A Feminist Reflection on Citizenship

Abstract

Over the course of the past decade, citizenship has become one of the axes of feminist action and reflection in Latin America, and, at the same time, it is at the core of democratic concerns at the national levels and, as never before, at the global level. Citizenship constitutes an important pole in women's long fight for equality, lending new democratic content to feminist debates. It also is a meaningful axis for generating alliances among women and between women and other social groups, with the aim of broadening the limits of citizenship restrained by the manifold discriminations in our societies. Citizenship is a terrain of dispute between civil society and the state, and also within civil society itself. Feminist theorists of citizenship are adding complexity and contributing to a theory of citizenship by pointing to incongruities and weaknesses in the concept and practice of citizenship, recognizing that differences - not only gender-based ones- but among women themselves, may present possibilities and obstacles which need to be enhanced or neutralized.