This book examines the debate on the status of women which appeared in the medium of print in the city of Buenos Aires after independence from Spain in 1810. Concentrating on six texts published between 1820 and 1830, this study seeks to incorporate the ‘woman question’ into discussion of early Argentine history.

The first text studied here, Defensa del bello sexo, was translated by language teacher and translator José Antonio Cantillon in 1820. The second and third are two satirical pamphlets by the Franciscan brother Francisco de Paula de Castañeda: Doña María Retazos and La Matrona Comentadora, both published from 1821. The fourth text, Cartas sobre la educación del bello sexo por una señora americana, is an educational manual published in London for distribution to Spanish America in 1824. Cartas, purportedly written by ‘una señora americana’, is believed to have been written by Spaniard José Joaquín de Mora. The fifth text is the spoof women's periodical La Argentina of 1830, attributed to lawyer and clerk in the Buenos Aires Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Manuel de Irigoyen. The final text is La Aljaba, a periodical publication for women, of the same year, thought to be the first journal in Latin America to be edited by a woman. La Aljaba is attributed to Montevideo poet and teacher Petrona Rosende de Sierra.

This study explores how the woman question related to critical questions and debates on state-building and modernisation that followed the River Plate region's independence from Spain, particularly with regard to the themes of revolutionary transition, reform and conflict. This approach follows feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott, who posed the question: ‘How does the difference between the sexes function in the face of historical cataclysm or significant events?’ According to Scott, during periods of political change, the re-definition of gender categories plays a part in the wider reclassification of social roles.

Print networks, particularly transatlantic links such as the book trade and the translation of European texts, and the development of literary forms during the post-independence expansion of publishing in Buenos Aires, are also investigated. The study examines processes of cultural transmission, in particular how forms and concepts from European traditions – British and French cultures being particularly in vogue – were evolved in Buenos Aires. The migration of ideas on the status and role of women is considered in order to ascertain how post-independence transatlantic communication affected the region on an ideational level, especially with regard to Alistair Hennessy's question: What were the cultural implications of the commercial relationship between the River Plate region and Europe?