Book Launch: Gender Battles - Latin American Women, War, and Feminism

Book Launch with Vanesa Miseres

Gender Battles: Latin American Women, War, and Feminism by gender studies and Latin Americanist scholar Vanesa Miseres focuses on the overlooked voices of women who wrote about and participated in Latin American and global wars from the 19th to mid-20th centuries. Moving beyond military narratives centred on men, the book highlights how women — as journalists, memoirists, and activists — shaped the discourse around war and gender.

Focusing on conflicts like the War of the Pacific, the World Wars, and the Spanish Civil War, Gender Battles reveals how women of the region navigated nationalistic frameworks to express evolving feminist ideas and challenge social norms. Their writing and organizing captures war not only as a battlefield struggle but as a force that defines gender roles, political structures, national, and transnational identities.

More than witnesses, the women of Gender Battles reimagine the meaning of war itself: revealing its intimate connections to everyday life, personal autonomy, and global feminist movements. With an interdisciplinary approach, Miseres reforms our understanding of Latin American history and feminist thought, bringing to light a powerful legacy of Latin American women’s resilience, influence, and political intervention in times of conflict.

Vanesa Miseres
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow
Associate Professor of Spanish

Discussants:
Katherine Marino
Associate Professor of History
University of California at Los Angeles

Sebastian Diaz-Duhalde
Associate Professor of Spanish
Dartmouth College

Reception to follow

Cosponsored with the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures