Childhoods from and within feminisms. Dialogues that transform

Abstract

Childhood is usually presented as a univocal concept. However, the place of children and what is understood as childhood is socially constructed. Throughout history, it has varied and changed according to cultural, political and social dynamics and conflicts. The struggle of feminist movements is inscribed in this horizon, constructing and deconstructing this category in the framework of a capitalist and patriarchal system. This critical perspective has not only served as a denunciation, but also proposes another way of understanding children and relating to them, with a transformative horizon. This text intends to show that the frontiers between both fields, childhood and feminisms, are not separated, that they are juxtaposed and enter into dialogue and conflict. Feminisms speak of and with childhoods, and childhoods (re)create new feminist worlds. First of all, we thematize childhood as a social construction, we problematize hegemonic views and outline our perspective on them. Then, we focus on three axes that express the link between the demands raised by feminisms and the interventions of children in our spaces and territories: care, dissident childhoods and sexual education.