"The Assembly of Women": chronicle of a historical, political and emotional day

It was historic. Emotional Politics A real cultural festival. It was six o'clock in the afternoon and the María Guerrero hall of the Cervantes National Theater was raised to sing Happy Birthday a Nora Cortiñas, Founding line of the mother of Plaza de Mayo. A glimpse of a strong symbolism for today's march, 24 months, forty-three years after the last military coup in Argentina.

It's happened yesterday, as part of the series Conversationsbefore the conference Dora Barrancos, with Nora Cortiñas as guest, with the presentation of María Florencia Alcaraz, during The women's badembly, a free event with which Cervantes inaugurated its 2019 season, a project co-produced with the Goethe Institute, the French Institute of Argentina and the Medifé Foundation, with the collaboration of the French Alliance of Buenos Aires and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. The content was in charge of Marcela Basch, Carla Imbrogno and Amalia Sanz. And artistic coordination, from ANdrés Gallina, Oria Puppo and Alejandro Tantanian.

The title is that of a comedy that Aristophanes written 392 BC the year before. and that today we could call ourselves Uchronía: what would have happened if women took power? In the comedy, a group of women from Athens dress up as men and camouflaged themselves to intervene in the decisions of the city government, introducing a form of socialist distribution of goods (and people).

Yesterday, in Buenos Aires, women, some – some – men, transvestites, trans and not binary stormed the theater Cervantes, the French Alliance, the cafe Las Meninas while long lines of various people invaded the streets of Libertad Street. and Córdoba Avenue, this time without it being necessary to disguise themselves, and have participated in lectures, readings of underlined texts, workshops, illustrations and screenprints live, at the projection of Argentine, German and French directors' films, audiovisual installations, a feminist book fair. In the theater hall, he was asked the book entitled to sell in the Cervantes, from the National Theater of Argentina: Feminisms: when and when?. Compiled by Eugenia Zicavo, contains texts of Sonja Eismann, Diana Maffia, Fanny Gallot, Mabel Bellucci and Monica Tarducci. And an infographic sheet, "The path of data", free distribution, retraces the chronology of world feminism and its course in Argentina.

The person responsible for extinguishing the fire was, at 11 o'clock in the morning, in the room Oreste Caviglia, the writer Cecilia Szperling, in the cycle Highlighted, reading an iconic text: A piece by Virginia Woolf. The Mexican singer followed Julieta Venegaswho read Rosario Castellanos; Inés Acevedo and Paula Peyceré, a Juana Manso; Monica Tarducci, a Kate Millet; Mariana Dimópulos proposed a critical reading of Alice Schwarzer; Dolores Fonzi commented texts of Lina Meruane; Liliana Daunes and Claudia Korol, a Rosa Luxemburg; Maria Moreno stressed at Adelaide Giglio and Matilde Sánchez, the anarchist newspaper The voice of the woman.

At 11:30, in the auditorium of the French Alliance, another fire was declared. The Argentineans Claudia Piñeiro and Soledad Vallejo, hosted by Cecilia González, spoke with German Tina Gerhäusser of a topical issue: "Question of the global agenda: the fight for rights in the public opinion". In this alternative scenario were the majority of foreign guests, with simultaneous translation. Meanwhile, at 12 o'clock, on the eleventh floor of Cervantes, Charo Bogarin offered his workshop "Encuentro de canto nativo", one of the most convincing.

At that time, rue Libertad, the lines were tense to listen to conversations in the room María Guerrero, where there was room for diversity, for example in "Biology is not destiny: bodies, subjectivities , identities ", with Malena Nijensohn, menstrual Naty and SaSa Testa, moderated by Maria Eugenia Ludueña. Or the interview that took place at 15:30 Maria O Donnell a Rita Segato on "Gender relations, clbad relations in Latin America".

The lines on the outside went longer and longer in a "full of voices and polyphonies" living room, as described by Dora Barrancos on the armed stage in the María Guerrero hall, before being held in the hall. maintain with Nora Cortiñas, historian, researcher and author of books like Women Between home and place, he proposed a brief history of feminism and filled the space of concepts such as "there is no social competition without the women of the depths of time", he used the l '. humor in expressions such as "the patriarchal system has been persistent, although a little lazy sometimes", he said the Argentines who "succeeded" in politics since the nineteenth century, and in this awesome framework included the "tricks" used by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo during the dictatorship, namely: "the power to play protagonist of the maternity and be apolitical." Barrancos pointed out that 30% of the missing people in Argentina out of 76 were women.

Nora Cortiñas, a psychologist and human rights activist, took up the challenge and said, "I became a feminist 40 years ago, and we mothers have acted as feminist regimes without being as feminist. And then he added, "This is the moment we came out of invisibility because they did not see us." They were afraid to look at us, "we were invisible." If the military and some Church leaders have mistreated us, imagine if we said we were feminists. "Cortiñas recalled that" they took away six mothers of missing political prisoners, in addition to appropriating babies, there are still 500 young people who do not know their identity, we continue to insist, do not believe that the ecclesiastical and economic military dictatorship took place because confrontations with young people, it was a plan developed in the United States. "

It was a political speech, as the table that followed at 8:30 pm ended and ended the event, this time with Nora Cortiñas as a spectator, who was again applauded by the 700 people standing. folded in a corner of Libertad and Paraguay before entering and now filled the room, sitting in the pits and in the trays. The theme was "How to live together" and the anthropologist participated Rita Segato, philosopher Diana Maffia and Laura Fernández CorderoModerate Sociologist Mariana Carbajal

Fernández Cordero referred to the utopian thought, the patriarchal historian Diana Maffia, said today that there was a "crisis of love life, the most langa no garpa", and the audience laughed. Segato differentiated the mbad society from the community ("The community is not feminist, the mbad society is") and celebrated the diversity of voices within the feminist movement. "This tension should not scare us," said the anthropologist, author of Pedagogies of cruelty. The dialogue has turned to adolescent abuse and denunciation, and how this conditions the links between boys and girls.

Segato, perhaps the most controversial, stated that #MeToo was not #NiUNaMenos and warned against "bring slogans from there because there is also the feminism of the enemy, which responds to a monopolistic policy", claimed the spear of sons and daughters against the genocide of the dictatorship and opposed the" spontaneous moralism of lynching "in networks that do not support the" fair process, not necessarily the state " , did he declare.

Diana Maffia argued for "non-punitive forms of reparation". And Laura Fernández Cordero said that it was good "to break the pacts of men and find new places of dialogue, our horizon can not be more to fill the prisons".

Maffia looked at Nora Cortiñas sitting in a chair among the audience and her gift to the mother consisted of three words: "They were 30,000".

The closing led to the room dancing full, beat the palms to the rhythm and sing for the trans artist Susy Shock in voice, accompanied by the guitar and choirs of Caro Bonillo. They played a milonga ("Milonga queer am what I am, if you like it and if not"), a tango ("Tango sudaca de acá, a tango that works for diversity") and a huayno dedicated to Lohana Berkins, the transvestite leader murdered. At the request of the public, came the encore, another huayno. Susy Shock said that "mothers and grandmothers were the first to know how to embrace women" and that "Lohana Berkins was the most feminist of all".

The night ended with a handkerchief, hundreds of raised arms raising the green handkerchiefs, those containing these other handkerchiefs, the whites of the Mothers. A perfect synthesis

Thus completed The women's badembly yesterday at Cervantes, half-past ten in the evening. It was a unique emotional historical holiday

Pictures: Cáceres / Gorrini / Garelli TNA-TC