One of the social movements in Latin America that most clearly shows both “old” and “new” facets is the women's movement. Most Latin American countries experienced the emergence of classical liberal feminist movements in the early twentieth century. Oriented towards suffrage issues, these movements were the start of a bid to “engender” citizenship – clearly a precondition if it is to be a universal good. This early feminism could probably be classified as an “old” social movement, in so far as it made demands on the state and was clearly political in its orientation. Contemporary feminisms emerged in the late 1960s, at least in part in response to the military regimes and their suppression of social and individual rights. Feminists saw clearly how the military state was inextricably linked to patriarchy, in a terrible symmetry impacting on all domains, from consumption to repression. Male violence and state violence were, arguably, one and the same, and women's reproductive rights were dramatically curtailed. Later, in the 1980s, we saw a flourishing of women's participation in communal and other social movements. These mujeres populares (working-class women) brought a different dynamic to the struggle, with their emphasis on what became known as practical gender needs, rather than the strategic gender needs prioritized by the feminists.

This second-wave mobilization of women coincided with neoliberalism's cultural, political and economic restructuring of society. Free trade policies, the reduction of state services and the weakening of social policy all impinged directly and disproportionately on women. Although many women participating in these actions were not, or did not see themselves as, feminists, their public participation in social movements inevitably impinged on their “private” lives. As they moved from passivity to a new combativeness they began to also take on the patriarchal attitudes of the political or trade union bosses, as well as that ever-present feature in their daily life. In the wider feminist movement there was a growing divide from the 1990s onwards between the autónomas and the institucionalistas, the latter being more committed to working within the new democratic institutions and, to some extent, leaving behind the militant social movement orientation characteristic of the anti-dictatorial struggle period.