US Feminists and Central America in the “Age of Reagan”: The Overlapping Contexts of Activism, Intellectual Culture and Documentary Filmmaking

This paper examines the attitudes of feminist activists, intellectuals and filmmakers to US intervention in Central America during the 1980s. It traces the development of mutual intellectual and political sustenance between feminism and anti-interventionism, arguing that as feminist thinking bred ne...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of American studies 2014-02, Vol.48 (1), p.199-221
Main Author: WITHAM, NICK
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Attitudes
Central America
Conservatism
Documentary films
Females
Feminism
Feminist film theory
Foreign Policy
Gender equality
Geopolitics
Intellectuals
International politics
Intervention
Latin American politics
Narratives
Political activism
Political revolutions
Politics
Reagan Administration
Reagan, Ronald Wilson
Solidarity
United States of America
Women
Womens Rights
Womens rights movements
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper examines the attitudes of feminist activists, intellectuals and filmmakers to US intervention in Central America during the 1980s. It traces the development of mutual intellectual and political sustenance between feminism and anti-interventionism, arguing that as feminist thinking bred new ways of approaching US involvement in Central America, so anti-interventionist struggles bred new ways of thinking about women's activism. In making this point, the paper complicates narratives of the “age of Reagan” that overlook the persistence of left-wing politics during the 1980s. Instead, it argues that a specific form of international feminism enabled a community of activists to contribute to a vibrant culture of dissent that criticized conservative approaches to women's rights and, at the same time, vigorously contested the interventionist foreign policy of the Reagan administration.
ISSN:0021-8758
1469-5154
DOI:10.1017/S0021875813002533