Virginia Vargas, sociologist, majored in Political Science. As an active feminist militant, who founded the Center for the Peruvian Women "Flora Tristán", in 1978 where she continues working to the present. 

Vargas' publications include: co‑edited "Peasantry in History: A Chronology of the Peasant Movements, 1956‑64" (1981); co‑edited "Economic and Social Participation of Women in Peru" (1982); authored "The Contribution of Women's Rebellion" (1989); compiled ""A New Approach: Gender in Development" (1991); authored "How to Change the World Without Loosing Ourselves" (1992); co‑edited "Gender in Development" (1992); and co‑edited "The Triangle of Empowerment" , “The Road to Beijing” (1998), El movimiento feminista en el horizonte político peruano . Ediciones Flora Tristán. Lima (2007), Feminismos en América Latina. Su aporte a la política y a la democracia. Colección Transformación Global. Programa Democracia y Transformación Global. Fondo Editorial Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.Flora Tristán Ediciones, Lima (2008); and also many articles about democracy, citizenship, the state and globalization from a feminist perspective

From 1990 toll 1998, Virginia worked part of the year as an activist and organizer in Latin America, and also as a professor for the Women and Development Program at the Social Studies Institute in The Hague, Netherlands. She is also invited professor in several gender studies programs in Peru and Latin America, and during these current months, in the University of Wisconsin in United States.  In the region and at global level, she has been involved in several networks and regional initiatives, such as “between Women: a North-South Dialogue”, Social Watch, DAWN. In this moment she is actively involved in the Articulación Feminista Marcosur. (Marcosur Feminist Articulation), a feminist political network from Latin America.

Vargas was the Latin American and Caribbean NGOs' Coordinator to the NGO Forum held in September, 1995, on occasion of the Fourth World UN Conference on Women in Beijing, China. In Beijing, Vargas received a UNIFEM Award.

From 2001 to present, Vargas is actively involved in the processes of the World Social Forum, as part of its International Committee, on behalf of the Articulación Feminista Marcosur. She  works in the Program “Studies and Feminist Debates” (Estudios y Debate Feminista), from the Center “Flora Tristan” and in the Program Democracia y Transformacion Global (Democracy and Global Transformation) from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Perú, being part of its Advisory Council. 

In relation to the Workshop, I have a personal and political interest because the subject of my particular discussion paper – a perspective of global democracy, beyond western paradigms- is of great actuality for reflection and action.

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