Gendering Anti-facism

A tour de force. . .recasts histories of fascism and antifascism, and global feminism, while making a strong case for Latin American history to center these movements.

a major contribution to the historiography of antifascism, gender studies, and political history in the countries of the Southern Cone of South America during the interwar period

An essential contribution to know the history of women’s organizations, the origin of feminism and its relationship with the development of workers’ struggles at national and international level and the formation of spaces of politicization for women from different social backgrounds.

Deutsch brings an impressive array of different sources to provide a detailed and absorbing history of this association in which almost no aspect is left untouched. the author provides a model for future researchers on how to knit the local, the national, and the transnational in the study of this phenomenon.

The implications of this monograph go well beyond its revelation of a critical unknown women’s movement. As only a scholar the caliber of Deutsch can, it creates a revised historiography of Latin American women’s movements, Argentine history and exposes gendered implications of transnational political conversations on fascism and anti-fascism. Fundamentally, it lays bare multiple paths for future research in a multiplicity of fields and time periods. Perhaps the most comforting aspect of this deeply researched and pivotal monograph is its message that, in order to navigate our current political arena, we need to interrogate and understand past movements.

Deutsch offers a major revisionist work on World War II that relies on extensive interviews with immigrants, elites, feminists, maternalists, communists, Catholics, Jews, and atheists. What a story it tells!

Superbly researched and elegantly written, McGee Deutsch’s book is a remarkable contribution to the scholarship of women’s activism and organizing in Latin America. It is also a timely invitation to reconsider the deeply gendered meanings of anti-fascism and democracy—a topic that is even more fitting in the current context of rising totalitarian ideas in the region and the world.

In this deeply researched book, Sandra McGee Deutsch provides a compelling narrative of the struggles of Argentine women, often operating in an extremely hostile environment, to combat the rise of fascism at home and abroad. It is a major contribution to our understanding of Argentine history and has significant implications for the present day.

A superb book on the only major Argentine antifascist association composed entirely of women. Attracting disenfranchised women, the Junta de la Victoria fostered a democratic alternative to fascism and politicized women in the Southern Cone. The contemporary resurgence of right-wing populist and neofascist groups in the Americas makes this meticulously researched study, of a relatively unknown organization of the 1940s, of particular relevance. Highly recommended.