María Elena Oddone

María Elena Oddone is an Argentine women's rights activist and writer. A prominent figure of second-wave feminism in her country, she was the founder of one of its first feminist organizations, the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF), as well as the Argentine Feminist Organization (OFA) and the Court of Violence Against Women. She was director of Persona magazine from September 1974 to December 1986. She is the author of La pasión por la libertad: memorias de una feminista (The Passion for Freedom: Memoirs of a Feminist).

Biography María Elena Oddone was a teacher by profession, and led a comfortable life as a housewife from Barrio Norte, married to a soldier. At age 42, she discovered feminism through the works of authors such as Simone de Beauvoir and Victoria Ocampo. She broke up with her husband and devoted herself to feminist activism.

She appeared on radio and television programs, and wrote articles in magazines such as La Opinión and Claudia. Under the auspices of this collective, she also founded the magazine Persona, which was a pioneering publication of the Argentine organized feminist movement. As she stated, this name alluded to the identity traditionally denied to women.

On 8 March 1984, the first International Women's Day since the country's return to democracy, she publicly called for the legalization of abortion, carrying a sign with the slogan "No a la maternidad, sí al placer" (No to motherhood, yes to pleasure), which questioned the idea that the destiny of women is limited to raising children.

In 1985, Oddone joined the Fighting Front for Women, but she was expelled due to disagreements with the organization. She also had to leave other groups such as the Women's Place, the Women's Multisectorial, and the Family Protection Association because she opposed the feminist movement's support of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. From 1989 to 1994, she wrote a column in the weekly El Informador Público, covering cases of sexist violence and complaints against the police and legal system.

In 2001, she published her autobiography, La pasión por la libertad: memorias de una feminista.