Frente Amplio and the feminist movement. Disputes and Transformations on the Left, 1989-1994

In the early 1990s, the women's commissions of the Frente Amplio (FA), which had been created at the impulse of a powerful women's movement in the second half of the 1980s, ceased to exist. Many activists left the party disappointed after a persistent consideration of gender inequalities as a secondary issue of the agenda, while still focused on class inequalities. These women left towards the feminist movement (MF), disrupting the double activism they had maintained until then. This detachment was forged at a time of key changes in the Uruguayan political field, in which both the FA and the MF underwent important transformations that altered not only their ties to each other, but also their projects and political identities. This paper deals with the relationships between the FA and the MF between 1989 and 1994. In particular, it analyzes how the MF disputed with the FA what it meant to be on the left and how these conceptualizations were changing with time. It is built on the premise that disputes over words and their conceptualizations are key aspects in the political process and account for projects and political identities. For this reason, the analysis is based on how both actors understood << democracy >>, a central concept of the post-dictatorship Uruguayan political arena.