WOMEN S MOVEMENT

Twenty-First-Century Feminismos, Women s Movements in Latin America and the Caribbean

The women’s movement is a central, complex, and evolving socio-political actor in any national context. Vital to advancing gender equity and gendered relations in every contemporary society, the organization and mobilization of women into social movements challenges patriarchal values, behaviours, laws, and policies through collective action and contention, radically altering the direction of society over time. Twenty-First-Century Feminismos examines ten case studies from eight different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to better understand the ways in which women’s and feminist movements react to, are shaped by, and advance social change. A closer look at women’s movements in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, and Uruguay uncovers broader recurrent patterns at the regional level, such as the persistence of certain grievances historically harboured by regional movements, the rise in prominence of varying claims, and the emergence of novel organizational structures, repertoires, and mobilization strategies. Dissimilarities among the cases are also brought to light, including the composition of these movements, their success in effecting policy change in specific areas, and the particular conditions that surround their mobilization and struggles. Twenty-First-Century Feminismos provides a compelling account of the important victories attained by Latin American and Caribbean organized women over the course of the last forty years, as well as the challenges they face in their quest for gender justice.

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The Brazilian women's movement and the state under the PT national governments

Certain segments of the Brazilian Women s Movement (BWM) developed important strategic partnerships with the state under the PT federal government. This article demonstrates how these partnerships had both inclusionary and exclusionary effects on gender centric policy outcomes. Using a mix method approach which includes extensive in-depth interviews with BMW activists and archival data from governmental sources, the Brazilian experience illustrates that entering the state headed by a women ally president facilitates funnelling some of the women’s movement’s demands into the state. However, hierarchies within the movement itself, the congressional strength of the head of executive and the activism of some of its socially conservative legislative allies can severely temper that effect.

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