Redefining nation: Space and desire in contemporary Mexican women's writing (Tita Valencia, Maria Luisa Puga, Angeles Mastretta)

Since the unfortunate historical events culminating in the massacre in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas of Tlatelolco in 1968 in Mexico City, the Mexican political system has come under increased scrutiny and attack from many sectors inside and outside of the country. All criticism of the system concurs that Mexico must open up its election system so that it truly represents the heterogeneity of the population.; Women are among the many groups that stand to gain by an opening in the currently authoritarian system. 1968 represents a watershed year for women's writing in Mexico. Not only do women begin to publish more but they also begin to question the relationship of their identity to the nation and their position in culture. Their writing is symbolic of the widening space in cultural discourse resulting from the cracks in the political system since 1968.; This space serves as a metaphor of intersubjective space, postulated by the feminist psychoanalyst, Jessica Benjamin. Intersubjective space is one in which women come to experience and express the genesis of their desire, and it is characterized by the meeting of self and other as subject-to-subject, rather than the traditional cultural dichotomy expressed by male subject/female object. Three novels by Tita Valencia, María Luisa Puga and Ángeles Mastretta illustrate the use of the text as a space for the construction of female subjectivity and desire.; Their narratives foreground the concept that identity is a cultural construct and in doing so, offer a reconstruction of female subjectivity that emphasizes the heterogeneity of the subject. In the textual space they open up for the “sex which is not one,” female subjectivity is constructed as a balance to the traditional patriarchal system that does not recognize difference.