Women’s Struggle in the Sphere of Social Reproduction. A View from the Perspective of Argentine Communism and its Frentist Politics (1935-1946)

Abstract

This article analyses the development of the Argentine Communist Party (CP) in relation to women’s struggles within the sphere of social reproduction during the application of its Popular Front orientation, between 1935 and 1946. Previous studies have focused on observing its action among unionized women workers or on its encouragement of the creation of “broad” organizations linked to the “anti-fascist” struggle. This article proposes a different and little explored angle: that of their links with those struggles for the high cost of living, access to water or the defence of the ferias where cheaper prices were obtained, mostly led by women from proletarian families. The traditional appeal to “maternalism” and the moralizing role of women within the family also became an engine for political action to which, with contradictions, communism sought to link itself.