Marta Lamas

Marta Lamas was born in 1947 in Mexico City to Argentine parents. She studied ethnology at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National School of Anthropology and History) and then completed a master's degree in anthropology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.[3]

In 1976, she founded a feminist magazine, Fem, and in 1987, she co-founded the first feminist newspaper supplement in Mexico for the newspaper La Jornada: Doble Jornada (Double Day).[3] In 1990, she founded Debate Feminista (Feminist Debate) a publication aimed at connecting academic feminist theory with the practices of activists in the women’s movement. The publication is a springboard for discussing ideas within the movement to evaluate how they can be brought to the public.[4] Debate has become one of the most important journals in Latin America, because it also prints men's articles.[3] She was a founding member of La Jornada and is a contributing columnist to the magazine Proceso and the Spanish newspaper El País[5] and serves as an editorialist for the newspapers El Processo and Diario Monitor.[6]

Lamas has written numerous books and is a prolific feminist writer.

In 1990, she founded the Sociedad Mexicana Pro Derechos de la Mujer (Semillas), (The Mexican Society in Favor of the Rights of Women), which is an organization in which more privileged women can invest in women who have less opportunities. The group sponsors cooperatives and micro-enterprises and offers support centers and work groups which address problems women face, including human rights issues. The organization has expanded to have chapters in 24 of the 31 Mexican states.[3]

In 1992 Lamas co-founded the Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE) (Information Group on Reproductive Choice) to "disseminate information on abortion and reproductive and sexual health and rights from the bioethical, social and legal perspectives to lawmakers and the press".[6] One of the objectives of the group was to change the discussion from whether one was for or against abortion and instead focus on who should decide. Lamas indicated this was a pivotal change in progress in the abortion debate in Mexico.[3]

After 38 years of work by the feminist movement, driven by Ms. Lamas, in 2007 the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation decriminalized in Mexico City abortions which occur by 12 weeks of gestation. GIRE lawyers assisted in drafting legislation and in coordinating defense of the law when lawsuits alleged it was unconstitutional. Marta Lamas testified during the Supreme Court trial.[6]

Lamas is a political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and lecturer at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico) (ITAM)[6]

In 2000 she founded the Instituto de Liderazgo Simone de Beauvoir (Simone de Beauvoir Leadership Institute),[6] as a feminist organization of civil society with the goal of training social leaders. Its stated mission is one "of contributing to the construction of a democratic society of rights and freedoms, through knowledge, innovation and the training of leadership with social commitment and gender and intercultural perspective."[7]