Abstract: This study focuses upon the short narratives of two Latin American women writers and examines five short stories which I contend can be classified as feminist: Cuarta version, Ceremonias de rechazo, and Cambio de armas by the Argentine Luisa Valenzuela and Estabamos tu y yo and Me olvido de olvidarte by the Mexican Maria Luisa Mendoza. This proposal proceeds within the theoretical discussion about female vs. feminist writing and intends to define the four major areas of analysis that function as structural and thematic nuclei of the contemporary Latin American feminist short story: women's place in the political, social, intellectual, and economic background of their existence; the nature of the relationships between the sexes; the relationships between women; and the relationship of a woman with her own self. Chapter I defines the notion of Latin American feminist short story and describes its evolution in order to understand the literary context in which the present narratives emerge. Chapters II, III, IV and V concentrate on Valenzuela's work. After an analysis of her publications I examine the manners in which the female protagonists deal with their femininity in a male-defined world. The personal and the political female perspective is studied within a feminist theoretical framework mainly formed by psychoanalytic theories of subject formation. Mikhail Bakhtin's and Michel Foucault's notions of carnivalization and punishment are used to better understand specific plot developments. Chapters VI, VII and VIII examine the work of Mendoza. The objective of this analysis is to include areas of the female experience not present in the feminist study of Valenzuela's work but equally important in the understanding of the Latin American feminist narrative. Focusing on the intrapsychic level, I study the ways in which marriage and maternity, for example, affect the protagonists' search of a feminine self that allows them to express their subjectivity in a patriarchal context. Mental illness is understood as a mode of transcending the frustration and psychological pain experienced in a cultural setting that does not value women's needs and desires.