Feminist Agendas And Democracy In Latin America

Latin American women’s movements played important roles in the democratic transitions in South America during the 1980s and in Central America during the 1990s. However, very little has been written on what has become of these movements and their agendas since the return to democracy. This timely collection examines how women’s movements have responded to the dramatic political, economic, and social changes of the last twenty years. In these essays, leading scholar-activists focus on the various strategies women’s movements have adopted and assess their successes and failures. The book is organized around three broad topics. The first, women’s access to political power at the national level, is addressed by essays on the election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile, gender quotas in Argentina and Brazil, and the responses of the women’s movement to the “Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela. The second topic, the use of legal strategies, is taken up in essays on women’s rights across the board in Argentina, violence against women in Brazil, and gender in the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru. Finally, the international impact of Latin American feminists is explored through an account of their participation in the World Social Forum, an assessment of a Chilean-led project carried out by women’s organizations in several countries to hold governments to the promises they made at international conferences in Cairo and Beijing, and an account of cross-border organizing to address femicides and domestic abuse in the Juárez-El Paso border region. Jane S. Jaquette provides the historical and political context of women’s movement activism in her introduction, and concludes the volume by engaging contemporary debates about feminism, civil society, and democracy. Contributors. Jutta Borner, Mariana Caminotti, Alina Donoso, Gioconda Espina, Jane S. Jaquette, Beatriz Kohen, Julissa Mantilla Falcón, Jutta Marx, Gabriela L. Montoya, Flávia Piovesan, Marcela Ríos Tobar, Kathleen Staudt, Teresa Valdés, Virginia Vargas

"This is a very exciting collection that will fill an important gap in what has emerged in comparative studies of women and Latin American democracies. Maier and Lebon provide provocative overview essays, and the chapters trace a range of cases from Argentina and Brazil to Nicaragua and Venezuela, showing how institutions. leaders and culture all shape the opportunities and challenges women face."---Jane Jaquette, editor of Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America --

This volume assesses one of the most important developments in contemporary Latin American women's movements: the engagement with rights-based discourses. Organised women have played a central role in the continued struggle for democracy in the region and with it gender justice. The foregrounding of human rights, and within them the recognition of women's rights, has offered women a strategic advantage in pursuing their goals of an inclusive citizenship. The country-based chapters analyse specific bodies of rights: rights and representation, domestic violence, labour rights, reproductive rights, legal advocacy, socio-economic rights, rights and ethnicity, and rights, the state and autonomy.

For those interested in democratic transition and consolidation, social movements, and gender politics, this volume is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and probing analysis available of how women's groups are helping to reshape Latin America. The contributors document and assess the remarkable wave of women's political participation in Latin America over the past two decades. The first five case studies, on Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Peru, examine the origins, evolution, and goals of women's organizations as they worked together to end authoritarian rule and elaborate how women's groups have adapted in the 1990s to the day-to-day realities of democratic politics. In the 1990s, the challenge has shifted from mobilizing opposition to the very different task of working with parties and government bureaucracies in order to maintain and implement their agendas. The chapters on Nicaragua and Mexico broaden our understanding of political transitions.Seven case studies vividly illustrate the variety of women's movements in the region, ranging from the communal-kitchens movements to human rights groups. Each author discusses the strategies and debates of the feminist movements in question and records their political successes and failures. Jaquette's introductory and concluding essays provide a comparative framework, highlighting the innovative ways in which Latin American women are making gender a political issue.

Away from the public eye, but from within the structures of stable and efficient organizations, women's groups have established nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to pursue feminist agendas. Feminist Organizations and Social Transformation in Latin America constitutes one of the first detailed analyses of the political and educational work of these organizations. Focusing on NGOs in the Dominican Republic and Peru, the book presents three case studies of feminist work, showing the careful balance they must navigate among satisfying basic needs, promoting legislation to address profound gender asymmetries, and creating countercultures essential to the development of a gender-attenuated society. In documenting the work of feminist NGOs, Stromquist identifies the ways they provide nonformal education (outside the school system) and informal learning (through experiences and internal discussions) to produce a new consciousness and assertive identities among women.

This book contributes to timely debates on the conditions of resistance and changes with the aim to offer a ray of hope in times of ecological, economic, social and democracy crisis worldwide. In the context of the crisis of social reproduction, impoverishment and growing inequalities, myriads of women-led grass-root initiatives are bubbling up. They reorganize social reproduction; redefine the meaning of work and value; explore new ways of doing economics and politics; construct solidarity-driven social relationships and combat their subordination. In doing so, these initiatives challenge the patriarchal, financialized and dehumanizing capitalist system and offer transformative, sustainable paths for feminist social change. Drawing on fine-grained ethnographies in Latin America and India, this book sheds light on women’s daily struggles, their difficulties, contradictions, fragilities, and also their successes and achievements. This book seeks to inspire activists, researchers and policy-makers in the field of feminism and solidarity economy to contribute to amplifying the movement, which rests on the articulation of the various initiatives.

Analyzes populist movements in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela from a gender perspective. Considers the role of masculinity and femininity in populist leadership, the impact of populism on democracy and feminism, and women's critical roles as followers of these leaders. --From publisher description.