María Elena Oddone is an Argentine

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

activist and writer. A prominent figure of

second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred ...

in her country, she was the founder of one of its first feminist organizations, the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF), as well as the Argentine Feminist Organization (OFA) and the Court of Violence Against Women. She was director of ''Persona'' magazine from September 1974 to December 1986. She is the author of ''La pasión por la libertad: memorias de una feminista'' (The Passion for Freedom: Memoirs of a Feminist).

Biography

María Elena Oddone was a teacher by profession, and led a comfortable life as a housewife from Barrio Norte, married to a soldier. At age 42, she discovered

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

through the works of authors such as

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

and

Victoria Ocampo Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo (7 April 1890 – 27 January 1979) was an Argentine writer and intellectual. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine '' Sur'', she was also a writer and critic in he ...

. She broke up with her husband and devoted herself to feminist activism. She appeared on radio and television programs, and wrote articles in magazines such as ''La Opinión'' and ''Claudia''. In the latter, she published criticism of a joke from the magazine itself about some American feminists. As a consequence, in 1972, she decided to found the Feminist Liberation Movement (MLF), taking the American and European feminist movements as a model. Under the auspices of this collective, she also founded the magazine ''Persona'', which was a pioneering publication of the Argentine organized feminist movement. As she stated, this name alluded to the identity traditionally denied to women. It published articles by feminists such as

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-clas ...

, Evelyn Reed,

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

Juliet Mitchell Juliet Mitchell, Lady Goody (born 4 October 1940) is a British psychoanalyst, socialist feminist, research professor and author. Early life and education Mitchell was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1940, and then moved to England in ...

, and Simone de Beauvoir. The MLF, in collaboration with the Argentine Feminist Union (UFA) created by

María Luisa Bemberg María Luisa Bemberg (April 14, 1922 – May 7, 1995) was an Argentine screenwriter, film director and actress. She was one of the first Argentine female directors with a powerful presence both in the filmmaking and the intellectual world of Latin ...

and Gabriela Cristeller, and with middle-class urban activists, especially from Buenos Aires, carried out numerous activities to raise awareness and debate of women's issues. In 1976, the

military government A military government is any government that is administered by a military, whether or not this government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue or by an occupying power. It is usually administered by military personnel. Types of m ...

dissolved the organization, and Oddone fled Buenos Aires for a time. In 1980, the government allowed political parties and associations to return to their premises, and Oddone resumed her public presence. She reformed the MLF under a new name – the Argentine Feminist Organization (OFA) – and relaunched ''Persona''. Together with other activists, she fought for mothers to be granted the same rights as fathers in terms of parental authority over their children. To this end, she formed a commission made up of Irma Block, Victoria Mungo, Sara Torres, María Luisa Bemberg, Leonor Calvera, and others, which organized demonstrations and undertook a campaign to collect signatures. In 1983, with the aim of assisting victims of sexual crimes, she formed the Court of Violence Against Women, which denounced judges who let murderers and rapists of women go free. On 8 March 1984, the first

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...

since the country's return to democracy, she publicly called for the legalization of abortion, carrying a sign with the slogan "No a la maternidad, sí al placer" (No to motherhood, yes to pleasure), which questioned the idea that the destiny of women is limited to raising children. In 1985, Oddone joined the Fighting Front for Women, but she was expelled due to disagreements with the organization. She also had to leave other groups such as the Women's Place, the Women's Multisectorial, and the Family Protection Association because she opposed the feminist movement's support of the

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo () is an Argentina, Argentine human rights association formed in response to abuses by the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla. Initially the association worked to find ...

. She also opposed the Law of the Cohabitant that made it necessary to distribute a widow's pension between a wife and ex-wife. She was associated with gay and lesbian organizations such as the Sexual Policy Group (GPS) and the Homosexual Liberation Front (FLH). From 1989 to 1994, she wrote a column in the weekly ''El Informador Público'', covering cases of sexist violence and complaints against the police and legal system. In 2001, she published her autobiography, ''La pasión por la libertad: memorias de una feminista''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oddone, Maria Elena 21st-century Argentine women writers 21st-century Argentine writers Argentine columnists Argentine women columnists Argentine women's rights activists Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century Argentine journalists 21st-century Argentine journalists 20th-century Argentine women journalists 21st-century Argentine women journalists