Gender And The Politics Of Rights 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.

This book discusses the current tendencies in women’s representation and their role in politics in Latin American countries from three different perspectives. Firstly, the authors examine cultural, political-partisan and organizational obstacles that women face in and outside institutions. Secondly, the book explores barriers in political reality, such as gender legislation implementation, public administration and international cooperation, and proposes solutions, supported by successful experiences, emphasising the nonlinearity of the implementation process. Thirdly, the authors highlight the role of women in politics at the subnational level. The book combines academic expertise in various disciplines with contributions from practitioners within national and international institutions to broaden the reader’s understanding of women in Latin American politics.

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.

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

Abortion, divorce, and the family: how did the state make policy decisions in these areas in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile during the last third of the twentieth century? As the three countries transitioned from democratic to authoritarian forms of government (and back), they confronted challenges posed by the rise of the feminist movement, social changes, and the power of the Catholic Church. The results were often surprising: women's rights were expanded under military dictatorships, divorce was legalized in authoritarian Brazil but not in democratic Chile, and no Latin American country changed its laws on abortion. Sex and the State explores these patterns of gender-related policy reform and shows how they mattered for the peoples of Latin America and for a broader understanding of the logic behind the state's role in shaping private lives and gender relations everywhere.

Top feminist theorists and scholars examine the latest developments in gender politics and policy around the world Gendering Politics and Policy: Recent Developments in Europe, Latin America, and the United States discusses in depth how women and women’s perspectives are changing politics and policy in both the United States and around the world. This compelling resource surveys a range of issues and methodologies to bring the most recent gender issues, politics, and policies into clear focus. Top feminist scholars and theorists from several disciplines explore the latest in gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting, citizenship, social capital, and the gender gap in various cultures and countries. Gendering Politics and Policy provides case studies of different policy areas, techniques, and political practice as it highlights issues important for women and women’s issues around the world. The book’s three main sections include detailed looks at politics and gender issues in the United States, policies of concern for women in Latin America and Europe, and women’s agendas in the United Nations. This book is extremely useful as a teaching tool for students by surveying a wide range of vital issues and methodologies of gender development, women and politics, women and public policy, and women in international politics. The text is extensively referenced and includes several tables and figures to clearly present data and ideas. Gendering Politics and Policy discusses: the need for women’s citizenship—a new form of gendered citizenship more inclusive of women’s issues that strengthens democratic governability gender politics in presidential elections—including the impact the attention to women’s votes has had on public policies of administrations between elections the relationships between women’s status and social capital attack campaigning of male candidates against women candidates the gender implications of economic policy in the United Kingdom the discretionary nature of funding for support of domestic violence laws in Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean region women’s increased leadership roles in German government the need for gender mainstreaming in the German economy child care as an international human right the involvement of women’s nongovernmental organizations at UN conferences Gendering Politics and Policy is illuminating reading for educators, advanced undergraduate and graduate students in women’s studies, political science, and public policy, as well as policy researchers and women leaders around the world.

This book provides a comprehensive view of women's political participation in Latin America. Focusing on the latter half of the twentieth century, it examines five different arenas of action and debate: political institutions, workplaces, social movements, revolutions and feminisms.