ABSTRACT
With growing intensity after 1900, Argentines often understood the nation as something firmly on one side or the other of a political or ideological binary. The binary alternatives, though, have shifted many times over the decades, from Radicals versus conservatives, to Peronists versus Radicals and leftists, to Nationalists (fascists) versus anti-fascists, to military regimes versus democratic rule itself. This chapter takes a methodological step back by challenging the idea that the Argentine polity was determined by the binaries that often dominate our understanding of Argentine politics. Zooming in on two women, the feminist Elvira Rawson de Dellepiane and Catholic writer Isabel Giménez Bustamante, it shows how politically active people switched positions, often radically, over time. These women's changing political engagements show the fluidity of politics and ideologies, as well as the poorly understood roles of women in shaping national political projects. Over time and outside the political mainstream, these two figures advanced nuanced, influential, and lasting visions of the nation based on governance, national autonomy, and social justice.
