Le nonne di Plaza de Mayo

Abstract

The article is focused on a specific case study of ‘motherist movement’ in Argentina during the last military rule (1976-1983): the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. Blurring the boundaries between public and private realm, these old women, without a previous, soundly-based political conscience, were able to set up a transnational human rights movement, well known all over the world, while looking for their abducted grandchildren. A crucial issue, still, is: how far did this group go in terms of advocating womens’ rights? Could we really find a correspondence, as Jelin puts it, between ‘women for human rights’ and ‘women for women’s rights’? The answer, as the Argentinean case shows, seems to be not so straightforward.