leadership we associate with men, such as the selfish abuse of power, the reinforcement of hierarchies, the maintenance of certain privileges and the withholding of information, we have tended to make the mistake of rejecting all leadership.

The kind of leadership we need in our organizations entails one person being entrusted with certain tasks that others, as equals, believe she can best complete. A good leader shares her knowledge, keeping everyone informed of whatever's happening, and stimulates others to take on new responsibilities and develop their own creativity. She also doesn't assume a leadership role in every situation. 

It's important that we bear in mind the personal and institutional exhaustion produced in an organization when one individual or select group takes on all the responsibilities. We must allow space for recuperation, for instance through the interchange of responsibilities, the provision of time for writing and processing experiences, the development of special projects or periods of leave. That way both people and organizations have more opportunity to change and regain lost energies. Perhaps the best way of resolving leadership conflicts is to bring them out into the light, taking care to try and divest them of any personal connotations. It's never easy but the ability to overcome them is a good way of measuring an institution's maturity.

The role of voluntary work in women's centers can be another source of internal conflict, mainly owing to our failure to work out the best way of using and supervising voluntary workers. For example, in Flora Tristan we have had problems with women who first joined us as volunteers and gradually spent more and more time at the center until they were doing as much work as the staff. This happened several times without us ever reaching a political position on it. The result was frequent feelings of frustration on the part of volunteers, especially those who wanted to become permanent workers when there was no established procedure to determine if and how they might be integrated. Given that an important portion of our work is delegated to volunteers, it's essential for us to decide how we use their energies.

We also need to clarify ways in which to welcome and encourage newcomers to the women's movement in general. The inability of women's centers to embrace large numbers of new members has definitely restricted our development - part of the price we pay for women's centers being considered the unique expression of the women's movement - and we would do well to study methods of incorporation used by old institutions such as the Church and political parties.

The difficulties experienced by women's centers are not so very different from wider political ideological problems. For example in Chile members of the Circulo de Estudios de la Mujer (Women's Study Circle), established under the umbrella of a Christian organization, ran into moral obstacles when they wanted to bring out publications on human sexuality which included terms like "bisexuality," "masturbation" and "homosexuality." In the end they had to choose between eliminating the "offensive" words or losing the organization's patronage. Similar pressure is used against feminists by the masculine Left when they come out with that well-worn phrase "women's struggles should be superseded by the class struggle"; or, when we are organizing among poor women, they accuse us of dividing the working class by introducing personal problems into the political arena. In this respect women's centers and the movement as a whole must always remain alert to the dangers of co-optation and transgression of their autonomy, both from within and without.

Given the severe economic crisis in Latin America and the lack of resources available to women, economic survival is obviously one of the central concerns of our organizations. This raises another problem related to autonomy, namely how to survive and still retain control over our work; it's important that we clarify precisely under what terms we link ourselves to patriarchal organizations and institutions, whether they be connected to universities, the Church, political parties, the State or funding agencies. It's not that we should avoid receiving money or other support from these institutions (we have little choice as long as we remain so far from self-sufficiency). The problem is that none of them are exactly feminist in orientation and our priorities don"t always coincide.

Conclusion

We need to consider all these problems without assuming the existence of any one permanent solution. On the contrary our work requires continual reassessment and development of our internal politics.

lt"s not just a question of structure, In order to keep sight of the vision behind our organizations we have to keep constantly in touch with women's problems and needs for this is where our strength lies, in daily proof of all the thousands of mechanisms through which patriarchy manages to control and restrict our lives and the development of our political solutions. We need to override all the lines which divide us - class, race, religion, age, sexual preference - not by ignoring them but by taking them into account in order to reach more women. Such is the way to develop our collective strength and understanding of the complexities of our struggle.