Feminism and Populism on the Airwaves: Eva Duarte and Paulina Luisi

In their personal history, image, and political identification, physician and feminist Paulina Luisi of Uruguay and Argentine actress turned populist Eva Duarte of could hardly be more different. Yet they represent two outstanding examples of the ways women used their voices to support their cause (and denounce their enemies) over the airwaves in 1940s. They also exemplify the way that radio could destabilize the gendered soundscape, allowing some women to push their way into the traditionally male terrain of public political oratory.

Before she became “Evita” Perón, Eva Duarte was a radio actress, who came to play an important role in the propaganda, censorship, and growing military control over the Argentine state and media in the years 1943 to 1945. This paper will focus on two radio programs – “Towards a Better Future”, and “Heroines of History”– that made in 1944, shortly after she became Juan Perón’s lover. These programs marked Duarte’s transition from radio actor to political leader, and the particular ways in which the female voice was marshaled to create a new sense of community and support for the military (and later, the Peronist) regime. Meanwhile, across the river in,’s leading feminist Paulina Luisi was doing radio propaganda of her own; in this case denouncing fascism at home and abroad. A veteran of nearly four decades of political activism by this point, Luisi adopted the on-air name “Abuela” (Grandmother), and her strident on-air commentaries made her a favorite among’s left-leaning youth. Although the style and form of their political propaganda was quite different, both and Luisi adopted a forceful “masculine” style of oratory while simultaneously embracing maternalist identities, in part as a cover for their rather transgressive oratory.