Alicia Moreau's socialist feminism on war: transcending western narratives?

Abstract

According to conventional narratives of International Relations (IR), the vast majority—if not all—of the twentieth-century proposals to overcome war came from men, such as Norman Angell, Vladimir Lenin and Woodrow Wilson. Recent efforts show that women also contributed significantly to the topic; nevertheless, they have focused almost exclusively on women from the United States or Great Britain. Despite Argentinian Alicia Moreau's significant writings on war, her international thought remains unknown in Latin America, and in the histories of international thought and IR. Through a textual analysis of Moreau's writings and speeches, as well as a comparative approach with other socialist and feminist perspectives, this article has a double objective. First, to lay the foundations for demonstrating that women from the global South also contributed to explaining and providing practical solutions to war during the early twentieth century; and second, to draw lessons from Moreau's writings for today's policy-makers. The article shows that although Moreau's international thought does not transcend Eurocentrism, her blend of socialist democratic feminism, informed by her work as an activist and politician, offers a moderate non-violent alternative to other well-known socialist and feminist approaches, and provides insights for policy-makers on the importance of women, education and democracy to achieve a more peaceful and egalitarian world.