History of feminism
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met in 1840 while en route to London where they were shunned as women by the male leadership of the first World's Anti-Slavery Convention. In 1848, Mott and Stanton held a woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, where a declaration of independence for women was drafted. Lucy Stone helped to organize the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, a much larger event at which Sojourner Truth, Abby Kelley Foster, and others spoke sparked Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women's rights. In December 1851, Sojourner Truth contributed to the feminist movement when she spoke at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. She delivered her powerful “Ain’t I a Woman” speech in an effort to promote women’s rights by demonstrating their ability to accomplish tasks that have been traditionally associated with men. Barbara Leigh Smith met with Mott in 1858, strengthening the link between the transatlantic feminist movements.
Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentros
The First "Encuentro" was held in Bogotá in 1981 with 200 feminists and representing fifty NGOs from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. At this foundational meeting it was important for the women to discuss how they would define feminism. On the one hand were groups dismissing "feministas" as elites with no understanding of the political and social reality of middle- and lower-class women, and on the other hand, there were "políticas" or political militants, who were seen as radical leftists intent on continuing the revolutionary upheavals from which the various countries had so recently emerged. Feminists argued that they were not focused on obtaining "practical" (feminine) goals, but rather wanted relevant, "strategic" (feminist) focus. The militants stressed that the only way to reach all women was with "leftist party organizing and revolutionary mobilization".