Alcira de la Peña, a women councillor with red ruff. Notes about her militant path until her arrival at the Deliberative Council of the City of Buenos Aires

Abstract

There is an assumption that greater descriptive representation - that is, more women enter the realm of political representation - leads to more robust substantive representation in gender, family and children's issues, which are supposedly women's areas. However, a description of the proposals of Alcira de la Peña, an Argentine communist leader who became a member of the Deliberative Council of the City of Buenos Aires (1958-1962), will allow a discussion of this hypothesis. Women undoubtedly occupied a relevant place as political subjects. In fact, Alcira’s previous trajectory evidences that she developed an organizational action of women that allowed her a deep territorial knowledge and profound links with diverse women's collectives. However, in her intervention as councilor she did not meet the expectations of women's performance in political representation and, rather, developed a line of action linked to the agenda of the Argentine Communist Party and her own professional and political experience. Therefore, her interventions resulted in proposals linked to urban problems, health, political and labor conflicts. This first approach, therefore, shows the need for a more complex approach to women's political action.