Julieta Paredes

Julieta Paredes Carvajal (born c. 1967) is an Aymara Bolivian poet, singer-songwriter, writer, graffiti artist, and decolonial feminist activist. In 2003 she began Mujeres creando comunidad (women creating community) out of the activism of community feminism.[1]

Julieta Paredes
Born
Julieta Paredes Carvajal

c. 1967
La Paz, Bolivia
OccupationPoet, writer
Partner(s)María Galindo (until 1998)

Career

Julieta Paredes was born in the city of La Paz. In 1992, she and her then-partner María Galindo founded the Mujeres Creando movement.[2] Her relationship with Galindo ended in 1998, and in 2002 there was a division of the organization.[3] In 2003, she initiated the so-called Mujeres creando comunidad,[4] because, as she explained in 2008, "Autonomous and Anarchist feminism was no longer enough."

With great patience since April 2002, we were building relationships with women from the neighborhoods and also from El Alto. The year 2003 when the insurrection occurred, we found these women in the streets fighting against neoliberalism and for the recovery of natural resources for our people. There the compatriots realized that our feminism was not a show for TV, nor for export, that in reality we were feminists for our people, from our town. From that time, we continued meeting at the "Carcajada" café and the Feminist Assembly was born, which is a coordination of various loose collectives and feminists.

— Julieta Paredes, 2008[1]

Julieta Paredes Carvajal is the author of the book Hilando fino desde el feminismo comunitario (2008), in which she delves into notions such as equality between women and men in the context of indigenous culture, her position on Western feminism, colonialism, and neoliberalism, and the role of the body and sexuality in the liberation of women. She defines herself as an "Aymara feminist lesbian".[5]

Community feminism

Paredes is part of a movement called "community feminism", based on the participation of women and men in a community without a hierarchical relationship between the groups, but with both having an equivalent level of political representation.[6] This conception of feminism, Paredes says, moves away from the individualism characteristic of contemporary society.[7]

Community feminism questions patriarchy, not only colonial but also the patriarchy that derives from one's own cultures and that has also marked a double standard for women. In this sense, they reproach Indianism for not recognizing the existence of oppression of women, and distancing itself from the view of essentialism also in relation to the Indian population. "The people are liberating us. They are historical political processes. I come from a people," she said in one of her interventions in Mexico in 2016. "It is not a wonder what Brother Morales is doing, but it is the best thing we have right now in history, of our town and we are building." From no government are revolutions made, says Paredes; that is why we are in the process of change with social movements.[8]

"Blanquitas, blancos, for us, are not the people who have fair skin, but those who accept the privileges of a patriarchal, colonial, and racist system because of the clarity of skin, in the same way with our male brothers, it is not for being men but for accepting the privileges that a patriarchal, colonial, racist system gives them; they use it and do not fight it." Therefore, the structure that arises is "from the long memory of the people."[8]

However, her struggle is not focused solely on the emancipation of indigenous women or belonging to certain social classes, but on the equality of all women. This process would go through the political awareness of women and society in general.

See also

References
  1. "Disidencia y Feminismo Comunitario" [Dissidence and Community Feminism]. Disidencia (in Spanish). 10 (2). 2013. Archived from the original on 5 August 2017. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  2. Pou, Arpad (20 September 2016). "Mujeres Creando, despatriarcalizar con arte" [Mujeres Creando, Depatriarchalizing With Art]. Revista Pueblos (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  3. Aldunate Morales, Victoria (22 November 2008). "Julieta Paredes: feministas para revolucionar la sociedad" [Julieta Paredes: Feminists To Revolutionize Society]. Hommodolars.org (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 16 January 2017. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  4. Valencia, Rufo (24 June 2014). "La boliviana Julieta Paredes explica en Canadá el feminismo comunitario indígena" [In Canada the Bolivian Julieta Paredes Explains Indigenous Community Feminism] (in Spanish). Radio Canada International. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  5. Monasterios Pérez, Elizabeth, ed. (2006). No pudieron con nosotras: el desafío del feminismo autónomo de Mujeres Creando [They Could Not Do It With Us: The Challenge of the Autonomous Feminism of Mujeres Creando] (in Spanish). Plural editores. p. 61. ISBN 9789995410391. Retrieved 5 November 2017 – via Google Books. Si no fuera lo que soy – aymara feminista lesbiana – no sabría como hacer, ni por dónde empezar mis días.
  6. Rodríguez Calderón, Mirta (7 May 2012). "Julieta Paredes: Un feminismo que cree en las utopías y la comunidad" [Julieta Paredes: A Feminism That Believes in Utopias and the Community]. bolpress (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  7. Sánchez, Rocío (5 March 2015). "Feminismo comunitario: Una respuesta al individualismo" [Community Feminism: A Response to Individualism]. La Jornada (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 November 2017. Es comprender que de todo grupo humano podemos hacer y construir comunidades; es una propuesta alternativa a la sociedad individualista.
  8. Feminismo Comunitario: Charla pública con Julieta Paredes hermana Aymara de Bolivia [Community Feminism: Public Talk With Julieta Paredes Aymara Sister of Bolivia] (in Spanish). Auto Gestival. 7 July 2016. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
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