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The Female Peronist Party (Spanish: Partido Peronista Femenino, PPF) was an Argentine political party created in 1949 and dissolved in 1955. The party only accepted women and was founded by Eva Perón, who was also the first president of the party.
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Peronist Women's Party Partido Peronista Femenino | |
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| Abbreviation | PPF |
| President | Eva Perón (1949–1952) Delia Parodi (1952–1955) |
| Founder | Eva Perón |
| Founded | 29 July 1949[1] |
| Dissolved | 1955 |
| Headquarters | Buenos Aires |
| Membership (1951) | 500,000[2] |
| Ideology | Peronism[3] Social democracy[4] Progressivism[5] |
| Political position | Left-wing[6][7] |
| Colours | Light blue White |
| Anthem | "Evita Capitana"[8] |
| Party flag | |
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The PPF was organized and acted as an independent party, autonomous from the male-dominated Peronist Party. It counted with its own political structures and institutions. Under Eva Perón's leadership, the PPF sought to engage women in politics following the expansion of suffrage for women in 1947.[9]
In 1955, following the military coup that ousted Juan Perón from power, the Female Peronist Party was disbanded alongside all other Peronist parties and organisations.[10]
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After obtaining women's suffrage in 1947, First Lady Eva "Evita" Duarte de Perón realized that the mere existence of the law did not guarantee the presence of women among candidates with the possibility of being elected. For that reason, in 1949, along with other women who had been politically active since 1945, they decided to found the Female Peronist Party.[11] By 1951, the party had half million members.[2]
Origins
The party, also known as the women's branch or women's party, was created at a meeting held at the Cervantes Theater on 26 July 1949. While running similarly to the men's branch, Eva ran the party completely separated from it. Yet, the party functioned more as a branch and the women in the PPF were placed on Peronist Party lists. Similarly to the Peronist Party, many of its members were working-class emerging leaders.[12][10]
Work
The PPF was organized from unidades básicas femeninas ("female basic units") that were formed in neighborhoods and towns, channeling the direct political participation of women in the Peronist movement.[13] During the economic crisis that hit Argentina during the early 1950s, these basic units offered classes in cooking, specifically meatless cuisine and the domestic economy, and also facilitated discussions on the Second Quinquennial Plan, all of which were done by volunteers and free for the general public. Similarly, to help in women to save on clothing, these units (along with the Peronist Association of Housewives) later provided free sewing, kitting and embroidery classes.[14]
Under PPF, Eva also ran the Ministries of Labour and Health, and successfully championed suffrage for women, with a law allowing all women to vote being passed in 1947.[15] In 1949, women were gven the right to equal wages with men, and the new Peronist constitution gave women constitutional guarantees of equality in marriage, granting women equal authority over children. In 1954, a year before Perón was overthrown by the military, the Peronist government also legalized divorce, with the Peronist divorce code strongly favoring female plaintiffs.[7]
Through the PPF's efforts, a large number of women were elected in 1951 to occupy legislative positions: 23 national deputies, the largest number in the western hemisphere, 6 national senators, and 80 in provincial legislators.[16][17][18] In the same year the PPF had 500 thousand members and over 3000 basic units.[18]
Eva Peron's Death and Disbanding
Following Eva's death in 1952, the party began losing strength and her husband Juan Perón followed her as president of the women's branch.[10][18] Soon after, Perón gave up the presidency and gave it to congresswoman Delia Parodi .[18][19] Like every other Perónist organization, it was disbanded by the military junta in 1955, after they overthrew Juan Perón on September 19, 1955 during the Revolución Libertadora.[20]
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The Female Peronist Party focused on promoting the rights of women and the poor, and improving the social conditions of the marginalized parts of the Argentine population. It was credited with ensuring the inclusion of the universal suffrage for women in the Peronist constitution, and was a core part of the Peronist movement - it was very independent within the movement, included more than half a million members, and is considered to have significantly raised the electoral dominance of Peronism.[21] It was a part of the tripartite structure of the Peronist Party, with other two branches being the Male Peronist Party and the Labor Union Branch.[22]
After Evita's death in 1952, the new leader of the party, Delia Parodi, successfully pushed the divorce project by promoting it as part of Evita's feminist plan (although Evita had never mentioned such a law). The divorce law passed, and was hailed as ensuring "the right to happiness in lasting love and a respectable marriage" by Parodi. The law favored women, and a result Argentine divorce ruligs between 1952 and 1955 tended to favor femeale plainiffs.[22]
Moira Fradinger argued that the Female Peronist Party represented 'modern feminism'.[2] Despite its feminist orientation however, the rhetoric of Eva and her party was described as conservative and traditional regarding its stance on gender roles. In her speeches, Eva often "positioned women as inferior to men and relegated them to their supposed “natural” place in the domestic realm." When commenting on the limited representation of women in the 1951 Argentine election, she remarked: "We are used to sacrifice [on men's behalf], which for us women is the most natural thing in the world."[23] Peronist schoolbooks provided celebrated women's suffrage, but also declared that the political rights and duties of women "should be carried out for the happiness of others", and that " women's concerns were confined mainly to the home, which was their great and irrevocable destiny."[7]
While Peronism itself is considered to be a combination of "progressive currents from socialism with strong nationalism",[21] Eva and the Female Peronist Party were especially considered to represent the left-wing current of Peronism. In one of her speeches, Eva stated: "I am sectarian, yes, I do not deny it ... Could anyone deny me that right? Could anyone deny to the workers the humble privilege that I am more with them than with their bosses? ... My sectarianism is besides a compensation, a reparation. During a century the privileged were the exploiters of the working class. It is necessary that that be balanced with another century in which the privileged are the workers!" After her death, she was glorified by Peronists as a "the strong willed individual woman whose militant anti-oligarchic attitudes endeared her to the masses", and embraced by Revolutionary Peronism and the Montoneros, who became known for slogans such as "If Evita were alive today, she would be a Montonera", and argued that the ultimate goal of Peronism is to bring socialism to Argentina.[7]
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