Missing Voices in International Thought: Alicia Moreau's Socialist Feminism on War
Latin American women thinkers of the early twentieth century are widely unknown to current policy-makers and largely absent in the histories of both international thought and the discipline of International Relations. This, as Patricia Owens and Sarah Dunstan (2022) remark, 'is due to the highly gendered, racialized, and classed contexts that shape the selection and reception of intellectual work'.
Alicia Moreau de Justo was a prominent early 20th century socialist feminist from Argentina. Yet, she remains an unknown figure despite efforts to highlight women thinkers during the interwar period. While Moreau's blend of democratic socialist feminism informed by her work as a politician and activist does not fully transcend Eurocentrism, it provides non-violent policy insights distinctive from other well-known socialist and revolutionary proposals with implications for policymakers regarding the problems of war, inequality, and the importance of women and education. Moreau also stands out for the sheer volume and longevity of her written output on topics intertwining women's issues, socialism, democracy, education, and world affairs. She was perhaps the 20th century's most prolific Latin American writer specifically addressing matters relating to war.
Moreau shaped her distinctive worldview through a lifetime of dedication to activism, policy work, intellectual engagement, and the dissemination of her feminist and socialist ideals. She was born in 1885 in London to a socialist French family and later immigrated to Argentina in 1900. Like many professional options unavailable to women at the time, she initially studied to become a schoolteacher. However, Moreau later pursued medicine and became a gynaecologist advocating for the health and rights of lower-income women in Argentina (Villar 2021).
Moreau's policy work and political activism revolved around the establishment of influential institutions that promoted her vision of a more just and equal society. She founded organizations such as the Centro Femenino Socialista and Unión Feminista Internacional (UFI) to unite diverse feminist groups and advance women's civil rights. Moreover, Moreau co-founded educational institutions like the Ateneo Popular that provided free classes to disadvantaged Argentinians. Internationally, she participated in or helped organize landmark feminist events, such as the First International Congress of Working Women held in Washington in 1919 (Paredes 2018).
A pivotal point in Moreau's career came in 1921 when she joined the Socialist Party of Argentina, where she went on to hold several leadership positions. Membership in the party granted Moreau an influential platform from which to advocate for her beliefs in gender equality, workers' rights, and other progressive causes to a wider audience. She regularly contributed articles, pamphlets, and books on these topics to publications such as the party's official newspaper La Vanguardia. Even in her later years, Moreau remained actively engaged in causes like protesting the dictatorship's human rights abuses in Argentina during the 1970s. Her tremendous lifelong commitment to activism right up until her death in 1986 at age 101 is inspirational (Paredes 2018).
In examining causes of and approaches to war, Moreau departed from predominant socialist and Marxist explanations that emphasized capitalism and social classes alone. She acknowledged warfare as a human phenomenon preceding the modern era rather than an inevitable consequence of any single economic system. Additionally, Moreau drew attention to the imperialist actions of communist Russia under Stalin as contradicting theories equating imperialism strictly with capitalism. She argued military aggression depended more on specific politicians than states' dominant ideologies (Moreau 1984).
While labelling Germany, Italy and Japan as capitalist 'imperialist' powers in line with other socialists, Moreau expressed a more favourable view of British and American influence she saw as democratic rather than imperialist in nature. This viewpoint, stemming partly from her defense of democracy as an ideal, also reflected the racism and ethnocentric assumptions common among European and North American thinkers at the time regarding notions of 'civilizing' supposedly 'backward' peoples (Moreau 1940). Such shortcomings indicate Moreau could not fully transcend the intellectual constraints of her era and upbringing.
As both an activist and policymaker, Moreau synthesized a qualified stance on pacifism and the strategic use of force. She abhorred war's immense human suffering but accepted military action may sometimes be necessary against aggressive dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and imperial Japan to prevent even greater human tolls. Moreau criticized the isolationism of Western powers who abandoned victims of fascist and militarist expansionism. She argued timely intervention could pre-empt wider future conflagrations (Moreau 1938), distinguished from absolute pacifism but aligned with U.S. humanitarian feminist Emily Greene Balch's qualified support for World War II.
Moreau also viewed war as economically irrational and a poor allocation of resources in an age of advanced weaponry magnifying its destructive potential. She advocated channelling the funds spent on armaments instead toward more constructive goals like universal education that could cultivate the conditions for long-term peace. Unlike traditional security debates focused narrowly on state power dynamics, Moreau emphasized war's predominantly civilian human impacts, especially atrocious suffering of women and children. For her, true security meant safeguarding all individuals' very lives rather than merely states' interests or balance of forces. She posited women in particular could play pivotal roles in conflict prevention by shaping societal values of nonviolence, empathy and justice between peoples (Moreau 1945).
While not entirely escaping the intellectual confines of her time and place, Moreau's blend of democratic socialist feminism informed by direct grassroots experiences diverged meaningfully from prevailing socialist, capitalist and pacifist thought currents in subtle but insightful ways. She occupied a middle position between deterministic Marxist conceptions of war as inevitable yet sometimes benefitting the international proletariat class, and theories arguing military aggression had been rendered unprofitable like Norman Angell's.
This article hopes contributing to recovering overlooked intellectual histories by bringing Moreau's illuminating international perspective to light. Ignoring figures like her risks perpetuating the field's traditional anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism, whereas taking Latin American women seriously sparks further scholarship with relevance for addressing issues still confronting humanity. Moreau's lifelong activism offers inspiration, while her writings provide lessons on considering war's human costs beyond states, promoting nonviolence through gender and economic justice, democracy, and acknowledging peacebuilding roles for women and education.
(For the full article, please see Villanueva, R, "Alicia Moreau's socialist feminism on war: transcending western narratives?", International Affairs, 100:1, 2024, pp. 81-99, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad287).
References
Dunstan, S. and P. Owens, 'Claudia Jones, International Thinker', Modern Intellectual History 19:2, 2022, p. 573.
Moreau, A., 'Carrera hacia el Abismo', Vida Femenina 55, Feb. 1938, pp. 4-5.
Moreau, A., La mujer en la democracia (Buenos Aires: Editorial El Ateneo, 1945).
Moreau, A., 'Lucha de imperialismos', Vida Femenina, 8: 83-84, Oct. 1940, pp. 4-5.
Paredes, M., Alicia Moreau de Justo (Buenos Aires: Editorial de la Comarca, 2018).
Villar, R., 'Alicia Moreau de Justo en el documental Sello Argentino', AURA Revista de Historia y Teoría del Arte 13, 2021, p. 56-56.