Against the economic and moral bases of exploitation. Analysis of the essay “Feminism” (1939) by Camila Henríquez Ureña

Abstract

The dominican-cuban intellectual and teacher Camila Henríquez Ureña had a prolific scriptural work, mostly disseminated in conferences, classes and magazines. However, these have not had a wide circulation in the Latin American region, remaining within the Caribbean circles. As a feminist precursor and revolutionary militant, she had as the central axis of her intellectual concerns the question of the social condition of women, based on an analysis that can be placed in a feminist rereading of historical materialism. In pursuit of tracing continuities of her thought with contemporary feminist struggles, this article aims to carry out an analysis of her essay “Feminism”, published in 1939, in which she critically examines the economic and moral bases of the exploitation of women. From this reading, the article emphasizes the validity of her political thought for the feminist struggles of the present, which turn towards demands for identity, which seem to forget the demands for material redistribution.