Twenty-First-Century Feminismos: Women's Movements in Latin America and the Caribbean 9780228009832

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Cover
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY FEMINISMOS
Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction Taking Stock of Contemporary Feminist Struggles
1 Feminism in Mexico City
2 Contemporary Feminist Struggles in Haiti against Neo-colonialism, NGO-ization and State De-responsibilization
3 Articulated Networks: The Twenty-Year Struggle to Decriminalize Abortion in El Salvador
4 The Grassroots Women’s Movement in Colombia
5 Feminist Movements in Chile: Joining forces from Institutions and the Streets toward a New Constitution
6 In Uruguay, Revolution Re-imagined: Liberty, Equality, Sorority
7 The Women’s Movement in Argentina: Much Ado about Everything
8 The Women’s Movement in Brazil
9 Black Feminist Activism in Brazil: Political Discourse in Three Times
10 Autonomist Feminisms in Brazil: Protest Politics and Feminist Self-Defence
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY FEMINISMOS

McGill-Queen’s Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice in the Global South Series editors: Marc Epprecht, Rebecca Tiessen, and Habiba Zaman The twentieth century was a time of intense political, economic, social, and cultural change in the Global South. Continents were colonized, then decolonized. Millions of people relocated to cities, sought employment in new kinds of jobs, and experienced the effects of technological innovations and globalization. These changes have also reshaped the way that the people of Asia, Africa, and Latin America understand and experience gender and sexuality. In turn, gender roles and sexual ideologies have shaped political and economic changes. The McGill-Queen’s Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice in the Global South series traces the changing conceptions of gender, sex, and sexuality in the developing world as well as the effects that these changes have had on politics, society, and social justice. Combining studies from a historical perspective with works focused on contemporary issues of social justice, this series welcomes publications from a variety of academic disciplines and backgrounds. At the heart of the series is a desire to raise awareness of forgotten histories and a range of topics including the intersections of gender, sexuality, and social justice in decolonization movements, sex work and questions about autonomy and agency, how gender constructs are shaped by economic, cultural, and religious conditions, and societies’ responses to violence, activism, health, youth cultures, and global change. This series will also illuminate lgbtq issues and transgender politics in different cultural contexts and the ways in which gender roles and sexual hierarchies are produced, reinforced, and challenged at the state and local level. 1 Obligations and Omissions Canada’s Ambiguous Actions on Gender Equality Edited by Rebecca Tiessen and Stephen Baranyi

3 The Limits of Trust The Millennium Development Goals, Maternal Health, and Health Policy in Mexico Lisa Nicole Mills

2 Resilience and Contagion Invoking Human Rights in African HIV Advocacy Kristi Heather Kenyon

4 Twenty-First-Century Feminismos Women’s Movements in Latin America and the Caribbean Edited by Simone Bohn and Charmain Levy

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY

FEMINISMOS Women’s Movements in Latin America and the Caribbean

Edited by

simone bohn and

charmain levy

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2021 isbn 978-0-2280-0810-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-2280-0811-8 (paper) isbn 978-0-2280-0983-2 (epdf) isbn 978-0-2280-0984-9 (epub) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2021 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Twenty-first-century feminismos : women’s movements in Latin America and the Caribbean / edited by Simone Bohn and Charmain Levy. Other titles: 21st-century feminismos Names: Bohn, Simone, 1973- editor. | Levy, Charmain, 1967- editor. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in gender, sexuality, and social justice in the global south ; 4. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s studies in gender, sexuality, and social justice in the global south ; 4 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210255102 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210255110 | isbn 9780228008101 (hardcover) | isbn 9780228008118 (softcover) | isbn 9780228009832 (pdf) | isbn 9780228009849 (epub) Subjects: lcsh: Feminism—Latin America—History—21st century. | lcsh: Feminism—Caribbean Area—History—21st century. | lcsh: Feminists—Latin America—History—21st century. | lcsh: Feminists— Caribbean Area—History—21st century. | lcsh: Women—Latin America—Social conditions. | lcsh: Women—Caribbean Area—Social conditions. Classification: lcc hq1460.5 .t84 2021 | ddc 305.42098/0905—dc23

Contents

Introduction Taking Stock of Contemporary Feminist Struggles 3 simone bohn and charmain levy

1 Feminism in Mexico City 25 marta lamas

2 Contemporary Feminist Struggles in Haiti against Neo-colonialism, ngo-ization and State De-responsibilization 48 denyse côté

3 Articulated Networks: The Twenty-Year Struggle to Decriminalize Abortion in El Salvador 71 maría angélica peñas defago

4 The Grassroots Women’s Movement in Colombia 92 leila celis

5 Feminist Movements in Chile: Joining forces from Institutions and the Streets toward a New Constitution 115 linda s. stevenson

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6 In Uruguay, Revolution Re-imagined: Liberty, Equality, Sorority 144 inés m. p ousadela

7 The Women’s Movement in Argentina: Much Ado about Everything 180 ana laura rodríguez gustá

8 The Women’s Movement in Brazil 202 simone bohn and charmain levy

9 Black Feminist Activism in Brazil: Political Discourse in Three Times 230 cristiano rodrigues and viviane gonçalves freitas

10 Autonomist Feminisms in Brazil: Protest Politics and Feminist Self-Defence 265 laura frança martello Contributors 293 Index 295

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY FEMINISMOS

introduction Taking Stock of Contemporary Feminist Struggles simone bohn and charmain levy Being a woman and surviving in Mexico is an act of resistance. ~ Women’s movement activist, Mexico

The women’s movement in any national context is a central, complex, and evolving socio-political actor. It is central to the advancement of gender equity and gendered relations in every contemporary society. Although the population of women in any given society cannot be considered a minority, their interests and presence in decision-making circles are often underrepresented, and thus they are often considered a political minority. As such, different women’s movements challenge the state and civil society to be receptive to groups not usually encompassed within state power (Walby 2011). The organization and mobilization of women into social movements challenges patriarchal values, behaviours, laws, and policies through collective action and contention. Along with other major societal shifts, their movements have radically altered the direction of society over time. Why is it important to study the women’s and feminist movements in Latin America and the Caribbean at the dawn of the third decade of the twenty-first century? As the chapters in this edited volume demonstrate, the region’s macrostructural and socio-political changes of the last four decades have had a substantial gender-based component. Among these transformations are the re-democratization process and its lingering quality-of-democracy issues; state-level transformations with the emergence of post-conflict societies and of countries with fragile or collapsing states; shifts in the orientation of the political economy; a seemingly pendular movement when it comes to the political control of central governments, as evidenced by the rise of progressive administrations and the

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subsequent conservative backlash; and modifications in the religious landscape of these societies. This book makes use of ten case studies from eight different countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to understand the ways in which women’s and feminist movements reacted to, were shaped by, and appropriated those processes of change. Upon reading the chapters on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, and Uruguay, one is able to tease out broader regional-level recurrent patterns, such as the persistence of some grievances historically harboured by the region’s women’s and feminist movements, the rise in prominence of different types of claims, and the emergence of novel organizational structures, repertoires, and mobilizational strategies. Dissimilarities among the cases are also visible, especially those related to the composition of women’s and feminist movements, success in effecting policy change in specific areas, and the particular country-level conditions that surround their mobilization and struggles. All in all, the case studies in this volume point to an important victory attained by Latin American and Caribbean organized women over the course of the last forty years: an agenda-setting gain. The latter refers not to an encompassing cultural transformation, in terms of changing private citizens’ hearts and minds, but to the fact that, in most nations of the region, gender-centric claims no longer take a backseat to other types of struggles.

The Region’s Macrostructural and Socio-political Changes Only men left prison as heroes … I was among those who welcome men, not women, back as heroes. ~ Women’s movement activist, Uruguay

What macrostructural and socio-political changes have had an impact on Latin American and Caribbean organized women and other civil society actors? Contemporary Latin American women’s and feminist movements emerged and flourished during politically dark times, particularly under military regimes or nominal democracies that repressed civil liberties, often in the name of national security (Garretón 1992; Rial 1992; Saporta

Introduction

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Sternbach et al. 1992). In this sense, one of the first large-scale transformations worthy of attention is the somewhat recent democratization or redemocratization processes (Smith 2005) that took place in the 1980s for the Southern Cone countries transitioning out of military dictatorships – Argentina in 1982, Brazil and Uruguay in 1985, and Chile in 1989 – and in 2000 in Mexico, when the latter moved away from a one-party-rule system. As some chapters in this volume discuss, civic activism did not completely disappear during the authoritarian interval. Despite the repression, organized women as well as other civil society actors continuously pressed for the return to a democratic order. The legacy of this authoritarian past, however, should not be underestimated, as Peñas Defago (in this volume) notes concerning reproductive rights: “vestiges of a dictatorial past and aspirations for a moralizing future, and the bodies of women and girls were the territory chosen to fight the battle.” The transition from military dictatorships to democracy brought about a massive opening of the channels of political participation, which put very difficult societal issues at the front and centre, such as questions of amnesty, reconciliation, punishment, and forgiveness (Alfonsín 1993; Collins 2018); the democratic re-conversion of actors formerly engaged in violence (Achugar 2007; Levey 2014); and the challenges around dismantling the repressive apparatus (Fuentes 2005; Hinton 2006). In fact, as documented elsewhere, even though the nature of the transition process (O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead 1986) meant that different countries addressed those grave issues distinctly, in most cases the end result was severe problems with the quality of the democratic regime that succeeded the authoritarian interregnum (Pereira 2003). Did these changes affect women and men differently? The remark that only men emerged as heroes out of the prison chambers clandestinely maintained by those dictatorial regimes is highly indicative of the gendered nature of this transition process, which is well documented elsewhere (such as in Waylen 2007). With the restoration of political liberties and freedoms, organized women were faced with a variety of dilemmas, especially the question of whether to form a chapter within the recreated or newly formed political parties, to engage with the latter while maintaining a double militancy, or to refrain completely from being a part within party organizations. In fact, this question of autonomy pervades the organizational debate of women’s

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and feminist’s movements in a number of countries included in this volume, not only the Southern Cone but also Colombia, Haiti, and Mexico. The women’s and feminist’s groups that see themselves as autonomistas tend to put forward a discourse that draws clear lines between “us” and “them” and is usually openly anti-state. Their narrative includes rejection of co-operation with authorities and their power structures and calls for confrontation with them or the development of parallel (non-patriarchal and non-hierarchic) spaces and structures at the grassroots of society (Falquet 2011). In terms of concrete praxis, there is a willingness among them to engage in direct action, some of which might involve acts of civil disobedience (Cross and Snow 2011). Furthermore, as the chapter on Brazil’s young feminists indicates, these groups tend to craft horizontal alliances with other organized civil society actors, who also have a propensity to deploy a radical repertoire and are somewhat leery of what they view as highly institutionalized strands of social movements. The transition from military dictatorships to (functional, albeit deficient) democracies was not the only major political transformation in the region. El Salvador, one of the Central American countries discussed in this volume, became a post-conflict society in 1992, with the end of a twelveyear bloody civil war, which resulted in mass casualties and large-scale internal displacement and outmigration that aggravated the previously existing high level of socio-economic inequality (Wood 2003). Similarly, despite some hiccups, the peace process initiated in 2012 moved Colombia to a post-conflict situation as well, with the legislature’s approval of the agreement in 2016, which marked the formal end of a lengthy armed conflict that had claimed thousands of lives on all sides (Phelan 2019; Rochlin 2003). In addition to issues of reintegration into the new political order of actors formerly engaged in violence (Kaplan and Nussio 2018), countries such as El Salvador and Colombia bring to the forefront the issues of women’s security and civil and social rights and the activism of women’s and feminist movements in conflict and post-conflict societies (Byrne 1996; Handrahan 2004; Krznaric 1997). Finally, still at the political level, there have been substantial retrogressions. Haiti is one case in point. In the wake of other natural disasters, the toll of the country’s massive 2010 earthquake on infrastructure further weakened state capacity in a nation previously known for substantial deficits

Introduction

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in social welfare, profound socio-economic inequality, and extreme poverty. As other researchers demonstrate, the aftermath of natural disasters has consequences for men that are different from those for women, particularly in patriarchal societies (Neumayer and Plümper 2007). In addition, as the chapter on Haiti in this volume discusses, the primacy of the goal of reconstruction tends to have a negative impact on the vibrancy of previously existing forms of social activism – and on their agenda-setting potential – including that of organized women. Another case of deterioration of a state’s ability to uphold the rule of law is Mexico’s. The proliferation and pluralization of extremely organized and deadly criminal groups (known as drug cartels) have led to very high levels of homicide in several areas of the country, contributing to the exacerbation of citizen insecurity amidst the state’s increasing inability to protect rights and administer justice (Blume 2017; Domingo 1999; Shirk and Wallman 2015). These circumstances and other democratic deficits contribute to the naturalization of issues such as violence against women, as the chapter on Mexico expounds, leading the reader to understand why being a woman has become in itself an act of resistance. Along with, and in most cases parallel to, those state-level and regime changes, the Latin American and Caribbean countries experienced a profound transformation in the role of the state in economy and society, particularly in the aftermath of the black September of 1982, when the debt crisis rippled across the region (Kahler 1985; Resende 1983). Although there was a uniform trend toward privatization, deregulation, and rapid trade liberalization, unlike most of the region several Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica (Bernal 1994), emerged from this process as service economies heavily dependent upon the tourism sector. Despite these dissimilarities, the economic and socio-economic consequences of the neoliberal shift were analogous across the region and are well known, especially its toll on economic growth, the decrease of average wages, the increase in the informal economic sector, the retrenchment of state’s spending in the social sector, and the exacerbation of socio-economic inequalities (Crisp and Kelly 1999; Hira 2007; Ocampo 2014). Also widely recognized are the protests of civil society actors against the structural adjustment policies (Almeida 2007; Walton and Shefner 1994), and the distinct effects that the latter had on women vis-à-vis men of the region (Cerutti 2000; Tanski

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1994). Corroborating these gendered differences, the chapter on Colombia documents the economic survival hurdles that women (in comparison to men) from the lower socio-economic rungs of that country have had to endure, and the impacts that those difficulties have on their ability to organize themselves to press gender-specific claims. Similarly, the chapter on Afro-Brazilian women highlights the toll that oppression and exploitation take on these women’s ability to even simply get together and analyze their specific issues, especially due to their unique social positioning in the race, sex, and class tripod. Whereas the region’s neoliberal shift put most social movements in a highly contestatory mode vis-à-vis central governments and several elected officials, a dynamic of engagement and collaboration with state actors emerged with the rise of progressive administrations. At present there are substantial debates on the extent to which these very heterogeneous leftturn, or pink-tide, administrations broke away from the chains of neoliberalism (Madrid, Hunter, Weyland 2010), and whether they actually did so (Bohn 2018; Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012; Pickup 2019; Wolff 2019; Yates and Bakker 2014). Questions have also been raised regarding what these governments have meant for the region’s developmental model, especially when it comes to their trade policies and the latter’s social and environmental implications (Barton 2006; Bogliaccini 2013; Pérez Caldentey and Vernengo 2010; Ortiz 2012). Nevertheless, as the chapters of this volume attest, the left-leaning governments provided an important political opportunity structure for the women’s and feminist movements of the region. Partly due to their ideological commitments as well as their strong ties with civil society actors (Cleary 2006), these progressive governments represented an important political opportunity structure for organized women for at least two reasons. First, when they were in power, there was an increase in organized women’s direct access to decision-making arenas in some countries. As the chapters on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay illustrate, the women’s and feminist movements collaborated with state actors in the different phases of public policy-making, such as the elaboration, approval, implementation, and monitoring of gender-centric public policies. Among the state actors with whom organized women coordinated their efforts, elected politicians from both the executive and the legislative powers, heads of specific ministries, and women’s policy agencies

Introduction

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figured prominently (Bohn 2010; Rodríguez Gustá, Madera, and Caminotti 2017). The chapters on Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, for instance, show that organized women from these countries developed some degree of collaboration with their women’s policy agencies, which was important for the approval of some policies. In Argentina, sexual-minority organized women (and their civil society allies) liaised more closely with the state agency in charge of elaborating anti-discrimination policies. Likewise, Afro-Brazilian organized women partnered with the central government’s secretariat responsible for anti-racist policies. Second, the progressive parties’ control of central government also contributed to a substantial improvement in the ability of organized women to make their gender-based claims percolate through the political institutions, including the judiciary. As a matter of fact, litigation grew in prominence as a strategy to expand rights, such as the case of sexual minorities’ struggle for the legal right to organize civil unions in Brazil (Bohn and Levy 2019), and the attempt to decriminalize therapeutic terminations of pregnancies, as the chapter on El Salvador expands upon. Litigation has also been used to guarantee the implementation of some of the policy gains (Bohn 2020). The fact that, under progressive administrations, genderbased claims had a less steep hill to climb amounted to important gains for women’s and feminist movements in the region over the last two decades. As others have also observed (Friedman and Tabbush 2019), however, the gains were not identical across policy areas and across countries. One important trend, which is visible throughout the nations included in this volume and in others from the region as well, was the advancement of the regulatory framework that recognized violence against women as a crime and which expanded rights and public services in this area, such as the access to restraining orders or to legal and psychological counselling for women in situations of violence. Although the legal achievements in this area of violence against women in the region are unquestionable, there remain issues of faulty and uneven policy implementation (Bohn 2020), not only in post-conflict societies or countries with fragile states but also in the deficient democracies that are part of this study. Apart from the area of violence against women, as other observers have noted (Blofield and Ewig 2017; Friedman and Tabbush 2019), the outcomes in other policy arenas varied considerably across countries. The increase

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in reproductive rights, especially the decriminalization of abortion, for example, took place in Uruguay, Argentina, and Mexico City. Regarding this particularly thorny issue, there are middle-ground cases as well, such as Chile. The chapter about this last country details the battle for expansion of the circumstances in which a legally sanctioned termination of a pregnancy can occur. In contrast, for the other cases included in the volume, this is an outstanding historical grievance held by the women’s and feminist movements, and a matter around which some organized women mobilize, as the chapter on El Salvador describes. Ultimately, as a set, the chapters in this volume indicate that the dissimilarities in policy outcomes stem from different combinations of factors, such as the particularities of each country’s institutional framework, the legislative strength of the governing coalition, the power of organized women in each policy arena, and the nature of the latter (whether highly consensual, such as measures to curb violence against women, or highly controversial, such as reproductive rights). One last important macrosocietal change that deserves attention is the transformation of the religious panorama in the region. The progressive increase in the number of individuals affiliated with evangelical churches (both Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal denominations) has been noted elsewhere (Bohn 2013; Chestnut 2003; Freston 2008; Gooren 2010, 2018; Guadalupe 2019). Also noted have been the ramifications of the growth of this segment of the population for gender-based claims, particularly those that have a moral component, such as claims related to the expansion of reproductive rights (Bohn 2004, 2008; Teixeira 2019). Even though studies point to a somewhat positive impact for women at the household level of having a “born-again” male partner in the home (Brusco 1995), there is a growing consensus, as described in the chapters on Brazil, El Salvador, and Mexico, that Christian evangelical politicians, supported by their constituencies, constitute a formidable stumbling block to the approval of progressive gender policies, particularly those related to the decriminalization of abortion in parts of the region, the expansion of sexual-minority rights, and the implementation of non-sexist, non-homophobic educational policies (Bohn and Levy 2019). As a consequence, several strands of the women’s and feminist movements see the rise of these new politico-religious groups as one of the bases of the conservative backlash that has taken place in the region in the late 2010s.

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Given all these multifarious and sometimes overlapping transformations – at the political, economic, and societal levels – one might ask, Have there been any changes to the agenda and collective action of Latin American and Caribbean women’s and feminist movements? We will examine this question next.

Claims, Organizational Structures, Repertoires, and Strategies Si nos tocan a una, nos tocan a todas. [If they touch one, they touch us all.] ~ Motto of the #NiUnaMenos campaign, Argentina

Common threads that run through the agendas of the women’s and feminist movements that are part of this volume are the issues of women’s descriptive political representation; sexual and reproductive rights, including, as noted earlier, the decriminalization of abortion; equal pay; socio-economic rights (such as care facilities and parental leaves); and gender-based violence. In addition, two issues that have gained more prominence lately are the question of political parity and the struggle against sexual harassment. Even though there is no denying that the issue of parity is on the radar of organized women across the region, it is gaining ground in some countries more rapidly than in others. The chapter on Argentina, for instance, documents the struggles of women’s and feminist movements to promote female political participation as well as parity in the political arena. Similarly, the chapter on Mexico analyzes in detail feminist movements’ hard work to approve the constitutional amendment that enabled electoral parity in 2014, and the ensuing concrete results, especially when the left-leaning president (elected in 2018) nominated a federal cabinet at parity. Perhaps influenced in part by events from the international arena, the fight against sexual harassment, which existed before in the region, has gained greater visibility lately. Spurred on by a case of harassment in a television show, in 2015 Brazilian organized women collected responses, through Twitter, about “my first [instance of sexual] harassment.” Details regarding the ages of the victims, the characteristics of their aggressors, and the circumstances in which the harassment took place were then disclosed.

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Due to the extremely high number of responses, several media outlets picked up on the issue (such as O Globo 2015), expressing shock at the young age that women had their first experience of sexual harassment, and the fact that most of the aggressors were known to their victims. Similarly, in Argentina, the Ni Una Menos movement emerged in response to a real case of sexual harassment, rape, and subsequent death of a young girl (Goñi 2016). What is also striking about these two examples is the use of social media as a mobilizational tool. Latin American and Caribbean organized women are increasingly resorting to digital communication, so much so that their Twitter hashtags, Instagram accounts, blogs, and Facebook pages are countless (Drovetta 2015; Friedman 2005, 2007). In fact, cyberfeminism (Everett 2004; Munro 2013; Wolmark 1999) has been used not only to disseminate content (and raise awareness) but also to organize ad hoc flash-mob-styled protests, mass rallies, long marches, and protracted sit-ins, particularly in front of or in the vicinity of Congress or other politically important edifices. For instance, the so-called green-bandana campaign in Argentina (or pañuelo verde), which aims at decriminalizing abortion, has been disseminated throughout the country and successfully repeated year after year since 2003 with substantially growing numbers (Conn 2018). As the chapter on Mexico illustrates, demonstrations of multitudinous proportions, organized and coordinated with the use of digital platforms, have taken place in the country to protest violence against women. Similarly, Afro-Brazilian women, as shown in this volume, have been able to coordinate their efforts and produce large-scale events, such as the march of approximately fifty thousand individuals in the federal capital, Brasília, in 2015, which aimed at highlighting the strength of Black feminism in Brazil. Interestingly, young feminists have taken a leading role in using social media as a mobilization tool, as well as an organizational one (Zanetti 2011). In fact, several chapters speak at length about young feminists’ protagonist role during the last decade. In countries such as Chile and Uruguay, the new generation of feminist activists in the twenty-first century came from other social movements, such as the movement for more accessible education. These young feminists put more emphasis on public demonstrations and more creative ways of occupying public space and influencing public

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opinion (Marler, Platero, and Anumo 2018; Molyneux, Dey, Gatto, and Rowden. 2020). In addition, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay have seen the re-emergence of an autonomous strand of feminism that is quite critical of the taming effects of women’s involvement in state agencies. Still, when it comes to organization and mobilization, the region has witnessed the proliferation of networks, among organized women from different parts of the same country, across the nations of the region, and in international organizations. In several countries, women’s and feminist movements advance their claims when they mobilize other socio-political actors. For example, in El Salvador, feminists joined forces with lawyers, physicians, and criminologists from Argentina and Spain to create Agrupación Ciudadana for legal mobilization. Actions framed abortion in terms of women’s rights, created new frameworks for socio-cultural definitions, and attempted to strengthen networks of key players, increasing the visibility of the issue through demonstrations, and media strategies (Anderson 2020; Marcus-Delgado 2019). This included mobilizing international partners, through filing petitions with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Bettinger-López 2018; Calvo-García 2016; Castaldi 2020; Spieler 2011). Finally, whereas the young feminists seem to support a more grassroots approach within the overall women’s and feminist movements, there are other types of organizations that can be found across the region. Within the literature on women’s movements in Latin America there are three types of women’s organizations that are employed the most often: institutional, popular, and autonomous (Silva 2013). Institutionalized feminist organizations are described as professional, with paid staff, a relatively formal structure, and accountability to those who fund them as well as to beneficiaries, their members, and other movement organizations (Lebon 2013). The several chapters of this volume analyze these highly professionalized groups within the movement and their contribution. Ultimately, the more professionalized women’s groups and their more activist counterparts differ in their political visions, strategies of organization, relation to institutional autonomy, and access to, and competition over, resources and state actors (Lebon 2013).

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The Book’s Structure The peace will be feminist, or it will not be peace. ~ Motto of the Colombian women’s and feminist movements

All the chapters in this volume depart from the lived experiences of women (Doucet and Mauthner 2006), which it is to say that its authors utilize women’s understanding of their own reality as the jumping-off point for knowledge production (hooks 1994). The contributors make use of the socalled thick description (Geertz 1973) to understand women’s struggles in the region from their own perspective, taking into consideration their own cultural, economic, socio-economic, ethnic, and political contexts. In addition to in-depth, semi-structured interviews with leaders and the rank and file of organizations from the women’s and feminist movements, the case studies rely on other types of data, such as legal documents, official quantitative data, news reports, and newsletters from civil society actors. This volume is intended to be multidisciplinary and an intellectual space of knowledge production and debate open to different perspectives and schools of thought, as we believe that diversity and inclusion within the social sciences is the only way to promote critical thought and the advancement of knowledge in all fields of study. Reflecting this commitment to inclusion and diversity, the volume brings together contributors from the global north and the global south and includes emerging and established scholars as well as one practitioner. Contributors wrote in their own language, which adds to the richness of their voices and narratives. It is always enriching to include globally diverse voices, even though this does require extra time and resources for translation.1 In fact, one of the original contributions of this book is the presentation of case studies that are not usually found in English literature on the subject. These include the chapters on Colombia, El Salvador, and Haiti. The editors also desired to put forward successful national movements such as the cases of Mexico and Uruguay concerning reproductive rights. One of our challenges was to present different angles of this movement in terms of institutionalized actions and more grassroots ones. This was the case concerning the chapter on Chile and Martello’s chapter on Brazil. Most case studies focus on the national movement, although the chapter on Mexico focuses on the movement’s evolution and actions in the city of Mexico.

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Despite this characteristic, we believe that all chapters make theoretical contributions to feminist studies. This volume’s contributors present their research results and studies of different national women’s and feminist movements in order to understand what they are today, what their claims are, and how they are presenting them to their allies, adversaries, and the public. Although this is not a comparative studies volume, the presentation of ten different national women’s movements undoubtedly leads the reader to reflect upon the aforementioned common threads and dissimilarities. The first case study of the volume is written by Marta Lamas, who analyzes the actions, challenges, and successes of women’s and feminist movements in Mexico’s federal capital across a variety of themes. When it comes to reproductive rights in particular, Lamas meticulously describes organized women’s praiseworthy strategy of liaising with other organized civil society groups to reframe the prevailing social narrative on the interruption of gestation and then to seek legislative support for the passage of legal reforms. Chapter 2 focuses on the case of Haiti. This contribution, by Denyse Côté, adds substantially to the understanding of the intersections of development, humanitarian intervention, and the social activism of organized women. Côté explains that the history of Haitian women’s and feminist movements is intrinsically linked to the many processes of foreign intervention in the country and to their effects (not always positive). The chapter also discusses in detail the impact of natural disasters and weakening state capacity on organized women’s activism, especially their ramifications for the movement’s cycle of contention. In chapter 3, María Angélica Peñas Defago introduces a case study on organized women in El Salvador. The chapter provides a remarkably cogent account of how civil wars condition the foundation, growth, and actions of women’s movements in conflict and post-conflict societies. Peñas Defago demonstrates that El Salvador’s civil war ultimately reinforced gendered traditional roles, including within the militarized left, resulting in widespread social and political conservatism, which has ultimately hindered the advance of some gender claims in that country. In a similar vein, chapter 4 by Leila Celis is an in-depth, detailed analysis of the multiple, overlapping burdens faced by women in situations of rampant armed conflict in Colombia. Departing from the lived experiences of

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women from the so-called sectores populares, or the lower rungs of the socio-economic stratum, Celis walks the reader through the struggles of the women who are indefatigable “militants for peace,” even in circumstances in which their husbands were killed or joined armed groups, and, as the new heads of their households, they were overburdened with domestic and reproductive work and the family’s financial survival. This piece also excels in its analysis of how the war neutralized the social movements and in its explanation of the organizational hurdles that women from the popular segments had to overcome to articulate their particular genderbased claims throughout the peace negotiations and the ensuing attempts at moving a warring Colombia to a post-conflict society. Meticulously crafted by Linda Stevenson, chapter 5 demonstrates that the cycles of mobilization and “abeyance” of women’s and feminist movements in Chile can only be understood in reference to the particularities of the political and economic landscape of this South American nation, its transition to a limited democracy, the bipartisan configuration of the political system, the effects of President Augusto Pinochet’s neoliberal policies and their post-transition iterations, and the rotation between centre-left and right-wing presidencies. Stevenson expands on Chilean organized women’s strategic alliances with state actors and civil society partners and on their efforts to outline and modify public policy plans to maximize gender-based gains. In chapter 6, Inés Pousadela undertakes a painstaking historical overview of Uruguay’s political (and regime) changes and the ensuing changes in the Uruguayan women’s and feminist movements, in terms of issues, tactics, and strategies. Pousadela identifies the repertoire of actions that Uruguayan organized women have employed over time and their impact on public policy outcomes, particularly their outstanding success regarding the decriminalization of abortion. Ana Laura Rodríguez Gustá discusses in depth in chapter 7 the symbolic as well as the concrete gains attained by Argentine organized women, who have articulated a very robust movement with massive dimensions and a high mobilizational capacity. As a matter of fact, the movement’s extraordinary ability to make itself evident in the res publica has enhanced its agendasetting potential. In this regard, Rodríguez Gustá demonstrates that the heightened social visibility of the debate around the expansion of reproduc-

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tive rights and its inclusion in the political agenda are in reality a major accomplishment for the Argentine women’s and feminist movements. Chapter 8, authored by Simone Bohn and Charmain Levy, introduces the case of Brazil. This piece outlines the trajectory of the women’s and feminist movements of the country, especially when it comes to their progressive collaboration with state actors since this nation’s re-democratization in 1985. As Bohn and Levy expound, the post-dictatorial period of this country has witnessed a substantial increase not only in the sheer quantity of women’s and feminist organizations but also in the number of networks among them, contributing to the consolidation of a movement-level platform of claims. Simultaneously, the rise of a progressive administration in 2002, which employed a more socially inclusive public policy design, contributed to some policy gains, as well as to the surfacing of a considerable diversity of gender-based claims within robust but highly heterogeneous women’s and feminist movements. Reflecting this inherent diversity among organized women in Brazil, Cristiano Rodrigues and Viviane Gonçalves Freitas in chapter 9 centre their analysis on the growth and transformation of the collective action of a particular contingent, that of Afro-Brazilian women. In addition to examining thoroughly the longitudinal changes in the process of interest articulation among Afro-Brazilian women, Rodrigues and Freitas carefully study the process of increasing approximation with the state. The chapter demonstrates that, under the Workers’ Party’s administrations, the relationship between Afro-Brazilian women’s and feminist movements and state actors became highly beneficial, resulting in policy gains and greater presence of the movement inside the state. The last case study, in chapter 10 composed by Laura França Martello, exemplifies the struggles and successes of two important constituencies in the Latin American and Caribbean women’s and feminist movements: the autonomist groups and the new cohort of feminist activists. Focusing on the autonomist young feminists from Brazil, Martello dissects the cosmovision, political stances, strategies, and praxes of a strand of Brazil’s feminist movement that is unafraid of engaging in protest politics, even in radical action – and hence their interest in self-defence activities. Interestingly, their radicality has led them to build horizontal alliances with likeminded groups, which ultimately has been a factor in the strengthening

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of grassroots activism and in the generational renewal of organized women’s activism as well. Upon reading this volume, readers will familiarize themselves with the composition, agendas, tactics, strategies, and pattern of collective action of women’s and feminist movements across a large array of diverse countries. Ruptures and continuities in their platform of action will also become apparent, as will the impact of their country’s context on their ability to effect change, and their resilience when it comes to long path toward advancing gender equity in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean societies.

note 1 The editors would like to thank the three translators (María José Giménez, Bruna Dantas Lobato, and Ellen Murray) and the copy editor (Jane Broderick) for their wonderful work on the chapters on Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, Uruguay, Afro-Brazilian women, and Brazil’s young feminists. We would also like to thank Alice Mello, the doctoral student who assisted the editors in coordinating this volume.

biblio g r aphy Achugar, Mariana. 2007. “Between Remembering and Forgetting: Uruguayan Military Discourse about Human Rights (1976–2004).” Discourse and Society 18, no. 5: 521–47. Alfonsín, Raúl. 1993. “‘Never again’ in Argentina.” Journal of Democracy 4, no. 1: 15–19. Almeida, Paul. 2007. “Defensive Mobilization: Popular Movements against Economic Adjustment Policies in Latin America.” Latin American Perspectives 34, no. 3: 123–39. Anderson, Cara. 2020. Fighting for Abortion Rights in Latin America: Social Movements, State Allies, and Institutions. New York and London: Routledge. Barton, Jonathan R. 2006. “Eco-dependency in Latin America.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 27: 134–49. Bernal, R. 1984. “The imf and Class Struggle in Jamaica, 1977–1980.” Latin American Perspectives 11, no. 3: 53–82. Bettinger-López, Caroline. 2018. “Violence against Women: Normative Developments in the Inter-American Human Rights System.” In The Legal Protection

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of Women from Violence: Normative Gaps in International Law, edited by Rashida Manjoo and Jackie Jones, 166–98. New York: Routledge Press. Blofield, Merike, and Christina Ewig. 2017. “The Left Turn and Abortion Politics in Latin America.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender State & Society 24, no. 4: 481–510. Blume, Laura. 2017. “The Old Rules No Longer Apply: Explaining NarcoAssassinations of Mexican Politicians.” Journal of Politics in Latin America 9, no. 1: 59–90. Bogliaccini, Juan Ariel. 2013 “Trade Liberalization, Deindustrialization, and Inequality: Evidence from Middle-Income Latin American Countries.” Latin American Research Review 48, no. 2: 79–105. Bohn, Simone. 2004. “Evangélicos no Brasil: Perfil sócio-econômico, afinidades ideológicas e determinantes do comportamento eleitoral.” Opinião Pública 10, no. 2: 288–338. – 2008. “Mulher para presidente? Gênero e política da perspectiva dos eleitores brasileiros.” Opinião Pública 14, no. 2: 352–79. – 2013. “Proteção às minorias religiosas.” In Direito à diferença e a proteção jurídica das minorias, edited by Liliana Lyra Jubilut, José Luiz Quadros de Magalhães, and Alexandre G.M. Franco Bahia, 13–35. São Paulo, Brazil: Saraiva. – 2018. “Quasi Post-Neoliberal Brazil: Social Change amidst Elite Adaptation and Metamorphosis.” In Continuities in Patterns of Class Domination: Latin American Case Studies, edited by Liisa North and Timothy Clark, 57–92. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. – 2020. “National Law and Territorialized Public Policy: The Violence against Women Law in Brazil.” In A Handbook on Federalism, Diversity and Gender, edited by Jill Vickers, Joan Grace, and Cheryl Collier, 226–43. Cheltenham, uk: Edward Elgar. Bohn, Simone, and Levy, Charmain. 2019. “The Brazilian Women’s Movement and the State under the pt National Governments.” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 108 (July–December): 245–66. Brusco, Elizabeth. 1995. The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia. Austin: University of Texas Press. Byrne, Bridget. 1996. “Towards a Gendered Understanding of Conflict.” ids Bulletin 27, no. 3: 31–40. Calvo-García, M. 2016. “The Role of Social Movements in the Recognition of Gender Violence as a Violation of Human Rights: From Legal Reform to the Language of Rights.” The Age of Human Rights Journal 6: 60–82.

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Castaldi, Ligia. 2020. Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Legal Impact of the American Convention on Human Rights. Notre Dame, in: University of Notre Dame Press. Cerutti, Marcela. 2000. “Economic Reform, Structural Adjustment and Female Labor Force Participation in Buenos Aires, Argentina.” World Development 28, no. 5: 879–91. Chestnut, R. Andrew. 2003. Competitive Spirits: Latin America’s New Religious Economy. New York: Oxford University Press. Cleary, Matthew. 2006. “Explaining the Left’s Resurgence.” Journal of Democracy 17, no. 4: 35–49. Collins, Cath. 2018. “Transitional Justice ‘From Within’: Police, Forensic and Legal Actors Searching for Chile’s Disappeared.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 10, no. 1: 19–39. Conn, Emma. 2018. “The ‘Pañuelización’ of Argentine Protest Culture.” The Bubble. https://www.thebubble.com/the-panuelizacion-of-argentine-protestculture. Crisp, Brian, and Michael J. Kelly. 1999. “The Socioeconomic Impacts of Structural Adjustment.” International Studies Quarterly 43, no. 3: 533–52. Cross, Remy, and David Snow. 2011. “Radicalism within the Context of Social Movements: Processes and Types.” Journal of Strategic Security 4, no. 4: 115–30. Domingo, Pilar. 1999. “Rule of Law, Citizenship and Access to Justice in Mexico.” Mexican Studies 1: 151–91. Doucet, Andrea, and Natasha S. Mauthner. 2006. “Feminist Methodologies and Epistemology.” In 21st Century Sociology: A Reference Handbook, vol. 2, edited by Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck, 36–42. Specialty and Interdisciplinary Studies. Thousand Oaks, ca: Sage. Drovetta, Raquel Irene. 2015. “Safe Abortion Information Hotlines: An Effective Strategy for Increasing Women’s Access to Safe Abortions in Latin America.” Reproductive Health Matters 23, no. 45: 47–57. Everett, Anna. 2004. “On Cyberfeminism and Cyberwomanism: High Tech Mediations of Feminism’s Discontents.” Signs 30, no. 1: 1278–86. Falquet, Jules. 2011. “Pour une anatomie des classes de sexe: Nicole-Claude Mathieu ou la conscience des opprimé.e.s.” Cahier du Genre 50, no. 1: 193–217. Freston, Paul. 2008. “Introduction: The Many Faces of Evangelical Politics in Latin America.” In Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America, 3–35. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Friedman, Elisabeth Jay. 2005. “The Reality of Virtual Reality: The Internet and Gender Equality Advocacy in Latin America.” Latin American Politics & Society 47, no. 3: 1–34. – 2007. “Lesbians in (Cyber)Space: The Politics of the Internet in Latin American On- and Off-Line Communities.” Media, Culture & Society 29, no. 5: 790–811. Friedman, Elisabeth Jay, and Constanza Tabbush. 2019. “Contesting the Pink Tide.” In Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality and the Latin American Pink Tide, edited by Elisabeth Jay Friedman, 1–47. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Fuentes, Claudio. 2005. “Guarding the Guardians.” In Contesting the Iron Fist: Advocacy Networks and Police Violence in Democratic Argentina and Chile, 19–47. New York: Routledge. Garretón, Manuel Antonio. 1992. “Fear in Military Regimes.” In Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, edited by Juan Corradi, Patricia Weiss Fagen, and Manuel António Garretón, 13–26. Berkeley: University of California. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Goñi, Uki. 2016. “Argentina’s Women Joined across South America in Marches against Violence.” The Guardian, 20 October 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/20/argentina-women-southamerica-marches-violence-ni-una-menos. Gooren, Henri. 2010. “The Pentecostalization of Religion and Society in Latin America.” Exchange 39, no. 4: 355–76. – 2018. “Pentecostalization and Politics in Paraguay and Chile.” Religions 9, no. 11: 1–15. Grugel, J., and P. Riggirozzi. 2012. “Post Neoliberalism in Latin America: Rebuilding and Reclaiming the State after Crisis.” Development and Change, 43: 1–21. Guadalupe, José Luis. 2019. Evangelicals and Political Power in Latin America. Lima: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Institute of Social-Christian Studies of Peru. Handrahan, Lori. 2004. “Conflict, Gender, Ethnicity and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.” Security Dialogue 35, no. 4: 429–45. Hinton, Mercedes. 2006. “Democratic Policing: A Distant Reality?” In The State on the Streets: Police and Politics in Argentina and Brazil, 191–201. Boulder, co: Lynne Rienner.

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Hira, Anil. 2007. “Did the isi Fail and Is Neoliberalism the Answer for Latin America? Re-assessing Common Wisdom Regarding Economic Policies in the Region.” Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 27, no. 3: 345–56. hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge. Kahler, Miles. 1985. “Politics and International Debt: Explaining the Crisis.” International Organization 39, no. 3: 357–82. Kaplan, O., and E. Nussio. 2018. “Explaining Recidivism of Ex-Combatants in Colombia.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 1: 64–93. Krznaric, Roman. 1997. “Guatemalan Returnees and the Dilemma of Political Mobilization.” Journal of Refugee Studies 10, no. 1: 61–78. Lebon, Nathalie. 2013. “Taming or Unleashing the Monster of Coalition Work: Professionalization and the Consolidation of Popular Feminism in Brazil.” Feminist Studies 39, no. 3: 759–89. Levey, Cara. 2014. “Of Hijos and Niños: Revisiting Postmemory in PostDictatorship Uruguay.” History & Memory 26, no. 2: 5–39. Madrid, Raúl, Wendy Hunter, and Kurt Weyland. 2010. “The Policies and Performance of the Contestatory and Moderate Left.” In Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings, 140–80. New York: Cambridge University Press. Marcus-Delgado, Jane. 2019. The Politics of Abortion in Latin America: Public Debates, Private Lives. Boulder, co: Lynne Rienner. Marler, Isabel, Daniela Marin Platero, and Felogene Anumo 2018. “Reclaiming Culture, Resisting Co-Optation: Young Feminists Confronting the Rising Right.” Gender & Development 26, no. 3: 515–32. Molyneux, Maxine, Adrija Dey, Malu A.C. Gatto, and Holly Rowden. 2020. “Feminist Activism 25 Years after Beijing.” Gender & Development 28, no. 2: 315–36. Munro, Ealasaid. 2013. “Feminism: A Fourth Wave?” Political Insight 4, no. 2: 22–5. Neumayer, Eric, and Thomas Plümper. 2007. “The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the Gender Gap in Life Expectancy, 1981–2002.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97, no. 3: 551–66. Ocampo, José A. 2014. “The Latin American Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective.” In Life after Debt: The Origins and Resolutions of Debt Crisis, edited by Joseph Stiglitz and Daniel Heymann, 87–115. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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O’Donnell, Guillermo, Phillippe Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy. Baltimore, md: Johns Hopkins University Press. O Globo. 2015. “Mulheres compartilham experiências de assédios na infância após polêmica com participante do ‘MasterChef Jr.’” O Globo, 21 October 2015, https://extra.globo.com. Ortiz, Jaime. 2012. “Déjà Vu: Latin America and Its New Trade Dependency … This Time with China.” Latin American Research Review 47, no. 3: 175–90. Pereira, Anthony. 2003. “Explaining Judicial Reform Outcomes in New Democracies: The Importance of Authoritarian Legalism in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.” Human Rights Review 4, no. 3: 3–16. Pérez Caldentey, Esteban, and Matías Vernengo. 2010. “Back to the Future: Latin America’s Current Development Strategy.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 32: 4, 623–44. Phelan, Alexandra. 2019. “Engaging Insurgency: The Impact of the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement on farc’s Political Participation.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 42, no. 9: 836–52. Pickup, M. 2019. “The Political Economy of the New Left.” Latin American Perspectives 46, no. 1: 23–45. Resende, André. 1983. “A ruptura no mercado internacional de crédito.” In Dívida externa, recessão e ajuste estrutural: O Brasil diante da crise, edited by Persio Arida, 41–54. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Paz e Terra. Rial, Juan. 1992. “Makers and Guardians of Fear: Controlled Terror in Uruguay.” In Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, edited by Juan Corradi, Patricia Weiss Fagen, and Manuel António Garretón, 90–103. Berkeley: University of California. Rochlin, James F. 2003. “Colombia: The Origins, Ideology and Support Base of the farc and the eln.” In Vanguard Revolutionaries in Latin America: Peru, Colombia, Mexico, 87–117. New York: Lynne Rienner. Rodríguez Gustá, Ana Laura, Nancy Madera, and Mariana Caminotti. 2017. “Governance Models of Gender Policy Machineries under Left and Right Governments in Latin America.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 24, no. 4: 452–80. Saporta Sternbach, Nancy, Marysa Navarro-Aranguren, Patricia Chuchryk, and Sonia E. Alvarez. 1992. “Feminisms in Latin America: From Bogotá to San Bernardo.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17, no. 2: 393–434.

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Shirk, David, and Joel Wallman 2015. “Understanding Mexico’s Drug Violence.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 8: 1348–76. Silva, Carmen. 2013. “Desafios das publicações feministas.” Revista Estudos Feministas 21, no. 2: 625–35. Smith, Peter H. 2005. “The Cycles of Electoral Democracy.” In Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective, 19–43. New York: Oxford University Press. Spieler, Paula. 2011. “The Maria da Penha Case and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Contributions to the Debate on Domestic Violence against Women in Brazil.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 18, no. 1: 12–43. Tanski, Janet M. 1994. “The Impact of Crisis, Stabilization and Structural Adjustment on Women in Lima, Peru.” World Development 22, no. 11: 1627–42. Teixeira, Adla. 2019. “A Growing Threat to Human Rights? Gender and Political Ideologies in Brazil.” Gender and Education 31, no. 7: 938–44. Walby, Sylvia. 2011. The Future of Feminism. London: Polity Press. Walton, John, and Jonathan Shefner. 1994. “Latin America: Popular Protest and the State.” In Free Markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment, edited by John Walton and David Seddon, 97–134. Cambridge, ma: Blackwell. Waylen, Georgina. 2007. Engendering Transitions: Women, Mobilization, Institutions, and Gender Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wolff, Jonas. 2019. “The Political Economy of Post-Neoliberalism in Bolivia: Policies, Elites, and the mas Government.” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 108: 109–29. Wolmark, Jenny. 1999. Cybersexualities: A Reader on Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wood, Elisabeth J. 2003. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. New York: Cambridge University Press. Yates, J.S., and K. Bakker. 2014. “Debating the ‘Post-Neoliberal Turn’ in Latin America.” Progress in Human Geography 38, no. 1: 62–90. Zanetti, Julia Paiva. 2011. “Jovens feministas do Rio de Janeiro: Trajetórias, pautas e relações intergeracionais.” Cadernos Pagu 36 (January–June): 47–75.

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Feminism in Mexico City marta lamas Translated by Julie Kemack

This chapter is intended as a brief but thorough analysis of Mexican feminism and its expressions in Mexico City. How does one give an integral account of a movement that is so diverse and that includes so many different tendencies and organizational forms? Given the challenge of analyzing the Mexican feminist endeavour in just a few pages, three areas have been selected: grassroots and ngo work; feminist governance; and public mobilizations. These three forms of feminist intervention feed into the cultural production of artists and writers and into the work of feminist academics. However, due to space constraints, it is impossible to delve fully into these specific contributions. I will thus concentrate on three paradigmatic issues: the decriminalization and legalization of abortion; political parity; and the struggle against sexual violence. Nevertheless, owing to the generalized violence that occurs in Mexico, most feminist efforts have been focused on the violence perpetrated against women. My analysis will thus expand on this critical and painful issue. While the three forms of feminist intervention examined here are prevalent throughout the country, I will focus on the case of Mexico City. Finally, as this reflection arises from my activism experience and is moulded – and skewed – by that experience, it is important to bear in mind that mine is a partial view. For a more complete consideration of Mexican feminism, with its range of organizations, tendencies, and strategies, it is vital that one become familiar with other perspectives.1

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The Work of Non-governmental Organizations and the Decriminalization of Abortion In the mid-1980s the grassroots work of Mexican feminists developed in the form of non-governmental organizations (ngos). In Mexico, as in other countries, small consciousness-raising groups became ngos, conducting educational interventions and promoting the causes of groups of disenfranchised women: peasants, Indigenous women, domestic workers, and so forth. Many feminists thus formed groups having a legal status, enabling them to receive funding or sell services.2 Sonia Alvarez (2001) uses the term ngoization to describe the institutionalization process of these activists (predominantly socialist feminists, Christian women, and ex-militants from the left) who aspired to become more effective in their quest for social transformation. Given that the philanthropic trend in Mexico is firmly linked to religious institutions, the majority of these ngos solicit financing from foreign foundations and international development agencies. By allowing feminists to draw a salary while continuing to be totally dedicated to their activism, this ngo-ization not only enabled many feminists to reconcile their economic sustainability with their political convictions but also configured a style of work that encouraged the growth of the militant core of the popular women’s movement. These citizens’ associations promoted education and training with groups of women from the Indigenous and grassroots sectors; they also collaborated in the formation of women’s support networks across the length and breadth of the country. Over time, some of the ngos were disbanded or transformed, their members joining larger projects wherein they continued to collaborate on multiple causes. While some feminists believe that institutionalization necessarily leads to a decline in radicality, this form of sustained activism does not entail the renouncing of political objectives. On the contrary, it effectively supports the promotion of political changes directed at improving the lives and autonomy of women. A clear example is the work toward the legal termination of pregnancy in Mexico City. In the early 1990s a feminist group set up the ngo Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida aimed at developing and sustaining an advocacy process to broaden society’s awareness of the need for a legislative change to make abortion a health

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service. Throughout the 1990s this group worked on a strategy to transform the social discourse on abortion and, together with other groups and public figures such as writers, scientists, and intellectuals, built a network to support the demand for this service. In 2000 this ngo, along with two others, approached two citizens’ organizations of a more technical nature working on reproductive health issues, with the aim of crafting a strategic union: the National Alliance for the Right to Decide (la Alianza Nacional por el Derecho a Decidir, or andar).3 The collaboration between these five organizations, despite the differences in their economic, political, and symbolic capital, enabled the advancement of their objective, and seven years later the much-sought-after reform permitting legal elective abortion during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy was passed into law in Mexico City. The directors of all five of these organizations were feminists who shared similar perspectives on the right of women to make decisions concerning their own sexuality and reproduction. Thus, the National Alliance for the Right to Decide succeeded in nurturing awareness in society and among the political class. Apart from the indisputable merit of its aims, it must not be forgotten that the political context was helpful: the majority of Congress and of the government authorities of Mexico City were members of the left-wing party (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, prd) and were in full support of decriminalization. Furthermore, the political climate facilitated the creation of a five-party social-democratic coalition – prd, Partido del Trabajo (pt), Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (pri), Convergencia, and Alternativa Socialdemócrata – which, on 27 April 2007 in Mexico City, voted in favour of the aforementioned legal abortion.4 In the ten-plus years that the law has been in force, the municipal government of Mexico City has provided this legal and free service to close to half a million women, not only those from Mexico City but also those from the rest of the country. Two feminist organizations have developed a system to support women arriving from the thirty states where elective abortion does not yet exist (it was legalized in Oaxaca in 2019). Indeed, in the rest of the country there remains in force restrictive legislation allowing for the termination of a pregnancy only when there is a threat to the woman’s life or when the pregnancy is a result of rape. The difficulties in obtaining a legal abortion are immense. The national scene is anything but rosy, but the legalization of abortion in Mexico City represents one of the greatest

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triumphs of feminism in a country marked by strong interference by the Catholic Church and a surge in evangelical groups. Moreover, it has become a model for care that does not require proof of residency or nationality to obtain a safe and free abortion. This offers hope for women in the rest of the country, who, facing the obstacle of prohibition, travel to Mexico City to secure a legal abortion.

Governance Feminism and Parity In the year 2000 a political party other than that which had governed Mexico for seventy-eight years won the presidential elections. This was the symbolic culmination of a process of democratic transition that had begun with the political reform of 1982, when the official candidate in the presidential elections had no opponent, thereby exposing the democratic farce. Over the course of the democratization process, many activists acknowledged that advancement of the feminist agenda required not only public participation but also the occupation of posts in partisan, legislative, and governmental structures. This heightened awareness led to the growing professionalization of feminist intervention in public life, with many feminists striving to occupy roles in political parties and government, joining government commissions, creating consulting entities for political parties, establishing alliances, and aiming to participate in Congress. Arising from this context were what Halley, Kotiswaran, Rebouché, and Shamir (2018) call “governance feminists” – feminists who work within governmental structures or political parties and participate in local and global processes such as United Nations (un) forums. In Mexico, governance feminists have developed their interventions in realpolitik from a perspective of forming alliances, influencing electoral outcomes, and promoting a common agenda. Many are militants in political parties that, convinced of the importance of involving more women in decision-making processes, have lobbied first on the issue of quotas for women in political representation and then on the issue of parity. Regardless of their political differences, these women believe that what is needed is more women in political posts, and they promote alliances with the aim of addressing the under-representation of women in public and political administration.

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The process to obtain parity originated at the seventh national feminist meeting, held in 1992, during which a feminist sector initiated a campaign with women in the government and state apparatus to demand from political parties quotas for women’s representation. These feminists then formed Avancemos un Trecho (A Step Forward), an alliance between independent feminists and those from different parties, with the aim of working out political deals. In 1996, for the first time a recommendation that no more than 70 per cent of candidate nominations in political parties be of the same sex was included in the Code of Electoral Procedures (thereby promoting a 30 per cent quota for women). Since this was a recommendation without sanction, however, it was not followed up. Nevertheless, in 1997 governance feminists achieved the establishment of the Commission of Gender Equity of the Chamber of Deputies, whose purpose was to promote legislation from a gender perspective. Despite this advancement, and although it changed the political discourse, with political rhetoric favouring the inclusion of women, it was not until 2002 that an electoral reform made it obligatory that the 30 per cent quota be enacted (in the 2003 elections). The result did not take long to have an effect: the proportion of women legislators rose from 16 per cent in 2000 to 21 per cent in 2003. In 2007 a new electoral reform established a 40 per cent minimum and 60 per cent maximum for each sex, an accomplishment that was implemented in the 2012 elections. From this quota the parity requirement evolved. The goal of the demand for parity is to transform the normative order of the government so that women’s concerns and needs are included in public policy. Although parity is principally understood in relation to the exercise of power, specifically political representation, it also implies a need for parity in the educational and domestic spheres (Scott 2005). The discursive adoption of the term parity by governance feminists in Mexico did not include political, domestic, or educational parity – indispensable for a more equitable social order – but referred solely to the numerical connotation of fifty-fifty in political posts. Thus, following a long process of debate and political pressure, with governance feminists playing a decisive role, on 10 February 2014, article 41 of the Constitution was reformed, conferring legal status to electoral parity. Parity was thus considered the balanced distribution of male and female candidates (fifty-fifty quota), and the whole discussion on parity in edu-

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cation and in the home was forgotten. Nevertheless, in the presidential elections of July 2018, parity as a democratic reality was achieved. A flood of women arrived in many state legislatures, and for the first time in history women now occupy half of the seats in both the federal Chamber of Deputies and the Senate: 248 out of a total of 500 representatives in the Chamber of Deputies are women (49.6 per cent), while 63 out of 128 Senate seats are occupied by women (49.2 per cent). Although their mere presence does not guarantee feminist thought, it is very likely that these women will press for the fundamental changes demanded by the public. This numerical parity, so relevant in a machista country such as Mexico, is a clear outcome of the work of governance feminists, from within both the parties and civil society organizations; their arduous efforts are bearing fruit.

Public Mobilizations against Violence In Mexico there are many feminisms, with varied tendencies within the social movement, different tenets of political thought, and various perspectives on cultural critique, all of them concerned with and engaged in activism against violence toward women. In the 1970s and 1980s, femicide did not exist to the extent that it does today, nor did fear threaten daily life in the way it does now, with women, especially young women, living in fear of being kidnapped or disappeared. In the early 1990s the media erupted with one of the most painful and shocking tragedies in the country: the murder of poor women, many of them adolescents, in Ciudad Juárez. These hate crimes have continued to escalate across the country and have resulted in the creation of a legal construct: femicide (Monárrez 2009, 2011).5 Feminism has exposed the social naturalization that exists in relation to violence against women. It is feminists who have denounced cases of women being raped, beaten, and murdered and who have made visible to society the magnitude of this social problem. The exposing and combatting of violence against women has long been a great battleground for most feminists, Mexican feminists being no exception. This struggle has had high political and social visibility, with strong support from all political parties, governments, and churches. No other feminist cause has led to the passing

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of more legislation, garnered more resources, or received more publicity than the struggle against violence toward women. This struggle has focused not only on brutal femicide6 but also on the different expressions of domestic and institutional violence,7 rape and sexual assault, and, more recently, the sex trade and trafficking. As Elisabeth Badinter points out, one has to “pay tribute to current feminism, which gave rape its real significance, and mobilized strongly to take victims out of their solitude and their silence” (2003, 30). The work of feminists who investigate the murders of women must also be recognized. They put themselves at risk by reporting the crimes and, in so doing, have made the legal status of femicide a tragic social reality, although its horrifying scale is still not accepted. Finally, one has to be profoundly grateful to the groups of activists who, in a committed and brave way, dedicate themselves to supporting women who are victims of violence, as they seek justice, protection, and redress.8 We need to place violence against women in its specificity, but it is also essential that we situate it within the enormous variety of forms of violation, aggression, and cruelty to human beings that exist today in Mexico. Obviously, the violence is not the same everywhere in the country, nor does it affect all people in the same way; aside from gender, there are differences based on social class, age, ethnicity, and residency in certain areas. In the current phase of capitalism, apart from the exploitation produced by the accumulation and concentration processes that result in changes to laws and the suspension of rights, a necropolitics that adopts crime as a useful tool to achieve its ends has also developed. Now, along with economic and social inequality, there are forced disappearances, decapitations, and butchering. The warlike style of necropolitics has led to a landscape marked by the constant spilling of blood, caused not only by organized crime but also by the political and police forces that seek to control it. This deadly violence of neoliberal necro-empowerment, with its brutal economic enrichment, lands mainly on the bodies of poor men and women (Valencia 2016). The heinous depredation by legal and de facto powers as well as corporate interests has, in addition to destroying bodies, shattered community links and eroded the social fabric. In this terrifying context what does the violence against women show? Merely an extreme misogyny? Rita Laura Segato (2016) argues that it is not possible to understand violence against

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women without analyzing the kinds of subjects and practices that stem from neoliberal capitalism and generate new forms of violence on bodies and subjectivities. The wave of violence in which Mexico is submerged affects young people in particular, to the degree that José Manuel Valenzuela Arce (2012) introduced the term youthcide to describe the grim reality. Millions of young people live in a state of marginality brought on by social inequality, the absence of work opportunities, and the lack of access to formal education and health care. Young feminist women denounce these precarious conditions as forms of structural violence, and their political mobilizations expose this vulnerability, which is intensifying by the day.

The Intersectional Perspective of Feminist Mobilizations Many years ago Rossana Rossanda observed that a “movement is something more and something less than a political party. A movement is a culture, an endeavour of masses that is consolidated within society, traversing it and changing its physiognomy, even at an institutional level. It is not subject to the limits, rules or hierarchy of a party. A movement is an impulse, a wave, a tide” (1982, 221). This “endeavour of masses” of the feminist movement becomes manifest in street demonstrations. In recent years most of the demonstrations that have brought thousands of women, the majority of them young women, into the streets have been protests against violence toward women. Over the last ten years in Mexico City the media have recorded 124 feminist mobilizations, of which 30 pertained to human rights issues, 26 to sexual and reproductive rights issues, and 67 to violence.9 In other words, more than half of the feminist mobilizations registered have been related to violence against women. Moreover, as demonstrated in the table, the number of mobilizations related to violence has increased fourfold in ten years. A distinctive element of feminist mobilizations during this period has been the use of information technology and social networks, making the global calls to action possible. The national mobilization against machista violence, held on Sunday, 24 April 2016, in more than forty Mexican cities, was propelled by feminist

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Feminism in Mexico City Table 1.1 Number of protests in Mexico City, 2007–17 2007 2008 2009 2010 Protests 4

1

2

1

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2

7

5

5

8

15

18

+4

+5

virtual virtual Source: CIMAC 2018.

collectives. Not even the traditional marches, those commemorating emblematic dates (8 March, International Women’s Day; 28 September, Latinamerican Safe Abortion Day; 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women), have been as well attended and as combative. The call to action of this mobilization, dubbed the “Violet Spring,”10 began in the State of Mexico, one of the states contiguous to Mexico City and with the highest number of femicides. Coordination with the international feminist movement through digital platforms such as Facebook and Twitter was key to the nationwide organization of Violet Spring. Thousands of outraged but hopeful women expressed their condemnation of machista violence. Independent “collectives” of young feminists, in accordance with the scheme of the constellations, brought together women from different backgrounds and of different occupations and ages, ranging from mothers of disappeared teenagers in Ecatepec to professional women, who, at times outraged and at times playful, shouted, “We want to stay alive!” This excerpt from their speech reveals their anti-capitalist and intersectional perspective: Today, 24 April 2016, we, feminist women, non-partisan women, women of diversity, are here to confront the recent history of Mexico, to shout, demand and inform that we have had enough of every kind of machista violence that we suffer day to day, from the most direct to that which emanates from the darkest corners of this capitalistic hetero-patriarchal economic, political and cultural system; from this failed and indolently femicidal state, which recognizes us as fiscal sub-

34

marta lamas jects, workers, and intellectual and manual capital to increase its wealth, but which rejects us as people and removes our identity in every way, condemning us to a mass grave in history. Today, women who are labourers, who are from rural areas, who are indigenous, mestizas, students, teachers, activists, sex workers, domestic workers, artists, cooks, lesbians, bisexual, heterosexual, transsexual, gender dissidents, women of all corporealities, women with disabilities, women from all social classes, professionals, women who are illiterate, imprisoned, guerrillas, political prisoners, midwives, shamans, homeless women … we have a common purpose: to demonstrate our absolute discontent, our accumulated rage against the structural, cultural and institutional violence that increasingly produces alarming rates of femicide, the gravest extreme of these forms of violence, that converts enforced disappearances and murders of women into brutal manifestations of hatred and sensationalism. Today, we march en masse to highlight this machista violence; however, we want this mobilization not to be a mere act of rejection and condemnation but, rather, to be our way to denounce and demand. In this mobilization against machista violence, we want this denunciation and demand to be converted into an immense, deep and lasting collective cry that shakes up government and private, economic, cultural and media institutions, a cry that shatters the columns on which rests the capitalistic hetero-patriarchy that dominates, oppresses, exploits and violates us. What we are demanding with this pronouncement must not and cannot be put on the shelf, among that which can be forgotten. Every demand that we make here also refers to a proposed solution that we incorporate into our struggles and objectives.

Part of this pronouncement focused on what was happening in Mexico City: “The feminist and non-feminist women united here denounce and demand that this city, which is said to be ‘friendly’ and claims to be at the forefront of our country, recognize and confront the acts of machista violence that we diverse women suffer daily, and which today we have come to expose.” It described Mexico City as a “geographic, socio-economic, cul-

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tural, administrative and political space where we, the diverse women who live here, suffer machista violence daily, when we pass through its streets and public spaces, when we use public transportation and enter its health and education facilities or its workplaces.” Tired of the impunity regarding femicide and sexual aggressions, such as groping, these young feminists demanded political change, not only on the part of the authorities but also on the part of society. Given the levels of day-to-day violence affecting their lives, much remains to be done before women can walk calmly down the street, before they can travel on the subway without dread, before their fear is eradicated. Furthermore, young Mexican women, developing their own calls for gatherings and proposals, have joined the #MeToo movement. What is happening among young women in Mexico City is part of a global generational phenomenon. Conscious of the power of activism on networks such as Twitter and Facebook, these young women launched “Mi primer acoso” (My first harassment) almost as a preamble to the Violet Spring march.

Harsh Criticism by a Female University Student Young women “do feminism” in other ways and other places as well, and although their best-known sphere of action is the street, within their ranks they also do internal work that includes cultural forms of solidarity (exchange of services, community kitchens, fanzines) and goes far beyond merely expressing their dissatisfaction. A significant element of the recent mobilizations has been their discourse, integrating an intersectional perspective and, in some cases, a tinge of radical feminism; they critically analyze this political moment in the country, marking their feminist singularity. In a heart-wrenching text titled We Are Not Ayotzinapa: And Is That Why You Don’t Cry for Us?11 a young female university student lamented the disparity between the multitudinous protests that erupted following the disappearance of forty-three male students in Ayotzinapa12 and the sparse mobilizations held in response to the disappearance or murder of thousands of women. Her reaction to the slogan of the protests for the disappeared male students, “We are all Ayotzinapa,” reads as follows:

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marta lamas I am not Ayotzinapa because I am not poor, I am not an indigenous person or a rural worker, nor am I a man. I am a mestiza student, an intern in a bourgeois career, at a private university and categorized as a woman at birth, with all the cultural, political and social implications that accompany this. I am not Ayotzinapa because tomorrow the police will not come to take me from my work in order to hand me over to a group of drug lords in the service of the Narco-state so that they can disappear me.

Her agonized accusation continues: I am not Ayotzinapa because if, tomorrow, I am kidnapped, raped and murdered as I leave work, there will be no multitudes demonstrating to demand justice. I am the indigenous woman murdered in a racist crime. I am the woman raped and dismembered as I leave the maquila. I am the student kidnapped by trafficking networks. I am the woman beaten to death by a healthy son of the patriarchy. But we women are not Ayotzinapa. And is that why you don’t cry for us? When we are the disappeared, the murdered, the violated – why do we become only women, … but never everyone? We women are the murdered women of Juárez, the disappeared women of the State of Mexico, our girls. Why? What is happening in Mexico is deplorable, the terrorism in the country is heinous, but it is also a shame that we forget that this neoliberal model has been swallowing up the women from the desert since the 1990s in the face of the silence from all of you, all of us. It is despicable that we stay silent when thousands of girls are captured and sold as sex slaves to swell the pockets of organized crime. Using the strategic rhetoric of calling herself a feminazi, the label used to disqualify feminists, she continues: Nevertheless, as a feminazi who is sick with rage, I cannot help pointing out that I also see the privileges of gender. Society does not see them in the same light as the patriarchal system does – for the patriarchal system they are men, courageous, heroes and cherished.

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The femicide machine fuelled by the neoliberal governments in the hetero-patriarchal capitalist system disappears, rapes and murders thousands of women every day, and I have never seen us make the newspaper headlines, never mind marches or protests such as the burning of buildings. They sell us, rape us and kill us every day, little by little. We are also [affected by] terrorism and crimes of the state. We are also poor, racialized students and symbols of rebellion, because being a woman and surviving in Mexico is an act of resistance, and I have not seen socialism demanding the return, alive, of those women who have disappeared. The grievance against the left, and against Zapatismo, is clear: Without feminisms there is no socialism; capitalism will not fall if the patriarchy does not fall first. I have not seen the ezln marching to demand an end to the murder of women; without feminisms it is not possible to have another world, or a world that many worlds can fit into.13 We women are not Ayotzinapa. We are Juárez, the State of Mexico, Chiapas and Guanajuato [the states with the most femicides and disappearances of women in Mexico]. We are not all Ayotzi. Ayotzinapa is them. I am not Ayotzinapa. We women are not Ayotzinapa and I don’t believe that it is necessary from our inclusive logic to universalize in order to share the rage and the clamour for justice. Nevertheless, what is needed for you to join our cause? This distressed and lucid grievance circulated on the networks but clearly was not taken up by other feminist groups.

Unprecedented Feminist Explosions Along with the lack of governmental acknowledgment of sexual-based violence and the growing number of feminicides, new emotions that motivate the activists have added a new dimension to feminism in Mexico. The increase in different kinds of violence and feminicides, together with the growth in complaints about sexual harassment that were unleashed as a result of the #MeToo movement, has created a new “affective temporality”

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(Chamberlain 2017). In April 2019 several #MeToo local accusations were aimed at different writers, musicians, scholars, journalists and others. In a week, 424,867 tweets written by 230,578 individuals (almost all of them women) revealed the size of the problem and asserted that women are not going to be silent any more. Months later, the press published leaked information about the case of a young girl who had filed a complaint against four policemen who had raped her when she was going home at dawn one day. That news piece triggered a violent protest on 16 August 2019, exposing the risk that many young women take on a daily basis when walking about the streets. Their fury fiercely exploded that day with an unprecedented action: groups of young women headed toward the chief of police’s office, vandalized buildings, and smeared walls. In addition, they broke a glass door and threw a pile of pink glitter over the chief ’s head. Political and intellectual figures in media discussions expressed two different kinds of opinion: some of them showed their support for the young demonstrators, and others condemned what they considered “vandalism.” Prudence Chamberlain states that feminism “is open to the affect of its time and is shaped by the momentum of public feeling” (2017, 41). Such a momentum in Mexico is full of pain, anger, and indignation. This was openly displayed in the massive march held on 8 March 2020, when all kinds of women of different ages and social status demonstrated their solidarity in favour of the struggle against the violence on women. The slogans that were shouted in unison or written in banners voiced an overwhelming mixture of pain, anger, indignation, enthusiasm, and inquisitiveness. Groups of young women chorused: “Now that we are together, now that we are seen, down with patriarchy! It’s gonna fall, it’s gonna fall!” A huge mass of violet was speckled with green handkerchiefs (the symbol of the struggle for legal abortion) and accompanied with slogans like “The lack of legal abortion is patriarchal violence as well”; “Abortion yes, abortion no, that’s only for me to decide!”; “Not a whore because I f**k; not a mother because I must; not a prisoner for having aborted; not dead for having tried.” This demonstration stood out from others due to the huge number of organized contingents carrying banners that repeated: “Not a single one (dead woman) more” (Ni Una Más); “We aren’t afraid any more”; “You are not

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alone”; “One of us is all of us” (Una somos todas); “I’m taken care of by my friends, not by the police”; and “I’d rather be violent than dead.” There were also some heartbreaking slogans that included the names of missing or dead women. As could be expected, there were harsh complaints aimed at the government – “The oppressive State is a rapist macho” and, specifically aimed at Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “Mr. President, we apologize for the inconvenience: we are being killed.” These women, including long-time activists and many who had never protested in the streets, marched for hours. Many were shocked at some groups of masked and hooded young women, dressed in black and carrying aerosols and hammers, as they broke windows and graffitied walls and monuments. They doused rags with gasoline and set them on fire, producing a spectacle that was at once fascinating and threatening. Their organized actions in quick and well-coordinated small groups triggered shouts against violence (“No violence, no violence!”) from many other women. Some demonstrators answered, “This is not violence. It’s resistance!” And it was because of this action, widely publicized by the media, that people started to talk about the existence of anarchist feminists (feministas anarcas). Nowadays, the affective temporality of feminists in Mexico City portrays pain, anger, and indignation, demonstrating that when a social movement becomes weary and desperate with respect to the institutional system, within it there are groups that explode forcefully in the public sphere. For example, in September 2020 a group of mothers of victims of feminicide and sexual abuse, accompanied by feminist activists, “exploded” and occupied a building belonging to the National Commission for Human Rights. They transformed it into what they named the “Shelter Not a Single One More.” Their protest encompassed an accusation against injustice, their deep suffering, and a legitimate yearning for a less precarious and more bearable life. It is worth noting that they were addressing the commission, an autonomous body of the state, which is a counterweight intended to defend the human rights that the state itself fails to protect. The explosion of these women who have suffered tragedies and filed the appropriate complaints is the consequence of the disaster of indifference and incompetence by the justice agencies. These women have made themselves heard, accompanied – or maybe encouraged – by feminists, many of whom call themselves anarchists.

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These same emotions of pain, anger, and indignation have led female students of the Mexican public university, National Autonomous University of Mexico, to organize strikes and work stoppages, frequently coupled with destruction and robbery. This array of protests by young feminists runs parallel to other political processes that are taking place in Mexico, but it was still unanticipated that university philosophy students would go out on strike for more than five months in order to force authorities to consider the inclusion of gender-based violence as a serious offence in the general statutes of that university.

Resignifying Feminism in the Streets The victory of the left in 2018, with the presidential election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, involved the beginning of formal parity and symbolized hope for other pending issues in the feminist agenda, such as government reactions to acts of violence against women. It is important to reiterate that gender and sexual violence are systemic in character and exacerbated by neoliberal necropolitics and feminicides as an extreme form of sexist terrorism. The level of incompetence and lack of responsiveness of the judicial bureaucrats toward the victims and their relatives is astonishing. For this reason, feminists constantly denounce the lack of attention of the justice sector and condemn the impunity around these hideous crimes. Since the president took office, a fracture has occurred between him and an important feminist sector that had voted for him, not only due to the thoroughly unfortunate words with which he downplays the violence, but also because of his austerity measures that have closed child-care and victims-of-violence shelter programs. In addition, the president does not seem to understand that the democratic inclusion of women entails their integration in political life through the exercise of citizenship and through the adoption of a very active role in the redefinition of citizenship, concerning certain needs that affect women directly, such as the availability of abortion services. The current political resistance to legal and free abortion services exposes fundamental problems in Mexican democracy. It remains to be seen

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whether this leftist government, which formed an alliance with evangelical Christians, will decide to approve a nationwide abortion law. For the time being, the discourse of the feminist minister of the interior has been openly pro-choice in speaking of decriminalizing abortion throughout the country. The three expressions of Mexican feminism examined here – ngos and grassroots organizations, governance feminism, and street mobilizations – persist with their activism. What has taken place in Mexico City, however, has triggered similar actions in other states, showing the affective temporality that many feminists share. In different cities, feminist explosions unmask the depth of a generalized distrust toward government institutions and toward the incapacity of political figures to eradicate the injustice of not only machista violence but also sexism and inequality. The characteristics of this new feminist activism consist of what Tarrow describes as “contentious challenges through disruptive direct action” (2011, 9). It is of great relevance that the vast majority of young activists who participate in these three forms of intervention have been developing a variety of practices that interrupt and question the transmission of hegemonic (patriarchal and capitalist) values. Concerning the recent feminist mobilizations in Mexico City, Amneris Chaparro finds that they represent an “epistemological break” in four ways: • A break from the ideal notion of femininity in regard to the exposure, display and propriety of their own bodies. • A break from the “right way” of demonstrating through the use of violent tactics. • A break from the idea that the public space is masculine by literally writing and leaving feminist symbols and marks on it. • A break from the traditional way of creating knowledge about what concerns women, in particular knowledge about violence. (2020, 4) As a result of these mobilizations, women have rebranded feminism today in Mexico and have become a powerful symbolic presence in Mexico City. The recent feminist protests have very effectively mobilized prominent women – writers, scientists, artists, public officials, and politicians – to

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speak out against the enduring character of gender inequality, especially stressing the lack of an adequate government response to this violence. Finally, although covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) interrupted the flow of the feminist tide, the need to carry on political struggles persists, and there is still an urgent need for a feminist perspective in politics, especially in the development of public policies. Feminist groups continue their contentious challenges, combining them with traditional actions. Will the variety of feminisms working in different spaces be able to pursue a unified strategy? Maybe not, but the bringing of the narrative into the public space has achieved a remarkable resonance with almost every woman, in different social groups, some of which have changed their attitudes toward feminism. And as the need to wage a political battle persists, it is timely to remember the clever definition of feminist politics put forward some time ago by an Italian feminist: “a relational action, capable of developing in reality the consequences of an unpredictable possibility, women’s liberation, disallowed by the social and symbolic order” (Dominijanni 2012, 60). This relational action of marching in the streets shoulder to shoulder, with shared discourse, is the main ingredient used by Mexican feminism today to transcend the traditional field of political action.

notes 1 For other analyses of Mexican feminism, see Bartra, Férnandez Poncela, and Lau 2002; Cano 2007; Espinosa Damián 2009; Espinosa Damián and Lau 2011; García, Millán, and Pech 2007; González 2001; Lamas 2006; Lamas et al. 1995, 2006; Tarrés 2007. 2 The early 1980s saw the emergence of groups such as Grupo de Educación Popular con Mujeres (1981), Acción Popular de Integración Social (1982), Comunicación, Intercambio y Desarrollo Humano en América Latina-México (1982), Mujeres Trabajadoras Unidas Asociación Civil (1984), and Equipo de Mujeres en Acción Solidaria (1985), dedicated to working with women from the grassroots, for which they received funding from international agencies; see Lamas 2006; Espinosa Damián 2009. 3 Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (gire), together with Catholics for the Right to Decide (Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir) and Gen-

Feminism in Mexico City

4 5

6

7 8 9

10 11

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der Equity (Equidad de Genero), united with Ipas and the Population Council; see Lamas 2015. For a personal account of the long process leading to decriminalization, see Lamas 2015. Use of this term is still in dispute. Lucía Melgar uses femicide to refer not to individual murders of women but, rather, to the whole set of murders of women simply because of their gender, while these crimes go unpunished and the government has an obligation to act or bears responsibility for the failure to do so. See Melgar 2011, 136n2. Rita Laura Segato (2015, 157) uses the term to describe all crimes with a lethal intent against women. In Mexico many academic feminists have channelled their political and intellectual energy into investigating, reporting, and seeking to understand violence against women, especially its most brutal expression, namely femicide; see Gutiérrez 2004; Monárrez 2009, 2011; Belausteguigoitia and Melgar 2007; Huacuz Elías 2011b; Melgar 2011; Saucedo and Huacuz Elías 2011). On this form of violence, see, for example, Agoff, Casique, and Castro 2013; Castro and Casique 2008; Izquierdo 2011; Saucedo 2002, 2011; Torres Falcón 2001. The work of Catholics for a Free Choice with the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide is relevant. This information is the result of a data search on feminist mobilizations that I requested from the cimac news agency. The document focuses on Mexico City between 2007 and 2017, based on the media coverage that cimac has registered. The classification of these three categories belongs to cimac, and I know neither the criterion nor the means that cimac used. The paragraph “Human Rights” includes everything except sexual or reproductive rights, such as labour rights and political questions (Ayotzinapa: On 26 September 2014, forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachersè College were forcibly abducted and then disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. They were allegedly taken into custody by local police officers from Cocula and Iguala, in collusion with organized crime.) Furthermore, I assume that it was compiled solely on the basis of the registers that this media agency has, without considering other sources. Therefore, the data should be considered incomplete. See cimac 2018. Curiously the colour violet was chosen, so similar to violent (instead of lilac or purple), to name a march against violence. Recently the writer Dhalia de la Cerda declared that she is the author of that text.

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12 Ayotzinapa is a term referring to a series of violent episodes that occurred on the night of 26–27 September 2014 when the municipal and state police in Guerrero pursued and attacked students from the Escuela Rural Normal (Rural Teachers’ Training School) in Ayotzinapa who had “hijacked a bus” to travel to Mexico City. In this confrontation nine people died, forty-three students disappeared from the school, and twenty-seven civilians, including journalists, were injured. The bottom line is that the authorities were involved in drug trafficking, and the “disappearing” of the students was carried out by the state; see Valenzuela Arce 2017. 13 Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (ezln, Zapatista Army of National Liberation).

biblio g r aphy Agoff, Carolina, Irene Casique, and Roberto Castro. 2013. Visible en todas partes: Estudios sobre violencia contra mujeres en múltiples ámbitos. Mexico City: crim/unam. Alvarez, S. 2009. “Beyond ngo ization? Reflections from Latin America.” Development 52: 175–84. Badinter, Elisabeth. 2003. Hombres/Mujeres: Cómo salir del camino equivocado. Buenos Aires, Argentina: fce. Bartra, Eli, Anna M. Férnandez Poncela, and Ana Lau. 2002. Feminismo en México, ayer y hoy. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano. Belausteguigoitia, Marisa, and Lucia Melgar. 2007. Fronteras, violencia y justicia: Nuevos discursos. Mexico City: pueg/unam. Cano, Gabriela. 2007. “Las mujeres en el México del siglo xx: Una cronología mínima.” In Miradas feministas sobre las mexicanas del siglo XX, edited by Marta Lamas, 21–75. Mexico City: fce. Castro, Roberto, and Irene Casique. 2008. Estudios sobre cultura, género y violencia contra las mujeres. Mexico City: Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias - unam. Chamberlain, P. 2017. The Feminist Fourth Wave: Affective Temporality. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Chaparro, Amneris. 2020. “Paint It Purple: Feminist Interventions as Epistemological Break?” Paper presented at the Association for Political Theory, 12 November 2020. cimac. 2018. Movilizaciones feministas en la Ciudad de México 2007–2017.

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Registro de prensa elaborado por Cirenia Celestino Ortega, 7 April 2020. https://cimac.org.mx. Dominijanni, Ida. 2012. “El estrabismo de Venus: Una mirada a la crisis de la política desde la política de la diferencia.” Debate Feminista 45: 60–78. Espinosa Damián, Gisela. 2009. Cuatro vertientes del feminismo en México: Diversidad de rutas y cruce de caminos. Mexico City: unam. Espinosa Damián, Gisela, and Ana Lau. 2011. Un fantasma recorre el siglo: Luchas feministas en México 1910–2010. Mexico City: Ecosur/uamXochimilco/Comisión de Asuntos Editoriales del Senado de la República and Editorial Itaca. García, Nora Nínive, Márgara Millán, and Cynthia Pech. 2007. Cartografías del feminismo mexicano 1970–2000. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo de la Ciudad de Mexico. González, Cristina. 2001. Autonomía y alianzas: El movimiento feminista en la Ciudad de México 1976–1986. Mexico: pueg/unam. Gutiérrez, Griselda. 2004. Violencia sexista: Algunas claves para la comprensión del feminicidio en Ciudad Juárez. Mexico City: pueg/unam. Halley, J., P. Kotiswaran, R. Rebouché, and H. Shamir. 2018. Governance Feminism: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Huacuz Elías, María Guadalupe, ed. 2011a. La bifurcación del caos: Reflexiones interdisciplinarias sobre violencia falocéntrica. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano/Itaca. – 2011b. “Reflexiones sobre el concepto de violencia falocrática desde el método de la complejidad.” In La bifurcación del caos, 9–29. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano/Itaca. Izquierdo, María Jesús. 2011. “La estructura social como facilitadora del maltrato.” In Huacuz Elías 2011a, 33–57. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano/Itaca. Lamas, Marta. 2006. “El feminismo en México a finales del s. xx: De la protesta a la propuesta.” In Historia de las mujeres en España y América Latina: Un siglo de transiciones, edited by Isabel Burdiel, Guadalupe Gómez Ferrer, Gabriela Cano, and Dora Barrancos, 4:903–21. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra. – 2015. El largo camino a la ile: Mi versión de los hechos. Mexico City: pueg/unam. Lamas, Marta, Alicia Martínez, María Luisa Tarrés, and Esperanza Tuñón. 1995. “Building Bridges: The Growth of Popular Feminism in México.” In The

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Challenges of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movement in Global Perspective, edited by Amrita Basu, 324–47. Boulder, co: Westview Press. Melgar, Lucia. 2011. “Tolerancia ante la violencia, feminicidio e impunidad: Algunas reflexiones.” In Huacuz Elías 2011a, 135–60. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano/Itaca. Monárrez, Julia. 2009. Trama de una injusticia: Feminicidio sexual sistémico en Ciudad Juárez. Mexico City: Colegio de la Frontera Norte and Miguel Ángel Porrúa. – 2011. “El continuo de la lucha del feminismo contra la violencia o morir en un espacio globalizado transfronterizo: Teoría y práctica del movimiento antifeminicida en Ciudad Juárez.” In Huacuz Elías 2011a, 109–34. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano/Itaca. Rossanda, Rossana. 1982. Las otras. Barcelona: Gedisa. Saucedo, Irma. 2002. “De la amplitud discursiva a la concreción de las acciones: Los aportes del feminismo a la conceptualización de la violencia doméstica.” In Estudios sobre las mujeres y las relaciones de género en México: Aportes desde diversas disciplinas, edited by E. Urrutia, 265–88. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico. – 2011. Violencia contra las mujeres en México. Mexico City: pueg/onuMujeres. Saucedo, Irma, and Guadalupe Huacuz Elías. 2011. “Movimientos contra la violencia hacia las mujeres.” In Un fantasma recorre el siglo: Luchas feministas en México 1910–2010, edited by Gisela Espinosa and Ana Lau, 213–43. Mexico City: Universidad Autonomo Metropolitano/Itaca. Scott, Joan. 2005. Parité! Sexual Equality and the Crisis of French Universalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Segato, Rita Laura. 2015. La Crítica de la Colonialidad en ocho ensayos. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Prometeo. – 2016. La guerra contra las mujeres. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños. Tarrés, María Luisa. 2007. “Discurso feminista y movimiento de mujeres en México (1970–2000).” In Miradas feministas sobre las mexicanas del siglo XX, edited by Marta Lamas, 113–48. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Tarrow, Sidney. 2011. Power in Movement. 3rd ed. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University. Torres Falcón, Marta. 2001. La violencia en casa. Mexico City: Paidós. Valencia, Sayak. 2016. Capitalismo Gore: Control económico, violencia y narcopoder. Mexico City: Planeta.

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Valenzuela Arce, José Manuel. 2012. Sed de mal: Feminicidio, jóvenes y exclusión social. Mexico City: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte/Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. – 2017. “Ayotzinapa: Juvenicidio, necropolítica y precarización.” In Precariedades, exclusiones y emergencias: Necropolítica y sociedad civil en América Latina, edited by Mabel Moraña and José Manuel Valenzuela, 37–52. Mexico City: Gedisa.

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Contemporary Feminist Struggles in Haiti against Neo-colonialism, ngo-ization, and State De-responsibilization denyse côté Translated by Ellen Murray We produce myths and legends so we can hide and conceal and maintain the kind of willful ignorance that protects our innocence. ~ Eddie Glaude Jr, Princeton University

Very little has been written about the Haitian women’s movement. Indeed, the literature on this subject is surprisingly thin. Yet the movement has produced real change and has resisted the depoliticization instilled by the international community.1 Allied with the democratic rights sector, it has been able to achieve important victories with intelligence and strategic finesse while maintaining a fragile balance built on conflictual collaboration with some state sectors and the international community. How can the lack of knowledge regarding the Haitian women’s movement be explained? Theorists of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007), epistemologies of ignorance (Mills 2007; Sullivan and Tuana 2007), and decolonization (Masson 2016; Mohanty 1984, 2003) point out that powerful discursive mechanisms actively do away with knowledge stemming from marginalized populations. I will offer some examples here. Haitian feminist organizations have constantly fought against national and international actors for recognition of their discourses, knowledge, and interventions. Extensive processes obliterating their views and knowledge, the views and knowledge of a subaltern counterpublic (Fraser 1989), have at the same time provided the international community with privileged access to positions of epistemic, political, and economic authority (Alcoff 1991) in Haiti. The struggles and analyses of Haitian women concerning their rights,

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their citizenship, and the violence they experience have thus been obscured and constantly reduced to needs that must be met through foreign action. It should be noted that, though recognized at the national level, Haitian women’s organizations have chronically suffered from a flagrant lack of resources, their funding being entirely dependent on foreign sources. Moreover, many people are unaware that well before the publication of Frantz Fanon’s book Les damnés de la terre (The Wretched of the Earth) in 1961 and the decolonization movements of the mid-twentieth century, the Haitian feminist movement, under the American occupation (1915–34), led the struggle for decolonization and women’s rights. This struggle has always been closely linked to the struggle for Haitian democracy and sovereignty. Let us also remember that, following the defeat of Napoleon’s troops by the so-called Indigenous army in 1803, Haiti established the world’s first Black republic. However, as the Uruguayan literary giant Eduardo Galeano (2014) has pointed out, Haiti paid a high price for this, both materially and in terms of representation. Thus, although the women’s movement has been one of the strongest social movements in Haiti (Fortin 2016) and the Caribbean, the global stereotype associated with Haitian women remains that of poor and powerless female victims. The extreme ngo-ization of Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake led to a shift in feminist issues: the funds allocated by various non-governmental organizations (ngos) to organizations involved in gender issues were henceforth distributed according to priorities linked to the Western imagination, driven in part by femonationalist ideas.2 Three trajectories were thus set in motion simultaneously: depoliticization of poverty through micro-enterprise projects; decontextualization of gender-based violence, though it is clearly linked to the political situation and poverty in Haiti; and construction of a discourse on the passivity of Haitian women, which overlooks the history of the women’s movement while redirecting it forcibly. Indeed, the movement had to focus on countering the donors’ marketing of poverty to a Western public that was eager to “save” Haitian women. In addition, it has had to fight the conservative policies of recent governments supported by the international community. In the face of these foreign influences, a culture of resistance has been forged in Haiti, combining African, neo-colonial, and libertarian influences. This chapter will describe some aspects of the Haitian women’s

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movement based on my observations over several decades as a feminist activist and also on empirical data derived from two studies, the first conducted in 2015 and the second still underway, comprising more than seventy interviews and a vast body of grey literature.

Struggles for Women’s Rights, Struggles for Democracy The history of feminist struggles in Haiti is also the history of the struggle for democracy and against foreign interference. The movement has been catalyzed as much by the violence perpetrated by the state (Basu 1995) and foreign forces as by domestic and interpersonal violence. Periods of repression alternating with periods of increased openness have raised feminist awareness. This awareness has, in turn, been sustained by transnational links (Charles 1995), field interventions, strategic genius, the ability to stay the course even in difficult situations, and a reliance on the movement’s own resources. Indeed, in the twentieth century alone, Haitian feminists had to endure more than forty years of dictatorship and almost twenty years of American occupation, while maintaining their basic demands, including the right to vote, women’s equality before the law, and the eradication of specific types of violence. In 1926, at the request of its Haitian section, the Women’s International League for Peace sent a committee to investigate the American military occupation. Subsequently, in 1934, despite prohibition by the government, the Women’s League for Social Action was founded. It immediately embarked on a series of initiatives: civic education for women, night classes for women workers, a cooperative credit union, conferences across the country, libraries, a workers’ hostel, petitions to the relevant authorities to open schools for girls, and a demand for equal pay for equal work. For more than twenty-five years activists demanded democratic freedoms and the emancipation of women. The league joined forces with other organizations, such as the Women’s Action Committee, taking to the streets and defying police truncheons. As a result of these efforts, in 1957 activists secured women’s right to vote – which, ironically, was exercised for the first time in the election of the dictator François Duvalier. Duvalier quickly had the

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women arrested, tortured, and eliminated, silencing the league throughout his own dictatorship and that of his son. During this period feminists in Haiti developed solidarity, common values, and intervention strategies. They took advantage of the ties forged, both in exile and on Haitian soil, with various international actors, using international instruments to legitimize their actions with regard to the government and to support the structuring of the Haitian state. Strengthened by the independent spirit of Haitian women, the feminist movement resumed its activities after the fall of the Duvaliers in 1986, driven by a new generation often returned from exile, nurtured by the North American movement, inspired by the international context, and shaped by the United Nations Decade for Women (1976–85).3 Two-thirds of the leaders of two of the organizations at the heart of this renewal, Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (Haitian Women’s Solidarity) and Kay Fanm (Women’s House), had returned from abroad (Burton 2004), where they had been active as feminists. The launch of the renewal was a call to demonstrate, initiated by fifteen associations, bringing together more than thirty thousand women two months after the exile of Duvalier son, on 3 April 1986. Around this time many grassroots organizations came into being: the first shelter for women victims of violence was opened in 1985, and subsequently four hundred local peasant women’s groups and important national groups such as EnfoFanm and the Centre for the Promotion of Women Workers were formed. This proliferation of organizations was not limited to the feminist movement; it led to the populist Lavalas movement4 and the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, against the wishes of the United States (Burton 2004). Eight months after his election, however, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted by General Cédras, signalling his rejection by the country’s traditional economic elites. Most of the feminist activists then took to “marooning”;5 also, human rights abuses, particularly rape as a method of repression, increased dramatically (hrw 1995). Haitian feminists both within and outside the country circulated information on the regime’s abuses and the inertia of international agencies on the issue. Often at risk to their own lives, they continued to provide shelter and direct assistance to victims. Still under the military regime, at the first National Meeting on Violence against

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Women, in March 1993, they publicly denounced the growing number of politically motivated rapes committed by security forces against feminist leaders and other women. They encouraged international organizations to document rape in Haiti as a weapon of repression, forcibly bringing an end to the Haitian taboo of speaking about intimate violence against women (Fuller 1999). During this period they continued to raise awareness and to train all women, whether illiterate, impoverished, or middle class (Bell 2001; Charles 1995), as evidenced by the many outreach courses and projects around women’s rights and violence against women, national awareness campaigns, and training for health workers. At the request of the United States, the end of the Cédras military regime and Aristide’s return to the constitutional presidency in 1994 were accompanied by the landing of a multinational military force. Women’s groups took advantage of this new democratic space to press for the creation of the Ministère de la condition féminine et aux droits des femmes (mcfdf, Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Women’s Rights),6 with its first minister being chosen from among their ranks.7 The Haitian government ratified the Belém do Pará Convention and the Inter-American Convention on the Eradication of Violence against Women (1994) and also participated in the Beijing Conference in 1995. On the national scene, the Haiti National Truth and Justice Commission (1994–96) investigated crimes against women committed during the dictatorship. However, the Haitian government did not implement the commission’s recommendations. The women’s movement organized a response in 1997 in the form of the International Tribunal against Violence against Women in Haiti (Côté 1997; Fuller 1999). The tribunal heard testimony from women victims of political and domestic violence. Its panel of judges, international experts, and representatives of Haitian civil society associations recommended fundamental changes to the judicial system, police practices, and social and public health services. It also recommended that the government work with a coalition of women’s organizations to draft a law aimed at eliminating all forms of violence against women (Fuller 1999). Despite growing obstacles encountered during Aristide’s second term (2000–04), women’s organizations sought to have these recommendations implemented. Now federated under the Coordination nationale de plai-

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doyer pour les droits des femmes (conap, National Coalition for Women’s Rights Advocacy),8 in October 2003 they also denounced the chimères9 responsible for political violence against women and the murder of an activist (conap 2004). President Aristide’s forced departure under the auspices of major world powers in February 2004 represented, for most human rights activists, a victory in terms of women’s rights, while for others, particularly in North America, it symbolized unacceptable US interference (Burton 2004). Following Aristide’s departure, and under the auspices of the mcfdf, the women’s movement reactivated some suspended projects: bills on sexual assault, on domestic workers, and on responsible parenthood. A decree modifying the Constitution, and criminalizing rape, was formalized in August 2005. It harmonized national laws with the international conventions ratified by Haiti. An international conference on Haitian women’s citizenship was held in 2005, and the electoral law was amended in 2006, establishing a quota of no less than 30 per cent women in elected and other public positions.10 At the same time, conap denounced the individual and collective rapes committed by soldiers of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (minustah), still present on Haitian soil. Thus, it managed to make the un acknowledge some cases of rape, including those involving Sri Lankan and, later, Uruguayan soldiers. conap also saw to the establishment of a joint structure drawing together women from government, international institutions, international ngos, and women’s associations, under the banner of the Concertation nationale contre les violences faites aux femmes (cnvf, National Round Table on the Prevention of Violence against Women). The objective of this body was to bring together the various partners working on violence, harmonize the available intervention tools (a single document, a medical certificate, to prove cases of gender-based violence), and ensure coherency in the provision of care and support for victims. Following the earthquake, cnvf organized a new national awareness campaign, violence-prevention interventions, and a colloquium for policy-makers and other actors, held in January 2012, with a view to developing public policy on violence against women and girls in Haiti (cnvf et al. 2012). It also actively participated in the mcfdf’s drafting of a bill to combat violence against women (Joachim 2012).

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Struggles for the Autonomy of Feminist Groups and the Haitian People This era of progress was, however, cut short in 2010 when many international governmental and non-governmental organizations landed in Haiti. Before describing this phenomenon, I should point out that the women’s rights paradigms developed in Europe and North America inspired intervention in Haiti and elsewhere; they are key to understanding the barriers that the Haitian women’s movement had to confront in the post-earthquake period. Feminist theories of development, driven by international ngos and institutions, were based on the notion that inherent inequality existed between women in the North and in the South, presuming the former to be the saviours of the latter in the name of global feminist solidarity. These theories soon transmuted into orchestrated processes of gendered planning, directed and funded – though not exclusively – by Western women, in which women in the economic South learned to develop the capabilities needed to lead less difficult lives (Mendoza 2002). Paradoxically, these processes were accompanied by strong pressure to depoliticize and negate endogenous activist expertise. In parallel with the critique of First World–Third World notions and in the wake of the un conferences on women, the concept of global sisterhood also emerged, introduced by Robin Morgan (1984). This concept was revised by Charlotte Bunch (2001), who proposed the concept of global feminism, in reference to the local women’s movements that, in her view, formed a global coalition against discrimination and male violence. The latter concept was then replaced (in terms of popularity) by transnational feminism, which, unlike global feminism, does not presuppose the participation of all nations around the globe (Desai 2007). However, the geographical and analytical centre of transnational feminism remains the United States. As Conway points out (2017, 217), a “us-centrism, occasionally self-conscious but often implicit, frequently accompanies contemporary uses of transnational feminism as an analytic.” But replacing the centre-periphery view of feminism with one involving an international flow and mobility reduced the sense of space and flattened out the differences between the West and the rest of the world. As it became more

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widespread, however, global feminism as a concept also lost its original meaning (Vrushali 2011), becoming a euphemism for the epistemological and material domination of Western feminism. It thus made it possible to ignore the differences between women in the North and women in the South and to sentimentalize international feminist relations, overlooking the power relations that run through the transnational feminist apparatus and its organizations, discourses, and cultures (Chowdhury 2009). The conceptualization of transnational feminist networks as globalization from below romanticizes the local as existing in a state of innocence (Naples and Desai 2002). Indeed, use of the terms local and global eschews their socially constructed nature (Conway 2008), assuming the local to be geographically fixed and embedded, in binary opposition to the transnational, seen as mobile and fluid (Vrushali 2011). Also, the emergence of transnational feminism was largely seen as a result of the current globalization and the information technology revolution associated with it, facilitating worldwide communication (Desai 2007). Thus, the frameworks for managing equality policies in Western states, international non-institutional advocacy networks, and the knowledge-creation practices of feminist movements have formed the opportunity structure for transnational feminism. It is widely assumed that, in this age of globalization, most of the issues affecting women globally are shared because of the international structuraladjustment policies and the flow of capital, people, goods, and ideas across borders on which transnational feminism as a strategy is based (Ferret and Tripp 2006). Specific linguistic and cultural flows also cross borders and build different transnational feminisms (Conway 2013). The locus of enunciation in the world system is indeed important in the production of theory. This does not imply that an analytical category must necessarily arise endogenously from the movements examined, in their place of origin; rather, it is important not to impose an interpretative framework from another context without reflecting on this (Mignolo [2000] 2012). This is particularly true of Haiti, a creolophone and francophone country where international anglophone networks have played a major role, especially in the postearthquake period. Lastly, and more critically, decolonial feminism, as a paradigm, presumes a distinction between women in the North and women in the South

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and theorizes the differences (Mendoza 2002) and the relationships between the feminisms positioned differently within respective societies (Conway 2017). This paradigm is a counterpoint to the Western-centrist, liberal, pluralist, and modernizing paradigms that still dominate international intervention (Conway 2017). An understanding of the world from the viewpoint of the economic South (Santos 2016), in fact, refutes the idea that this involves pre-scientific or even pre-modern knowledge.11 It makes it possible to deconstruct the projection of the situations of Western white middle-class women onto the situations of women in the South (Dorlin 2005) and to demonstrate the destruction of knowledge colonized by Western modernity.

Feminism in the Face of Humanitarian Intervention In struggling against these neo-colonial paradigms of the North, the Haitian feminist movement has been an important source of social change nationally, despite the whims of governments that have not always been in its favour.12 In fact, this movement has defied the patriarchal order and espoused a philosophy and a strategy that combine endogenous and exogenous theories and modes of intervention while resisting neo-colonial dispossession.13 It has acted both together and in parallel with the women’s movement, a constellation of organizations working to improve women’s living conditions (Ferree and Tripp 2006) and meet women’s practical needs. The feminist movement has, moreover, acted to promote women’s strategic interests (Moser 2012).14 Before 2010, the feminist movement provided support for women and girl victims of violence in maintaining their physical, psychological, and emotional health and in engaging in legal processes; provided support for young girls who fell pregnant following rape; advocated for the reform of administrative, medical, and socio-judicial procedures relating to violence against women; advocated for legislative changes in the area of violence and women’s rights; conducted public awareness campaigns; and, lastly, fought against misogyny and anti-feminism. After the earthquake this window of opportunity disappeared, but the movement, while weakened,

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stayed on course, albeit with dramatically reduced resources. Where necessary and when possible, women’s associations continued to provide support to the mcfdf, for, among other things, development and adoption of the Gender Equality Action Plan and Gender Policy. They were also very much involved in supporting women who had been displaced by the earthquake, advocating for the humanitarian effort to take women into account, building the memory of their deceased sisters, rebuilding their groups, and fighting against specific misogynistic actions of the Haitian state. Together with other associations in Haiti’s democratic sector, they fought to strengthen the state while struggling against foreign intervention, including that of the Core Group. Mobilization was certainly slowed by the earthquake. However, it is picking up again, with a new generation of feminists that is more focused on social media. The political landscape faced by the women’s movement became much more complex after the earthquake. The international community, the diaspora, and international ngos and contingents changed the reality on the ground. The heavy presence of humanitarian organizations and institutions forced a shift in paradigms and discourses, placed the Haitian feminist movement in a state of material subjugation, and hardened the epistemic struggle, imposing, through its strength in numbers and the requirements specific to humanitarian intervention, the women and development paradigm and transnationalist feminism of Western women. It was a turning point for the women’s movement. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the aid provided by the humanitarian contingents and international ngos (water, latrines, food, medical care, etc.) was providential for a population used to little consideration by the national authorities. This aid was generous, since the ngos also provided employment to hundreds of Haitians. However, the foreign presence also had adverse effects. The capital, Port-au-Prince, appeared to be once again invaded by occupying forces: un vehicles, ngos everywhere in their new suvs, new tenants and consumers with purchasing power, soaring prices, housing shortages. The minustah troops accidentally introduced cholera, infecting many people, causing deaths, and posing a permanent risk of infection in a country with poor sanitation facilities. Sexual assaults and sexual transactions by foreign contingents

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also increased – and were often covered up by the international authorities, who, paradoxically, were engaged in the fight against sexual violence. Lastly, the humanitarian intervention increased the Haitian population’s dependence on international aid and disrupted large parts of the local economy and social fabric. Feminist activists nevertheless managed to absorb the shock, find their bearings, heal their wounds, and meet their daily needs. However, they benefited very little from humanitarian aid, which was intended for those who were worse off. Despite dire material and human conditions and limited resources, they quickly resumed their activities; dealt with the material damage (premises and archives destroyed or badly damaged); resumed their support, awareness-raising, and advocacy activities around women’s rights; reactivated their links with foreign donors; and supported activists and employees who were more adversely affected than they were.15 Important decisions were now being made outside the country, and international policy continued to look at Haiti from afar, focusing on figures, balance sheets, and statistics rather than on national dynamics. After the earthquake, for reasons of urgency and efficiency, Haitians had little say. President René Préval passed an emergency law granting extensive powers to the Core Group. President Bill Clinton served with him on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, through which billions of dollars in pledged aid were filtered. The foreign contingents imposed their leadership at several levels. As with any humanitarian mobilization, this intervention was characterized by a media boom, sensationalism, the simplification of messages, a culture of emergency, and disorganized distribution of aid. The interference in the country’s domestic affairs was legitimized by the international bodies with the stated aim of ending the physical suffering caused by the earthquake and by the vulnerability of the Haitian state. Described as “therapeutic” by McFalls (2010), this intervention, based on a discourse of trauma, produced new military and bureaucratic practices, justified foreign actions on national soil, and led to the creation of a new victim subjectivity among the Haitian population. These interventions and the creation of new female subjectivities had a particular impact on the Haitian feminist movement.

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Manufacturing a Truncated Vision of Haitian Women The international contingents conveyed a particular perception of Haitian women that obliterated the rich trajectory of their feminist organizations, combativeness, and achievements. This perception was shaped by the Western media, which witnessed the horror, extreme poverty, and disorganization of Haitian institutions and infrastructures. It was anchored in an angelic representation of humanitarian actions and created the stereotype of Haitian women as victims (Corbet 2011) incapable of saving themselves (Peck 2013), or as helpless victims of the earthquake and poverty, instead of survivors or citizens in their own right (Horton 2012). The humanitarian aid was structured around this image, which was now central to the funding and intervention of ngos and the fundraising in the West that was needed to finance their programs. In this “political economy of trauma” (Caple James 2010), the women receiving aid were “extracted, transformed, and modified through humanitarian intervention and [became] a source of profit and power for intervening organizations” (Caple James 2004). This conceptualization of women as aid recipients also presents them as the guarantors of the local social fabric and of continuity during violent events, in exile or displacement, enabling their families and their community to overcome the parenthesis represented by the event and to return to the previous state. However, a natural disaster and the sustained presence of humanitarian contingents in a country have lasting effects. A return to the previous state is virtually impossible. Despite the good intentions of the individuals and organizations involved, Haitian women were transformed by the discourse of ngos and humanitarian contingents into a symbol of support for all humanity, a symbol of the family, education, and abnegation (Corbet 2011). This representation of Haitian women as victims replaced their image as social actors, objectifying and subjugating them; some women later adopted this image in order to qualify for assistance, having learned to make creative use of the resources offered by humanitarian organizations. Such representations undermined the Haitian women’s movement, which previously had succeeded in projecting, for the benefit of its compatriots and its international partners, an image of resistant women and citizens. They erected new obstacles for activists, who were already greatly

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affected by the earthquake. Humanitarian ngos, the media, and un contingents too often failed to connect with the Haitian women’s movement and too often used it for their own purposes – that is, to promote their own activities, raise funds, write newspaper stories, or validate an intervention to foreign donors. Nevertheless, before and after the earthquake, with greater or fewer resources, the feminist movement was able to stay focused on its priorities, namely enhancing the rights of Haitian women and their ability to enjoy these rights, supporting women’s access to economic and political resources, and combatting and denouncing violence against women, while supporting the structuring of national institutions for their benefit (e.g., justice, health, status of women).

An “Epidemic of Rape” Some examples may serve to illustrate the obstacles placed before the feminist movement by the international community after the earthquake. One incident in particular had a profound impact on the West’s perception of Haiti and Haitian women. It was an editorial published in an influential American newspaper alleging an “epidemic of rape” in the camps for displaced persons in Port-au-Prince (“An Epidemic of Rape”). Although not based on a journalistic investigation or verified data, the editorial made headlines around the world and was even quoted in its entirety by the un (2011) and renowned international human rights organizations (hrw 2011). It did not in any way correspond to facts reported by violence-prevention workers who were present in the camps or to the official statistics available. Yet the un accepted the facts as presented in the editorial and apparently was not even aware of the statistics: “despite the lack of quantitative data, it is generally accepted that sexual violence … against women and girls is widespread in the camps in Haiti and [is] on the rise” (United Nations 2011; my emphases). The “general acceptance” to which this un document refers is based solely on unsubstantiated Western representations and the general idea articulated in the literature that violence against women increases in the wake of a disaster. In fact, according to the main Haitian women’s groups working on violence prevention inside and outside the camps, which had been

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participating for several years in the collection of data on violence against women in Haiti, there was indeed an increase in violence following the earthquake, but it did not appear to be concentrated in or limited to the camps (cnvf 2011). Furthermore, domestic violence seems to have increased more than sexual violence, and the “epidemic of rape” in the camps appears to be a complete fabrication (Magloire and Joachim 2011). This false representation only reinforced the idea that there was no endogenous intervention to prevent violence against women in Haiti. It was subsequently used to justify several interventions by international organizations and international ngos. Moreover, it relegated to the background the many other disastrous experiences of Haitian women and girls, increasing their vulnerability by diverting humanitarian attention to the camps for displaced persons. This single media stunt succeeded in erasing all the interventions by Haitian feminists from the Western view of the situation and reinforcing the idea, bordering on racism, of a Haitian people engaging without impunity in the worst violence against women (Magloire and Joachim 2011). In its 2011 report on Haiti, Amnesty International recommended that the Haitian government encourage the “broad and effective participation of women in the design and implementation of strategies to combat violence against women” (Amnesty International 2011). This recommendation highlights the ignorance of foreign actors regarding local and national dynamics. Amnesty International appears to have been unaware of its devastating effect on the Haitian feminist movement, which had been working on violence against women, with and without government agencies, since 1986.

Instrumentalization of Feminist Groups and Women’s Groups There is a particular form of instrumentalization of Haitian feminist groups by foreign organizations. In the aftermath of the disaster, several international ngos attempted to become established in Haiti as actors fighting violence on behalf of Haitian women. To this end, all tactics were used, even unfair ones. A case in point: a European foundation attempted

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to cobble together some legitimacy in Haiti by usurping the legitimacy of established feminist groups. This international ngo wished to participate in the humanitarian effort but had no connection to the country. It announced that a public event on violence against women would be held in Port-au-Prince, and disseminated the names of partners for the event, including well-known Haitian feminist groups of impeccable reputation. However, these groups had never been approached about such a partnership and had to issue press releases dissociating themselves from the event (Magloire and Joachim 2011) – which, in the end, was never held. This is an example of how, in the context of depleted resources after the earthquake, a climate of mistrust developed between established Haitian feminist associations and newly arrived international ngos. The lack of solidarity forced these associations to rely only on their own meagre resources, adding a burden to their mobilization and advocacy work as their legitimacy was eroded by the legitimacy claimed by foreigners. Another example of transnational feminism is one that the author personally witnessed and documented. In the wake of the earthquake a US feminist ngo instrumentalized a local women’s group fighting sexual violence in camps for displaced persons. Lacking any ties to Haiti, the ngo legitimized its presence through its association with this group while publicly attacking Haitian feminist leaders and established feminist groups.16 As a member of networks of international institutions, from 2010 to 2015 the ngo widely publicized the aforementioned “epidemic of rape” in the camps and in international forums and specifically to influential American editorialists and un bodies in New York and Geneva, presenting itself as the mouthpiece for Haitian feminists. In this way, it raised nearly US$1 million. The ngo began to distribute this money to the allied women’s group but then switched its priorities to women in Syria. The local women’s group then had to abandon all of its projects. This ngo thus consolidated its transnational feminist image, strongly supported by photographs and video recordings made during its missions in Haiti. Meanwhile, international funding for Haitian women’s groups was radically reduced, at times even to zero. Indeed, in most cases feminist activists had to continue their activities on a voluntary basis in the years following the earthquake.

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Conclusion Ideas have consequences (Halimi 2006) and are embodied in specific places, times, and relationships. This chapter has illustrated how Western stereotyping of Haitian women and feminism had an impact in Haiti. The women’s movement fought to change the conceptions, laws, and patriarchal practices that prevailed in Haiti.17 It achieved this before the earthquake, but the humanitarian intervention radically changed the political and economic landscape.18 The military presence of the minustah also changed the situation. The media hyperbole surrounding humanitarian activity established the Western image of Haitian women as passive victims, dependent on foreign aid. This therapeutic representation in turn served to justify foreign incursion into Haitian territory, while sexual violence was integrated into the political economy of trauma relating to victim assistance. During this period a section of the feminist movement did not stop denouncing the rapes committed by minustah soldiers. Moreover, this un mission was referred to by the National Coordination for Women’s Rights Advocacy as forced occupation. Ten years later, donors have turned off the taps, as a large number of ngos have left Haiti. They have left behind no substantial results. The majority of the funds were returned to the aidgiving countries, through either the purchase of equipment and agricultural products or very generous stipends and other risk premiums and consulting fees. Humanitarian rehabilitation programs also exacerbated conflicts over the receipt of aid, in a context of the perpetuation of insecurity and poverty that particularly affected women (Caple James 2004). Feminist organizations were overextended as local partners of newly arrived international ngos, acting as the driving force behind an agenda that was not their own and did not benefit them. Moreover, they had to overcome new obstacles in obtaining foreign emergency funds, such as new game rules, the submission of new projects, new administrative requirements that exceeded their logistical capacities, competition between associations for donors, cronyism, and instrumentalization. They nevertheless managed to rebuild their local, national, and international spheres of influence. Of course, ngo-ization sustained feminists with jobs and resources, enabling some to become involved politically and to reinvent

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public spaces for inclusion and discussion with other women and with political authorities. However, today they are faced with the importance of gender experts, the reproduction of inequalities among women, compliance building in the guise of capacity building, the tyranny of donors, the shifting of relationships from personal to contractual, and the primacy of organizational concerns over advocacy. The arrogance of the transnational posture is reflected in the lack of attention to local context on the part of the humanitarian apparatus, in its support for the rescue paradigm (white-saviour complex), and in the homogenizing and essentializing paradigms underlying its interventions (Desai 2007). This posture ultimately reproduced the hierarchies that it had initially opposed. In particular, it advanced monolithic and linear notions of gender inequality and feminism that ignore not only the meaning of the cultural context but, fundamentally, the capitalist, colonial, and neocolonial nature of transnational institutions and processes (Vrushali 2011). Moreover, not even feminism itself is devoid of vested interests and power relations. Although Haitian feminism developed in its own melting pot while being internationally connected, transnational feminism intruded into Haiti with a superiority complex. In one of the cases presented here, in the purest colonial tradition some US feminist leaders identifying with transnational feminism systematically undermined the legitimacy of Haitian feminist leaders after the earthquake in order to take their place – a strategy that has been used extensively with Indigenous populations (Smith 2008). Just as slavery was abolished through a slave revolt in Haiti, however, women owe their advances to the struggle they have waged themselves rather than to foreign intervention of any kind. Following the disaster that struck Haiti, these women acted courageously. They lost everything but dealt with the new setbacks in a context where the international community, often unknowingly, held the power to de-legitimize endogenous social movements. My analysis of this humanitarian intervention using a decolonial feminist framework reveals the spread of false ideas about feminism, femininity, and inequality in the context of a rapidly changing world order (Enloe 2001). The feminist groups that were founded after the dictatorship continue to operate in the areas of advocacy, assistance, research, and training. A new

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generation of feminists has joined in, also creating new organizations. They have held onto their demands with regard to the state and the international community while observing that key themes of their discourse have been taken up by public opinion in Haiti, namely support for women’s rights and rejection of violence against women. However, they are now confronted with a right-wing populist discourse that rejects feminism – stemming in particular from evangelical communities, several representatives of which currently sit in the National Assembly. Much remains to be done.

notes

1

2

3 4 5

6

7

The author wishes to recognize and thank the International Development Research Center for its financial contribution to this research project. The phrase international community refers to a set of states that are influential in international policy. In Haiti, for the past several years such an international community has taken the shape of the Core Group, an opaque structure composed of the un secretary-general’s special representative for Haiti, the ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the United States, and the European Union, and the special representative of the Organization of American States. This mechanism discreetly orchestrates key elements of Haiti’s domestic and foreign policy. On this subject see Seitenfus 2015. A contraction of feminism and nationalism, femonationalism refers to the “instrumentalization of the rhetoric of gender equality for racist purposes” (see Farris 2017). During this period the movement did not make any demands. Lavalas or Fanmi Lavalas was a political party led by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It constituted an important component of Haitian political life after 1991. Marronnage (a French word) means “running away to the forests to escape slavery.” The word marooning is used here to mean “taking to the hills or joining the resistance.” When the military government fell in 1994, the women’s movement mobilized to demand the institution of a ministry dedicated to women. The mcfdf was created on 11 August 1995. The women’s movement has been pivotal in resisting the closure of this ministry, as proposed by several governments since then. The first head of mcfdf, Lise-Marie Dejean, was a member of Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen.

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8 Over the past several years conap has brought together most of Haiti’s feminist groups. 9 Chimères were henchmen favouring President Aristide and associated with Fanmi Lavalas. Organized into gangs, they spread terror in Haiti between 2001 and 2005, particularly among feminists and women’s organizations. 10 These advances, like all previous ones, were the result of political mobilization, education campaigns, pressure, and collaboration with the mcfdf and other political actors. 11 As a case in point, in many settings the literature and respondents from the South are referred to as “indigenous.” 12 Following the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, some national governments were in favour of advancing women’s rights, while others – too many – were not in favour of, and sometimes were even hostile to, the idea. 13 For another example of the decolonial hybridization of international paradigms see Calero, Côté, and Boucher 2017. 14 Practical needs are related to women’s living conditions, while strategic interests refers to interests over the long term that can improve women’s situation (Moser 1989). 15 Despite the courage of these feminist activists, the disruption of activities was profound, some leaders having died (Magalie Marcellin, Myriam Merlet, and Anne-Marie Coriolan, among others) and others being obliged to live in tents for more than eight months. The feminist groups were deprived of funding, means of communication, computer equipment, and premises for a long time before being able to resume their activities. 16 The attacks were carried out from 2010 to 2015 and were aimed at invalidating all the achievements of the Haitian feminist movement to the contacts of this ngo, which was well connected internationally in the women’s rights sector. The feminist leaders who had made these reforms possible were described as bourgeois women unconcerned about the fate of women in Haiti, thus allowing the ngo to present itself to the un authorities as the representative of Haitian women. 17 In this respect, it is important to recall the ratification by the Haitian state of the Belém do Pará Convention (1994); the investigation by the National Truth and Justice Commission (1994–96) into crimes committed against women during the coup d’état led by General Cédras; the organization of the symbolic International Tribunal against Violence against Women (1997); the decree criminalizing

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rape (2005); the amendment to the electoral law establishing a quota of 30 per cent female presence in electoral positions (2006); the denunciation of rapes perpetrated by soldiers of the un Stabilization Mission in Haiti, and recognition of the facts by the un; the development and implementation of a Gender Equality Policy (2014–34); the enactment of the Paternity, Maternity and Parenthood Act, which provides, in particular, for equal filiations and measures to facilitate the search for paternity (2014); and the adoption of the Third National Plan to Combat Violence against Women (2017–27). 18 The arrival of such a large number of humanitarian contingents radically changed some economic parameters, in particular by significantly increasing the cost of living (rents, goods). However, the international forces played an important direct role in Haiti’s domestic policy.

biblio g r aphy Alcoff, L. 1991. “The Problem of Speaking for Others.” Cultural Critique 20: 5–32. Amnesty International. 2011. Aftershocks: Women Speak Out against Sexual Violence in Haiti’s Camps. London: Amnesty International. Basu, Amrita. 1995. Introduction to The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movements in Global Perspective, by Amrita Basu, 1–21. Boulder, co: Westview Press. Bell, Beverly. 2001. Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press. Bunch, Charlotte. 2001. “Women’s Human Rights: The Challenges of Global Feminism and Diversity.” In Feminist Locations, edited by Marianne Dekoven, 129–45. New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press. Burton, Barbara. 2004. “The Transmigration of Rights: Women, Movement and the Grassroots in Latin American and Caribbean Communities.” Development and Change 35, no. 4: 773–98. Caple James, Erica. 2004. “The Political Economy of ‘Trauma’ in Haiti in the Democratic Era of Insecurity.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 28: 127–49. – 2010. “Ruptures, Rights and Repair: The Political Economy of Trauma in Haïti.” Social Science and Medicine 70: 106–13. Calero, Betty, Denyse Côté, and Jacques L. Boucher. 2017. “Système scolaire et économie solidaire chez les Nasas de Colombie.” Revue canadienne de recherche sur les osbl et l’économie sociale 8, no. 1: 40–51. Charles, Carolle. 1995. “Gender and Politics in Contemporary Haiti: The

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Duveliarist State, Transnationalism and the Emergence of a New Feminism (1980–1990).” Feminist Studies 21, no. 1: 135–64. Chowdhury, Eora Halim. 2009. “Locating Global Feminisms Elsewhere: Branding Us Women of Color and Transnational Feminisms.” Cultural Dynamics 21, no. 1: 51–78. cnvf (Concertation nationale contre les violences faites aux femmes). 2011. Violences spécifiques faites aux femmes, données partielles: Juillet 2009 à juin 2011. Port-au-Prince, Haiti. – 2012. Contributions en vue d’une politique publique de lutte contre les violences faites aux femmes et aux filles en Haïti. Colloque international pluridisciplinaire, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 23–26 January. http://reseauefhhaiti2012.blogs pot.ca. conap (Coordination nationale de plaidoyer pour les droits des femmes). 2004. Lettre en réponse à la déclaration commune de nos sœurs des Caraïbes, signed by Myriam Merlet (EnfoFanm), Olga Benoit (sofa), Yolette Jeanty (Kay Fanm). Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 7 March. Conway, Janet M. 2008. “Geographies of Transnational Feminism: Place and Scale in the Spatial Praxis of the World March of Women.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 15, no. 2: 207–31. – 2013. “Ethnographic Approaches to the World Social Forum.” In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography and the Political, edited by Jeffrey S. Juris and Alex Khasnabish, 269–92. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. – 2017. “Troubling Transnational Feminism(s): Theorising Activist Praxis.” Feminist Theory 18, no. 2: 205–27. Corbet, Alice. 2011. “La ‘bonne’ victime: Une question d’images, d’emblèmes, et un sens politique implicite.” Grotius international; Géopolitiques de l’humanitaire. http://www.grotius.fr. Côté, Denyse. 1997. Tribunal international contre la violence faite aux femmes haïtiennes. Rapport de mission, Unpublished, Port-au Prince. Desai, Manisha. 2007. “Review: The Perils and Possibilities of Transnational Feminism.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 35, nos. 3–4: 333–7. Dorlin, E. 2005. “De l’usage épistémologique et politique des catégories de ‘sexe’ et de ‘race’ dans les études sur le genre.” Cahiers du Genre 2, no. 39: 83–105. Enloe, Cynthia. 2001. Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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“An Epidemic of Rape for Haiti’s Displaced.” 2011. Editorial, New York Times, 4 April, A20. Fanon, Frantz. 1961. Les damnés de la terre. Paris: François Maspéro. Farris, Sara. 2017. In the Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Ferree, Myra Marx, and Aili Mari Tripp. 2006. Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organising, and Human Rights. New York: New York University Press. Fortin, Isabelle. 2016. Cartographie qualitative des organisations de défense et promotion des droits en Haïti. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: minustah. Fraser, Nancy. 1989. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowledge. London: Oxford University Press. Fuller, Anne. 1999. “Challenging Violence: Haitian Women Unite Women’s Rights and Human Rights.” Association of Concerned Africa Scholars Bulletin: Women and War 55–6 (Spring/Summer): 39–48. Galeano, Eduardo. 2014. Parole en Archipel. https://parolenarchipel.wordpress. com/2014/09/16. Halimi, Serge. 2006. Le grand bond en arrière. Paris: Fayard. Horton, Lynn. 2012. “After the Earthquake: Gender Inequality and Transformation in Post-Disaster Haïti.” Gender & Development 20, no. 2: 295–308. hrw (Human Rights Watch). 1995. “Rape in Haiti.” In The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women’s Human Rights, 31–56. New York: Human Rights Watch. – 2011. “Nobody Remembers Us”: Failure to Protect Women and Girl’s Health and Security in Post-Earthquake Haiti. New York: Human Rights Watch. Joachim, Marie-Frantz. 2012. “Quand fleurissent les lilas: Aquis et questionnements autour de 25 ans de lutte des femmes.” Alterpresse, 27 December. Magloire, D., and M.-F. Joachim. 2011. Clarification de Kay Fanm et sofa à propos du forum sur la violence de la Fondation Thomson/Reuters. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Kay Fanm and sofa. Masson, Sabine. 2016. Pour une critique féministe décoloniale. Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions Antipodes. McFalls, Laurence. 2010. “Benevolent Dictatorship: The Formal Logic of Humanitarian Government.” In Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of

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Military and Humanitarian Intervention, edited by Didier Fassin and Mariella Pandolfi, 317–33. New York: Zone. Mendoza, Breny. 2002. “Transnational Feminisms in Question.” Feminist Theory 3, no. 3: 295–314. Mignolo, Walter D. (2000) 2012. Local Histories/Global Designs. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press. Mills, Charles W. 2007. “White Ignorance.” In Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, 13–38. Albany, ny: suny Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1984. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” Boundary 12, no. 3: 333–58. – 2003. Feminism without Borders. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Morgan, Robin. 1984. Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women’s Movement Anthology. New York: Anchor Press / Doubleday. Moser, Caroline. 1989. “Gender Planning in the Third World: Meeting Practical and Strategic Gender Needs.” World Development 17, no. 11: 1799–825. – 2012. Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practise and Training. London: Routledge. Naples, Nancy, and Manisha Desai. 2002. Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnationalism. New York: Routledge. Peck, Raoul. 2013. Assistance mortelle. Paris: Velvet Films. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2016. Épistémologies du Sud: Mouvements citoyens et polémique sur la science. Paris: Desclée Brouwer. Seitenfus, Ricardo. 2015. L’échec de l’aide internationale à Haïti: Dilemmes et égarements. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Éditions de l’Université d’État d’Haïti. Smith, L.T. 2008. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Sullivan, Shannon, and Nancy Tuana. 2007. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Albany, ny: suny Press. United Nations. 2011. High Commission for Refugees (unhcr) Driven by Desperation, Transactional Sex as a Survival Strategy in Port-au-Prince idf Camps. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: un. Vrushali, Patil. 2011. “Transnational Feminism in Sociology: Articulations, Agendas, Debates.” Sociology Compass 5, no. 7: 488–98.

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Articulated Networks: The Twenty-Year Struggle to Decriminalize Abortion in El Salvador maría angélica peñas defago Translated by María José Giménez and Anna Rosenwong

The year 2018 marked the twentieth anniversary of a legal reform outlawing abortion under all circumstances in El Salvador. Since then, women have been sentenced to upwards of thirty years in prison for undergoing an abortion, and even for experiencing an unprovoked obstetric emergency. In the face of this penal brutality against women, for almost two decades feminist and women’s organizations have intensified their activities at home and abroad, seeking not only legislative reform but also a shift away from the socio-cultural constructions permeating this practice. In an attempt to understand the battle to decriminalize abortion in El Salvador, this chapter proposes an exegesis of two turning points in the abortion debate over the past two decades: first, in the 1990s, legal reforms (to the Criminal Code and the Constitution), and, second, just a few years into the twenty-first century, the emergence of coordinated resistance to the ban on abortion. This will permit me to analyze the development of the abortion debate in different political and institutional settings in El Salvador. My methodology consists of a review of the national print media, legal documents (relating to sentencing, lawsuits, etc.), stenographic reports of legislative sessions on the relevant legal reforms, and presentations before national and international human rights organizations. In addition, interviews were conducted with key figures in El Salvador in November 2014, January and February 2015, and February 2017.

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Peace Accords: Democracy Is Not for Our Bodies On 16 January 1992 peace accords were signed in Mexico by the core group of the guerrillas, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (fmln), and the Salvadoran government, led by the Nationalist Republican Alliance (arena). This agreement marked the end of ten years of civil war that had left an estimated 75,000 people dead, most of them civilians (Cruz, González, and Sisti 2000). Not long after the signing of the accords, in December 1992, the fmln became a legal political party and soon emerged as the main alternative to arena. In the early 1990s, while the democratic process was gestating, women’s rights experienced a severe setback, with abortion as one of the central issues. Conservative sectors, both political and religious, began to mobilize to nullify the abortion legislation that had been in place since 1974. This legislation laid out the grounds under which abortion was not punishable: unintentional abortions, therapeutic or eugenic abortions, and abortions performed in cases of rape.1 The same year that the peace accords were signed, a faction comprising members of the arena party, the Christian Democratic Party (dc), the Salvadoran Catholic Church, and the Catholic non-governmental organization (ngo) Yes to Life (representing Human Life International in El Salvador)2 began to lobby against the abortion law and to persecute healthcare providers who stood by the practice (crr 2001). In December 1993, at the initiative of Yes to Life and with the strong support of representatives from arena and dc, the legislative assembly passed a law declaring 28 December the Day of the Unborn.3 Although the law did not acknowledge it, the date was chosen because 28 December is the Catholic Feast of the Holy Innocents. This law condemned abortion as an attack on life that begins at conception, and targeted the Salvadoran health professionals and clinics that offered the procedure. El Salvador was the first country in Latin America to sanction this type of law. Similar initiatives proliferated throughout the region as a way to both condemn abortion and legally challenge abortion rights (Lamas 2012).4 This moment in El Salvador’s history was characterized on the one hand by a new and fragile democracy and on the other hand by the conservative politicization of abortion. In 1994 the Ministry of Justice presented a bill

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drafted for reform of the Penal Code, with the goal of modernizing the country’s legislation, adapting to the new Salvadoran reality after the signing of the peace accords. This bill was not intended to substantially modify the regulation of abortion but to keep the 1974 regulations virtually intact (Feusier, 2012).5 In response to the Ministry of Justice initiative, representatives from arena and dc proposed legislation aimed at a complete ban on abortion. This last bill was ultimately passed into law in 1997. Resistance to the ministry’s original project included a broad range of public actions. As fmln policy-makers denounced them during parliamentary debates, arena and the Catholic Church spread false information, claiming that this draft bill intended to completely decriminalize abortion (Feusier 2015; Gonzalez and Kampwirth 2001).6 The intense mobilization of social and political conservatism, together with the results of the 1994 election, determined the outcome of the 1997 abortion debate. arena took thirty-nine of eighty-four seats, the dc eighteen, and the fmln twenty-one (Ramos and Loya 2008). Given that the approval of the total abortion ban reform put forth by arena and dc needed forty-three votes, the legal future of abortion was an open secret, even before the law came up for a vote. With arena maintaining its hold on the executive branch after the peace accords, the proposed criminalization was also supported by the president, Armando Calderón Sol. Similar to what had happened in Chile in 1989 (Moreno 2018), when the military dictatorship lost the plebiscite, total criminalization of abortion was one of the last moralizing bastions of the Latin American right, including soldiers and civilians alike, in the face of the new democratic processes. Against the impending civic-political democracy, the total criminalization of abortion in each country signalled the intention to leave a footprint, vestiges of a dictatorial past and aspirations for a moralizing future, and the bodies of women and girls were the territory chosen to fight the battle. In El Salvador, even before the debates about comprehensive reform of the Penal Code, the road had been paved for complete criminalization of abortion because the discussion was framed in absolute terms: total legalization or total decriminalization. Putting the debate about abortion in absolute legal and moral terms invokes the logic of a culture war, signalling

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categorical and irreconcilable differences between political and ideological perspectives on a subject (Morris, Abrams, and Pope 2011). The culture war approach, by which the public sphere is clearly divided between, in this case, those supporting total criminalization and those favouring total legalization, functions more on a political-discursive plane than in reality. A survey conducted in 1999 by the University of Central America’s José Simeón Cañas Institute for Public Opinion found that, even though on the public stage the debate was presented as highly polarized – yes or no – more than 35 per cent of the men and women surveyed favoured abortion in cases where the woman’s life was in danger (Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública 1999). The battles to frame the abortion question in the sphere of moral and legal absolutes became further entrenched in the legislative debate over reform of the Penal Code, and then the Constitution, a discursive line pursued to this day by the anti-abortion leaders. However, the moral absolutes employed by the conservative faction were intended not merely to frame the debate as absolute prohibition versus absolute permission; these discourses also constructed an other, a totalitarian identity that reinforced the moral authority of those committed to total criminalization. For example, representative Gabriel Murillo of the Partido Democracia Cristiana (dm, Christian Democratic Party) labelled women opposed to total criminalization as “indecent”: “We believe there are decent ways of making a living, honest ways; there are working women in all sectors, in all parties, but the pro-abortion work they [do] internationally and nationally is not decent, and it is not decent for a woman to be working within these systems” (Asamblea Legislativa 1997). This public, discursive way of portraying the women who tried to take part in the discussion was one of the strategies used to influence the public debate, a power game in which the opposition was portrayed, on more than one occasion, as “deviants” from the “natural” mandate of motherhood. The discourse of naturalization that underscored the abortion debates, along with discussions about women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy, spoke to a political and intellectual logic aimed at preserving the social hierarchy (Fassin 2012). The discourse of motherhood as a natural mandate effectively became a legitimizing rhetoric (Haraway 1999) for resisting the democratic historicity of the constructions of gender and sexuality. This narrative creates a cultural, political, and social hierarchy by introducing

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limits and parameters for functions and roles that “good women” must take up lest they become “deviants,” “the other,” “bad women.” In order to fully understand the development of abortion law reform in El Salvador, we must go beyond how the conservative political and religious forces were effectively rearticulated as democracy was re-established. We must also understand how that period saw a rearticulation of the resistance against the government and its criminalizing reform. The signing of the peace accords in 1992 weakened the relationship between the fmln as a political party and the grassroots organizations that had spawned it (Pirker 2014). Various factions of these organizations stopped mobilizing or joined ngos addressing the needs of specific social groups, including women, youth, and displaced persons (Álvarez 2013). Furthermore, once the fmln had become an alternative political party, its agenda became tied to electoral processes (Pirker 2014). Over the years, as the fmln consolidated its power, its position on abortion began to shift, from complete support in the mid-1990s to tacit indifference to outright opposition, as dictated by the political winds. With implementation of the various planks of the peace accords, many women who had been active in guerrilla resistance were cast aside and, in the democratic arena, had to fight for their rights against their once comrades-in-arms. For example, on the issue of recognizing the land rights of peasants, the fmln’s zoning commissions used the masculine form of landholder (a peasant who occupied and worked the land during the armed conflict), which in practice meant that one had to be male (“head of household”) to benefit from that part of the accords (Aguiñada Deras 2001; Murguialday 1996). The legal and institutional disempowerment of women after the peace accords, however, was not the only factor that affected the balance of power in the debates over the criminalizing reform of the 1990s. As explained by one of the leading voices of the Salvadoran women’s movement, abortion had long been a thorny subject for women’s organizations and movements.7 The confluence of two social and historical processes can help us understand why the political mobilization of women to stem the tide of criminalization was so limited. First, liberation theology had a tremendous influence on revolutionary movements (Molinari 2014; Navas 2007). As in other Latin American con-

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texts in the 1960s and 1970s, in rural and grassroots sectors of El Salvador this theological trend was instrumental in political organizing to address the historical and structural conditions of inequality (Lowy 2009; Sanchez 2014). Nevertheless, as noted in various works analyzing the influence of liberation theology on the region’s progressive social movements, these theological sectors kept silent (many still keep silent) on the subject of recognizing women’s sexual freedom and reproductive autonomy (Figueroa Perea 1995; Vuola 2002). This moral and ideological factor, combined with the aforementioned political factors, may have given rise to a series of events that took place in the context of legal reform (Peñas Defago 2018a; Vazquez, Ibañez, and Murguialday 1996). Another factor that may help explain women’s limited support for the abortion cause around that time was women’s role in guerrilla resistance, which shaped perceptions of their sexuality and the voluntary termination of pregnancy. Compared to women living in rural settlements, women in combat were more open about exercising their sexuality outside the traditional mandates of marriage and monogamy, as well as about abortion, as part of their commitment to the resistance8 (Vazquez, Ibañez, and Murguialday 1996). For example, the few women’s groups that came together to confront the attack on abortion rights were made up of women who had held mid- and high-level positions in the fmln during the war (Navas 2007). While women made up 30 per cent of the fmln, 60 per cent of those were assigned to provide support and care in rural areas (Navas 2007). The work allocated to women on guerrilla bases was largely driven by the notion that women’s work meant caring for others (Vazquez, Ibañez, and Murguialday 1996). These rural settings and the type of work that women did in the guerrilla movement influenced their perspective not only on abortion but also on contraceptive practices. This was rooted largely in traditional gender roles as well as in the fmln’s message to particular women, especially rural women, that motherhood was not merely a “natural” mandate but also a political one, producing more men for the front lines. It was described by peasant women in an investigation called Mujeres montaña: Vivencias de guerrilleras y colaboradoras del fmln (Mountain women: Memoirs of fe-

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male guerrilleras and fmln collaborators) (Vazquez, Ibañez, and Murguialday 1996). Although many women managed to break free of the mandates imposed by gender roles during the war, various accounts reveal that not even the women on the front lines could throw off the yoke of patriarchy. If during the war abortion was common practice among certain women, most notably those in mid- and high-level positions or in urban areas, it was not generally experienced as exercising their autonomy but, rather, remained loaded with taboo and silence (Aguiñada Deras 2001; Vazquez, Ibañez, and Murguialday 1996). This combination of religious and social-moral factors placed abortion in the private sphere even before the 1990 reforms. Women’s ability to make sexual and reproductive choices, even during the war, was seen as morally questionable because it went beyond the mandate of subjecting women’s bodies to maternity and was therefore too indecent to be acknowledged publicly as an expression of autonomy and civic responsibility. The confluence of moments and tensions that determined the fate of abortion in the 1990s indicates how progressive groups were affected by their new role in the democratic era as part of a social movement and as legitimate political opposition. Their agenda was reshaped by the times and by electoral cycles, so that abortion became a political pawn. The end of the war also revealed the fault lines and historical challenges in addressing gender within the fmln itself. Among these fault lines was the fact that, although some women could break free from motherhood as the core of female subjectivity during the war, after the peace accords many had to return to the traditional roles defined by a patriarchal conservative society with regard to sexual morality (Garaizabal and Vazquez 1994). In opposition to this process of political rearticulation by progressive social groups was a reinvigorated conservative movement. The strength of this movement lay in its continuing hold on power, real as well as symbolic, after the celebrated peace accords, as well as in its ability to take immediate political action against abortion once the country had returned to democracy.

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Women in Networks After the reforms to the Penal Code and the Constitution, conservative religious organizations continued to block attempts to advance sexual politics in El Salvador (Iraheta 2009). In 2004 the abortion question re-emerged in the public arena in the wake of a report by the Center for Reproductive Rights on the effects of criminalization on women’s lives (crr 2001; Herrera Argueta and Ugarte 2009). As a result, women in El Salvador started to look more deeply into prison records and to form defence strategies.9 In 2006, feminists in El Salvador joined forces with lawyers, physicians, and criminologists from Argentina and Spain to defend Karina, a woman who had been convicted of aggravated homicide of a family member (referring to the fetus) after experiencing a late-term obstetric emergency. In 2009, as a consequence of this joint effort, Karina was freed. The legal victory led some parties involved in the process to found Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto Terapéutico, Ético y Eugenésico de El Salvador (Citizens for the Decriminalization of Therapeutic, Ethical and Eugenic Abortion in El Salvador). Subsequent events marked a turning point in the legal and cultural battle for abortion rights in El Salvador. Since the founding of Agrupación Ciudadana, there have been many attempts to effect legal and social change through litigation (Peñas Defago 2018a; Peñas Defago and Canaves 2018). For many Latin American women’s and feminist organizations, legal processes constitute a viable means of building political, legal, and social frameworks around abortion. Several feminist organizations have tried to make an impact beyond the courts through legal mobilization strategies. Broadly speaking, feminist legal mobilization includes framing abortion in terms of women’s rights and drawing up new socio-cultural definitions, as well as strengthening networks and increasing the visibility of the issue by means of demonstrations and through the media (Jaramillo and Alfonso 2008). In El Salvador, feminist movements took up these strategies, which had been used in other countries in the region, such as Mexico and Colombia, to support the recognition of women’s reproductive autonomy. In 2010, after the victory in the Karina case, Agrupación Ciudadana demanded

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that the criminalization of abortion be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In 2011 the court rejected the argument that total criminalization was unconstitutional and ruled, as it had in 2007,10 that in cases where there was a conflict of interest related to therapeutic or eugenic abortion or the termination of pregnancy resulting from rape, women would have grounds for exemption from the penalties prescribed by article 27 of the Penal Code.11 In 2013, Agrupación Ciudadana filed a writ of protection before the Supreme Court, this time for a single case: Beatriz, a twenty-two-year-old woman who was seriously ill and carrying an anencephalic fetus. As the days passed without an effective response from the court, Agrupación Ciudadana teamed up with the Center for Justice and International Law and filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (iacdh). After this entry into the international sphere, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled against the writ of protection, arguing that the Constitution protected life from the moment of conception (Supreme Court of Justice 2013). In 2011, when called upon to rule on a specific case, that same constitutional chamber had ruled that, in a conflict of interest between a woman and a fetus, the grounds for exemption prescribed by article 27 of the Penal Code took precedence, and it denied access to abortion, thus recanting the ruling from years prior. The day after the Supreme Court ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights demanded that the Salvadoran state take every medical measure necessary to protect Beatriz’s personal integrity and her right to life. The order of the Inter-American Court was interpreted as an order to end the pregnancy, as recommended by Beatriz’s doctors.12 The national and international media attention paid to Beatriz’s case affected not only the public debate but also Agrupación Ciudadana’s support networks and alliances, an impact that exists to this day. In December 2013, Colectiva Feminista para el Desarrollo Local de El Salvador (Feminist Collective for Local Development in El Salvador), Agrupación Ciudadana, Ipas Centro América, and the Center for Justice and International Law filed an international complaint with the iacdh against the Salvadoran state for the human rights violations suffered by Beatriz.13 On 7 September 2017 the iacdh acknowledged that Beatriz’s human rights had been violated and

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admitted the complaint that had been filed before the Salvadoran state years before. A month later, on 8 October 2018, Beatriz, whose health had deteriorated greatly after the events of 2013, died in a traffic accident. The publicity surrounding Beatriz’s case illustrates the violence perpetrated by a system of total criminalization such as that in El Salvador. This exposure of institutional violence made possible a series of alliances with the health sector and the union of obstetricians and gynaecologists, which had for years been reluctant to take a position on the issue.14 Local women’s groups could now begin to coordinate more extensively with health-care providers and even succeeded in forming alliances with Salvadoran universities and setting up training programs to view health through the lens of gender. In 2018 this action framework produced the Unión Médica Salvadoreña por la Salud y Vida de las Mujeres (Salvadoran Medical Union for the Health and Lives of Women), whose aim is the legalization of abortion in El Salvador. Another initiative of Salvadoran women’s groups and their international allies was the “Las 17” campaign, launched in 2014. Following the example of the Mexican group Las Libres,15 women’s groups appeared before the legislative assembly to file seventeen requests for pardon on behalf of women who had been unjustly sent to prison for aggravated murder of a family member after experiencing an obstetric emergency.16 In many of these cases the sentence handed down was not for abortion; the judicial process shows evidence of serious procedural flaws (Viterna and Guardado 2014), and offences initially reported as abortion were relabelled by the court as aggravated murder of a family member. Such a change during the judicial process makes it possible for a woman accused of abortion – which carries a maximum sentence of eight years – to be sentenced to thirty to fifty years. Again, coordination with the health sector is key, given that most of these proceedings are initiated by personnel at the health-care facility where women seek help for obstetric emergencies.17 The strategy of the “Las 17” campaign was not purely legal. Pardon applications were framed within an extensive publicity campaign known as Una flor para las 17 (A flower for the 17). The campaign was carried out in tandem with an appeal, in the mass media and on social networks, to influential figures in the fields of culture and science and in international organizations to make a case for “Las 17” (Peñas Defago 2018b). For example,

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in January 2015, after a pardon had been obtained for a woman named Guadalupe, a succession of experts from the United Nations travelled to El Salvador to seek the release of the other sixteen women (ohchr 2015). Although these efforts were not successful, this sort of appeal bolstered debate in the public sphere and helped to open up the legislative landscape. After the “Las 17” campaign, habeas corpus requests were filed, as were applications for sentences to be commuted or reviewed (Peñas Defago 2018b). As a result, three women – Evelyn, Teodora, and Imelda – were freed in 2018. Then petitions were completed, and the “Las 17” campaign became “Las 17+” as it prompted new socio-legal actions, such as requests to commute sentences, sentence revisions, petitions for alternatives criminal measures to imprisonment, and habeas corpus (Peñas Defago 2018b). As a result of these legal actions, more than ten women were freed between 2017 and 2020 (Agrupación Ciudadana 2020). In October 2019 the iacdh examined the case Manuela and her family v. El Salvador. Not only did this case create new opportunities for debates around legal reform and for cases pending a resolution, but it also led to an international and conservative backlash (Morán Faúndes and Peñas Defago 2020). As with “Las 17,” key to each of these cases were social media and mass media campaigns as well as public actions like press conferences, seminars, and demonstrations outside courthouses. These activities, inextricably linked to the legal mobilization, have contributed to a public debate that strips court files and sentences of the technicalities and dwells on the faces, bodies, and stories of real women – women who share a common background, extremely vulnerable circumstances, and judgment by a justice system that is incapable of addressing or even understanding the circumstances of the Salvadoran population. Another element in El Salvador’s abortion fight is the changes to institutional politics that have taken place in the last decade. One of the new century’s greatest changes in El Salvador was the flmn’s ascendancy to power in 2009, after an election campaign in which the abortion question played a central role. When early polls began to favour the fmln candidate, Mauricio Funes, the arena party launched a political crusade, arguing that the fmln’s taking of power would mean legalization of abortion and thus the slaughter of thousands of unborn babies and the destruction of the Salvadoran family (Viterna 2012).

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Funes therefore came out against abortion during his presidential campaign, a position he maintained until the end of his presidency in 2014. In spite of his resistance to opening the abortion debate, however, during his term in office Funes made progress in several areas linked to sexual and reproductive health18 and as a result frequently clashed with conservative political and civil forces as well as the Catholic Church (Morán 2011). Changes in the government’s political leanings also made it possible for public health and human rights officials to enter into the debate on abortion. It is worth noting the role of the Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Office of the Procurator for the Protection of Human Rights) in Beatriz’s case and also that of a woman named María Teresa and the “Las 17” campaign. The Office of the Procurator supported various actions by the women’s movement and on more than one occasion called for legal reform (Peñas Defago 2018b). Let us now turn to the legislative assembly. In 2016, due to the snowball effect of efforts by the feminist movement and a push from the “Las 17” campaign, representative Lorena Peña (fmln) introduced legislation aimed at decriminalizing abortion in cases of rape, risk to life, health of the mother, and human trafficking. In March 2018, women’s groups delivered a letter with 200,000 signatures from El Salvador and around the world endorsing the bill. Two months before Peña’s bill was introduced, representative Ricardo Velásquez Parker (arena) called for an increase in prison terms for abortion to thirty to fifty years on the grounds that abortion constituted an aggravated murder of a family member. On 30 April 2018, the 2015–18 legislative term ended without any of the proposals coming up for debate. For the 2018–21 term, the legislature is dominated by a conservative majority. In light of this new parliamentary configuration, even the fmln has declared that the decriminalization of abortion will not be on the agenda (El Faro 2018). In a historical event that managed to break the existing presidential bipartisanism in the country, Nayib Bukele was elected to office in 2019 with the centre-right party gana. Although he was the only candidate who positioned himself during the presidential campaign in favour of abortion when the mother’s life was in danger, so far he has not taken a stand on the issue, despite the strong claims made by feminist organizations (La Vanguardia 2019).

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As a closing reflection, it may be necessary to add a regional dimension to this understanding of events in El Salvador in the context of the last elections and in view of future socio-political processes. In recent years we have witnessed a series of actions against the rights of women and lesbian, gay, transgender, transsexual, and intersexual (lgbtti) people from the conservative sectors. Throughout the region one of the principal strategies for steamrolling sexual and reproductive rights comes from the phrase gender ideology. Gender ideology is a conceptual framework, based on normative ideas and assumptions, that conflates political agendas that conservative groups have historically opposed, such as feminism, lgbtti rights, and leftist ideas (Peñas Defago, Morán Faundes, and Vaggione 2018). As we have seen in Brazil with the election of Jair Bolsonaro, this discursive and activist platform is fertile ground for conservative and right wing alliances, both religious and secular, that cultivate hatred of feminist and lgbtti groups and individuals. The rise in conservatism, which can be seen far beyond the borders of Latin American countries, applies in El Salvador, as evidenced by the election campaign and by the various attacks on the leaders of women’s and feminist movements. Since assuming the presidency, and with greater force since February 2020, Nayib Bukele has taken an autocratic turn, with the support of the military and religious forces (bbc 2020; Open Democracy 2020), in order to pressure the legislative assembly into approving the allocation of more economic resources for the expansion of actions involving the militarization of territories (Bronner and McDonald 2020). More recently and since the declaration of the covid-19 health emergency, the relations between the legislative assembly and the executive branch have been even tenser (El Diario 2020; Monterosa 2020), while Bukele’s religious discourse has become increasingly frequent (El País, [Costa Rica] 2020). Despite the covid-19 crisis and a context of institutional political hostility, women’s movement organizations continue to fight and denounce the violations against sexual and reproductive rights that the absolute criminalization of abortion entails. Women’s and human rights groups have denounced the way in which government measures during the pandemic have worsened the access to sexual and reproductive rights in the country. According to feminist organizations, more than one hundred girls

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in El Salvador, some as young as ten years old, became pregnant after being raped at home during the lockdown (Moloney 2020). In addition, during the pandemic and in the context of the precarious prison infrastructure, several organizations have called upon the state to urgently reduce overcrowding in detention centres and, in accordance with the principles of non-discrimination, to release women wrongly imprisoned for having abortions and miscarriages (crr 2020).

Final Reflections The complex circumstances of and events in El Salvador’s abortion battle have taken feminist and women’s groups to the international human rights arena, which is crucial both for politicizing the Salvadoran reality and for resisting the consequences of total criminalization of abortion. The actions of these groups, combined with changes in national institutional policy, have also led to strategic changes in the conservative sectors, where antiabortion activities were traditionally focused on alliances with local political and economic elites, particularly when arena held executive and legislative power. There are many possible interpretations of the results of the legal and political mobilization of feminist and women’s movements. Some of those results not only are legislative but also hold symbolic meaning for the medium and long terms. According to Kane (2008), the building of alliances and networks, local as well as transnational, is key to working toward more permissive legislation. Alliances bring together, in addition to feminist and women’s groups, national and international movements and organizations such as those concerned with human rights. The networks developed in El Salvador, bolstered by the “Las 17” campaign, highlight the importance of collaboration. They facilitate the continuous flow and sharing of information and activities, which, according to Keck and Sikkink (1998), can be understood in terms of “transnational networks of lobbying and influence.” These networks are based on coalitions of activists and advocates who share social values and whose activism goes beyond legal and political reform, even influencing the very nature of the debate (Keck and Sikkink 1998).

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This is one of the great achievements of campaigns like “Las 17”: they have managed to turn the public’s attention to the violence to which women are subjected with the total criminalization of abortion. Furthermore, “Las 17” has put the abortion debate on the public agenda, not merely as an item on the “women’s” agenda but as an axis of urgent debate in the solidification of contemporary democracies. El Salvador is undergoing profound political and institutional changes. As we have witnessed, the return of the conservative right is in sight in El Salvador, and the power held by the fmln for almost ten years is crumbling. Abortion is once again becoming a political football for left-wing parties seeking to position themselves as centrist. In the face of this phenomenon we must not fail to consider other factors in El Salvador, such as the emergence of gender ideology and the exponential growth of evangelical groups aligned with the most extreme conservatism in terms of sexual morals – groups that are giving governments throughout the region their marching orders. The crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic has deepened the challenges of the feminist movement. Despite the lack of response from state institutions, women’s organizations successfully continue a series of legal and socio-symbolic actions in defence of unjustly convicted women. Recently legal actions have extended into grounds for a grievance concerning the different kinds of sexual violence that caused these women to become pregnant in the first place.

notes This chapter is part of the project Abortion Rights Lawfare in Latin America, based at the Centre of Law and Social Transformation, Chr. Michelsen Institute, University of Bergen, Norway. The author would like to express her admiration for and deep gratitude to her colleagues at Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto en El Salvador. This chapter is based on the article “El aborto en El Salvador: Tres décadas de disputas sobre la autonomía reproductiva de las mujeres,” originally published in Península 13, no. 2 (July–December 2018). 1 Criminal Code of El Salvador, article 169, 13 February 1973.

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2 The Latin American arm of Human Life International, an ngo founded in the United States in 1984, is Vida Humana International, based in Miami. 3 Legislative decree number 738. 4 This strategy would be replicated in other countries in the region, such as Argentina (1998) and Peru (2002), but they would choose the date of 25 March, the Feast of the Annunciation. 5 The draft legislation of 1994 included the following changes: it established when, during a pregnancy, abortion was allowed due to a life-threatening malformation of the fetus; it allowed for abortion in cases of pregnancy resulting from artificial insemination – and not only in cases of rape; and honoris causa abortion disappeared from the bill on the argument that it was an anachronism (crr 2001). 6 Legislative Assembly (1997), transcript of debates on reform of the Criminal Code, record 161. 7 Interview with an activist concerning the women’s movement in El Salvador, 20 January 2015. 8 Interview with former guerrilla and activist concerning the women’s movement in El Salvador, 15 February 2017. 9 Interview with an activist concerning the women’s movement in El Salvador, 17 January 2017. 10 In 1998, as part of their theses, two law students filed a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court, deeming the Penal Code of 1998 unconstitutional because it did not contain the traditional terms for an abortion offence. In 2007, nine years after this legal process had begun, the Supreme Court rejected the constitutional challenge on the basis that the terms of exemption for abortion remained in force, but in the new system they were implied in the general grounds for exemption from the penalties prescribed by article 27 of the Penal Code of El Salvador. See Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, ruling number 18, 20 November 2007. 11 Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, ruling number 67-2010, 13 April 2011. 12 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Precautionary Measures on El Salvador – Asunto B, 29 May 2013. 13 This was not the first international complaint filed before an international court against El Salvador for its restrictive abortion laws. In 2012 the Center for

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Reproductive Rights, and Citizens for the Decriminalization of Ethical, Therapeutic, and Eugenic Abortion of El Salvador, filed Manuela’s case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Manuela was a thirty-threeyear-old woman who had died in 2010 from an aggressive form of cancer; she had received no medical attention while serving a sentence for aggravated murder of a family member after she had had an obstetric emergency. Interview with an activist concerning the women’s movement in El Salvador, 20 January 2015. Interview with an activist concerning the women’s movement in El Salvador, 17 January 2017. In 2013, Centro Las Libres in Mexico reported 157 cases of women who had been accused of an abortion offence being convicted for homicide of a family member. The first pardons were filed in Guanajuato in 2010 (C. García and S. Campos, “Centro Las Libres: 157 permanecen recluidas,” La Jornada, 23 January 2014; http://www.jornada.unam.mx; R. Goméz, “pri pide liberar mujeres presas por aborto,” El Universal, 23 August 2010; http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/703639.html). An investigation by Agrupación Ciudadana into the decriminalization of abortion between 2000 and 2011, examining all criminal trial and sentencing courts in El Salvador, found that 57.36 per cent of accusations against women in cases of obstetric emergency and abortion came from public hospitals or the Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social (Agrupación Ciudadana 2012). After analyzing court files, the study determined that the incidents had been initially reported by relatives, neighbours, and/or people who employed the women as housekeepers, with the intention of seeking medical attention for the women. It was only later that public officials initiated legal action with the police or the Fiscalía General de la República (Attorney General’s Office) (Agrupación Ciudadana 2012). For example, during Funes’s mandate, submissions made by El Salvador at the Cairo Conference were withdrawn. Between 2010 and 2014, more than four policies on sexual and reproductive health were promoted, especially from the Ministry of Health and from the Salvadoran Institute for Woman’s Development. In 2013, and despite his refusal to review the abortion law, during the Beatriz case Funes publicly spoke in favour of Beatriz’s right to decide (Freedman 2013).

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biblio g r aphy Agrupación Ciudadana. 2012. Del hospital a la cárcel: Consecuencias para las mujeres por la penalización sin excepciones, de la interrupción del embarazo en El Salvador. Reporte de Investigación. San Salvador, El Salvador: Agrupación Ciudadana. – 2020. Del hospital a la cárcel: Consecuencias para las mujeres por la penalización sin excepciones, de la interrupción del embarazo en El Salvador. Reporte de Investigación. San Salvador, El Salvador: Agrupación Ciudadana. Aguiñada Deras, Dinora. 2001. “Una mirada feminista sobre la participación de las mujeres en la guerra: El caso de El Salvador.” In Hommes armés, femmes aguerries: Rapports de genre en situations de conflit armé, edited by Fenneke Reysoo, 105–16. Geneva: unesco & Graduate Institute Publications. Álvarez, Alberto Martín. 2013. “Sociedad civil y movimientos sociales en El Salvador de postguerra.” Revista Historia Actual On Line, no. 32: 59–71. Asamblea Legislativa. 1997. “Versión estenográfica de los debates de reforma del Código Penal.” Act 161 (88). bbc. 2020. “Heavily-Armed Police and Soldiers Enter El Salvador Parliament: Security Forces in Full Battle Gear Marched into the Legislative Assembly.” 10 February 2020. Bronner, Ethan, and Michael MacDonald. 2020. “El Salvador’s Reformist President Takes an Autocratic Turn: Nayib Bukele Had Been Hailed as One of the World’s Most Promising Young Leaders; Then He Called in the Army.” Bloomberg Businessweek, 16 March. crr (Center for Reproductive Rights). 2001. Persecuted: Political Process and Abortion Legislation in El Salvador; A Human Rights Análisis. New York: crr. – 2020. “Women Who Are Unjustly Imprisoned in El Salvador Must Be Released in the Face of the covid-19 Pandemic.” Press release, 6 October 2020. Cruz, José Miguel, Luis González, and Elvio Sisti. 2000. “De la guerra al delito: Evolución de la violencia en El Salvador.” In Asalto al Desarrollo: Violencia en América Latina, edited by Luis Lodoño, Rodrigo Guerrero, and Alejandro Gaviria, 173–204. Washington, dc: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. El Diario. 2020. “Un tuit de Bukele aumenta las tensiones con el Parlamento de El Salvador.” 25 April 2020. El Faro. 2018. “La despenalización del aborto no es un tema que está en la mesa para la nueva fracción del fmln.” Interview with Rina Araujo. 19 April 2018. El País (Costa Rica). 2020. “Bukele, otro presidente con Dios en su gabinete.” 5 June 2020.

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Fassin, Eric. 2012. “Las ‘selvas tropicales’ del matrimonio heterosexual: La ley natural y las leyes de la naturaleza en la teología actual del Vaticano.” Trace, no. 61: 15–27. Feusier, Oswaldo. 2012. “el delito de aborto frente a un derecho penal garantista.” ma thesis, Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, San Salvador, El Salvador. – 2015. “Desde el dogmatismo hacia la exclusión: Apuntes sobre el delito de aborto en El Salvador.” Revista Redbioética/unesco 6, no. 2: 46–69. Figueroa Perea, Juan Guillermo. 1995. “Apuntes sobre algunas posibilidades de autodeterminación reproductiva en América Latina.” Revista Perfiles Latinoamericanos, no. 6: 121–47. Freedman, Elaine. 2013. “El caso de Beatriz: ¿Quién tiene la palabra?” Revista Envío, 376. Garaizabal, Cristina, and Norma Vazquez. 1994. El dolor invisible: Una experiencia de grupos de autoayuda con mujeres salvadoreñas. Madrid: Talasa. González, Victoria, and Karen Kampwirth. 2001. Radical Women in Latin America – Left and Right. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Haraway, Donna. 1999. “Las promesas de los monstruos: Una política regeneradora para otros inapropiados/bles.” Política y Sociedad, no. 30: 121–63. Herrera Argueta, Morena, and Ana Ugarte. 2009. Informe El Salvador: Colectiva feminista para el desarrollo Local Balance de cuatro experiencias mesoamericanas en torno a la despenalización//penalización del aborto. San Salvador, El Salvador: La Colectiva. Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública. 1999. Encuesta sobre Género. Encuesta, San Salvador, El Salvador: Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas. Iraheta, Paula. 2009. Diagnóstico sobre las mujeres salvadoreñas 2009. San Salvador, El Salvador: Concertación Feminista Prudencia Ayala. Jaramillo, Isabel Cristina, and Tatiana Alfonso. 2008. Mujeres, cortes y medios: La reforma judicial del aborto. Bogotá, Colombia: Siglo del Hombre. Kane, Gillian. 2008. “Abortion law reform in Latin America: Lessons for advocacy.” Gender & Development 16, no. 2: 361–75. Keck, Margaret, and Sikkink Kathryn. 1998. Activists beyond Borders. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press. Lamas, Marta. 2012. “Mujeres, aborto e Iglesia católica.” Revista de El Colegio de San Luis, no. 3: 43–67.

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La Vanguardia. 2019. “Activista espera que otras salvadoreñas presas por aborto sean libres en 2020.” Editorial, 3 December. https://www.lavanguardia.com. Lowy, Michael. 2009. “El cristianismo de la liberación y la izquierda en Brasil.” Anuario iehs, no. 24: 465–76. Molinari, Laura. 2014. “Habrá que esperar un tiempo más: Las limitaciones y los principales desafíos del fmln en el gobierno.” In 2014: Año de elecciones; El Salvador y Costa Rica; Miradas sobre el orden político, edited by Esteban De Gori and Kristina Pirker, 118–30, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Lugar Sans Soleil. Moloney, Anastasia. 2020. “No Options for El Salvador’s Pregnant Girls Raped in Lockdown.” Reuters, 31 August. https://www.reuters.com. Monterosa, Luis Antonio. 2020. “Authoritarian Rule in Times of Coronavirus.” Envío 465 (April). https://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/5771. Morán, Otto. 2011. “Legalizar el aborto y permitir matrimonios homosexuales está en manos del Ejecutivo.” La Página, 26 July. Morán Faúndes, José Manuel, and María Angélica Peñas Defago. 2020. “Una mirada regional de las articulaciones neoconservadoras: Rupturas y continuidades transnacionales.” In Derechos en Riesgo en América Latina, edited by A. Torres Santana, 241–70. Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones desde Abajo. Moreno, Constanza. 2018. “Criminalización y castigo del aborto en dictadura.” ba thesis, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, Santiago de Chile. Morris, Fiorina, Samuel Abrams, and Jeremy Pope. 2011. Cultures War? The Myth of a Polarized America. Boston: Longman. Murguialday, Clara. 1996. “Mujeres, transición democrática y elecciones: El Salvador en tiempos de posguerra.” Nueva Sociedad, no. 141: 34–42. Navas, María Candelaria. 2007. “De guerrilleras a feministas: Origen de las organizaciones de mujeres post-conflicto en El Salvador: 1992–1995.” Presented at ii Encuentro Nacional de Historia, San Salvador. ohchr (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights). 2015. “Indulto a Guadalupe: Expertos de la onu instan a El Salvador a que se indulte a las mujeres que se encuentran en prisión por haber tenido complicaciones durante el embarazo y a derogar las leyes de aborto restrictivas.” un Experts Report, onu. Open Democracy. 2020. “Bukele calls on God and the military to bend Congress to his will in El Salvador.” Open Democracy, 23 March. Peñas Defago, María Angélica. 2018a. “El aborto en El Salvador: Tres décadas de disputas sobre la autonomía reproductiva de las mujeres.” Peninsula 13, no. 2: 213–34.

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– 2018b. “‘Las 17’: Estrategias legales y políticas para legalizar el aborto en El Salvador.” Revista de Bioética y Derecho, 43: 91–107. Peñas Defago, María Angélica, and Violeta Canaves. 2018. “Movilización legal de mujeres y aborto: El Caso de El Salvador.” In Las tramas del aborto: El aborto en América Latina; Estrategias jurídicas para luchar por su legalización y enfrentar las resistencias conservadoras, edited by Paola Bergallo, Isabel Jaramillo, and Juan Marco Vaggione, 433–58. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo xxi. Peñas Defago, María Angélica, José Manuel Morán Faundes, and Juan Marco Vaggione. 2018. Religious Conservatism on the Global Stage. New York: Global Philanthropy Project. Pirker, Kristina. 2014. “El fmln, el movimiento popular y la ‘marcha por las instituciones.’” In 2014: Año de elecciones; El Salvador y Costa Rica; Miradas sobre el orden político, edited by Esteban De Gori, Cristina Pirker, Carmen Elena Villacorta Zul, 139–49. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sans Soleil Ediciones. Ramos, Carlos, and Nayelly Loya. 2008. “El Salvador: Quince años de la firma de los Acuerdos de Paz.” Revista de Ciencia Política, no. 28: 367–83. Sanchez, Peter. 2014. “Ideas and Leaders in Contentious Politics: One Parish Priest in El Salvadorès Popular Movement.” Journal of Latin American Studies 46, no. 4: 637–62. Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador, Constitutional Chamber. 2013. Sentence 310-201. 28 May 2013. San Salvador, El Salvador. Vazquez, Norma, Cristina Ibañez, and Clara Murguialday. 1996. MujeresMontaña: Vivencias de guerrilleras y colaboradoras del fmln. Madrid: Horas y Horas. Viterna, Jocelyn. 2012. “The Left and Life in El Salvador.” Politics and Gender 8, no. 2: 248–54. Viterna, Jocelyn, and Jorge Santos Guardado. 2014. “Independent Analysis of Systematic Gender Discrimination in the El Salvador Judicial Process against 17 Women Accused of the Aggravated Homicide of their Newborns.” White Paper, 17 November, Boston. Vuola, Elina. 2002. Limits of Liberation: Feminist Theology and the Ethics of Poverty and Reproduction. New York: Sheffield.

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The Grassroots Women’s Movement in Colombia leila celis Translated by María José Giménez and Anna Rosenwong

In terms of recognizing women’s rights, Colombian society is very conservative. References to feminism are generally frowned upon, and proclaiming oneself a feminist prompts disapproval from many quarters. As a result, in the broadcast and social media few people or organizations hold themselves up as feminist. It could be said that sexist and patriarchal values continue to hold sway in this society,1 that feminism is largely not accepted, and that the movement is marginalized and marginal; battles “led by women are rare, which in no way negates those leaders’ presence and active participation in radical actions alongside other social factions”2 (Archila Neira and García Valandia 2002, 207). Although it may not be a mass movement, feminism in Colombia does have an influence on society, however. As the feminist scholar María Emma Wills Obregón argues, feminists are “certainly few, and yet indispensable, because without their dissident voices, the rules that govern relationships between the masculine and the feminine in Colombia would have persisted without change. The exclusion and discrimination of yesteryear did not lessen by itself ” (2007, 19). The capacity for feminist action in Colombia stems from a consensus that exists among different organizations of the feminist movement: the struggle for women’s rights and the improvement of their collective and individual well-being. This means working toward the political participation of women, eliminating violence against them (whether domestic or social or arising from armed conflict) and ensuring that they have access

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to resources and living conditions that allow them to develop their full potential. However, not everything is agreed upon. For example, what does the political participation of women mean? For some feminists it is the dispute for seats in the legislature; for others it is participation in local processes, social organizations, and not necessarily political parties. Feminism is a pluralistic, diverse movement that is criss-crossed by different schools of thought and political positions. Colombian feminism includes a substantial liberal faction closely aligned with non-governmental and international organizations. Other feminisms and women’s organizations are inseparably bound to the history of leftist and grassroots movements (Díaz Suasa and Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos 2002). The latter have come to be called grassroots women’s movements (movimientos populares de mujeres, or mpm). In order to respect the limits of this chapter, I cannot present the different feminist expressions in Colombia. This chapter thus describes several features of Colombia’s mpm. My objective is to take into account the ongoing formation of the movements in an attempt to contribute to an empirical and theoretical analysis. I argue that the building of the movements has been marked by two factors. The first is the relationship between women in the movement and (1) left-leaning social organizations, where women try to create space for specific demands and to gain recognition as political actors; (2) the feminist movement in Colombia, with which they coordinate targeted actions, primarily fighting violence against women and building an inclusive peace process; and (3) grassroots women’s organizations throughout Latin America, where they feel a sense of belonging and to which they contribute insights and practices. The second factor that has influenced the women’s movement as a whole, its actions, and its organizational forms is armed conflict and, specifically, the various expressions of heinous violence targeting women. Armed conflict in Colombia began in the 1960s, escalated in the late 1980s, and reached unprecedented levels of violence in the 1990s. The methodology used to collect data consisted mainly of semistructured interviews using a questionnaire that inquired about the evolution of the women’s movement, its key achievements, and its challenges. The interviews took place between March and May 2018 with four activist leaders from four organizations: Confluencia de Mujeres para la

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Acción Pública (Confluence of Women for Public Action), Organización Femenina Popular (ofp, Popular Women’s Organization), Comité de Integración Social del Catatumbo (cisca, Catatumbo Committee for Social Integration), and Juntanza de Mujeres y Paz (Convening of Women and Peace). These organizations, with many others, are currently working to contribute structure and content to Colombia’s mpm. I also used secondary sources, primarily for historical analysis with respect to the evolution of the women’s movement. The first part of the chapter considers the definition of Colombia’s mpm and the actors within them, with an emphasis on their relationship to the women’s movement as a whole. The second part outlines the present-day dialogue between the leaders of Colombia’s mpm and those of similar organizations across Latin America. The third part analyzes the evolution of the mpm in the context of the conflict and explores their relationship with Colombia’s feminist movement. The fourth part provides an overview of three different organizations within the mpm: Confluencia, ofp, and cisca.

The Relationship of the Grassroots Women’s Movement with the Social Movement The popular women’s movements (mpm) in Colombia are part of an organizational process in which different groups and people who struggle for common demands converge. Concerning the women’s organizations analyzed in this chapter, the common struggles are against patriarchy, against capitalism, and toward building popular power. The term popular power connotes that these organizations are not content with formulating demands to the state, but they are also committed to creating social transformations through their claims. The mpm in Colombia bring together both women’s organizations of popular extraction and women who participate in different social organizations (peasant, neighbourhood, student, union, etc.). The phrase grassroots feminism, as well as mpm, refers to the socioeconomic characteristics of its members and to the class interests and antioppression ideology they espouse (Korol and Castro Gómez 2016; Lamas et al. 2018). Regarding the origins of Latin America grassroots feminism,

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Korol and Castro Gómez (2016) write: “Our cradle was built by the hands of village women, female labourers. Hands of Mestiza, Indigenous, Black women … Hands that sew, cook, hammer, cultivate, write, drum, caress, paint, embroider, clean, ease pain, support … Our grassroots feminisms see reality, and transform it from below” (14, 15). I begin by analyzing the relationship between the mpm and the women’s movement as a whole. The central feature of the mpm is their close relationship with peasant, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant organizations and with left-wing coalitions. The history of the Popular Women’s Organization (ofp) is an example of the participation of grassroots women in social struggles. Since its creation in the 1970s, in the city of Barrancabermeja, this organization has participated in strikes by oil workers, as well as in civic strikes. One of the ofp’s main contributions to the Colombian women’s movement relates to the mpm: grassroots women participate in struggles for social transformations. It could be said that the relationship between the mpm and social movements can be explained, first, by the fact that women have always been present in social battles to improve living and working conditions and access to services and land. The second explication is that feminism has been driven by leftist organizations influenced by highly charismatic women (Díaz Suasa and Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos 2002). Nevertheless, the presence of women in social struggles and their specific gender-based needs have not been very visible within social movements. Even so, placing feminist ideas at the heart of social movements has not been without controversy. The relevance of women’s organizations has been contested since the 1920s, whether due to a poor understanding of women’s particular struggle, fear of fragmentation of the social movement, or a defence of patriarchal privilege.

Opposition to Women’s Organizing and Demands Due to Ignorance Resistance to women’s self-organizing may spring from a poor understanding of women’s needs and the battles women must fight to defend their rights. Their needs are related to what could be described as an unfolding

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of socio-economic and political conflict in social struggles when women’s living conditions are taken into account. The dual aspects of the conflict is reflected in the fact that social inequalities affect women more than men. The peasant movement exemplifies this phenomenon: the movement as a whole fights for peasants’ access to land, loans, and other measures aimed at lessening their economic dependence on landowners. Nevertheless, within the peasant movement there are marked inequalities between women and men regarding access to land and access to financing. In Colombia, as in other countries in the region, these gender inequalities have been built up over time through legal, cultural, structural, and institutional mechanisms of exclusion (Deere and León de Leal 2002). They are the result of patriarchal agrarian reforms that placed men at the centre of production and support of the family, and women at the centre of child rearing and homemaking. Given that the landowners are themselves men, women’s economic dependence is twofold: they are dependent on the big landowners and on their partners. It is worth noting that loans and credit for agrarian production generally take the form of mortgages and thus are by definition tied to the male head of the household. These inequalities result from a patriarchal, sexist structure and are generally ignored by social movements, which assume that all demands – for instance, those of peasants – are similar for men and women, and thus they are concerned only with confronting big property owners and big money. The dual political conflict that women face also relates to the multiplicity of obstacles to their participation in politics. The chauvinistic, patriarchal culture underlying the everyday lives of women in Colombia makes their political involvement much more challenging than that of men. While everyone must fight to secure their rights, such as access to land, education, and fair working conditions, women must also fight to formulate their demand for those rights.3 The spaces in which political decisions are made – on the left and a fortiori on the right and in state institutions – are controlled by men. In addition, women’s work in social movement organizations is invisible, as women are mostly confined to a logistical role such as that of cook or secretary. As a result, political activity, consisting of formulating the demands of social movements, is primarily in the hands of men, and, not surprisingly, in low-income sectors those demands represent mainly the needs of men.

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Opposition to Women’s Organizing for Fear of Dividing the Social Movement One argument too often heard by feminist organizations pertains to fears around political strategy. The core idea, which is defended by some women as well as by movement leaders, is that unity and cohesion in the social movements might be jeopardized if women formed autonomous organizations and made special demands. To this day, some factions on the left believe that class must be the principal framework for social struggles and that the fight must centre exclusively on economic demands.4 Among those who defend this approach, not all oppose the creation of women’s organizations, but they all see as divisive any battle that is not centred on class demands. This argument is not new, nor did it originate in Colombia, but it conceals the class compromise that has characterized women’s fight for their rights: “The prototype for the Latin-American activist women in this period [1970s] was a radical militant ex-student or guerrillera, and hardly a bourgeois ‘señora’ obsessed with her own problems, as many leftists would have us believe. Nevertheless, unlike radical feminists in North America, Latin-American women maintained their commitment toward a radical change in social relations of production and reproduction while simultaneously continuing to fight sexism within the left” (Alvarez et al. 1994, 74).

Opposition to Women’s Organizing in Defence of Patriarchal Privilege Another fear is bound up in the classic patriarchal behaviours within the family and other spheres of society and reproduced in social organizations. For example, there is a sharp division of labour that generally devalues women. Female partners are usually responsible for cooking and other domestic tasks, with scarcely any right to voice their opinions and even less to take on leadership positions, which are reserved almost exclusively for men. Violence and sexual harassment are a problem. There is a fear, then, that such situations will be articulated and debated from within women’s organizations. Whether consciously or not, some of the resistance to women’s organizing stems from the perception that it poses a threat to

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patriarchal privilege, which manifests, for example, in political power and control over women’s bodies. These behaviours imply an underlying ignorance of the fact that women’s struggles are inherent to material and economic issues.5 In other words, there is little inclination to understand, for instance, the needs and aspirations of women, ethnic groups, and others regarding the distribution of wealth and power in society and within social organizations. The challenge for mpm is to ensure that sectoral organizations (peasants, students, unions, etc.) accept the notion that women’s struggles are as important as their own and that defending the cause of women does not run counter to upholding the causes of families or society. The proponents of women’s rights must employ a strategy that minimizes friction and seeks strong local alliances. The complexity is proportional to the challenge. Two examples of concrete action by women in grassroots organizations will serve to illustrate. Given the poor reception of the appellation feminist in Colombian society, it may take women’s organizations a long time to adopt it. At its 2015 meeting, Confluencia defined itself as anti-patriarchy, but, given that not all of its members are self-described feminists, Confluencia does not hold itself up as feminist – though its aspirations to identify as a feminist organization were to be a topic of discussion at its November 2018 meeting.6 The fact that these women’s organizations do not proclaim themselves to be feminist does not imply any ambiguity in their work: they fight for women’s rights and reject the family-centred approach championed in the 1970s by the Church, the state, and at times social organizations. Similarly, since women involved in the political life of their communities are accused of being irresponsible mothers and wives, the challenge for mpm is to engage the entire family both in household activities and in women’s organizing.7 The involvement of children and husbands in household chores enables women to participate in community activities while simultaneously understanding women’s activities (meetings, production activities, etc.) as spaces for the children under their care. “Children grow up in the midst of organizing, which enables them to reflect on their relationship with nature and on topics related to equality between men and women, beyond what they may learn at school.”8 All of this may seem confusing, but it appears to be not only a pedagogical avenue for overcoming

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fragmentation in the face of women’s demands but also a concrete, direct way to begin dismantling patriarchal culture. It was precisely with the intention of reacting to this kind of situation that in 2009 the feminist organization Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Publica was founded; its objective was to highlight the presence of women in various social organizations, such as peasant, student, neighbourhood, and union groups. It aims to bring a gender-based approach to each struggle without cutting women off from Confluencia. In other words, Confluencia unites women from various organizations in order to enable the group to develop a transversal, gender-based approach in its efforts, demands, and management. The women in Confluencia also encourage social organizations to take a leading role in putting women-specific issues, such as violence and discrimination, at the centre of public debate. Confluencia encompasses feminist organizations such as Organización femenina popular (ofp). Its actions are centred around five principles: fighting patriarchy, fighting capitalism, promoting decolonization, promoting sorority, and building grassroots power.9

Relationship between mpm and Organizations Elsewhere in Latin America At the international level, dialogue and exchange with women’s organizations elsewhere in Latin America have been central to the development of Colombia’s mpm in the twenty-first century.10 The mpm have been enriched by the insights of women’s organizations based in Venezuela, Argentina, and Bolivia, for example (Korol and Castro Gómez 2016; Salcedo Bravo, 2012). Their exchanges influence the many forms that the mpm take, including insurgent feminisms linked to socialism and bueno vivir (Martínez 2018). They all enrich Colombia’s feminist debate, while in turn benefiting from mpm in Colombia. For example, women’s groups in rural regions, such as women’s committees within cisca, have been debating peasant and grassroots feminism, learning from insights offered by Coordinadora latinoamericana de organizaciones del campo (cloc Vía Campesina). At the same time, they have been sharing their experiences in building community

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feminism and community justice.11 Within the same family of mpm, community feminism is carrying out organizing efforts not only with women but with families and the community as a whole. The phrase community feminism is taken from my interview with the feminist peasant leader María Ciro Zuleta. Referring to feminism, she said: “We participate in the construction of all these concepts. To begin with, we consider various approaches … we don’t simply launch into one type of feminism, because we need to build this slowly, with all women; we have to discuss it, we have to acquaint ourselves with all proposals … open a debate about community feminism.” María Ciro Zuleta is a member of the Comité de integración social del Catatumbo (cisca), a peasant organization founded in 2004, based on the experience and history of social organizations in the Catatumbo region, along Colombia’s border with Venezuela. cisca women’s committees began to form in 2010 as a result of research on women’s participation in peasant organizing.12 They belong to Confluencia at the national level and to cloc Vía Campesina at the international level. One of the two key objectives being pursued by cisca is to boost women’s participation in various activities, especially where social organizing is being conducted, such as on committees and community action councils. Thus, cisca women actively promote political participation and greater visibility for women in social organizing, as leaders and as historical actors in building territory and community. The other key objective is to build a community-based economy that enables women to break free of economic dependence. For many years, cisca has been investing in growing and promoting the peasant economy, primarily through cooperatives. The projects they are currently developing seek to overcome inequality between men and women. Their goal is to build a solidarity-based peasant economy that respects and values women’s work, knowledge, labour, and especially homemaking. In this way, they seek to transform power dynamics and challenge notions of community labour as pertaining solely to men. To this end, they are developing economic projects such as dairy production and the preparation of herbal salves for medicinal purposes.13 The construction of two Casas de la mujer (in the municipalities of Acari and Tarra) has been a key component in pursuing these two objectives. They are physical spaces in which women can organize and carry out eco-

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nomic projects, proving that women are capable of great achievements. By means of all these activities and this infrastructure, Catatumbo’s women are transforming the power dynamics that have confined them to the home. In the medium term, insights from cisca women’s committees are helping to identify the features of community feminism, determine how they can contribute to building a grassroots peasant feminism in Catatumbo,14 and determine the role that food sovereignty plays within it. It is worth noting that the phrase community feminism is increasingly being used by militants within Latin American women’s movements, particularly Indigenous and peasant women. The community context around which life is organized for many Indigenous and peasant groups is unquestionably at the root of this usage.15 While some community feminism theorists consider it important to delineate their work from the perspective of mainstream (Western and white) feminism (Paredes 2017), the issue was not raised in our interviews. Finally, these international manifestations are part of an ongoing process, as are the definitions, limitations, and particularities being adopted or recognized by the various organizations.

Violence against Women in the Armed Conflict, and Resistance to It Obstacles to the creation of a strong women’s movement with a great capacity for mobilization go beyond the patriarchal culture that hampers women’s political participation in all spheres of society. The armed conflict was another factor that affected women’s ability to organize. Gendered violence escalated in the context of the armed conflict. The patriarchal values of armed actors, along with misogyny and the subjugation of women, led to crimes and human rights violations (sexual violence, forced recruitment, forced displacement, disappearance, and physical violence) that disproportionately affected women because of their gender (Guzmán Rodríguez and Prieto Dávila 2013). Attacks against women and social leaders was and continues to be one way that armed groups operate and exert control, particularly far-right paramilitaries that sow fear with blood and fire, raping and enslaving

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women around the country (Sánchez G. and Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación 2011). In 2011, the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation issued the report Women and War in which they established the magnitude of gender violence perpetrated by armed groups. It concluded that the paramilitaries established a patriarchal, totalitarian social order that relied on “systematic and coordinated strategies, methods, and targets … drawing extensively on violent sexual discrimination against women and lgbti individuals” (Sánchez G. and Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación 2011, 19).16 The report illustrates how, for example, in Magdalena in the 1990s and 2000s, the paramilitary commander Hernán Giraldo exercised droit de seigneur against women and girls throughout the region: “In addition to rape, sexual violence against women was perpetrated, through [for example] forced nudity, sexual torture, established and mandatory guidelines for emotional and sexual relations between men and women, and sexual and domestic slavery.” The report also shows that the rapes encompassed different patriarchal meanings that manifested over the course of the armed conflict, imparting a message of both territorial power and control by the aggressor and humiliation for the victim: “Violence against women has fulfilled different functions, such as humiliating adversaries or intimidating populations, against the role of political or social leadership exercised by many women; sometimes it is instrumental to war dynamics and practices (recruitment, forced prostitution); and in other cases it functions as a type of violence that, while not explicitly part of implementing the armed groups’ plans, lays a groundwork of confrontation from which they benefit” (Sánchez G. and Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación 2011, 19).17 War’s impact on women goes beyond sexual violence to encompass social transformations that significantly increase women’s labour. When men are murdered or join armed groups, women must assume their social, political, and economic responsibilities, both in the family and in the community. They become not just homemakers but heads of household. The war has also victimized them as mothers who have had to endure the disappearance, torture, kidnapping, or imprisonment of their sons and daughters. The ofp’s slogan, “No parimos hijos para la guerra” (We don’t give birth to children for war), reflects one aspect of women’s suffering in the context of war and their rejection of it.

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Impact of Armed Conflict on the Grassroots Women’s Movement Given the impact of the war on women – as citizens, as mothers, and as wives – the demands of women’s organizations in Colombia are closely connected to opposition to the war. In the mid-1990s, when repression and political violence were on the rise across the country, women mobilized as mothers, widows, and daughters in order to “seek and demand the release of their disappeared and kidnapped; request the return of their recruited sons and daughters; make their voices heard against the war and demand a negotiated solution to the conflict; demand truth, justice and reparations; and demand to be included in decisions related to the peace process, both as victims of the armed conflict and as citizens of Colombia” (Fajardo 2015, 51).18 The escalation of the armed conflict and the increasing control by paramilitaries across all regions of the country had a deep impact on the mpm, for the war was, and to a great extent continues to be, aimed at counteracting social movements (Celis 2017; El Tiempo 2018b). In the final years of the twentieth century, social movements in Colombia endured multiple challenges, among which surviving the war took precedence. As a result, women’s organizations, and in particular the mpm, gave increasing priority to caring for the victims of the conflict – especially those who had been displaced – and defending human rights (documentation of cases, lawsuits, etc.) (Lamus Canavate 2010; Marín Rueda, Gamero Mariano, and ofp 2004). Moreover, the high levels of repression made it almost impossible for any type of social organizing to exist outside of state institutions. Therefore, repression and paramilitary control led to an overwhelming institutionalization of actions taken by the women’s movement. “The persistence of armed conflict in Colombia over more than five decades in many ways monopolizes the nation’s attention, obscuring feminist demands for social, political and cultural transformation” (Castellanos Llanos and Eslava Rivera 2018, 68). In short, the war has marked the mpm and the many organizations it comprises. As a result, feminism in the late twentieth century was decapitated. Recovering from more than a quarter of a century of repression has

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been a complex process; in fact, in spite of the peace negotiations,19 repression is far from over: “Each month, for the past three and a half years, there have been on average five homicides of human rights leaders and defenders” (El Tiempo 2018a).20 We should point out that, repression notwithstanding, social movements began to regenerate at the turn of the century, reorganizing and redefining their priorities in order not only to survive but to envisage and demand a more democratic, just, and egalitarian society. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the mpm made some modest advances in terms of organizing and mobilizing, including a surge in the number of local organizations, the building of alliances, and coordinated action among different feminist trends at the national level. The ofp is an example of the transformation that took place in women’s organizations within the context of armed conflict. As mentioned earlier, since its creation, the ofp has contributed to the conception and definition of the popular women’s movement. It is also known for implementing a feminist approach to conflict and peace negotiations. The ofp was founded in the city of Barrancabermeja, in the sub-region of Magdalena Medio Antioquia in 1972 “at the initiative of progressive men and the Catholic Church.”21 It emerged from the influences of liberation theology and remained linked to the Church until 1986, when it became an autonomous women’s organization. The organization underwent significant growth until the mid-1990s; ofp committees were set up in several municipalities in Magdalena Medio, and the ofp became an important presence within the region’s social movement. Then came the rise of paramilitary power, which mounted an attack on social movements and forced the ofp to reduce its activities. The organization was a victim of systematic political persecution involving over 140 crimes, including assassination, harassment, threats, torture, forced displacement, attacks against property, and destruction of its headquarters in Barrancabermeja. The ofp’s geographical location in Magdalena Medio, one of the regions most affected by the armed conflict, prompted the organization to spearhead the Movimiento Social de Mujeres contra la Guerra y por la Paz (Women’s Social Movement against War and for Peace) in 1996. Under the slogan “No parimos hijos para la guerra” (We don’t give birth to children for war), women across the country mobilized to denounce attacks against them, to demand negotiated

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solutions to the armed conflict, and to present a feminist and social agenda in which peace encompassed social and gender justice. In 2013 the state recognized ofp as a subject of collective redress under reparation policies for victims of the conflict.

Relationship between mpm and Colombian Feminist Groups At the national level, coordination by women’s organizations has been aimed at (1) addressing the consequences of the armed conflict for women; (2) fighting for a negotiated solution to the conflict; and (3) combatting the extremely high rates of violence, primarily sexual violence, inflicted on women both in the context of war and in everyday life. As noted by the researcher Norma Villarreal Méndez (2009), since the 1990s, activism within the Colombian women’s movement has been directly partly toward resistance and partly toward advocacy. Resistance actions are a response to the intensification of the armed conflict and its specific impact on women. Advocacy has been focused on advancing legislation that protects women and makes their voices heard in negotiations and peacebuilding. Those two types of activity frame the demands currently prioritized by the women’s organizations profiled in the next section.

Women’s Organizations: Militants for Peace Women’s and feminist organizations do not merely oppose the war but actively fight for political and negotiated solutions (Fajardo 2015; Juntanza de Mujeres 2018; Melo Ibarra 2011). The peace dialogues between the government and the guerrillas have been interpreted by different social movements as privileged spaces for advancing their own initiatives. The pursuit of peace has thus served to coordinate the women’s movement as it seeks realistic solutions that address the specific impacts on women, ethnic differences, and the socio-economic reality of the most disadvantaged. Women’s organizations view the dialogue between the government and the guerrillas as a single peace process held at two different negotiating tables: one with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (farc),

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with whom the government signed agreements in 2016; and one with the National Liberation Army (nla), with whom an agreement was negotiated in 2018 (Juntanza de Mujeres 2018). In the context of the peace negotiations advanced by President Juan Manuel Santos since 2010 with the farc, and now with the nla, women have two closely related objectives. The first is to increase the visibility of violence perpetrated against them during the war, and the second is to secure their participation in peace negotiations. Indeed, at the outset of the negotiations with the farc, women’s organizations contacted the government and guerrilla negotiators to demand that their voices be heard, to advance a gender-sensitive approach to the agreements, and to demand that both the government and the armed groups commit to facilitating women’s participation on the nation’s political stage (Chaparro and Martínez 2016). Slogans such as “No peace without women” and “Feminist peace or no peace,” championed by women’s and feminist organizations since 2016, sum up the challenges they face and the hopes they bring to the negotiations.22 Currently one network responsible for coordinating women’s work for peace is Juntanza de Mujeres y Paz. Created in 2017, this network includes approximately twenty-five women’s organizations. Its objective is “to increase women’s participation in implementing the Final Agreement to End the Armed Conflict and Build a Stable and Lasting Peace with former farc guerrillas, and to include their demands in the ongoing dialogue between the National Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army guerrillas” (Juntanza de Mujeres 2018). In pursuit of this dual objective the women of Juntanza advocate before the Instancia Especial (Special Tribunal) for a focus on gender in implementing the final agreement with the farc. They are also developing dialogue with women negotiators in the government and in the nla. For them, it is essential that existing and future agreements take into account women’s particular experience and the importance of political parity and an intersectional lens. Their aim is to have 50 per cent of public and elected positions filled by women – ethnicized, racialized, and impoverished women.23 The Juntanza offers a platform for grassroots women’s organizations to make their voices heard and to enter into peacebuilding dialogues on the various national and regional stages. They participate in initiatives by social movements such as Mesa Social para la Paz and have opened a

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dialogue with feminist factions that are not grassroots or left leaning, such as Cumbre de Mujeres por la Paz.24 They also use this platform to dialogue with state institutions tasked with implementing agreements with the farc and hope to achieve active participation in the current negotiating process with the nla. These processes are being built from the bottom up at the regional level and with the input of local organizations.

Publicly Recognizing and Bringing an End to Violence against Women Among the demands made by women’s movements, there is no question that ending violence against women takes centre stage. That is because women suffer a dual tragedy: the violence of the conflict and the violence of daily life. One must also consider that, while the violence of the conflict affects the entire population, and women in particular, domestic violence is far more frequent and normalized. The rate of gender-based violence against women is alarmingly high. The numbers vary by source, but, according to a report by Sisma Mujer (2017), in 2016 there was an attack against a woman every 20.9 minutes or every 28.8 minutes (Sisma Mujer 2017). Similarly, “every 12 minutes at least one woman [was] raped by her partner or ex-partner,” and “every 3 days at least one woman [was] murdered by her partner or ex-partner” (Sisma Mujer 2017, 5–6). In the same year, in the context of the armed conflict, a woman was sexually assaulted every day (Sisma Mujer, 2017) or every three days (inml-cf). The complex continuum of violence against women and the magnitude of the attacks have motivated several organizations to strive for the declaration of a humanitarian crisis.25 If they succeed, there could be measures taken to address the situation. Demands for effective legislation and for legal justice for women are directly linked to the fight against gender-based violence. There have been some advances, notably Law 1257 of 2008, Ley de no violencias contra las mujeres (Law of no violence against women), one of the most significant achievements made by women in recent years. This legislation means that, for the first time, the law recognizes gender-based violence in Colombia

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(previously, violence against women was considered “personal injury”); acts to prevent, investigate, and penalize violence against women; and advocates for an integrated approach, including education, health, and labour measures, to address the needs of women. Crucially, it gives a woman the right to decide whether or not to press charges, reinforcing women’s rights and protection in the face of violence and power relations (Cortés Mora 2015). It is also worth citing Law 1761 of 2015, regarding femicide, Ley Rosa Elvira Celi.26 Clearly, Colombian law does affirm the rights of women, though much remains to be done. The main problem is the lack of enforcement, as there is a significant gap between Law 1257 and its effective implementation (Guzmán Rodríguez and Prieto Dávila 2013). Enforcing the law is a historical problem in Colombia; the system is scarcely functional, and the levels of impunity are high, particular with regard to violence against women. There are other obstacles to legal justice for women. For example, few people are aware of legislation even in large cities, much less in the more remote regions. Consequently, several acts of femicide committed since 2015, when it was legally recognized as a crime, have not been treated as crimes because judges are still unaware of what constitutes femicide. There are no clear procedures for ensuring that women have access to justice. Finally, because women do not trust the legal system (Guzmán Rodríguez and Prieto Dávila 2013, 63–4), they tend not to report incidents or take legal action. There are several reasons for their lack of trust. In the case of victims of the armed conflict, there was a close connection between the paramilitaries and the institutions tasked with processing victims’ legal or administrative claims (Equipo interdisciplinario sobre impunidad y memoria 2010). In addition, patriarchal culture and misogyny shape the response of society in general and the media and the legal system in particular. It is a culture in which women fear being blamed for the violence of which they are victims. When a woman is attacked, the media and public officials are quick to paint her as the party responsible for the assault. The tactics are well known: Why was she alone? Why was she dressed that way? Why was she with that person?.27 Sexist and patriarchal culture is at once the cause of violence against women and one of the barriers between women and justice.

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Conclusion: Defining a Movement In this chapter I have analyzed two factors that have influenced the trajectory of the grassroots women’s movements in Colombia. We have also described the relationships between the organizations that make up the mpm. While these organizations are part of left-leaning social movements, this does not imply full recognition of the role that women play in social struggles or of women’s particular grievances. Women’s participation in social organizations is still marginal, and there is even resistance to women having their own organizations. For this reason, grassroots feminism and the mpm insist on the ambiguity of women’s reality, an ambiguity that motivates them to fight violence against women, advocate for women’s political rights, and strive to improve the living conditions of women, be they peasants, students, or workers. Grassroots women’s organizations in Colombia, however, are connected to various expressions of grassroots feminism across Latin America, where they have contributed to anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal analyses and practices. Of the mpm’s three fundamental relationships, the connection with their counterparts in other Latin American countries is where they find the greatest political affinity. From my interviews I conclude that Colombian women from the grassroots view opposition to patriarchy, as well as the concepts on which they wish to build their movement and the form it will take, as a dialogue with grassroots feminists in other countries within the region. Lastly, the mpm is also linked with other feminist organizations in Colombia – liberal organizations with which it differs. The differences concern the women’s social backgrounds and preferred political strategies. The class demands made by mpm activists, and the criticisms they level, mainly against state institutions but also against particular ngos, clash with some types of feminism. In spite of their differences, however, women’s and feminist organizations come together around the issues of violence, women’s rights, and peace. Another factor influencing the trajectory of Colombia’s mpm is the conflict, which makes for a very complex situation. For more than three decades, escalation of the armed conflict truncated the development of the women’s movement, causing it to redirect its priorities and to concentrate

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on defending human rights and caring for war victims. The peace agreements between the government and the farc, as well as the ongoing dialogue with the nla, seem to have presaged the opening of democratic spaces in which to debate women’s rights and to end the two-pronged violence they suffered within and beyond the conflict. But the turmoil of war has not let up, and in recent years the assassination of female social leaders appears to be increasing. In spite of all this – or perhaps because of it – women are taking part in national debates and are raising their voices with respect to war, negotiated solutions to armed and political conflict, and violence against women.

notes

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2 3

4

The author wishes to thank Angélica Beltrán Pineda, national coordinator of Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Pública, María Ciro Zuleta of cisca, Yolanda Becerra of ofp, and Sandra Solano Nivia of Juntanza de Mujeres y Paz for agreeing to be interviewed for this chapter, and to the organizations for their ceaseless work in advancing the cause of women in Colombia. The ideas and arguments presented in this chapter were inspired by these interviews. The magnitude of this conservative reaction can be measured by the broad disapproval provoked by the transversal “gender-conscious approach” of the peace agreement signed in 2016 by the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the farc guerrillas (“¿Qué pasó con la ideología de género?” 2016). This approach, which favours a gender perspective in the agreements and fosters the political participation of women (Chaparro González and Martínez Osorio 2016, 12), was branded as “gender ideology” by conservative sectors. Their position was leveraged to defeat the agreement as part of a long campaign against its ratification, based on the false argument that the peace accord eroded the foundations of the family by recognizing gay rights. Translation of quotations by Anna Rosenwong and María José Giménez. For an analysis of the process of positioning women in grassroots sectors as political subjects within the movement for the right to housing in Brazil, see Levy, Carle-Marsan, and Latendresse 2013. Interview with Angélica Beltrán Pineda of Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Pública, 27 April 2018.

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Ibid. Ibid. Interview with María Ciro Zuleta of cisca, 18 May 2018. Ibid. Interview with Angélica Beltrán Pineda of Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Pública, 27 April 2018. Ibid. Interview with María Ciro Zuleta of cisca, 18 May 2018. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. For an overview of the various nuances of and debates raised by community feminism, see Cabnal 2015; Paredes 2015, 2017; Rubio et al. 2017. Of all acts of sexual violence perpetrated by legal and illegal armed actors in the conflict, 82 per cent targeted women (Chaparro González and Martínez Osorio 2016, 14), but some were inflicted on the lgbti population and on men. “Además de las violaciones, la violencia sexual contra las mujeres se ejerció, entre otras formas, mediante la desnudez forzada, la tortura sexual, el establecimiento y exigencia de pautas de relación entre hombres y mujeres en el ámbito afectivo y sexual, y la esclavitud sexual y doméstica.” “Buscar y exigir la entrega de sus desaparecidos y secuestrados; reclamar sus hijos/as reclutados; hacer pública su voz en contra de la guerra y exigir la salida negociada al conflicto; exigir verdad, justicia y reparación; y exigir que se les incluyera en las decisiones relacionadas con la paz, en tanto víctimas del conflicto armado y ciudadanas del país.” The Colombian government signed peace agreements with far-right military groups in 2002 and with farc guerrillas in 2016. Following the peace agreement, the challenge for social organizations has only grown because the assassination and imprisonment of social leaders receives little attention, given that a large part of the international community considers the conflict in Colombia to be over and thus assumes that the number of human rights violations has declined. Interview with Yolanda Becerra of ofp, 13 May 2018. Interview with Sandra Solano Nivia of Juntanza de Mujeres y Paz, 22 May 2018. Ibid.

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24 Ibid. 25 Interview with Angélica Beltrán Pineda of Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Pública, 27 April 2018. 26 Rosa Elvira Celi, a street vendor, died after being viciously raped and tortured in Bogotá on 23 May 2012. 27 Interview with Angélica Beltrán Pineda of Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Pública, 27 April 2018.

biblio g r aphy Alvarez, Sonia E., Nancy Saporta Sternbach, Marysa Aranguren Navarro, and Patricia Chuchryk. 1994. “Feminismos en América Latina: De Bogotá a San Bernardo.” In Mujeres y participacion politica: Avances y desafios en América Latina, edited by Magdalena Léon, 393–434. Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia: tm Editores. https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_1928468. Archila Neira, Mauricio, and Martha Cecilia García Valandia. 2002. “Luchas sociales protagonizadas por actores menos visibles.” In 25 Años de luchas sociales en Colombia (1975–2000), 205–38. Bogotá, Colombia: Cinep. Cabnal, Lorena. 2015. “‘Corps-territoire et territoire-Terre’: Le féminisme communautaire au Guatemala; Entretien avec Lorena Cabnal.” Translated by Jules Falquet. Cahiers du Genre 59, no. 2: 73–89. Castellanos Llanos, Gabriela, and Katherine Eslava Rivera. 2018. “Hacia una historia del feminismo en Colombia: De las certezas sufragistas a las incertidumbres de hoy; El caso de Cali.” In Feminismos y estudios de género en Colombia: Un campo académico y político en movimiento, edited by Franklin Gil Hernández and Tania Pérez Bustos, 39–72. Biblioteca abierta 463. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Celis, Leila. 2017. “Economic Extractivism and Agrarian Social Movements: Perspectives on Low-Intensity Democracy in the Face of the Colombian Conflict.” Latin American Perspectives 44, no. 5: 145–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X17719037. Chaparro González, Nina, and Margarita Martínez Osorio. 2016. Negociando desde los márgenes: La participación política de las mujeres en los procesos de paz en Colombia 1982–2016. Documentos Dejusticia 29. Bogotá, Colombia: Dejusticia. Cortés Mora, Lilibeth. 2015. “Ley 1257 de 2008, alcances y tareas pendientes.” In Oidhaco: 20 años en favor de la paz y los derechos humanos en Colombia, edited by Oidhaco and asbl, 60. Brussels, Belgium.

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Deere, Carmen Diana, and Magdalena León de Leal. 2002. Género, propiedad y empoderamiento: Tierra, estado y mercado en América Latina. Edited by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and flacso. Ecuador and Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Díaz Suasa, Dora Isabel, and Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos. 2002. Situación de la mujer rural colombiana: Perspectiva de género. Bogotá, Colombia: Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos. El Tiempo. 2018a. “‘Clan Úsuga,’ eln y disidencia, tras escalada contra líderes sociales.” El Tiempo, 7 July 2018. http://www.eltiempo.com. – 2018b. “Las razones por las que estarian asesinando lideres sociales.” El Tiempo. 8 July 2018. http://www.eltiempo.com. Equipo interdisciplinario sobre impunidad y memoria. 2010. Memoria de la impunidad en Antioquia: Lo que la justicia no quiso ver frente al paramilitarismo. Medellin, Colombia. http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar. Fajardo, July Samira. 2015. “Las reivindicaciones de las mujeres colombianas en el camino por la paz.” In Oidhaco: 20 años en favor de la paz y los derechos humanos en Colombia, edited by Oidhaco and asbl, 51. Brussels, Belguim. Guzmán Rodríguez, Diana Esther, and Sylvia Cristina Prieto Dávila. 2013. Acceso a La Justicia. Mujeres, Conflicto Armado y Justicia. DeJusticia, Bogota. Juntanza de Mujeres. 2018. “Diálogo Nacional.” Press release, May. Korol, Claudia, and Gloria Cristina Castro Gómez. 2016. Feminismos populares: Pedagogías y políticas. Colombia: La Fogata Editorial. Lamas, Marta, Alicia Martínez, María Luisa Tarrés, Esperanza Tuñon, and Ellen Calmus. 2018. “Building Bridges: The Growth of Popular Feminism in Mexico.” In The Challenge of Local Feminisms, edited by Amrita Basu, 324–50. London: Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492921-14. Lamus Canavate, Doris. 2010. De la subversión a la inclusión: Movimiento de mujeres de la segunda ola en Colombia 1975–2005. Bogotá, Colombia: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia. http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/47906. Levy, Charmain, Marianne Carle-Marsan, and Anne Latendresse. 2013. “Femmes et mouvement populaire d’habitation au Brésil: Vers une féminisation des luttes pour le droit au logement?” Économie et Solidarités 43, nos. 1–2: 10–38. https://doi.org/10.7202/1033273ar. Marín Rueda, Evangelina, Magali Gamero Mariano, and Organización Femenina Popular Barrancabermeja (ofp). 2004. Afectos y efectos de la guerra

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en la mujer desplazada. Bucaramanga and Barrancabermeja, Colombia: Litografía La Bastilla. Martínez, Susana Martínez. 2018. “Entre el buen vivir y el feminismo avances, desafíos y encrucijadas.” Estudos Feministas 26, no. 3: 1–10. Melo Ibarra, María Eugenia. 2011. “Acciones colectivas de las mujeres en contra de la guerra y por la paz en Colombia.” Sociedad y Economía 13 (September): 66–86. Méndez, Norma Villarreal. 2009. “1991–2008: Las mujeres colombianas entre el estado social de derecho y el conflicto armado.” Anuario de Hojas de Warmi, no. 14. http://revistas.um.es. Paredes, Julieta. 2015. Hilando Fino: Perspectives from Communitarian Feminism. La Paz, Bolivia: Comunidad Mujeres Creando Comunidad. – 2017. “El feminismocomunitario: La creación de un pensamiento propio.” Corpus: Archivos virtuales de la alteridad americana 7, no. 1 (June). https://doi.org/10.4000/corpusarchivos.1835. “¿Qué pasó con la ideología de género? Nuevo acuerdo de paz la ideología de género.” 2016. Semana, 13 November. https://www.semana.com. Rubio, Ana Gabriela Rincón, Ivonne Vizcarra Bordi, Humberto Thomé Ortíz, and Patricia Gascón Muro. 2017. “Empoderamiento y feminismo comunitario en la conservación del maíz en México.” Revista Estudos Feministas 25, no. 3: 1073–92. Salcedo Bravo, Liz Adriana. 2012. “Mujer campesina en la construcción del poder popular en Venezuela.” Revista Venezolana de Estudios de La Mujer 17, no. 39. Sánchez, Gonzalo G., and Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación. 2011. Mujeres y guerra: Víctimas y resistentes en el caribe colombiano. Bogotá, Colombia: Taurus. Sisma Mujer. 2017. “Comportamiento de las violencias contra las mujeres durante 2016.” Boletín 13. La Erradicación de Las Violencias Contra Las Mujeres: Una Tarea Inaplazable En La Construcción de La Paz (series). Wills Obregón, María Emma. 2007. Inclusión sin representación: La irrupción política de las mujeres en Colombia (1970–2000). Bogotá, Columbia: Editorial Norma.

5

Feminist Movements in Chile: Joining Forces from Institutions and the Streets toward a New Constitution linda s. stevenson El Estado opresor es un macho violador, El Estado opresor es un macho violador. El violador eras tú. El violador eres tú. [The oppressive state is a rapist man. The oppressive state is a rapist man. The rapist was you. The rapist is you.]

For Chile, and the world, 18 October 2019 was a day of reckoning, as the façade of the carefully crafted neoliberal structures constructed over the last thirty years of post-dictatorial governments was torn asunder by a social explosion of protest against an increase of thirty pesos in the fare of public transportation. For the majority of Chileans, this was the last straw, one increase too many after years of social service budget cuts, the persistent thinning of public safety nets, underfunded and unequally funded education and health care, and transfers of basic costs of living to individuals and households. The generally segmented, controlled social discontent among the Chilean population erupted in mass protest that day and for months to come – a protest that unleashed years of frustrations and anger from many sectors of civil society and employed the strategies and energies of old and new women’s and feminist groups. “A rapist in your path” is a refrain from a rap-style mass dance performance that was staged in the street and presented a visual and verbal scathing critique of state-related violence toward women; it was written and first performed by a group of young Chilean feminist women in a group called Las Tesis (2019). Their chant and dance moves went viral among feminist groups worldwide, with feminists performing them in many languages, from New York to Paris to Istanbul to Moscow. In Chile

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it was performed first in front of the police headquarters in Valparaiso, then in front of the presidential palace in Santiago, and other important agencies, in November 2019, during days that the United Nations had designated to commemorate women’s struggles against feminicide (18 November) and violence against women (25 November) (United Nations 2020). In 2018, Silvana del Valle of the Chilean Women’s Network, speaking on behalf of vast national and international networks of women who were mobilizing to influence the politics and policies of Chile and the world, had demanded structural changes in the international political economy in order to ensure fair and decent wages, jobs, and social policies. “Free trade agreements do not represent any type of progress for women. Rather, they are regressive, as they finance the economy of the patriarchal structure. We are critical of these agreements because they reinforce labour models for women, especially for indigenous and rural women, lesbians and migrant women, who are the most discriminated against. These trade agreements are deepening the precariousness of paid and unpaid women’s work.” Related to these demands, from 18 October 2019 into March 2020, thousands of Chilean protesters took to the streets, having multiple confrontations with the police and the security forces of the right-leaning President Sebastián Piñera government, in ways reminiscent of the Pinochet era. Piñera’s initial responses employed hardline authoritarian tactics – citywide curfews, marshal law, the use of tear gas, the firing of rubber bullets into the crowds (many aimed at people’s eyes, blinding several hundred), mass arrests with ample physical abuse in the process, and even claims of disappearances.1 As the protesters persisted despite these hardline responses, and intense criticism of Piñera’s responses arose from across the political spectrum and the world at the end of 2019 into 2020, he was forced to negotiate and decrease the violent government responses. As the protests continued in early 2020, and organizations discussed and debated their demands and then negotiated with the government, it became clear that the time had come to start anew – not to once again simply reform the 1980 Constitution crafted during the rule of the military dictator Pinochet rule, but to call for a new, fair, and equitable constitution. The call was not only for a new constitution but for one to be written by a set of Chileans truly representing all Chileans, not those who benefited from the binomial electoral system left in place after the dictatorship systematically

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privileged to the Congress the parties most closely aligned with it and the right. The protesters forced President Piñera to agree to a national referendum that would ask (1) if Chileans wanted a constitutional convention, and (2) if the convention would be carried out by a mixed group of the current parliamentarians or would be a new nationally based convention, representative of all regions, genders, ethnic groups, and political persuasions in the nation. In March 2020 the arrival of the covid-19 global pandemic slowed these political processes, and the lockdowns for public health safety curtailed the massive street protests. Nonetheless, on 24 March, Law 21216 was passed and approved by the president. This law mandates that the delegates selected to write the new constitution should include equal numbers of women and men, proportional representation of Indigenous leaders, and representatives from all the geographical regions of the country, (Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación 2020a). The date for the national referendum was set and then reset as the government figured out how to manage the demands of the covid virus and appropriate restrictions. The referendum finally took place 25 October 2020. The population voted 78.3 per cent in favour of a new constitution, and 79.0 per cent in favour of a nationally based constitutional convention, over the mixed concept (Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación 2020b). The elections for the constitutional delegates took place on 11 April 2021. Once the delegates have been selected, they will have one year to draft the new constitution. Several of the outcomes to date reflect years of the feminist movement’s work and demands for fair and more equitable representation in government institutions. The inclusion of gender parity in Law 21216 was an important achievement after nearly fifteen years of advocacy for gender quotas and efforts to increase female representation (Fernández Ramil 2007; Thomas 2018). However, the outcomes of the law also reveal some of the protest movement’s weaknesses regarding representation of Indigenous women and women of colour, which has been a historical issue for leftist and feminist movements. The Chilean state has had contentious, racialized relations with Indigenous Peoples of the nation, particularly with the Mapuche people, since Chile became independent from Spain in 1818. Even progressive social movements of the late twentieth century, including middle-class, mestiza feminists, and some of the governments they elected,

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such as that of Salvador Allende, have generally not understood or supported the demands for autonomy and the language and cultural rights of the Mapuche (Millaman 2018; Richards 2004). More recently, “while Bachelet’s policies went the farthest in recognizing the intersectional needs of indigenous women concerning issues of poverty and economic access, her government maintained the previous emphasis on multicultural incorporation rather than recognizing the growing indigenous demands for land sovereignty and cultural survival” (Richards 2013, as cited in Thomas 2018, 116). In a 2020 interview, Jessica Cayupi Llancaleo, lawyer and spokesperson for the Mapuche Women’s Network, pointed out that the Indigenous groups’ representation (in the plans for the new constitutional assembly) was yet inadequate (Berreta Navarrete 2020). Afro-Chileans do not yet have any representation in the convention’s current plan. What led to this unprecedented, unconventional Chilean awakening or political “spring”? What role did women and feminist organizations have in the protests and demands for the constitutional overhaul? The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the connections between the past of women’s and feminist movements and this unprecedented moment, in which social protest is leading to the transformation of the Chilean constitution and political system. One entryway into a perspective is International Women’s Day, 8 March, which has long been a day for the rallying and mobilization of women’s movements in Chile and some nations around the world. In 2018 the march took place three days before the transfer of power from the first female socialist president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, who was completing her second and final term in office, to the right-leaning billionaire Sebastián Piñera, who would begin his second term in office. The number of participants skyrocketed (Vergara 2018). Tens of thousands of Chilean women, lgbtq advocates, and men took to the streets to make their demands heard with respect to women’s freedom from sexual harassment and abuse, to equality in the workplace and political spaces, and to women’s right to make their own reproductive choices. Numbers such as these in a Chilean march had not been seen since the pro-democracy movement of the late 1980s.2 Most of the participants were under the age of thirty and female, and they represented a mosaic of feminist intersections – in many cases even within the individual’s own set of identities (i.e., race or ethnicity, class, gender, sexual identity) (Thomas 2018).3 On 8 March 2019 the num-

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bers were the highest yet, with an official estimate of 190,000 in Santiago (Delgado 2019). On 8 March 2020, amidst the mass national protests, plus the feminists’ swelling numbers, the official protesters in Santiago were estimated at two million on the streets. This was a particularly important moment because it was one of the last days of protest before the government imposed covid restrictions in mid-March. The increasing presence of women and feminist organizations over a three-year period on this important annual day of protest shows that support for their demands was growing at the same time as were the national demands for constitutional change. Some of the demands converge, and some do not, as will be worked out at the convention in which delegates are selected and the new constitution formed. But what feminist perspectives and voices have contributed to the present high levels of participation? The next section brings to light a selection of connections to the past.

Limited “Democracy” and “Development” In 2010 Chile’s level of development had reached the point of being the first South American country to be invited to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (oecd). By most traditional measures of political, economic, and social development, post-dictatorial Chile is an enviable model of progress, stability, and security for Latin America and all countries in the global south. Politically, including the transfer of power from President Bachelet to President Piñera in March 2018, seven presidential elections have taken place in accordance with the Constitution and electoral laws since the return to democratic rule in 1989, after seventeen years of military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Although the executive branch has more power than do the other branches, the Chilean Congress and the courts provide a fairly high degree of checks and balances (in comparison to others in the Latin American region). Economically, Chile has achieved significant progress by many macroeconomic and social indicators. According to the World Bank, Chile has managed to decrease poverty from 38.0 per cent in 1990 to 7.8 per cent in 2013. Income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient declined from 52.8 in 2000 to 44.4 in 2017, while the gdp per capita grew from US$15,121 in 2000 to

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US$23,663 in 2017 and US$24,226 in 2019. The average growth rate of 3.5 per cent over the last decade is very respectable (World Bank 2018, 2020). Socially, the unemployment rate has been more variable but manageable in comparison to that of most other countries in the region. The infant mortality rate has decreased from 9.2 per cent in 2000 to 7.2 per cent in 2016. Women’s rate of economic activity has increased from 32.5 per cent in 1994 to 41.9 per cent in 2013 (cepalstat 2018). Going by these macro measures, Chile is quite a success story. However, as critical feminist studies have been finding since their inception, these measures only tell part of the story, which is generally history, the dominant patriarchal, heteronormative story, and an incomplete version of herstory. When we look beyond the macro measures and mainstream public opinion polls, it becomes clear, by the close electoral margins in favour of reactionary and conservative options, coupled with the thousands of people in the streets and the protests on social media, that a significant part of the population is discontent – discontent enough to take radical actions. So, then, what are the traditional macro measures of democracy and development missing? Why are so many people, in Chile, and elsewhere, unhappy, angry, struggling, and seeking social and political change? Fundación Sol provides alternative statistics that aid in understanding the breadth and depth of the discontent. Using data from a 2019 survey done by the National Institute of Statistics, its analyses find that two out of three workers in Chile earn only US$785 per month. Fifty per cent make less than $572 per month. In reference to female workers, 84.0 per cent make less than $1,142 per month, and 57.7 per cent of women make less than $572 per month, compared to 44.4 per cent of men (Durán and Kremerman 2020). The answer may be similar to one that I heard in 1997 at a conference in Havana, Cuba. After hearing a panel of top women law professors from the University of Havana describe the impressive legal progress that Cubans had made over the previous two decades in terms of gender equity – leading the region at that time – an audience member asked about the impact of the policies on gender relations. The Cuban panellist’s response was, “Well, we can legislate policies, but we cannot legislate the culture.” In a national survey of Chilean women by the feminist non-governmental organization (ngo) Corporación Humanas, respondents were asked to rate the state-

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ment “Chile is a machista country.” Eighty-eight per cent were “in agreement” or “very much in agreement” with the statement (Corporación Humanas 2018, 17). Machista can have many meanings, but most would say that it refers to a culture that privileges men and diminishes women. The same survey asked, “Do you believe that women are discriminated against in Chile?” The proportion of women who were “in agreement” or “very much in agreement” ranged from 71 to 87 per cent (for the years between 2005 and 2017 of the annual survey). Thus, a clear majority of Chilean women believe that discrimination against women is common in Chile – a manifestation of machista culture. It should be noted that the two times that women responded more positively, with the negative responses decreasing to 77 per cent in 2009 and 71 per cent in 2013, were both during Bachelet’s last years as president (Corporación Humanas 2018, 7). Thus, it could be argued that, in the minds of many women, Bachelet’s leadership and some of the political and policy outcomes achieved under her rule had an effect on machista culture and discrimination against women. However, apparently incremental institutional change is not enough or is not sustainable in the face of Chile’s well-resourced conservative forces, which in March 2018 managed to take power for the second time in a decade. Tied to the culture of male privilege are the political, economic, and social structures that have developed over the centuries, which also reflect society’s bias in favour of light-skinned men of European descent. The intersection of these forms of discrimination has long benefited elites around the globe, those who have wealth and power and who stand to gain from keeping these structures in place. Hence, limited democracy benefits those already in power.4 Privatized economies (economies with minimal state intervention or state ownership of resources) benefit those who already enjoy economic and financial power. The social systems that have evolved were the standard during the latter part of the twentieth century in post-revolutionary, post-military-controlled countries, including Chile. This model has always left many people, especially those with low incomes and low resource levels (historically, people of colour and women) on the margins or relegated to live more precarious lives. However, in the last decade and a half the inherent inequalities and lack of real freedoms have been hurting and hindering people to such a degree that the numbers of those willing to protest the system have reached new heights. This resource-based theory

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partly explains why people are protesting. However, the demands of the feminist movements, as seen in the 8 March strikes, marches, and other forms of protest, include the complete legalization of abortion, equal marriage, and freedom from sexual abuse and harassment.5 These demands reflect a surge, what some call the fourth wave of feminism, of continuing to seek women’s liberation in all contexts: in the home, workplace, school, and university, as well as in Congress and La Moneda (Chile’s presidential palace).

Seeing and Changing Chilean Society: Feminists at the Forefront Recent research shows that a new generation of feminists is leading the way in continuing to make the aforementioned demands. This next section discusses what the term feminist has meant in recent decades in Chile, recalling the movements and history upon which Chile’s culture of strong citizen participation and protest has been built. I challenge the resource-centred theories on mobilization by presenting quantitative measures that reveal the key aspects of Chilean politics, economics, and social realities that are ignored by the usual macro measures. I then employ the concepts of political opportunities structure and contentious politics from social movement theories to examine the ebb and flow of feminist activity during the four presidential periods from 2000 to 2020, culminating in observations about and the prospects for Piñera’s second term in light of the constitutional convention process. Although presidents and the changing of presidents are not always the primary cause of movement changes, they are important factors. This approach permits an observation of the relationship between feminist activity and political and policy outcomes, as well as an examination of factors that occurred between the making of demands and the achievement of policy outcomes. Data for this research were collected from the academic literature, the news media, several government and ngo databases, and interviews conducted in 2007, 2010, and 2018. The results show a political awakening among young women in their leadership of education movements in 2006

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and 2011 and of movements for improved working conditions, improved health care, access to abortion, lgbtq rights, and justice for victims of gender violence. This awakening has created new, dynamic feminist leaders and movements, as well as allies mobilizing from the margins of the dominant neoliberal model. Despite incremental legal and institutional progress, many Chileans still lack social benefits or decent wages, as they can find only temporary employment and are unable to make ends meet in order to support themselves, their families, and their communities. A recent comparison of social mobility in oecd countries used the metaphor of “broken social elevator” to describe Chile, meaning that, given the country’s economic, political, and labour conditions, most low-income people have little likelihood of improving their socio-economic status (oecd 2018). In another area of concern to feminists, many Chileans, particularly girls and women, lack personal security given the prevalent machista culture, resulting in the persistence of sexual harassment with impunity in universities and workplaces and of gender violence – even femicide – occurring all too frequently in familial settings with little or no chance of justice for the victims (cepalstat 2018). Although more Chileans than ever before have access to health care and education, the quality is often poor (Gideon and Alvarez Minte 2016; Staab 2016). Hence, despite progress, the needs and expectations of the increasingly educated, technologically knowledgeable, and mostly urban majority in Chile are not being met. Although incremental reforms and changes have been made, the lack of structural economic and gender change to gain more equality, truly altering the centuries-old imbalance of economic elites and patriarchal forms of masculine power, continues to fuel the fires of feminist mobilization. The movements for free or more highly subsidized education, labour rights, women’s rights, and gender equality are revealing the need for genuine social and cultural structural change. The demands of these different movements have intersected with those of Chilean feminists over the last fifteen years, and both seasoned and new feminist leaders persist in leading the movements of the twenty-first century. People are demanding fulltime jobs with social benefits, free or subsidized quality education for citizens from all economic backgrounds, and respect and personal security for all, despite racial, gender, and economic differences. The incremental

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changes achieved by institutional allies within the constraints of Chile’s political system, although commendable, are insufficient (Ríos Tobar 2009; Schild 2018; Stevenson 2012; Waylen 2016). Feminists played an important role in the demands for constitutional change in 2019 and the referendum of October 2020 and continue to lead the call for substantive and structural changes.

Theorizing Feminist Protest: A Retroactive Look at a Proactive Moment In this section, feminist movement, social movement, and their distinctiveness in Chile are defined in order to provide theoretical threads from the respective literatures on these topics, which are essential for the struggles of the past to inform those of the present. The Chilean historian and activist Luna Follegati (2018) defines feminism as a plural and multidimensional concept with different variants, axes, and emphases. In the most general terms, feminism is a political discourse based on challenges to patriarchal elements in society and calling for gender equality and justice for women. It consists of theory and practice articulated by critical thinking, which questions the subordination of women simply because they are women. Follegati (2018) invokes the description of feminism offered by the philosopher Celia Amorós as based on the idea that “another world is possible and necessary,” referring to the social construction of society and its actors. Feminism brings together critical reflection on the structures that legitimate the subordination of women and action, establishing a struggle for rights that have been denied. The first global wave of feminism was the struggle for women’s voting rights. For most Latin American suffragettes, as for their counterparts in North America and Europe, the struggle started in the middle of the nineteenth century. After bursts of activism in different national and international contexts, in most Latin American countries women obtained the right to vote by the middle of the twentieth century. In Chile’s case, the primary organization for women’s suffrage was Movimiento de Emancipación de la Mujer Chilena, which was active between 1935 and 1953 and finally secured the vote in 1952 (Franceschet 2005; Poblete 1993).

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The second global wave of feminism, in the 1960s and 1970s, called for equal rights for women and freedom of reproductive choice, among other demands. In Chile these demands overlapped with unprecedented coalition building and growth in leftist working-class parties. This led to the formation of the Unidad Popular coalition and the election in 1970, by a narrow margin, of the socialist Salvador Allende after an essentially three-way race: conservative elites on the right, a growing middle class represented by the Christian Democrats in the centre, and working-class interests represented by the socialist party, the communist party, and other small workers’ parties. Although women’s rights were not at the top of Allende’s agenda, many of his progressive policies were welcomed by working-class women. However, these policies and the alliances built were challenged by conservative and centre-right parties and societal sectors, including groups of conservative women (Baldez 2002; Power 2002). Ultimately the leftist alliance was crushed by military force, with the military coup of 1973 led by General Augusto Pinochet. Military rule resulted in the suspension of the Constitution, elections, and democratic institutions until 1989. During the seventeen years of military dictatorship there was widespread repression of Pinochet’s opponents, through disappearances, mass detentions, torture, exile, and wholesale violation of human rights – mostly targeted at members of leftist parties and their families and networks, intellectuals, and anyone whom Pinochet viewed as posing a threat to his power. Through the repression and then through Pinochet’s Constitution, passed in 1980, the tripartite system was essentially reconfigured into a two-party system. During the dictatorship the demands of the women’s movement shifted from feminist ones to those concerning basic human rights, the return of disappeared loved ones, and the return of democracy (Chuckryk 1989; Oppenheim 2007; Jaquette 1994). In the 1980s the initial profile of the Chilean women’s movement was that of careful mobilization as autonomous organizations because no institutional space was available during the dictatorship. Needless to say, the social bond of trust – the social contract between government and society – was decimated for the majority of Chileans, who felt threatened by or were directly persecuted by the military government. The feminist motto “The personal is political” took on a life-or-death meaning for many women in Chile as they or their family members were persecuted by the

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regime and as they strategized to use non-violent forms of resistance against the regime. The feminist call for “Democracy in the country and in the home!” was aimed at political and personal change until Pinochet was peacefully forced out of power by a national referendum in 1989 (Oppenheim 2007). In response to the political opening brought about by Pinochet’s exit and the start of the transition to democracy in 1990, the weakened leftist parties joined forces with the centrist Christian Democrats to form a coalition called Concertation of the Parties for Democracy. Many pacts were made about how to proceed with governing, one of which was to allow the centrists to take the lead so that the transition could be carried out in an incremental fashion; this resulted in the election of the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin for a four-year term. As the transition unfolded, with Pinochet in the shadows (the military maintaining impunity in the face of thousands of atrocities and a national presence), many activists, including feminists, were sorely disappointed with its limits and constraints. Some incremental and symbolic institutional gains were made, such as the founding of the first national women’s program, Servicio Nacional de las Mujeres (sernam), and the rise of some women to Cabinet posts. At the level of the masses there was a slow increase of female members in the workforce, from 30.5 per cent in 1990 to 41.0 per cent in 2017 (World Bank 2018). However, the political space was severely limited in terms of feminist demands for greater reproductive choice, policies to protect women and prosecute perpetrators of gender violence, gender equality in the workplace, and lgbtq rights (Chuchryk 1989; Franceschet 2005; Ríos Tobar 2009; Stevenson 2012; Thomas 2018). Concurrent with the global trend toward democratization and neoliberalization in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was an explosion in new ngos around many different interests and issues. Feminist and women’s organizations were no exception. The early 1990s saw a surge in feminist organizing in the ngo sector (Alvarez 1998). In Chile’s case the transition to democracy allowed women who had been active in protest movements under the dictatorship to channel their energies and skills into new, potentially lasting organizations – outside the state, which many did not trust or want to engage. The high degree of professionalization of these organiza-

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tions, with their increasingly sophisticated databases and documentation of gender inequities and systemic discrimination against women, was endorsed by some governments and by the United Nations ahead of its fourth World Conference on Women, held in 1995 in Beijing. Parallel government and non-government conferences were set up in Beijing to allow for both sets of groups to network and share information. This represented progress compared to the 1985 conference in Nairobi. The locus of power was still with governments, however, as the two conferences were held in different spaces, with resources directed to the government conference, showing a clear bias. This split at the international level was mirrored in the political battles between feminists and female political leaders at the national level in Chile. Chilean women were divided between las autonomas (those wanting to fight for feminist demands in separate, non-institutional ways and spaces) and those wanting to fight for women’s rights, gender equity, and feminist demands by institutional means. Critics from the ngo spaces called those rising into government posts femocrats, as they were viewed as female technocrats and often as traitors in the streets and in grassroots movements, perhaps sacrificing their feminist edge for the comforts of the bourgeoisie and government positions (Montecinos 2001). Gradual institutional gains continued in government and civil society. Thus, with the polarization of activists across the feminist movement, street protests and coalition building waned during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some Chilean feminists refer to this period derisively as one of “silence” or dormancy (Ríos Tobar, Godoy Catalán, and Guerrero Caviedes 2004).6 However, according to sociologists who have been theorizing and observing social movements over time, social movements can be expected to wax and wane (Keck and Sikkink 1998; McAdam 1996; Tarrow 1996, 1998). There are significant individual, familial, and social costs to social activism, and unless there is a crisis, most movements will decline and be in “abeyance,” as described by the sociologist Verta Taylor (1989) in her work on the women’s movement in the United States between 1945 and the 1960s. This period could be viewed as parallelling the late 1990s to 2005 in Chile. In her interviews with US women during this period, Taylor found that key leaders (particularly those without family obligations) maintained feminist networks

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as they waited for a political opportunity to reactivate strategies and rebuild the movement with more urgency and consciousness, leading to large mobilizations – such as the US movements of the 1960s. From the interviews that I carried out in 2007 and 2010 with feminist and political leaders from sernam, the health and education ministries, and the National Congress, I came to understand that feminists active in the 1980s and 1990s sought a different political moment: a more leftleaning, progressive moment than what the Christian Democrat regimes were able to offer or were interested in offering in the 1990s (Maturana 2010).7 With some progress under the Concertation’s first socialist president, Ricardo Lagos, and then the prospect of a pro-gender equity and social policies president in Michelle Bachelet in 2006, the movements were rekindled in 2005, with new demands and new personalities. The next section provides evidence to demonstrate the influence of key economic and political factors in the social mobilizations leading up to mass national mobilizations in 2019.

The Rise of Social and Feminist Movements in Twenty-First-Century Chile The legacies of the imposition of an orthodox neoliberal economic model under Pinochet’s authoritarian rule from 1973 to 1989, in combination with the rather constrained transition to and consolidation of democracy in Chile from 1990 to the present, are key factors in explaining the return to movement politics for Chileans from 2005 to the present. In addition to the more extreme forms of repression carried out under Pinochet, the increases in poverty and economic inequality and the privatization of health care, education, and other social services all persisted after his fall from power. This affected the savings, wealth, and well-being of many Chileans from the middle and lower classes. The oecd’s Broken Social Elevator study makes clear the limited social and economic opportunities available to lowincome Chileans. The calculations show that for an individual in the bottom 10 per cent to ascend to the level of the average Chilean, at their current rate of earning, it would take six generations (oecd 2018). Likewise, the Chilean National Institute of Statistics published an analysis of the income

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and expenditure levels of Chileans as they fall into quintiles. The calculations reveal that nearly four-fifths of Chileans, excluding those in the top 20 per cent income level, spend more than they earn. In other words, approximately 80 per cent of Chileans – from poor to upper-middle class – live in constant debt. These recent statistics provide empirical evidence of the economic precariousness of the lives of most Chileans, despite national economic growth and decreases in overall poverty and economic inequality. The majority are making it, but they cannot get out of debt, which over the long term takes a psychological as well as an economic toll. This stark reality is partly what was behind the mobilization of secondary school and university students and their families, out of which developed parallel and increased feminist demands and movements. Traditionally in Chile, private schools have provided the highest-quality education and entry to a top job in the private or public sector. With the dominance of the neoliberal model in the 1990s and 2000s, the number of private educational institutions boomed, with high costs but variable quality. Despite Chile’s success (in comparison with the rest of the region) at diversifying its economy and increasing the number of jobs in new sectors, such as communications and high technology, the wage structure does not meet the cost of living when high-cost debt is part of many people’s lives. Another explanation for the mobilization is the disappointment at the type of socialist action taken by the first socialist president since Allende, Ricardo Lagos, from 2000 to 2005. In contrast to the socialism of other Pink Tide leaders of the early 2000s – Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina – the socialism of Lagos was tepid at best (Dávila and Fuentes 2003). Although many on the left were disappointed with him, they still supported the Concertation, pinning their hopes on the idea that a female socialist president, with a military and medical background, could do better. Bachelet did manage to get key issues placed on the congressional agenda and to make key reforms to Pinochet’s Constitution (Fuentes 2010). Frustration, as well as hope that a political solution might be possible under Bachelet, served to increase the mobilization of students. Finally, the cultural factor of gender differences leading to unequal treatment within the movements led to feminist demands and actions. Many of the young women leaders who gained their political consciousness within

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the student movement gained their feminist consciousness from their awareness of the marginalization of girls and women within the movement, such as exclusion from decision making. Worse, they gained their feminist consciousness from sexual harassment by their peers, or by those outside the movements (Torres Cautivo 2018).8 In an interview, Camila Vallejo, who had been president of the Student Federation of the University of Chile at the height of the protests, spoke of the challenges she had to overcome with her male counterparts in order to be successful (Torres Cautivo 2018). Camila Rojas, who was elected to Congress as a member of the new Frente Amplio (Broad Front) in the 2017 elections, echoed Vallejo’s testimony that fighting for gender equality became intertwined with the demands that she and others had been making within the movement and were making now as members of the new coalition party. For example, they were no longer striking only for fairer university tuition but also for sexual-harassmentfree education. Many rising female leaders, such as members of Vallejos’s and Rojas’s generation, while unhappy with Bachelet’s responses to their demands, their sharing of a gender identity with the person wielding the most power in the country, la presidenta, inspired them to step up. They took on leadership positions, ran for and were elected to Congress, and continued to fight for economic, political, and gender equality, even when patriarchal pressures weighed heavily upon them. The next sections narrow the focus to actions taken by social and feminist movements over the last eighteen years, to their allies and adversaries among the political elites, and to policy outcomes.

Feminist Movements and Policy Outcomes The degree to which feminist movements and their actions over time have influenced public policies has long been a subject of debate among scholars of women and politics, democratization, and social movements (Baldez 2002; Borzutzky and Weeks 2010; Haas 2010; Oppenheim 2007; Htun 2003; Jaquette 2009; Rios Tobar 2009) and continues to be investigated (Carrasco-Hidalgo and Olivares 2018).

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Lagos, 2000–06: Reproductive Rights, Divorce, and Education The decision of the Concertation to run a socialist candidate for president, Ricardo Lagos, in 1999 resulted in the opening up of more political space. During Lagos’s first year in office feminists were able to support several of his proposals that were passed into law. One of these was a requirement that schools allow pregnant students to stay in school. Another addressed the inequities in the treatment of low-income people with hiv/aids, ordering fairer treatment and the allocation of resources to geographically appropriate health centres. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, most advocates for feminist issues had demobilized, and ngo and institutional strategies predominated (Rios Tobar, Godoy Catalán, and Guerrero Caviedes 2004; Schild 1998). However, some feminist groups were still active and, owing to the movement’s lack of strength, were seeking ways to form alliances with others having common interests. One of these groups was Grupo Iniciativa (Initiative Group), a network of eleven women’s organizations. It fostered alliances with reformist politicians and lawyers who may not have identified as feminist but who had an interest in the modernization and legalization of divorce. The group took up a proposal that had been presented to Congress by the Christian Democrats in 1997. Public opinion was widely in favour of legalization because the lack of divorce as a state option was a deterrent to marriage. Divorce was “offered” only via annulment in the Catholic Church, and to conservative Catholics it still carried the weight of being a sin. This left many women and children who had been born to unmarried couples without legal recourse for financial support from the father should the couple separate. Although the Catholic Church was opposed to divorce, the alignment of feminists, lawyers, some politicians, and key Christian Democrat leaders and a final push by Lagos led to the legalization of divorce in 2004 (Blofield 2006, 116–17; Htun 2003, 102–12). Until the recent wave of feminist protest in Chile, twenty-first-century social activism in the country related mostly to issues around students and their funders (families) in the education sector. Beginning in 2005, the last year of the Lagos administration, masses of students protested the rising cost of university education and the privatization of professional and technical schools, which in many cases were profiting from tuition while offering

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low-quality programs (Palacio-Valladares 2016). Street protests demanding good-quality, free education were led by middle school and high school students, creating a new generation of (sometimes radicalized) political leaders. As a large number of the protesters wore their school uniforms, many of which are black and white, they were dubbed los pinguinos (the penguins). The significance of this for feminist movements was that, as with the Latin American human rights and democratization movements of the 1970s and 1980s, girls and women were prominent leaders and actors in the education movement. They were becoming acquainted with the political process along the way, building their own areas of contention and coming to understand issues of sexual harassment, shared leadership, and state repression from their own experiences. Some of these young female leaders became active in political parties early on, with a number running successfully for Congress or the Senate. One of these leaders was Camila Vallejo. She participated in the secondary school movement in Santiago, then rose, at the university level, to become the leader of the Confederation of Chilean Students (Confederación de los Estudiantes de Chile) in 2010. Vallejo was only the second woman to be elected president of this highly regarded student organization in its 105-year history. Her background in a family steeped in radical politics, as members of the Communist Party of Chile, fuelled her interest in working for improved public education and subsidized higher education, as was occurring in Cuba, Mexico, Scandinavian countries, and some other European countries. In the 2013 mid-term elections, the Communist Party chose Vallejo as its candidate, and she was elected to represent Santiago’s La Florida neighbourhood. She has since been re-elected and continues to serve. In a recent interview in a Chilean newspaper Vallejo was asked when she came to consider herself a feminist. She replied that it was when she became the leader of the student confederation and saw how she and her compañeras were treated by the press, other leaders, members of the organization, and particularly the machista parliament (Torres Cautivo 2018).

Bachelet, 2006–10: Gender Equality and Women’s Rights The election of Michelle Bachelet on 15 January 2006 cannot be overstated as a boost to the cause of feminists working outside of institutional politics

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in the twenty-first century. Bachelet’s socialist militancy over several decades; her personal understanding of familial loss (her father and her first spouse) owing to the dictatorship; her own torture, imprisonment, and exile; her agnosticism; and her status as a divorced mother of three all aligned her with many feminists and activists. In her first presidential address she outlined her plan for gender equity, and feminists knew they finally had an ally in the presidential palace. Shortly after Bachelet assumed office in March 2006, a second wave of student protests took place, demanding good-quality public education, via the renationalization or centralization of the education system in place of the privatized structures and systems privileged under President Pinochet. In Chile there is a wide breach in quality between public and private education, which essentially cements the class divide between those who can afford private education and those who cannot. For many, this divide represents the legacies of colonial, feudal, and Catholic rule in Chile because the working and lower classes have little choice but to send their children to the poor-quality public schools in their communities (particularly in the outlying poblaciónes, or low-income urban neighbourhoods, or remote, rural, and primarily Indigenous areas). For the aspiring middle class, families go deep into debt or compete for limited scholarships to get their children into private, mostly Catholic schools alongside their upper-class peers (Donoso 2013; Kubal 2010). The movement grew under Bachelet. A complication of the series of protests during Bachelet’s presidency was that the students’ high ideals and variable expectations from one protest to the next made it virtually impossible for Bachelet to meet their demands – let alone manage the vast opposition to their demands. Ultimately, this led to disconnects between Bachelet and her party, and between her and many in the movements, who were just reaching voting age in 2010. This divide, in combination with a weak candidate from the Concertation old guard in 2009 and a number of young dynamic candidates on the left forming new parties (without good alliance-building capabilities), led to the loss of the presidency to the right in 2010 for the first time since the end of Pinochet’s rule in 1990. That said, in terms of feminist policy outcomes, feminists inside the Cabinet, Congress, and La Moneda worked intensively with many citizens’ organizations to frame and reframe proposals (Corporación Humanas 2010;

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Haas 2010; Stevenson 2012; Valdés 2010; Waylen 2016). They crafted changes through the Department of Health for mothers and infants, through the Department of Labour for working women, and through the Supreme Court to legalize emergency contraception, as well as through the usual legislative channels. The primary successes were the passage of an initial equal-pay-for-equal-work law, strengthening of the sexual-harassment law passed under Lagos, and legalization of emergency contraception for all Chilean women, despite opposition by Catholic groups and the Vatican.

Piñera, 2010–14: Backlash and Feminists Still Pushing Forward After twenty years of centre-left rule, frustration and alienation on the left and a well-funded organization on the right led to the victory of Sebastián Piñera in 2010. This in turn led to the resurgence of many social movements, including women’s and feminist groups, from 2010 to 2014. The second wave of feminist movements, starting in 2011, was made up of university students demanding reduced tuition or free higher education for those in most need. The student movement used increasingly intensive strategies to challenge the university authorities and the Piñera regime. At many universities student strikes resulted in suspended classes for weeks or months while administrators, government officials, and student leaders negotiated for education reform. The strikes were punctuated by huge marches and rallies, routinely dispersed by riot police using tear gas and guanacos or water cannons, with dozens arrested and detained, as had been the case for decades (during and after the dictatorship, even under Bachelet). The difference is that under democratically elected civilian leaders and the rule of law, systematic use of torture (and disappearances) on the general population has not re-emerged as a strategic part of the state’s social control system, as under Pinochet.9 This contrast in state-society relations – many of the young protesters in the most recent waves of activism have a family history of loss and protest – may be one of the factors emboldening protesters, particularly those with no direct personal experience of severe repression. They expect to be heard, respected, and heeded, or they will counter with wave after wave of protest via social media or, come the next elections, via the ballot box. The Bachelet regime, although more

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receptive to the protesters than the Piñera regime was, was unable to meet these demands. According to the World Economic Forum’s gender equality index, Chileans experienced a serious decline in gender equality between 2010 and 2013, falling from eighty-seventh to forty-sixth place in a world comparison (cited in Díaz-Romero 2017, 185).

Bachelet, 2014–18: Gender Quotas, Equal Pay for Equal Work, and Abortion With the election of Michelle Bachelet for a second term (2014–18),10 many were optimistic that progress on women’s rights would continue through executive and congressional convergence. A consistent demand of the movement has been for more female representation in decision making within organizations, businesses, political parties, and political leadership. Across the world one of the most impressive changes in institutional feminist policies has been the explosive growth of gender quotas in elections. There are now more than a hundred countries around the globe that have passed and are implementing some kind of quota to increase female representation in their systems (Krook 2009). After years of demands by feminist organizations and others (Ríos Tobar 2008), Chile passed its first national gender quota law in 2015. In the last decade there have been major changes to the former binomial electoral system, through constitutional reforms, turning Chile’s system into a mixed electoral system of singlemember district voting, with party-based proportional representation (pr). The new law forces political parties to allow female leaders to rise through the ranks and run for office. Depending on the percentage of votes obtained by each party in the pr part of the election, each party sends a percentage of their candidates to fill the pr seats in Congress. Under the quota law, at least 40 per cent of candidates must be women (Díaz-Romero 2017, 189). With pr and gender quotas implemented together for the first time, the percentages of women elected are the highest yet: 26.0 per cent in the Senate and 22.6 per cent in the Chamber. Camila Rojas is among those recently elected. She rose through the ranks of student organizations in 2006 and 2011 as a member of the Izquierda Autonoma (Autonomous

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Left) party and, through her leadership and affiliation with the new leftleaning coalition, Frente Amplio, was elected as a deputy via the pr path of the new gender quota law.11 For feminists, the most significant policy change has been in the area of reproductive rights. Near the end of Bachelet’s time in office, in August 2017, Congress and Bachelet were finally able to legalize abortion under three conditions: endangerment of the mother’s life, rape, and lack of viability of the fetus (Díaz-Romero 2017, 192). In addition to these feminist achievements, advances were made in the area of family violence. With the growth of the Ni Una Menos movement, however, minor adjustments to family law may not be enough. In the words of Dari Cristi, a feminist activist from Viña del Mar, much remains to be done – and this is where cultural and structural changes are key. Cristi pointed out that among those taking part in street protests in 2018 were a growing number of men who were supporting the idea of confronting gender violence. Many men have embraced a more egalitarian way of thinking about men and women as a result of workshops and through their experiences on the streets and in universities as part of the education movements over the seven years since the last wave of protests when Piñera took office in 2011.12 The key highlights from Piñera’s 2018–22 term are included in the start of this chapter.

Conclusions and Prospects for Feminist Movements in Chile Although progress was made for mainstream women’s rights from 2000 to 2014, and the first female and socialist president, Bachelet, was able to help feminists and lgbtq activists strategize to gain ground on the more controversial issues of abortion and equal marriage in her second term, the retaking of the reins of power by Piñera and his neoliberal coalition in Congress in 2018 rekindled the need for spectacular turnouts at marches and protests by feminist movements. This was evident in 2018 at the 8 March International Day for Women and other marches (Las Tesis 2019). However, the 2019 and 2020 mass protests have now revealed that the attempts to reverse feminist gains by Piñera and conservative forces, along with continued pressure on the majority of Chileans to accept increasing

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social burdens, were too much. The growing feminist movements over the last decade have been important building blocks in the national process calling for radical social change; they have been significant for the many women and increasing numbers of men participating in them, in addition to being models and testing grounds for the most effective protest strategies year by year. The sacrifices and the persistence of demands being made by the 2019–20 protest movements resulted in an unprecedented landslide vote in the October 2020 national referendum to create a new assembly and craft a new Chilean constitution. Although this process and the Constitution are not likely to be a panacea for all the ills of Chile’s machista and racist culture and elitist political power, they present an incredible opportunity for Chileans to start anew. Social conventions regarding race, class, and gender are in flux, and young political leaders – particularly feminist leaders – are learning how to strategize and build new coalitions with new and evolving alliances. These groups not only are addressing structural social, political, and economic issues, such as those around education and employment, but are concurrently fighting for women’s rights and gender equality. They are building on the legacies of women’s movements in Chile and around the globe. They are using new forms of symbolic and substantive power, learned from institutional women leaders such as Michelle Bachelet, to be heard as equals in a male-dominated political world and to attain their political goals. In sum, the Chilean feminist movements of the twenty-first century are growing, crafting new political approaches and new groups as they build on the hard-won achievements of their predecessors in fighting for gender equality, justice, and security.

notes The author is indebted to West Chester University for support of her sabbatical in which she conducted field research in Chile, and to Esteban Romero for his ongoing research and personal support in the completion of this chapter. 1 Persons were detained, were unable to be located in the system, and were suspected of being killed in a cover-up by the security forces – either the police or the military – making the arrests. 2 In the United States, similarly, approximately 725,000 women and men from

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across the country rallied in Washington on 21 January 2017, marching in support of women’s rights. It was the day after Donald Trump had been sworn into office, and the march was one of the largest since the Vietnam War protests of the 1970s (Chenoweth and Pressman 2017). Interview with congressional deputy-elect for the Broad Front coalition, 25 February 2018, in Philadelphia. Interview by author with Daria Cristi, member of feminist movement, in Valparaiso, Chile, 2018. For example, limited democracy is evident in there being only two viable political parties and tight control over the ranks within the parties and all the regulations around voter registration, elections, and the like. This is part of the ongoing #NiUnaMenos and #Cuéntalo campaigns (Latin American counterparts to the worldwide #MeToo movement). Interview by author with an official in the Department of Labour, Santiago. Interviews by author with Luzmenia Toro and María Melo, leaders of a health organization in La Pincoya, Huechuraba, in Santiago, Chile, 2010; and with Bernadita Valenzuela, leader of sernam, Santiago Chile, 2010. Interview with congressional deputy-elect, Camila Rojas, for the Broad Front coalition, 25 February 2018, in Philadelphia. One exception is the state’s ongoing contentious and at times repressive relations with the Mapuche people in south-central Chile. A recent example is the lack of adequate investigation and justice for some female political leaders, such as the Mapuche leader Macarena Valdés, who died in 2016. She led her community’s opposition to the construction of a hydroelectric dam on tribal land by a foreign company. She was found hanged in her own home, and the autopsy documented her death as suicide. Her family has reason to believe otherwise and has called for a full investigation, which has yet to take place (Bustos 2018; Sepúlveda Ruiz 2016). The Chilean Constitution prohibits consecutive re-election, but as Bachelet had an 83 per cent popularity rating after her first term, she was an extremely viable candidate for re-election. Interview with congressional deputy-elect for the Broad Front coalition, 25 February 2018, in Philadelphia. Interview by author with Daria Cristi, member of feminist movement, in Valparaiso, Chile, 2018.

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biblio g r aphy Alvarez, Sonia E. 1998. “Feminismos latinoamericanos.” Estudos Feministas 6, no. 2: 265–84. Amorós, Celia. 2000. Feminismo y filosofía. Madrid: Sintesis. Baldez, L. 2002. Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile. New York: Cambridge University Press. Berretta Navarrete, Nicole. 2020. “Vocera de Rede de Mujeres Mapuche: Legislar los escaños reservados es lo que debía ser, pero no lo que merecíamos.” Interview with Jessica Cayupi Llancaleo, lawyer and spokesperson for the Mapuche Women’s Network (Red de Mujeres Mapuches), 21 December. Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nacion. 2005. Ley 20.005: Tipifica y Sanciona el Acoso Sexual. https://www.leychile.cl. – 2020a. Ley 21216. https://www.bcn.cl. – 2020b. Proceso Constituyente: Plebiscito 2020. https://www.bcn.cl. Blofield, M. 2006. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Routledge. Bustos, Andrea. 2018. “A dos años de su muerte aún no hay justicia para Macarena Valdés.” Piensa Chile: Tu Ventana Libre. 19 August. http://piensachile.com. Carrasco-Hidalgo, Camila, and Alejandro Olivares. 2018. “Movimientos sociales y políticas públicas en Chile: Análisis sobre movimiento estudiantil 2011 y el movimiento No+afp.” Paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association, Barcelona, Spain, 28 May. cepalstat. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (eclac). 2018. “Databases and Statistical Publications.” http://estadisticas.cepal.org Chenoweth, Erica, and Jeremy Pressman. 2017. “Women’s March Attendance – Largest U.S. Protests in History.” Washington Post, 7 February 2017. Chuchryk, Patricia M. 1989. “From Dictatorship to Democracy.” In The Women’s Movement in Latin America: Participation and Democracy, edited by J.S. Jaquette, 65–107. Boulder, co: Westview Press. Corporación Humanas. 2010. Observatorio Parlamentario: Balance al Poder Legislativo Periodo 2006–2009. Santiago, Chile: Corporación Humanas. – 2018. xii Encuesta nacional: Percepciones de las mujeres sobre su situación y condiciones de vida en Chile 2017. Santiago, Chile: Centro Regional de Derechos Humanos y Justicia de Género. http://www.humanas.cl.

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Dávila, Mireya A., and Claudio Fuentes S. 2003. Promesas de cambio: Izquierda y derecha en el Chile contemporáneo. Santiago, Chile: flacso-Chile and Editorial Universitaria, sa. – 2017. “En la recta final: Bachelet, la agenda de género y sostenibilidad.” Barómetro de politica y equidad: Bachelet ii; El difícil camino hacia un Estado democrático social de derechos 13, no. 10: 185–203. Santiago, Chile: sur. Delgado, Felipe. 2019. “Multitudinaria e histórica marcha por el Día de la Mujer en la capital: se replicó en todo el país.” Radio BioBio. https://www.bio biochile.cl. Del Valle, Silvana. 2018. “Comunicado: Organizaciones de mujeres rechazan la firma del tpp-11 y consideran una burla que sea firmado el Día Internacional de la Mujer.” Chilean Women’s Network. 2 March 2018. Donoso, Sofía. 2016. “When Social Movements Become a Democratizing Force: The Political Impact of the Student Movement in Chile.” Protest, Social Movements and Global Democracy since 2011: New Perspectives, 167–96. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, vol. 39. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163786X20160000039008. Durán, Gonzalo, and Marco Kremerman. 2019. Los verdaderos sueldos de Chile: Panorama actual del valor de la fuerza del trabajo usando la encuesta suplementaria de ingresos (esi 2019). Santiago, Chile: Fundación Sol. Fernández Ramil, María de los Ángeles. 2007. Bienvenida, paridad. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Cuarto Propio. Follegati, Luna. 2018. “Feminismo: Historia y movimiento; Perspectivas para un debate desde la experiencia chilena.” Unpublished paper. Franceschet, Susan. 2005. Women and Politics in Chile. Boulder, co: Lynne Rienner. Fuentes, Claudio. 2010. En nombre del pueblo: Debate sobre el cambio constitucional en Chile. Santiago, Chile: Heinrich Böll Stiftung–Cono Sur and Universidad Diego Portales. Gideon, Jasmine, and G. Alvarez Minte. 2016. “Institutional Constrains to Engendering the Health Sector in Bachelet’s Chile.” In Gender, Institutions, and Change in Bachelet’s Chile, edited by Georgina Waylen, 147–70. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Haas, Liesl. 2010. Feminist Policymaking in Chile. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Htun, Mala. 2003. Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under

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Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Jaquette, Jane S., ed. 1989. The Women’s Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy. Boston: Unwin Hyman. – 2009. Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Keck, Margaret E., and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press. Krook, Mona Lena. 2009. Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide. New York: Oxford University Press. Kubal, Mary, and Eloy Fisher. 2016. “The Politics of Student Protest and Education Reform in Chile: Challenging the Neoliberal State.” The Latin Americanist 60, no. 2: 217–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/tla.12075. Las Tesis. 2019. Un violador en tu camino. Group performance, 26 November. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB7r6hdo3W4. McAdam, Doug. 1996. “Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions.” In Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, edited by Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, 23–40. New York: Cambridge University Press. Millaman, Rosamel. 2018. “The Mapuche and ‘El Compañero Allende’: A Legacy of Social Justice, Historical Contradictions, and Cultural Debates”. In The Routledge History of Latin American Culture, edited by Carlos Manuel Salomon, 204–14. New York: Routledge. Montecinos, Verónica. 2001. “Feminists and Technocrats in the Democratization of Latin America.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 15, no. 1: 175–99. oecd (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2018. A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility. https://www.oecd.org. Oppenheim, Lois Hecht. 2007. Politics in Chile: Socialism, Authoritarianism, and Market Democracy. 3rd ed. Boulder, co: West View Press Palacios-Valladares, Indira. 2016. “Internal Movement Transformation and the Diffusion of Student Protest in Chile.” Journal of Latin American Studies 49: 579–607. Poblete Poblete, Olga. 1993. Una mujer, Elena Caffarena. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Cuarto Propio.

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Power, Margaret. 2002. Right-Wing Women in Chile: Feminine Power and the Struggle against Allende, 1964–1973. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Richards, Patricia. 2004. Pobladoras, Indigenas, and the State: Conflicts over Women’s Rights in Chile. New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press. – 2013. Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights. Pittsburgh, pa: University of Pittsburgh Press. Ríos Tobar, Marcela. 2008. Mujer y política: El impacto de las cuotas de género en América Latina. Santiago, Chile: flacso-Chile. – 2009. “Feminist Politics in Contemporary Chile: From the Democratic Transition to Bachelet.” In Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America, edited by J.S. Jaquette, 21–44. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Ríos Tobar, Marcela, Lorena Godoy Catalán, and Elizabeth Guerrero Caviedes. 2004. ¿Un nuevo silencio feminista? La transformación de un movimiento social en el Chile posdictadura. Santiago, Chile: cem, Editorial Cuarto Propio. Schild, Veronica. 1998. “New Subjects of Rights? Women’s Movements and the Construction of Citizenship in the ‘New Democracies.’” In Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures: Re-Visioning Latin American Social Movements, edited by Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelyn Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar, 93–117. Boulder, co: Westview Press. – 2018. “Workshop on Feminisms in Latin America.” Latin American Studies Association Conference, Barcelona, Spain, 23 May. Sepúlveda Ruiz, Lucía. 2016. “Macarena Valdés: Justicia sin discriminación.” América Latina en Movimiento, 21 November 2016. http://piensachile.com. Sisma Mujer. 2017. “Comportamiento de Las Violencias Contra Las Mujeres Durante 2016.” Boletín No. 13. La Erradicación de Las Violencias Contra Las Mujeres: Una Tarea Inaplazable En La Construcción de La Paz. https://www.colectivodeabogados.org. Staab, Silke. 2016. “Opportunities and Constraints on Gender-Egalitarian Policy Change: Michelle Bachelet’s Social Protection Agenda.” In Gender, Institutions, and Change in Bachelet’s Chile, edited by Georgina Waylen, 121–46. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Stevenson, Linda S. 2012. “The Bachelet Effect on Gender-Equity Policies.” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 4: 129–44. Tarrow, Sidney. 1996. “States and Opportunities: The Political Structuring of Social Movements.” In Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political

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Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, edited by Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, 41–61. New York: Cambridge University Press. – 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2nd ed. London: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, Verta. 1989. “Continuity in Social Movements: The Women’s Movement Abeyance.” American Sociological Review 54, no. 5: 761–75. Thomas, Gwynn. 2018. “Working within a Gendered Political Consensus: Uneven Progress on Gender and Sexuality Rights in Chile.” In Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide, edited by Elisabeth Jay Friedman, 115–43. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Torres Cautivo, Ximena. 2018. “Reportajes y entrevistas: Camila Vallejo; Feliz habria protestado pechugas al aire.” La Tercera, 9 June 2018. http://www.paula.cl. United Nations. 2020. Observances: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. 25 November. https://www.un.org/en/observances/ending-violence-against-women-day. Valdes, T. 2010. ¿Genero en el poder?: El Chile de Michelle Bachelet. Santiago, Chile: cedem. Vergara, Eva. 2018. “A ‘Me Too’ Movement Shakes Chilean Universities.” Associated Press News, 29 June. https://www.apnews.com. Waylen, G. 2016. Gender, Institutions and Change in Bachelet’s Chile. London: Palgrave Macmillan. World Bank. 2018. “gdp per Capita, ppp (Constant International $): World Bank International Comparison Program database.” https://data.worldbank.org. – 2020. “Gini Index.” https://data.worldbank.org.

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In Uruguay, Revolution Re-imagined: Liberty, Equality, Sorority inés m. pousadela

“The feminist movement has carried out the most important and least bloody revolution of the past 200 years,” a long-time Uruguayan women’s rights activist and academic recently stated. As a result of this revolution, eyes have been opened, minds have been changed, and the unseen – be it femicide or unpaid work – has become visible.1 For many decades, however, the tireless but often quiet work done to recast women as fully human – by reconceptualizing women’s rights as human rights and turning their attainment into a legitimate object of public policy – remained restricted to small groups of committed activists. Only recently did the situation change, and it did so to the point where, in the words of the same woman, “today, feminist demands are the ones bringing the most people out into the streets” in Uruguay – a hopeful development given that “this battle will be won only if it becomes a mass movement.”2 To analyze how and why this change occurred and what it means for the future, this chapter focuses on the origins, composition, and agenda of the contemporary Uruguayan women’s movement, the transformations it has undergone, and the tactics, alliances, and conflicts that operate within it. The first sections provide a compressed chronology of the movement from its beginnings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They highlight the transformations undergone by the movement as the country transitioned to democracy in the mid-1980s and the movement was faced with the issue of how to relate to the state as the leftist Frente Amplio party came to power, first in the country’s largest city (the capital, Montevideo)

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in the early 1990s and then at the level of the presidency in the mid-2000s. Sections are devoted to the work carried out by the Uruguayan women’s movement relating to each of the “debts of democracy” that it subsequently established as items on the agenda: political representation; sexual and reproductive rights, including legal abortion; glass ceilings, wage gaps, and unpaid work; and gender-based violence. The movement’s progressive institutionalization is examined in a section on the simultaneous and mutually reinforcing processes that, particularly from the 1990s onward, unfolded at the global, regional, and national levels. One section focuses on the re-emergence of a strand of feminism that is critical of the taming effects of women’s involvement in state agencies and the United Nations, including funding, and that is largely responsible for the generational renewal and unprecedented presence of feminism in Uruguayan streets and everyday life. The concluding section discusses the productivity stemming from these contradictions, the vitality brought by the diversification of the women’s movement, and the opportunities that lie ahead. The analysis presented here is based on both primary and secondary sources. The historical account uses information gleaned from academic publications and reports issued by government agencies and civil society organizations (csos). More recent processes were traced using data from the websites of newspapers, magazines, and radio stations; the websites and Facebook profiles of organizations and campaigns; and their publications, brochures, declarations, videos, and photos. In addition, the protagonists’ discourse was compiled from press sources and in-depth interviews and informal conversations with leaders and activists of the Uruguayan women’s movement, including participants in the 2017 and 2018 Women’s Day (8 March) demonstrations.

The Uruguayan Women’s Movement prior to 1980 The earliest recorded women’s organizations in Uruguay were the Philanthropic Society of Oriental Ladies (1843), formed in reaction to a series of armed conflicts known in the country as the Great War, and Ateneo de la Mujer (1884), promoting education as a means of emancipation. The Association of Catholic Women was also founded in 1884, and other faith-

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based organizations appeared in the decades that followed. Several of these organizations focused on countering the advances of secularism, crusading against civil marriage, divorce, and the removal of crucifixes from public hospitals, among other causes (Osta 2008). In the 1880s, Uruguayan women began taking part in workers’ and anarchist movements; the women’s section of the Montevideo Federation of the International Workers’ Association was established in 1881. Founded in the early 1900s, the first modern women’s rights organizations were female workers’ organizations demanding equal pay for equal work and feminist groups of middle-class, educated women demanding the right to vote (Lavrin 1995; Lissidini 1996). Legally, the status of women in the early twentieth century, as enshrined in the 1868 Civil Code, was similar to that of minors and incapacitated persons, being under the guardianship of a father or husband. According to Lavrin (1995), Uruguayan feminists emerged on the national scene relatively late – in the mid-1920s – partly due to the lack of a good educational base, but were “among the most outspoken feminists in the Southern Cone” (321). Social reforms undertaken by the two liberal, modernizing Jorge Batlle administrations (1903–07 and 1911–15) improved the situation of women and provided the newly organized feminists with the congressional help they needed to bring about legislative changes. The first divorce law was passed in 1907, and the first Uruguayan feminist group was formed in 1911. Much legislative progress was made in terms of women’s education and working conditions. In 1916 the National Council of Women was created, giving rise to the Uruguayan Alliance for Female Suffrage, which until 1924 published a celebrated magazine called Acción femenina (Feminine action). These and other organizations instigated the irruption of women in public spaces in the 1920s and 1930s, with noteworthy mobilizations for political rights in 1929, for peace during the BolivianParaguayan war in 1932, and for the restoration of democratic freedoms in 1936 (Cassina de Nogara 1989). After almost two decades of organized feminist actions, a 1932 law allowed Uruguayan women to vote and to be voted into public office, making Uruguay the second country in the region to enshrine women’s suffrage. Far from a concession, this was the result of the convergence of a mature, articulate, public demand by the feminist movement and a receptive po-

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litical system imbued with liberal values – indeed, the suffrage bill was passed by an all-male Congress. The first female legislators – two representatives and two senators – were elected in 1942. In 1946, on the initiative of female legislators, a law was passed to recognize equal civil rights for men and women. As use of the birth control pill became widespread, the sexual revolution of the 1960s boosted women’s autonomy by dissociating sexuality from reproduction. At the same time, a process of feminization of university faculties and students began, and the women who took up these educational spaces soon played leading roles in a true cultural revolution, joining leftist parties and movements, including guerrilla organizations (Sapriza 2009). The 1970s also witnessed the mass entry of women into the labour market, which further disrupted traditionally assigned gender roles. Retrospectively, however, scholars view the 1960s and 1970s as characterized by feminist silence, given that “throughout the political spectrum, activism stemmed from a neutral conception of citizenship and the few feminist efforts went unnoticed among political scuffles” (Ruiz 2014, 77). Old-time feminist activists, who mostly come from the political left, also emphasize the retrospectively apparent (but at the time largely overlooked) tension between liberation struggles and the prevalence of gender stereotypes and women’s subordination within the male-dominated left.3 They note that it took decades for the left to modernize and embrace the gender agenda, which it continued to treat as a “secondary” issue at best and a “distraction” at worst. Under the dictatorship (1973–85), two different periods can be seen in terms of the levels of repression as well as the dynamism of civil society in general and women’s movements in particular. During the early years, until approximately 1978, women’s organizations maintained traditional structures, were scarcely visible, and focused on meeting social needs through cultural, sports, recreational, and welfare activities. Later, particularly around 1980 following a gradual process of political liberalization, new organizations began to emerge, focusing on meeting subsistence needs but also defending human rights against state terrorism (Barreiro and Cruz 1988). However, much of women’s activism still functioned from within traditional gender roles. Neighbourhood commissions and women’s groups (which were eventually coordinated into movements and networks)

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mushroomed and went on to open soup kitchens and barter clubs. At the same time, women increasingly took centre stage as mothers mobilized in search of their “disappeared” children, wives whose husbands were in prison stepped up to take care of their families, and female activists and former political prisoners began denouncing human rights abuses from exile. Not only did Uruguayan women experience exile and imprisonment alongside men, but many also suffered torture and rape and experienced maternity in jail (Sapriza 2009). Nevertheless, it took decades for the gender component of human rights abuses to be acknowledged, even by the feminist movement – which, as democracy was restored, tended to focus on generic, or non-gendered, human rights issues. As noted by Teresa Herrera, a pioneer in gender-based violence studies in Uruguay, “only men left prison as heroes … Women had fought alongside men and had it even worse than men while in jail. But the left was not alien to patriarchy … I can see this now but did not see it at the time. I myself was among those who welcomed men, but not women, back as heroes.”4 In fact, “impunity had no gender in Uruguay until women started retelling their memories of the dictatorship in the 21st century” (Ruiz 2014, 72). In 2011, decades after Uruguay ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (cedaw) and the Belém do Pará Convention, and with international precedents of sexual violence being conceptualized as a crime against humanity and therefore not subject to statutory limitations, twentyeight Uruguayan women who had been political prisoners filed a complaint against the state for sexual violence committed against them more than forty years earlier.

Democracy in the Country and in the Home Women’s anti-authoritarian struggles were not carried out in feminist terms; in fact – as noted by Lilián Abracinskas, a sexual and reproductive health activist – most women’s organizations did not define themselves as feminist at the time of the transition to democracy: “The plemuu [Women Plenary of Uruguay] would not have described itself as feminist. It even included the Liga de Amas de Casa [Housewives’ League] among

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its members, and its founder repeatedly made it explicit that she was not a feminist … Feminists were stigmatized as ugly bra-burning lesbians, antimen and anti-baby – the full stereotype.”5 As democracy was restored, however, there appeared an inescapable discrepancy, with democratic rule in the country and a lack of democracy within the household. It soon became clear that democratization was, in the words of Abracinskas, “a restoration … of pre-dictatorship institutions.” As “feminism – free sexuality, the vindication of pleasure – was very transgressive,” no progress for women would result from a return to the past.6 In other words, democracy in the home would not follow automatically from the re-establishment of a democratic regime but needed to be built through a struggle aimed at “changing life itself.”7 Thus second-wave feminism, and its politicization of the private-personal, arrived in the aftermath of political democratization. The women’s movement soon reacted against the prospects of a genderblind transition to democracy. Women did not initially secure a seat on the National Programmatic Concertation, the multi-stakeholder forum meant to engineer this transition. There was no awareness of the dictatorship’s differential impact on women, and it took a great deal of pressure before a forum on the condition of women was held. Soon afterwards, the women’s movement gathered new momentum around the issue of impunity regarding the human rights violations committed under the dictatorship. In 1987 the Plenary of Mothers and Relatives of Defendants under Military Jurisdiction led a campaign to force a referendum on the Expiration Law (Ley de Caducidad), which exempted those responsible for such violations from prosecution. That year, twenty-four women’s organizations, most of which had been in existence for only a few years, were surveyed across the country. They included not only serviceoriented and popular-economy organizations but also research institutes, professional associations, and women’s groups within unions and political parties (Barreiro and Cruz 1988). Another survey, by ciedur (1986), identified thirty-seven groups in Montevideo, twenty-six of which had been founded in the 1980s. Notably, while four out of the five organizations founded prior to 1960 were faith-based, none of those dating from the 1980s were religious in nature. Still, most activists advocating for improvements in the condition of women did not yet define themselves as feminist.8

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In the years that followed, other organizations and networks were established. A survey conducted in 1991 identified almost one hundred women’s organizations, from grassroots groups to umbrella associations,9 now existing alongside newly formed “sexual diversity” organizations, which were to become their natural allies in the struggle for the enshrinement of sexual and reproductive rights within the framework of human rights. The most recent civil society mapping available counts 127 organizations in the “diversity and gender” category, of which 73 are in the subcategory of women’s rights, 42 are focused on domestic and intra-family violence, 25 on Afro descendants, 17 on lgbt rights, and 10 on Indigenous Peoples.10 Viewed as a set of concentric circles, the Uruguayan landscape of women’s associational life includes a large number of organizations, many of which are centred on women’s rights; of these, a small but rapidly increasing number have adopted an explicit feminist perspective, based on the conceptualization of the subordinate status of women as oppression (Alvarez 1990).

Each Debt of Democracy an Agenda Item The transition to democracy did not imply any dramatic leap forward regarding the situation of women in Uruguay – even in terms of political representation. In fact, not a single woman was voted into office in the 1984 elections. Over the following decades the agenda of the women’s rights movement remained stable, encompassing barely a handful of highly interconnected issues. What changed the most over time was the relative salience of each agenda item, as causes progressed at an uneven pace. Underpinning all the main themes has been women’s status as fully autonomous human beings and therefore as subjects of rights. Given its connection to sexual pleasure, abortion was the issue that most clearly showed the existence of a “culture war” around women’s rights (Hunter 1994). However, autonomy – ownership of one’s own body, mind, abilities, and prospects – has been at the heart of all the issues at stake, from sexual and reproductive rights to the right to a life free of violence, the right to a balanced distribution of care tasks, the right to equal pay for equal work, and the right to be fairly represented where publicly binding decisions are made.

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Representation: From Quotas to Parity Despite the early achievement of women’s suffrage, Uruguay ranks very poorly both regionally and globally in terms of female political representation. No woman has ever been elected to the highest office, and no female mayor was elected until 2009.11 The first female legislators were elected in 1942, but for several decades women’s representation did not exceed 3 per cent. The restoration of democracy did not bring about instantaneous change. Although a special committee on the situation of women was created in the 1985 legislature, and women’s commissions were subsequently formed within the main political parties, no female legislator was elected to Congress in 1985–89, and the few who served as alternates did so for extremely short periods – of between ten days and one month. Despite slow quantitative change, however, networking and organizational progress did take place in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1992 the Network of Women Politicians was formed. That same year, the First National Meeting of Women in Political Positions was convened, and the Feminist Space organization started convening working groups on women’s labour rights, abortion rights, violence against women, and public policy reform. Finally, early in the 2000–05 legislature, the Women’s Bicameral Caucus was formed within Congress, bringing together women of all political stripes. Still, by 2005 the Uruguayan government had no female ministers, the proportion of women in the House of Representatives was still just 12 per cent, and only the Frente Amplio showed a continuously upward trend in female congressional representation (idea 2005; Johnson 2005). In 2009, with female legislative representation at 15 per cent, Uruguay was ranked by the Inter-parliamentary Union as the seventy-ninth of 136 countries, and the twelfth in Latin America (Chasquetti and Pérez 2012; Johnson and Pérez 2010). In the absence of a critical mass of female representation (Dahlerup 1988), which the literature sets at approximately 30 per cent, the leadership, or “critical actions” by individual legislators (Childs and Krook 2008, 2009), was key to pushing forward groundbreaking legislation, from the Women’s Civil Rights Act of 1946 to the decriminalization of abortion in 2012. Limited descriptive representation did not impede some degree of substantive

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representation – that is, the promotion of gender-sensitive legislation (undp 2015). For many years the women’s movement, both within and outside academia, gathered evidence, disseminated information, provided advice, and advocated for a quota system. An imperfect quota law was eventually passed in 2009, which applied immediately and indefinitely to party primaries but was meant for single use (in 2014) in general elections. In the run-up to these elections, Cotidiano Mujer, cns Mujeres, and Ciudadanas en Red ran a un-backed campaign featuring public figures, called “Poné tu cuota,” to raise awareness of the importance of women occupying decision-making positions.12 Given the minimalist application of the law by most parties and (for the House of Representatives) the use of double simultaneous vote in small districts, the increase in female representation was moderate overall and greater in the Senate (reaching 29 per cent versus 20 per cent in the House).13 Additionally, the quota law brought more diversity to Congress, as the first Afro-Uruguayan woman and two women under thirty were also elected. Its implementation at the sub-national level yielded mixed results (Pérez 2015a, 2015b). In the meantime, the goalposts had moved: parity had become the ultimate goal. In 2016 a bill was introduced to promote equal representation by alternating persons of different genders in party lists, but this initiative was not taken up. The second-best solution – an improved quota law aiming at roughly 30 per cent female representation – was also disregarded, and the new quota law, passed in October 2018, did not correct the defects of its predecessor but simply made its provisions permanent. An opinion poll showed 72 per cent support for a parity law and 73 per cent support for the inclusion of a woman on the presidential ticket, with 70 per cent of polled individuals stating that they would like to see a female president sometime in the next decade.14 In the run-up to the presidential elections scheduled for November 2019, the ruling coalition acknowledged the existence of a historic, massive social demand for gender equality that it felt compelled to address. Its internal gender programming unit urged for parity on the presidential ticket (a point around which internal consensus was lacking) and for gender to be at the centre of all of the next administration’s policies.15

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As the demand for parity spread, trade unions, a key component of the Uruguayan political landscape, did not escape scrutiny. In 2003 the union federation pit-cnt introduced a 30 per cent gender quota in management, training, and collective bargaining positions, which in practice was never met. In 2015 only nine of the forty-four pit-cnt board members were women. Only one woman had ever (in 2011) sat on its fifteen-member executive. Progress was made in 2018 when five women were elected to the executive – and yet women now barely exceeded 30 per cent, while comprising 45 per cent of the economically active population and 50 per cent of the membership of the federation. In the face of this representational deficit, women questioned the practices that, in unions as elsewhere, limited female participation, turned women into the “secretaries” of their male counterparts, and silenced women’s voices – from long, unscheduled meetings at inconvenient hours and the unavailability of child care, to the appropriation by men of words or ideas put forward by women.16

Sexual and Reproductive Rights: The Struggle for Legalized Abortion The legalization of abortion was under debate in Uruguay for over a quarter of a century. The matter was raised in the very first issue of the feminist magazine Cotidiano Mujer, published in 1985 (Celiberti 2018). Approximately a dozen decriminalization projects were subsequently drafted, although only a few were ever discussed in congressional committees, much less in the House or the Senate. Until the late 1980s, legal abortion was demanded almost exclusively by feminist organizations, which were not in a position to set the public agenda. The Coordination of Women, formed by thirteen feminist organizations, first issued a statement demanding legal abortion in 1989. The salience of the issue increased in the early 1990s, when the fifth Feminist Encounter of Latin America and the Caribbean (eflac) declared 28 September to be International Day for the Decriminalization of Abortion. As a result the topic eventually captured the attention of actors beyond the feminist movement, such as the Medical Union of Uruguay. Public debate intensified in the early 2000s, as an economic crisis steeply increased the number of high-risk clandestine abortions, which became a

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major cause of maternal mortality in the country’s main public maternity hospital. Two perspectives converged: the classic feminist discourse emphasizing the right of women to make decisions regarding their own bodies, placing abortion within the realm of civil rights; and the leftist discourse underscoring the social inequalities conditioning access to safe abortion, placing it within the framework of social rights. The pro-legalization movement synthesized the two perspectives by asserting the right of all women, including poor women, to decision-making autonomy and the state’s obligation to ensure access to this right. Success in bringing forward this argument resulted in a broad coalition that came to include the labour movement. Lilián Abracinskas recalled: I worked with union leaders to place abortion on their agenda … They believed that once class contradictions were overcome, all other contradictions would disappear. We had to show them that this was a separate issue … We argued that abortion affected working women – that as long as abortion remained clandestine, it would all depend on each person’s ability to pay … Having the trade union movement as an ally made all the difference, because, in the eyes of the leftist government, this turned our issue into a social demand rather than merely a bourgeois one. It is no secret that the traditional left viewed feminism as a pastime of bored bourgeois ladies. And the revolutionary left valued poor women because they would bear the children that the country (and the revolution) needed. That is why, in the 1970s, they rejected contraception.17 In 2002 the National Coordination of Organizations for the Defence of Reproductive Health was formed, encompassing women’s organizations and trade unions as well as neighbourhood, professional, human rights, youth, and sexual-diversity organizations, Afro-Uruguayan advocacy groups, and even some faith-based organizations such as Catholics for Choice. Later that year, for the first time ever, the House debated and passed an abortion legalization bill – which, although backed by public opinion, was rejected by the Senate a year and a half later in the midst of presidential elections marked by an intense counter-campaign led by the Catholic hierarchy.

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The climate of optimism after the 2004 victory of the left-leaning Frente Amplio did not last: even before taking office, President-Elect Tabaré Vázquez announced that, due to his personal convictions as a Catholic and as a medical doctor, he would veto any law decriminalizing abortion. Nevertheless, in mid-2006 Frente Amplio senators introduced a new decriminalization bill, which was passed by the Senate in late 2007 and by the House a year later. However, even intensive action by the women’s movement was unable to impede, or later overturn, the presidential veto of the bill’s articles legalizing abortion. A similar bill was introduced in September 2010, this time under the subsequent Frente Amplio administration of José Mujica, who had promised not to exercise his veto power against it. The process was extremely slow, but the Senate eventually passed the bill in December 2011. Once the bill was in the House, however, the Frente Amplio was unable to round up enough votes to turn it into law, leading to negotiations with other parties and eventually to the replacement of the legalization bill with a milder decriminalization initiative, which was eventually passed.18 Despite the efforts of the women’s movement to enshrine abortion as a right linked to the recognition of the autonomy of women and sovereignty over their own bodies, the new law imposed a number of conditions – which activists deemed excessive – on women who (within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy) chose to have an abortion, including consultation with an interdisciplinary team of specialists followed by a compulsory five-day “reflection period.” It also included a conscientious-objection clause for health professionals and an exemption from performing the procedure for institutions founded on ideas contrary to it. Moreover, it made the procedure available only to Uruguayan citizens or legal residents. Even before the president promulgated it, this watered-down version of what the social movement had demanded was met with revocation initiatives, which were strongly resisted and which eventually failed. However, more obstinate foci of resistance emerged around implementation of the law. Over the following years, women’s rights organizations closely monitored sexual and reproductive health services and pressed for effective access to abortion across the country, particularly in conservative areas where a majority of providers and practitioners claimed to object to the procedure.19 As pointed out by the director of Mujer y Salud en Uruguay (mysu),

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a monitoring organization, implementation is less epic and does not in itself require street mobilization; however, keeping up the movement remains important because the current abortion law “does not make us proud, and sooner or later it will have to be changed,” which will only happen as a result of constant pressure.20

Women’s Work: Underpaid and Unpaid Unpaid work is yet another “invisible” issue that the women’s movement consistently strives to make visible and to revalue. Research shows that Uruguayan women devote almost twice as much time as men (thirty-eight versus twenty 20 hours per week) to unpaid work – that is, to household chores and the care of children and sick, disabled, and elderly persons.21 Conversely, women dedicate less time to their careers and, as a result, often see their upward mobility compromised. Moreover, Uruguayan women are on average more qualified than men but often receive lower pay than men in similar positions.22 These issues resonated on Women’s Day 2018, when a ten-block-long march in Montevideo marked the end of a one-day strike organized under the slogan “If women strike, the world stops.” Again, this emphasis reflected a wider, regional trend toward expansion of the gender economic agenda, revitalized as a result of the convergence of various strands of feminist and women’s movements and other social movements, including the trade union movement (Rodríguez Gustá and Madera 2015). Since the restoration of democracy, women’s rights organizations, increasingly from a feminist economics standpoint, have questioned established power relations and their various workplace expressions, including job segregation, with women occupying typically “feminine” and therefore underpaid jobs, while facing glass ceilings and a double burden. Over time, their interpretation of the structural conditions and mechanisms holding women back have come to be shared by state institutions, in no small part because of the work of women in key institutional positions.23 While denouncing the status quo, women’s rights organizations have combined two issues: (1) the search for community-based solutions and the promotion of cultural change toward a balanced distribution of unpaid work; and (2) the demand that the state guarantee equal opportunities, ensure equal pay for equal work, improve the quality of employment, and im-

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plement a system for the care of dependent people.24 As a result of civil society efforts, usually in combination with the work of feminists in strategic political and administrative positions, various laws have been passed and implemented, including the 1989 Law of Equal Treatment and Opportunities in the Workplace (16.045), the 2007 Domestic Work Law (18.065), and the 2015 law introducing a National Comprehensive Care System (19.353), focused on the elderly, young children, and people with disabilities.25 More recently, the status of paid domestic workers became a prominent item on the agenda of the Feminist Articulation Marcosur, formed in 2000 by feminist organizations from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay (undp 2017, 29). In a groundbreaking move, in 2007 Uruguay regulated domestic work, which in much of the region is highly informal and subject to various levels of abuse. The new law granted domestic workers, who are overwhelmingly female (approximately 90 per cent), the same rights that other workers enjoyed for close to a century with respect to working conditions, remuneration, benefits, and collective bargaining. Law 19.353, passed in 2015, addresses the double burden faced by women through a model of responsibility for the care of dependants, shared among the family, the state, the community, and the market. If properly implemented and adequately funded, this law could result in a significant boost to the feminist agenda. Another category of (mostly female) workers who have mobilized to have their demands placed on the pit-cnt agenda, and have made gains, is sex workers. In 2012, Law 17.515 decriminalized sex work, granted sex workers access to health and social security benefits, set up a registry, and created agencies to monitor sanitary conditions and prevent sexual exploitation. However, as noted by one activist, while other workers are taken care of “integrally,” sex workers are cared for only “epidemiologically.” otras, a sex workers’ organization, therefore went on to demand regulations designed from a human rights perspective, including comprehensive health care, retirement plans, and professionalization and empowerment policies.26 In 2015 a bill guaranteeing wage equality between men and women was introduced in the Senate but was never put up for debate. Other initiatives were contemplated in 2017, but no further bills were submitted.

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However, having reached a critical mass of female representation in its executive and deliberative bodies, pit-cnt is increasingly raising issues that are at the core of the agenda of the women’s movement, such as wage gaps, labour-market-entry barriers, discriminatory hiring practices, and workplace harassment.27 Inequalities may well be smaller than they were in the past, but they have become more visible and – when measured against equality as the ultimate criterion of legitimacy – more intolerable than ever before, which is in itself a sign of the progress made by feminism in the cultural arena.

Gender-Based Violence As in the rest of the region, violence against women became a major agenda item in Uruguay in the early 1990s. The Uruguayan Network against Domestic and Sexual Violence, bringing together several organizations founded in the 1980s, dates from 1992. At the time, this phenomenon was invisible to policy-makers and therefore technically did not exist. The feminist activist and academic Teresa Herrera recalled: “In 1995 I conducted the first national study on the prevalence of domestic violence, commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank. When the idb told the Minister of Foreign Affairs that Uruguay’s citizen security program lacked a domestic violence [section], he [humoured them] and replied that these things didn’t really happen in Uruguay. It wasn’t just him, who in fact later acknowledged his mistake: there was a widespread … belief that domestic violence only happened elsewhere, in backward countries.”28 In the face of the state’s inaction, women’s rights organizations focused on providing shelter and assistance to victims while collecting evidence to press for legal changes and government action. They also articulated their strategies at the regional level; in fact, the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Network against Domestic and Sexual Violence, founded at the fifth Feminist Encounter held in Argentina, preceded the Uruguayan network by two years (Guerrero 2002). Not unlike in the cases of the aforementioned agenda items, change in this area was a result of double pressure: from above (international organizations and the global legal framework in the making) and from below (domestic social movements and their allies). Pressure from below, aimed

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at shedding light on a phenomenon that was deemed non-existent, took several forms. The first form was documentation: as the state did not acknowledge the existence of femicide, the body count was kept by a cso called Caminos.29 Reflection and theorizing ensued, and femicide eventually came to be understood as an extreme manifestation of the more readily accepted reality of women’s subordination and limited autonomy. The second form was mobilization: starting in 2006, long before the phenomenon of Women’s Day mass demonstrations, Women in Black (Mujeres de Negro) started marching in silence – a striking spectacle – every 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.30 In addition, since April 2007, Women in Black have been calling attention to gender-based violence by staging a thirty-minute silent performance outside Montevideo city hall on the first Thursday of every month. The third form taken by pressure from below was cultural change, spearheaded by the media allies of the women’s movement: having named and conceptualized the phenomenon of gender-based violence, the movement encouraged people to re-examine and question their own practices in order to de-normalize gender-based violence and render it unacceptable, while also broadening the concept, which eventually came to encompass its less obvious manifestations, including newly identified sexist micro-behaviours (micromachismos). csos such as El Paso also sought to broaden the agenda to encompass issues such as sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Since the mid-2010s, hand in hand with the resurgence of an autonomous strand of young feminist activism, all forms of violence against women, from symbolic to physical, have undergone a rapid process of reconceptualization. According to the director of the state agency InMujeres, during the run-up to passage of the 2017 law on gender-based violence, street harassment was frequently negated, minimized, and even ridiculed, though it was eventually encompassed in the law. Only a couple of years later, however, it was more widely acknowledged – and rejected – as a form of violence against women. The concept of gender-based violence now came to include verbal harassment, previously known as the more culturally acceptable catcalling (piropeo). Based on the recognition of the city as a gendered space that puts women at a disadvantage,31 campaigns such as Colectivo

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Catalejo’s “Harassment-Free” crusade were launched to de-naturalize “invisible” forms of violence, disseminate information, and encourage women to report harassment.32 Given that fear limits women’s appropriation of public spaces, efforts were made to rethink these issues from the standpoint of “feminist urbanism.” Notably, a campaign against street harassment was launched by the construction trade union, aimed at “making [men] understand that they need to respect women not because they could be their wives or sisters, but because they are subjects with rights.”33 Lastly, women’s rights organizations provided input and advocated for legal changes and, once laws were passed, worked with (and within) government agencies to ensure their proper implementation. The Uruguayan Network against Domestic and Sexual Violence and many of its member organizations played prominent roles in the processes leading to approval of the 1995 Citizen Security Law, introducing domestic violence into the Criminal Code; the 2002 Domestic Violence Law34 and subsequent development (and monitoring of the implementation) of the National Domestic Violence Plan; the 2009 Law on Sexual Harassment (Law 18.561), tackling sexual harassment in workplaces and schools; and the 2017 Gender-Based Violence Law. The 2017 law was preceded (by two months) by the introduction of femicide into the Criminal Code, albeit with modifications – such as the requirement of proof of a prior relationship between the victim and the perpetrator – that were severely criticized by the women’s movement.35 The ongoing cultural change becomes apparent when the 2002 and 2017 laws on gender-based violence are compared. Unlike the 2017 law, the 2002 law lacked a gender perspective, which may be the very reason it was passed. According to Herrera, “not even our presidents are yet clear about the causal relationship between the subordination of women and gender violence and femicide.” However, no journalist would now dare refer to “crimes of passion,” and the discourse of the women’s movement has penetrated through some layers of state institutions, as exemplified by a number of government programs aimed at empowering survivors of gender-based violence in various ways, including offering them training in traditionally male trades, based on the rationale that violence against women is the result of “an unequal distribution of power.”36

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Since the passage of the 2017 law, the Intersocial Feminista network has urged the government to properly fund its implementation.37 While demanding the services guaranteed by law, the autonomous feminist network Coordinadora de Feminismos also holds “feminist alerts” when news breaks of yet another femicide, and marches through the city centre under the rallying cry “If they touch one of us, they touch us all,” expressing their outrage when the justice system treats femicide as mere homicide, overlooking the fact that a gender-based crime has been committed.38

Movement Tactics and Institutionalization The repertoire of actions of the Uruguayan women’s movement includes broad alliances with feminists in political parties, representative bodies, state agencies, universities, unions, other social movements and the media; regional and global networking; advocacy within regional and global human rights forums; online and offline campaigning; research and dissemination; lobbying of elected representatives; provision of input for legislative debate and policy-making; gender mainstreaming and public policy monitoring; and street protest. This tool kit was developed in the course of a constant back and forth between the domestic and the global, often through regional intermediation – which is why its specific nature can be understood only by situating it within two simultaneous processes: Uruguay’s transition to and consolidation of democracy, and the global and regional emergence of women’s rights as human rights. Shortly after democracy was re-established, the building of a gender infrastructure was begun. In a system as party-centred as that in Uruguay, where unions also remain unusually strong, it was key that women within parties and unions formed internal women’s committees – which the leftleaning Frente Amplio did as early as 1983. The first democratically elected government set up the first Institute for Women in 1987, and Montevideo (in Frente Amplio hands as of 1990) became the first sub-national unit of government to create a women’s commission, with civil society, union, and party representation, in 1991.

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Cultural change was also spearheaded by the media. In 1988, La República de las Mujeres, a groundbreaking initiative of the La República newspaper, widened the audience for feminist discourse hitherto confined to the academic publications of feminist csos, most notably the Grupo de Estudios sobre la Condición de la Mujer (Group of studies on the condition of women) and Cotidiano Mujer.39 While these publications translated feminist issues into more accessible language, it was arguably radio and television journalists who eventually succeeded in reaching the masses.40 In the meantime a regional feminist movement developed during the eflacs of the 1980s and 1990s (Vargas 2015). The first of these feminist encounters was held in 1981, in the context of the Decade for Women (1975– 85) declared by the United Nations. However, Uruguayan feminists did not attend this meeting; their participation began with the third eflac, in 1985 (Celiberti 2018).41 By the fourth encounter, held two years later, a process of feminist appropriation of “the theory, language and methodology of human rights, serving to free ourselves from the region’s military dictatorships,” was underway (Facio 2011, 11). As subsequent editions of the eflac unfolded, this meeting became an increasingly relevant place for diverse – Indigenous, Afro, transgender – feminists to debate, reaffirm their positions, and eventually build bridges across their differences (Vargas 2017). At all the major un conferences of the early 1990s and their parallel ngo forums – focusing on the environment and development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), human rights (Vienna, 1993), and population and development (Cairo, 1994) – the women’s movement left its mark by “gendering the agenda” in a way that reframed global issues (Friedman 2003) and paved the way for women’s rights to be raised to the category of human rights, a process that culminated in the fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995). Following Beijing, which yielded a set of action points and listed areas of concern that became a major source of legitimacy for activists to back their domestic demands, the main stage shifted to national institutions; from then on, national women’s rights csos, including Uruguayan ones, focused on domesticating the Beijing platform. Regional spaces were not abandoned, however; they were kept alive through the building of networks and the organizing of meetings and joint publications and campaigns. Since the 1990s, one of the most far-reaching regional campaigns has consistently been held on 28 September to promote

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access to safe legal abortions (Shayne 2007). In 2000 the feminist network Marcosur was formed, which, soon afterwards, alongside many other national and regional organizations and networks, took part in the first World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre. Feminist dialogues became central to the feminist presence at the forum, which was otherwise viewed as reproducing gender hierarchies (Shayne 2007; Conway 2007). In Uruguay a wide and diverse women’s rights network, cns Mujeres (National Monitoring Commission: Women for Democracy, Equality and Citizenship), was formed in 1996, bringing together some sixty organizations to monitor legislative and policy progress toward the Beijing goals (Abracinskas 2010). Other groups, notably cladem – founded as the Uruguayan chapter of the Latin America and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights in 1998 and established as a domestic organization in 2001 – were formed to monitor state compliance with international commitments. During 2002–05 the municipal government of Montevideo implemented the city’s first Plan of Equal Opportunities and Rights between Women and Men, followed by a second such plan during 2007–10 (imm 2007). The national government in turn drafted its National Equal Opportunities and Rights Plan in early 2006, soon after the Frente Amplio had taken power. cns Mujeres produced its first gender-mainstreaming monitoring report in 2007 (cns Mujeres 2007). Both cns Mujeres and cladem submitted shadow reports to un bodies such as the cedaw Committee and the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (Hernández Valentini 2009). Although it would eventually cause a fracture in Latin American feminism, interaction with the un system was, according to Abracinskas, “incredibly productive, as it opened our minds to the importance of treaties and their use as tools to exert domestic pressure.”42 In contrast, street mobilization was quite limited. For most of the posttransition period the women’s movement was not a mass movement but, rather, a collection of activists and organizations able to summon a few hundred people at most and only around the most salient and divisive issues, such as abortion rights. Change – in limited doses – was achieved mostly in the institutional arena, notably state bodies and the un system, and to a lesser extent in the court of public opinion, but rarely in the streets.

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Gender Mainstreaming and the Re-emergence of Autonomous Feminism Strong links with a reformed leftist government and interaction with the global human rights system led to “ngo-ization” of the women’s movement and the rise of a few large “professionalized” organizations dedicated to “gender policy assessment, project execution, and social services delivery” (Alvarez 1999, 182). As “gender experts,” women’s rights csos were handed domestic and international consultancy and service contracts; as “surrogates for civil society,” they were included in all kinds of consultations in both domestic and international forums.43 As the transitional frenzy died down, democracy was consolidated, and Uruguay was categorized as a high-income country, international cooperation funds tended to dry up, and reliance on state contracts increased (Pousadela and Cruz 2016).44 As described by Abracinskas, “leftist governments sucked in the [women’s] movement and its discourse.”45 Some women’s rights csos became so enmeshed in state agencies that the line between civil society and the state became blurred. It proved difficult, and possibly pointless, for csos to reject the offer to provide the services for which they had long fought or to occupy spaces that the state opened to them in recognition of their activism. This was acknowledged by a member of the Afro-Uruguayan cso Mizangas who held a position in the Ministry of Social Development (Menéndez and Grabino 2014). Many csos increased their service function and tended to relegate advocacy work, while not abandoning it altogether. Those that remained centred on advocacy found their survival at risk and became more dependent than ever on increasingly unreliable international cooperation funds.46 At the same time, the migration of women’s rights advocates to the state bureaucracy strengthened the presence of “femocrats” (feminist bureaucrats), acting as key “internal change agents” (Sandler 2015) in setting or implementing gender-equality policies. Not surprisingly, the old opposition between “institutionalized” and “autonomous” feminists – particularly evident at some eflacs in the 1990s – flared up in Uruguay in the 2010s. Self-defined autonomous feminists decried the “buying off ” and “taming” of the women’s movement, pointing out that feminist bureaucrats could just as easily be changed by

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the bureaucracies that they claimed to be changing from within. They also referred to the mainstream women’s movement as “ngo feminism,” accusing it of abandoning real change in favour of “assistance-oriented band-aids.”47 Denouncing the “cooptation” of the movement’s leadership and the “appropriation” of its agenda, they proposed a shift in focus from public policy to coordination of the social movement within the “popular camp.” Seeing the feminist movement as too much at home in the un’s spider web of agencies, treatises, and conventions, they prided themselves on their reliance on self-organization and their links with unions and other social entities – rather than on state subsidies or international funding.48 Two broad networks were consolidated: the autonomous Coordination of Feminisms (Coordinadora de Feminismos) and the more institutional Intersocial Feminista.49 The autonomous strand of feminism re-emerged around the most salient issue in recent years, gender-based violence. A catalyst for this process was the Ni Una Menos movement, which was sparked in June 2015 in neighbouring Argentina out of sheer outrage at a wave of femicides, and then rapidly spread throughout the region (Pousadela 2016b). In 2017 and again in 2018, Women’s Day demonstrations in Montevideo were the largest ever recorded. Along with their huge numbers, what stood out was the large proportion of adolescents and youths among the demonstrators – the emergence of a new “feminist generation” (Whittier 1995) that had grown up in a relatively sheltered environment and seemed perplexed at having to fight for rights they thought were long secured as a result of the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers. Young autonomous feminists who are new to the struggle often verbalize a sense of having “awoken” through self-reflection and the denaturalization of subordination and oppression. They tend to value personal experience (and the “sharing” of it) over theory, feeling over knowledge, and communication among women over dialogue with state institutions (García 2018). According to a member of the organizing committee for Women’s Encounter of Uruguay, “each person undertakes [the struggle] in their own context, tackling the oppression that most affects them … We must build a feminism that listens and that considers all experiences to be valid.”50 In the words of a member of Mizangas, a Black feminist organization, “academic theorizing is important, but we attach greater importance to each

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individual’s experience in building knowledge … A lot can be built from each of our experiences, which has to do with self-esteem, with the violence suffered symbolically or explicitly” by specific groups (Menéndez and Grabino 2014, 27). Young feminists maintain close relations with the lgbti movement and value diversity and intersectionality, or the acknowledgment of the overlapping inequalities created by interlocking systems of power, to the detriment of society’s most marginalized. The mobilization of the new feminists, accompanied by a reconceptualization of violence as encompassing all of its various forms, from “manspreading” and “mansplaining” all the way to femicide, echoed the “daughters’ revolution” in Argentina.51 Hyperconnected, globalized, and social media–savvy, and therefore sensitive to the #MeToo phenomenon, these women re-appropriated the idea of politicizing the personal, emphasizing consent as the key to fostering more democratic interpersonal relations and overcoming rape culture. They also repurposed the concept of sorority, or solidarity among women; for them, as brilliantly put by a newspaper headline, feminism was simply “not being alone any more.”52 Usually self-defined as socialist and anti-capitalist in opposition to a mainstream feminism that they label as liberal or even neoliberal, autonomous feminists favour horizontal forms of organization – as seen at the 2017 Women’s Encounter – over the hierarchies that they believe institutional feminists have replicated as they have grown confortable within state apparatuses and international institutions. Communion is emphasized in the “feminist alert” protests against femicide, with practices such as group hugs (abrazo caracol) and the joint reading of proclamations. Older feminists seem pleasantly surprised by displays of female solidarity but appear to be more aware of its limitations, warning that “feminism is not a religion, and we are not all good people. All we have in common, after all, is the fact that we are all subordinated by the same system.”53

On Productive Contradictions and Other Conclusions Across the region, Uruguay being no exception, the feminist and women’s movements contributed not only to political democratization in the 1980s but also to the radicalization – deepening and broadening – of democracy

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in the years and decades that followed (Vargas 2015). However, at the turn of this century feminism was still embraced by a minority of Uruguayans – not eccentric, as it was seen to be in the 1980s, but not a mass movement either. As a result of patient activism, many feminist demands were no longer seen as extravagant but had become part of a widespread demand for policy changes. Street activism, however, had remained elusive – until a new generation of outspoken, transgressive feminists emerged. The forecast “post-feminist era” (Staggenborg and Taylor 2005) never materialized. Instead, feminism broke out of its bounds and became more pervasive than ever – shaping organizations, mushrooming within institutions and other social movements, and being embodied in collective identities. In the 2010s, young autonomous feminists burst onto the scene intent on yet again tackling the boundaries between the public and the private spheres, politicizing hitherto private experiences of subordination and oppression, and democratizing interpersonal relations. And they have done so noisily, by taking to the streets, alternately in mourning and in celebration. In this way they have drawn public attention to what feminists of all stripes, mainstream or otherwise, have long known: despite its early recognition of women’s civil and political rights and subsequent advances, Uruguay is no idyllic “land of rights.” Patriarchal culture remains alive and well in spite of legislative and policy progress.54 Biased representations of women persist in the media, and the socialization of boys and girls continues to be sexist.55 Judging by indicators of phenomena as disparate as wages and femicide, women are still seen as less valuable than men. Equality remains a goal to be achieved, albeit a somewhat nearer one, as the women’s movement has made tangible progress in terms of both the changing of attitudes and the fostering of a state response. Long-time feminists who persevered in inhospitable environments for decades give young feminists credit for the mass nature of today’s movement, and many of them welcome its increased diversity and renewed emphasis on feelings, experience, and community. “More and more women are calling themselves feminists in a way that really matters: feminism is something that is not learned but felt,” one old-guard feminist, Lilián Celiberti, has observed.56 “Feminism without a theoretical framework,” as it is characterized by several activists, is not necessarily seen as

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lacking. In fact, its flexibility to adapt and respond is increasingly viewed as one of its greatest assets, particularly at a time when anti-rights movements are gaining ground – an ironic by-product of the successes of the women’s movement.57 While autonomous feminists may be more welcoming of diversity – perhaps because it is easier to embrace diversity in the course of direct action than it is to give each one their fair share in the context of policy-making and policy implementation58 – institutional feminists have also redoubled their efforts to acknowledge and accommodate it. As Celiberti has put it, “each gives a different name to their feminism: ecofeminism, postcolonial feminism, transfeminism et cetera. This plurality of feminisms speaks of various oppressions and of subjectivities that are different … but not antagonistic.”59 Feminists of all stripes converge in the streets around emblematic dates such as 8 March, 28 May, and 28 September and engage in dialogue and sorority-building at various forums, including Feminist Debate Days (Jornadas de Debate Feminista), held annually in Uruguay, and the eflac, held regionally every two or three years. Disagreement persists, however, regarding the level and nature of appropriate relations with institutions. Abracinskas recalled that, when abortion was illegal, women’s groups ran alternative health-care centres and accompanied women having clandestine abortions, but they knew that their efforts were a drop in the ocean and that real change would come only through public policy because only the state can ensure the universality of rights; in the absence of its equalizing role, “only those with material and symbolic advantages will be emancipated, and the rest will be left behind.” Abracinskas also pointed out that expert knowledge is increasingly needed to hold the state accountable, as attested to by the experience of cns Mujeres; in this regard, too, autonomous feminists’ disproportionate emphasis on feeling over knowledge may fall short.60 Nevertheless, the gap is not unbridgeable. In their recognition of diversity, both sides often view one another’s tactics as a more or less welcome supplement to their own. These tactics, engaged in by those best suited to them, are seen as contributing to progress simultaneously on all fronts, with street pressure fostering legal and policy changes, and legislation and public policy enshrining hard-won rights and sustaining them over time.

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Whether the mass nature of the movement has come at the expense of depth is not yet clear, and, more importantly, it is not clear that it matters. “I can’t ask all women – or all men – to understand what a structural difference or gender order is,” said Teresa Herrera. “What I can ask them to do is understand that existing inequalities are the reason why we are getting killed.”61 In Uruguay, sensitivity to gender inequality as morally unjustifiable appears to be more widespread today than ever before. Of course, indignation over inequality does not automatically result in its elimination, but it is a first step if that is to happen. Feminism will have completed its work when it dissolves into common sense, that is, when we all, each and every one of us, are compelled to position ourselves regarding gender equality by responding to an inverted interrogation – not why we are feminists, as asked of our predecessors, but how we could possibly not be. In Uruguay we are halfway there.

notes 1 The strategy of rendering the invisible visible translated quite literally into an activist intervention against femicide, Invisible Bodies, which was announced on social media and enacted in a park in Montevideo in December 2018, with fifty women representing each of the victims of femicide over the previous year. “Cuerpos invisibles: Intervención feminista en Parque Rodó para reflexionar sobre los feminismos de 2018,” La Diaria, 2 January 2019, http://goo.gl/FPKTPK. 2 Teresa Herrera, interview by the author, 14 December 2018. 3 For an account of the historically contentious relationship between feminist movements and the left in Latin America see Friedman 2009a. 4 Teresa Herrera, interview by the author, 14 December 2018. 5 Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Following Sonia Alvarez (1990), I distinguish between feminist organizations (those seeking to advance strategic gender interests) and merely feminine ones (those formed by women to advance practical gender interests). 9 See Mujeres latinoamericanas en cifras, flacso, http://www3.eurosur.org/

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FLASCO/mujeres. See also anong and undp 1998; Barreiro, Bettoni and Cruz 1994; Barreiro and Cruz 1991; dgr and mec 1998; gadis 1996; icd 2000. These are not mutually exclusive categories, as there are many juxtapositions, particularly between the first two categories. See Mapeo de la sociedad civil, accessed December 2018, http://www.mapeosociedadcivil.uy. See “Intendentas: Sólo tres mujeres en la historia llegaron a dirigir los gobiernos departamentales,” La Diaria, 20 June 2018, http://goo.gl/hkDnPw. Campaign spots are available at http://goo.gl/FK9ndY. See ipu, http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm. Data from Opción Consultores, September–October 2018, in “Mujeres y participación política: Un cambio de escenario; Uruguay 2018,” UN Women, http://goo.gl/ZF88JH. “La brecha que sólo cierra la muerte,” La Diaria, 31 May 2018, http://goo.gl/ZM3SKd; “Paridad en la fórmula,” La Diaria, 4 June 2018, http://goo.gl/nMUKG1; “En el fa proponen impulsar ley de paridad,” La Diaria, 12 June 2018, http://goo.gl/TLVjDX; “No hay consenso en el fa sobre paridad en la fórmula,” La Diaria, 17 July 2018, http://goo.gl/XjNQhf. “Fernando Pereira ofreció su renuncia al pit-cnt para lograr 35% de mujeres en el próximo Secretariado Ejecutivo,” La Diaria, 7 May 2018, http://goo.gl/d31Sw7. See also Karina Rojas, interview in Hemisferio Izquierdo, 10 March 2017, http://goo.gl/eGuRjk. Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. For a full account of the process see Pousadela 2016a, 2016c. See mysu 2014; “A cinco años de la aplicación de la Ley de Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo,” La Diaria, 7 May 2018, http://goo.gl/XS9pQc. Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. See Búsqueda, “En un siglo las mujeres pasaron de pedir el voto y el derecho a trabajar a cuestionar las horas que dedican a tareas de cuidados,” 8 March 2018, http://goo.gl/Y31dDL. For statistics on unpaid and underpaid work in the health sector, both overwhelmingly carried out by women, see Batthyány, Genta, and Perrotta 2015. “Por cada tres pesos que ganan las mujeres en promedio, los hombres ganan cuatro,” La Diaria, 1 November 2018, http://goo.gl/Fxp23G. A document published recently by the budget office of the Executive Branch recognizes the following as among the factors hindering gender equality: lack of economic empowerment policies, discrimination in the labour market, deci-

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24 25

26

27 28 29 30 31

32

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sions on the use of goods and capital being made by men, and lack of coresponsibility in care duties (opp 2018). See “Economía feminista para cuestionar las relaciones de poder,” La Diaria, 5 September 2018, http://goo.gl/3AumhJ. As emphasized by Johnson, Rodríguez Gustá, and Sempol (2019), feminists in mid-level ministerial positions were key in responding to the demand by the women’s movement for a national comprehensive care system, an initiative that a comparative regional perspective views as “countercultural” in that it “attempted to alter the unequal gendered division of labor within households” (Friedman and Tabbush 2019, 23). See “Por una regulación integral del trabajo sexual,” La Diaria, 11 July 2018, http://goo.gl/mW3pXq; “Se realizó el primer seminario sobre prostitución y trabajo sexual en Uruguay,” La Diaria, 3 December 2018, http://goo.gl/wXqMZi; “Trabajadoras sexuales organizadas reclaman una atención integral en la salud,” La Diaria, 26 December 2018, http://goo.gl/cvCnGc. “Fernando Pereira ofreció su renuncia al pit-cnt para lograr 35% de mujeres en el próximo Secretariado Ejecutivo,” La Diaria, 7 May 2018, http://goo.gl/d31Sw7. Teresa Herrera, interview by the author, 14 December 2018. Once the government began to acknowledge the issue, it resorted to their data, as seen in Ministerio del Interior 2017. Declared at the first eflac (1981). This is obviously also the case in the workplace, where certain forms of genderbased discrimination and violence are widespread and the law that addresses them has not been fully implemented; however, workplace sexual harassment has not been given similar prominence on the agenda. See Espasandín and López 2018. See also “Acoso sexual laboral, una problemática pública,” La Diaria, 7 January 2019, http://goo.gl/frfKew. According to the data gathered by Colectivo Catalejo, 92 per cent of accusations were made by women and 93 per cent of the accused were men. See “No quiero tu piropo,” La Diaria, 5 November 2018, http://goo.gl/A8NjkM. “No solo los golpes dañan,” La Diaria, 7 November 2018, http://goo.gl/Q8QuR3. As pointed out by Friedman (2009b), the legal changes introduced in Uruguay in 1995 and 2002 were part of a regional trend that reflected the centrality of regional institutions in setting norms regarding violence against women – although the domestic institutionalization of these norms was obviously mediated by national contexts.

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35 El País, 3 October 2017. 36 Teresa Herrera, interview by the author, 14 December 2018; “Mujeres electricistas que rompen esquemas,” La Diaria, 1 October 2018, http://goo.gl/KVuYRV. 37 During a congressional committee meeting they pointed out that InMujeres currently provides services to victims of violence from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and only in Montevideo, while in the rest of the country services are available only two or three days a week for no more than four hours at a time. Ensuring full-time availability countrywide would cost US$10 million, an amount that currently cannot be found. See “Feministas también avisan que a la ley de género le faltan fondos,” El País, 22 July 2018, http://goo.gl/D1Uuzb; “La implementación de la ley integral de violencia basada en género desde la óptica del Estado y la sociedad civil,” La Diaria, 19 November 2019, http://goo.gl/A1sW5T. 38 “Justicia por Luna: Fallo judicial no tipificó femicidio,” La Diaria, 2 October 2018, http://goo.gl/7DB9hS. 39 “Porque hubo periodismo feminista,” La Diaria, 23 April 2018, http://goo.gl/cwv5zg. A similar effort is being made by La Diaria’s section on “Feminisms,” explicitly striving to make visible gender inequalities in every area, from the prison system to the armed forces, as well as the work of the Uruguayan women’s rights movement. 40 In the mid-2010s, the Network of Women Journalists was formed out of a Facebook group and went on to hold a national meeting. The movement went regional in 2016 with the establishment of the Americas Network of Journalists with a Gender Perspective. See “Más de cien mujeres periodistas de todo el país se reunieron para debatir, opinar y formarse,” cainfo, 29 June 2015, http://goo.gl/s724XF; “Crearon la Red de periodistas con visión de género de las Américas,” Nodal Cultura, 12 August 2016, http://goo.gl/jN1UYT. 41 Thirty-two years later a highly intersectional fourteenth eflac was held in Montevideo under the slogan “Diverse but not dispersed.” 42 Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. 43 Ibid. 44 For instance, Casa de la Mujer de la Unión, a women’s rights cso founded in the 1980s that currently provides professional training, education, assistance to victims of domestic violence, and sexual and reproductive health services, is funded through contracts and agreements with several federal agencies, including the National Institute of Children and Adolescents, National Administration

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50 51

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of Public Education, Public Health Ministry, Social Development Ministry, National Institute of Youth, Ministry of Education and Culture, National Institute of Employment and Professional Training, and National Board of Drugs, in addition to several local governments. According to the organization’s website, until the 1990s it was supported by various programs deployed by international ngos and intergovernmental organizations. See http://bit.ly/2Mle6vF. Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. Ibid. “Estado actual del feminismo en el Uruguay y cuáles son o deberían ser sus estrategias,” Hemisferio Izquierdo, 14 April 2017, http://goo.gl/BBbd9V. See, for instance, the interview with Karina Rojas from the autonomous organization Pan y Rosas, in Hemisferio Izquierdo, 10 March 2017, http://goo.gl/eGuRjk. The Coordination of Feminisms includes Amatistas, Decidoras Desobedientes, Encuentro de Feministas Diversas, Minervas, Paro Internacional de Mujeres (which started as an event but sought to become a movement), and Taller por la Liberación de la Mujer Célica Gómez. The Intersocial Feminista includes a number of established human rights organizations (e.g., Amnesty International–Uruguay and Proderechos), women’s rights organizations (e.g., Cotidiano Mujer and Mujeres en el Horno, which focuses on abortion rights, and Mujeres de Negro, Colectivo La Pitanga, and the Uruguayan Network against Domestic and Sexual violence, all of which focus on gender-based violence), lgbti organizations (e.g., Ovejas Negras), and Afro-Uruguayan organizations (e.g., Coordinadora Nacional Afrouruguaya and Diálogo Político de Mujeres Afrouruguayas), as well as the Youth Department and the Gender, Equity and Sexual Diversity Secretary of the union federation pit-cnt. Some important feminist organizations, such as mysu, do not participate in either space. “El diálogo de los feminismos forma parte de una nueva cultura política,” La Diaria, 6 August 2018, http://goo.gl/z1cySW. “Esta es la revolución de las hijas,” La Diaria, 13 August 2018, http://goo.gl/sCP1FR. The term the daughters’ revolution was coined by an Argentinian feminist journalist and is the title of her book on the newly acquired mass nature of feminism in Argentina and its dissemination throughout the region (Peker 2019). Diana Maffia, a sixty-five-year-old activist and academic from Argentina, went on to rebrand the development as “the granddaughters’ revolution,” pointing out that “this intergenerational aspect is the biggest novelty since 2015.” See “Diana Maffia: ‘Es distinto no desear que desear que no’” (interview), La Diaria, 8 June 2019, https://bit.ly/31t8958.

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52 “El feminismo es saberte nunca más sola,” La Diaria, 3 October 2018, http://goo.gl/TEuZZ3. 53 Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. 54 See Sapriza 2018; Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018; Lilián Celiberti, interview in tnu, 14 November 2017, http://goo.gl/2b1zoV. 55 See “La mujer como entretenimiento en las noticias,” La Diaria, 25 April 2018, http://goo.gl/tXgif6; “Los juguetes son un ensayo del futuro,” La Diaria, 27 August 2018. http://goo.gl/U22n11. 56 Lilián Celiberti, interview in tnu, 14 November 2017, http://goo.gl/2b1zoV. 57 At the global and regional levels, counter-movements decrying women’s rights and, more broadly, the “gender agenda,” sprang up as soon as the women’s movement began to gain ground – as early as the 1990s (Friedman 2003). 58 For one such celebration of diversity see the convocation text of the First Encounter of Uruguay’s Feminisms (Primer Encuentro de Feminismos de Uruguay), organized by autonomous feminists in 2014, https://www.facebook. com/pg/EncuentroFeminismosUy/notes. 59 Lilián Celiberti, interview in tnu, 14 November 2017, http://goo.gl/2b1zoV. 60 Lilián Abracinskas, interview by the author, 21 July 2018. 61 Teresa Herrera, interview by the author, 14 December 2018.

biblio g r aphy Abracinskas, Lilián. 2010. “Las organizaciones de mujeres en el nuevo espacio público.” In Avances y necesidades en el fortalecimiento d ela sociedad civil uruguaya, edited by Marcia Rivera, 86–94 . Montevideo, Uruguay: anong. Alvarez, Sonia. 1990. Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movements in Transition Politics. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press. – 1999. “Advocating Feminism: The Latin American Feminist ngo ‘Boom.’” International Feminist Journal of Politics 1, no. 2: 181–209. anong (Asociación Nacional de ong) and undp (United Nations Development Programme). 1998. Guía de organizaciones no gubernamentales orientadas al desarrollo del Uruguay – Afiliadas a la anong. Montevideo, Uruguay: anong. Barreiro, Fernando, Analía Bettoni, and Anabel Cruz. 1994. Organizaciones no gubernamentales de Uruguay – Instituciones del mercosur. Montevideo, Uruguay: Instituto de Comunicación y Desarrollo.

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Barreiro, Fernando, and Anabel Cruz. 1988. La dificultad de ser: Organizaciones no gubernamentales en el Uruguay de hoy; El desafío de la democracia. Montevideo, Uruguay: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria/ilet/icd. – 1991. Entre diversidades y desafíos: Organizaciones no gubernamentales de Uruguay; Análisis y repertorio. Montevideo, Uruguay: icd. Batthyány, Karina, Natalia Genta, and Valentina Perrotta. 2015. El aporte de las familias y las mujeres al cuidado no remunerado de la salud en el Uruguay. Asuntos de Género series 127. Santiago de Chile: cepal. Cassina de Nogara, Alba G. 1989. Las feministas. Montevideo, Uruguay: Instituto Nacional del Libro. Celiberti, Lilián. 2018. Notas para la Memoria Feminista: Uruguay 1983–1995. Montevideo, Uruguay: Cotidiano Mujer. Chasquetti, Daniel and Verónica Pérez. 2012. “¿Mujeres en los márgenes?: Sistema de comisiones y poder de asignación en el Parlamento uruguayo.” Revista de Ciencia Política, 32, no. 2: 383–409. Childs, Sarah, and Mona Lena Krook. 2008. “Critical Mass Theory and Women’s Political Representation.” Political Studies, 56: 725–36. – 2009. “Analysing Women’s Substantive Representation: From Critical Mass to Critical Actors.” Government and Opposition 44, no. 2: 125–45. ciedur (Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudio sobre el Desarrollo). 1986. Organizaciones y grupos de mujeres en Montevideo. Montevideo, Uruguay: ciedur. cns Mujeres. 2007. Ir a Más: Monitoreo de lo actuado por el Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres (Período 2005–2006). Montevideo, Uruguay: cns Mujeres. Conway, Janet. 2007. “Transnational Feminisms and the World Social Forum: Encounters and Transformations in Antiglobalization Spaces.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 8, no. 3: 49–70. Dahlerup, Drude. 1988. “From a Small to a Large Minority: Women in Scandinavian Politics. Scandinavian Political Studies 11, no. 2 (December): 275–98. dgr (Dirección General de Registros) and mec (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura). 1998. Las asociaciones civiles y fundaciones en el Uruguay: Primer relevamiento nacional. Montevideo, Uruguay: impo. Espasandín, Victoria, and Alejandra López. 2018. Acoso sexual en los ámbitos laboral y educativo: Aportes hacia una propuesta de intervención. Montevideo, Uruguay: Universidad de la República and csic. Facio, Alda. 2011. “Viena 1993, cuando las mujeres nos hicimos humanas.” Pensamiento Iberoamericano 9, no. 2: 3–20.

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Friedman, Elisabeth Jay. 2003. “Gendering the Agenda: The Impact of the Transnational Women’s Rights Movement at the un Conferences of the 1990s.” Women’s Studies International Forum 26, no. 4: 313–31. – 2009a. “Gender, Sexuality and the Latin American Left: Testing the Transformation.” Third World Quarterly 30, no. 2: 405–33. – 2009b “Re(gion)alizing Women’s Human Rights in Latin America.” Politics & Gender 5: 349–75. Friedman, Elisabeth Jay, and Constanza Tabbush. 2019. “Introduction: Contesting the Pink Tide.” In Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide, edited by Elisabeth Jay Friedman, 1–47. Durham, nc, and London: Duke University Press. gadis (Grupo de Análisis y Desarrollo Institucional y Social). 1996. Directorio de redes de ongs: Sociedad civil y Mercosur. Buenos Aires, Argentina: gadis. García, Daiana. 2018. “Esta es mi revolución.” Brecha, 9 March 2018. http://goo.gl/dYjAdM. Guerrero, Elisabeth. 2002. Violencia contra las mujeres en América Latina y el Caribe español 1990–2000: Balance de una década. Santiago de Chile: unifem lac/Isis Internacional. Hernández Valentini, Moriana. 2009. Los derechos de las mujeres uruguayas en clave feminista: Tres informes sombra ante Naciones Unidas. Montevideo, Uruguay: cladem. Hunter, James Davison. 1994. Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in America’s Culture War. New York: Free Press. icd (Instituto de Comunicación y Desarrollo). 2000. Con-fin solidario. Montevideo, Uruguay: icd. idea (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). 2005. Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. Rev. ed. Stockholm, Sweden: idea. imm (Intendencia Municipal de Montevideo). 2007. 2º Plan de Igualdad de Oportunidades y Derechos entre Mujeres y Varones (2007–2010). Montevideo, Uruguay: imm. Johnson, Niki. 2005. La política de la ausencia: Las elecciones uruguayas 2004/2005; Las mujeres y la equidad de género. Montevideo, Uruguay: cns Mujeres. Johnson, Niki, and Veróniza Pérez. 2010. Representación (s)electiva: Una mirada feminista a las elecciones uruguayas 2009. Montevideo, Uruguay: Cotidiano Mujer/unifem.

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Johnson, Niki, Ana Laura Rodríguez Gustá, and Diego Sempol. 2019. “Explaining Advances and Drawbacks in Women’s and lgbtiq Rights in Uruguay: Multisited Pressures, Political Resistance, and Structural Inertias.” In Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide, edited by Elisabeth Jay Friedman, 48–81. Durham, nc, and London: Duke University Press. Lavrin, Asunción. 1995. Women, Feminism, and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890–1940. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Lissidini, Alicia. 1996. “La ‘modernización’ de las mujeres: Una mirada al Uruguay del novecientos.” Revista de Ciencias Sociales 12: 112–17. Montevideo, Uruguay: Universidad de la República. Menéndez, Mariana, and Valeria Grabino. 2014. “Como cuentas de collar: Colectivos de mujeres y feminismos en Uruguay.” Contrapunto 5: 23–44. Ministerio del Interior. 2017. Femicidios íntimos en Uruguay: Homicidios de mujeres a manos de (ex) parejas. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ministerio del Interior. mysu (Mujer y Salud en Uruguay). 2014. Asegurar y avanzar sobre lo logrado: Estado de situación de la salud y los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en Uruguay. Monitoreo 2010–2014. Montevideo, Uruguay: mysu. opp (Oficina de Planeamiento y Presupuesto). 2018. Sistemas de género, igualdad y su impacto en el desarrollo de Uruguay: Escenarios prospectivos. Serie de Divulgación vi. Montevideo, Uruguay: opp. Osta, M. Laura. 2008. El sufragio: Una conquista femenina. Montevideo, Uruguay: Observatorio del Sur. Peker, Luciana. 2019. La revolución de las hijas. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paidós. Pérez, Verónica. 2015a. “Las mujeres en política en Uruguay: De la cuota a la paridad; Una reforma necesaria.” Policy Paper 5. Montevideo, Uruguay: Universidad Diego Portales. – 2015b La participación política de las mujeres en el nivel sub-nacional en Uruguay: Elecciones departamentales y municipales 2015. Montevideo, Uruguay: Cotidiano Mujer. Pousadela, Inés M. 2016a. “From Feminist Extravagance to Citizen Demand: The Movement for Abortion Legalization in Uruguay.” In Women’s Emancipation and Society Organisations: Challenging or Maintaining the Status Quo?, edited by Jennifer Onyx and Christina Schwabenland, 135–56. Bristol, uk: Policy Press.

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– 2016b. “Politics beyond Parties: #NiUnaMenos, an Exploration of the Political Productivity of Social Mobilization towards the Promotion of Rights.” Paper presented at the xxxivth lasa International Congress, New York, 27–30 May. – 2016c. “Social Mobilization and Political Representation: The Women’s Movement’s Struggle for Abortion in Uruguay.” voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 27, no. 1: 125–45. Pousadela, Inés M., and Anabel Cruz. 2016. “The Sustainability of Latin American csos: Historical Patterns and New Funding Sources.” Development in Practice 26, no. 5: 606–18. Rodríguez Gustá, Ana Laura, and Nancy Madera. 2015. “Feminist Movements and the Gender Economic Agenda in Latin America.” ids Bulletin 46, no. 4: 41–6. Ruiz, Marisa. 2014. “Escenas de la vida ciudadana de las uruguayas en la pos dictadura.” Caravelle: Cahiers du monde hispanique et luso-brésilien, 102: 65–85. Sandler, Joanne. 2015. “The ‘Warriors Within’: How Feminists Change Bureaucracies and Bureaucracies Change Feminists.” In The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements, edited by Rawwida Baksh and Wendy Harcourt, 188–214. New York: Oxford University Press. Sapriza, Graciela. 2009. “Memorias de mujeres en el relato de la dictadura (Uruguay, 1973–1985): Violencia/cárcel/exilio.” dep 11: 64–80. – 2018. “El estruendo de una historia silenciosa.” Brecha, 9 March 2018. http://goo.gl/LrKNuP. Shayne, Julie. 2007. “Feminist Activism in Latin America.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 1685–9. Blackwell Publishing. Staggenborg, Suzanne, and Verta Taylor. 2005. “Whatever Happened to the Women’s Movement?” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 10, no. 1: 37– 52. undp (United Nations Development Programme). 2015. Más allá de los números: Las mujeres transforman el Poder Legislativo; Estudio de país; Uruguay. http://goo.gl/SRC1VU. – 2017. “Las trabajadoras del hogar remuneradas en el Cono Sur: Lucha y superación de exclusiones históricas.” In Cuaderno no. 1, Igualdad de Género. New York: undp. Vargas, Virginia. 2015. “Feminism and Democratic Struggles in Latin America.” In The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements, edited by

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Rawwida Baksh and Wendy Harcourt, 534–52. New York: Oxford University Press. – 2017. “Some Thoughts on New Epistemologies in Latin American Feminisms.” In Bodies in Resistance: Gender and Sexual Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism, edited by Wendy Harcourt, 295–310. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Whittier, Nancy. 1995. Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women’s Movement. Philadelphia, pa: Temple University Press.

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The Women’s Movement in Argentina: Much Ado about Everything ana laura rodríguez gustá

Argentina has a strong and well-established women’s movement. In recent years it has reached a massive street presence, incorporated young women, and spread across social classes. The movement has become a significant political actor that has reshaped the public debate on women’s rights and, more broadly, democracy itself. Its most emblematic recent achievement was the approval of legal abortion in December 2020. For this reason, social observers affirm that Argentina is witnessing a “feminist revolution” that is transforming the political and cultural order in unprecedented ways. In this chapter I will use the term women’s movement under the assumption that, for the most part, the movement advances feminist claims and that no binary distinctions can be draw between women’s movements and feminist movements (Oria and Caride 2003). In Argentina the movement is multi-sited and multi-nodal. Women’s groups and activists can be found in informal social collectives and nongovernmental organizations (ngos) as well as in more institutionalized networks. For these reasons I have opted to employ a multi-institutional political framework (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008) to examine the structure, dynamics, and outcomes of the Argentine movement. According to Armstrong and Bernstein, although movement activists are challengers of the gender order, they are not necessarily outside the institutions that are being challenged. In fact, feminists are often insiders, such as feminist legislators and femocrats, in order to advance gender-equality claims from

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within formal institutions.1 Feminists intertwine both symbolic and material struggles and recognition claims with redistribution demands. Movement activists target different sites, with struggles aimed notably toward the state and political institutions. However, they also orient their demands toward society (individuals, families, and companies) and the broader cultural milieu. Since patriarchal power is manifested across institutions, the movements’ struggles are not unified under one single strategy but are a patchwork of different collective actions. I collected data on the activities of women’s and feminist organizations for the period beginning in 2000. In 2018 and 2019, I interviewed thirty feminist activists working within informal collectives and ngos, state institutions, and other formal institutions (e.g., universities), trade unions, student unions, and other social movements. To add depth to the data, I triangulated my sources with documentary evidence from National Women’s Encounter and manifestos obtained from #NiUna Menos, websites, and the Facebook pages of feminist collectives, as well as from newspaper accounts.2

Overall Contours of the Women’s Movement Structure Masson (2007) observed that, in Argentina, feminists are “everywhere”: as a multi-sited movement, women’s groups as well as feminist activists and their networks are in all fields of social action. The feminist movement is a cross-cutting space rather than a well-delimited entity with clean-cut boundaries. The movement includes various groups, organizations, and individuals united by a feminist identity. In addition, activists can be found in a variety of institutions, such as universities, political parties, trade unions, student unions, and state structures (Barrancos 2017). This variety of sites provides the movement with unprecedented social capillarity. The composition of the movement is therefore challenging to analyze. Notable national networks are the National Campaign for the Right to Abortion (Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito; hereinafter, the Campaign), and the groups that form the movement Not One Less (Ni Una Menos). There are informal collectives (many

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of them related to the Campaign as well as Not One Less) that may be sporadic but give rise to new ones (González Oviedo 2018) and nurture the movement through an endless process of organizing and reorganizing. Urban middle-class feminists are found in specialized women’s rights ngos with a long tradition of advocacy and lobbying. In the last few years feminists in academia established research groups that significantly expanded, thus contributing to the training of new generations of feminists. Within state structures – several of them with the explicit mandate to pursue women’s rights – feminists have advanced policy and legislation. The recently created Ministry of Women, Genders, and Diversity soon became an expression of state feminism (McBride and Mazur 2010), thanks to its leadership in crafting the abortion bill and lobbying for it. Feminism is also embedded within other social movements, such as the student movement, trade unions, and the unemployed workers’ movement (piqueteros) (Chejter and Laudano 2002).3 Additionally, the movement is present in the online world. The feminist information network rimaweb started a few years ago (Friedman 2005), and an exponential growth has occurred in social media with multiple expressions of cyber-activism (Laudano 2018). Feminist organizing has crossed class boundaries. Women in the unemployed workers’ movement, for example, have become a significant segment (Escalante 2012; fob, n.d.), which has resulted in the phrase popular feminism (Di Marco 2011). The same process applies to women living in shantytowns (villas), giving rise to feminismo villero (Dillon 2019). Their feminist claims arise from “daily life, practical needs and our bodies.”4 In 2015 the movement witnessed the mass mobilization of young and very young women in the Not One Less protests. For the most part, women’s collectives take the form of cross-cutting networks. Networking renders organizational boundaries amorphous and in flux, often making it difficult to tell where a given collective begins and ends. Likewise, it is common for an activist to have multiple affiliations, belonging to more than one collective or network. Thus, a central feature of the movement is that activists are not confined to a single setting. Although there has never been a sharp autonomous versus institutional cleavage in Argentina contemporarily, today, as networks become the prevalent form of organizing, there are more connections across multiple sites,

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groups, and individuals. The metaphor of a revolving door perhaps best captures the fact that women who are committed to an agenda of gender justice may join social groups but also participate in academia and even take on state responsibilities (as femocrats, experts, and legislators). In addition, they move in and out of different sites over the course of their lives. This contrasts sharply with the movement in the 1990s, when it was dispersed and unconnected (Pita 2007).5 Given the network shape that it has taken, the movement lacks centralized leadership. In her study of the feminist movement Masson (2007, 121) argues: “If any of these leaders tried to establish themselves as a representative of ‘feminism,’ it would be detrimental to the others.” The women’s movement seems to have a horizontal and collective leadership intermingled with constituents. Almost all of my interviewees characterized the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion as a key node of the women’s movement. This became evident both in 2018 with the first parliamentary discussion of the bill and in 2020 with its second discussion and approval.

Structuring Forces Whereas the women’s movement is flexible and in flux, structuring forces ensure a sense of common interests and goals and a synergy among groups. They provide identity, visibility, and a feeling of belonging. However, they also imply the gathering of women to discuss a specific agenda, make public statements, and develop strategies. These structuring forces vary in nature. Some of them are networks (the Campaign), others are meetings (National Women’s Encounters), while others are recurrent street demonstrations around the “feminist calendar” (Not One Less and 8M).

National Women’s Encounter National Women’s Encounter (enm, for its Spanish acronym) is an annual assembly in which women from all around the country, over the course of a few days, discuss a wide range of topics chosen beforehand by the participants (Monfort 2018). The enm is one of the most prominent political

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events in the women’s movement (Alma and Lorenzo 2013). The first encounter was held in 1986, organized by a group of Argentine feminists who had attended the un’s third World Conference on Women, in Nairobi in 1985, and were inspired by Latin America’s Feminist Encounters (Maffia et al. 2013). The numbers of participants rose from about 1,000 in 1986 to 50,000 in 2018 (Alcaraz and Paz Frontera 2018) to 200,000 participants in 2019 (Ferrer 2019). Each year, the enm takes place in a different city to promote the local embeddedness of the women’s movement and its federal scope. According to Tarducci (2018, 430), the enm is a “power station” for problems that find a form of expression in this organizational space. The enm’s principles are democracy, self-management, autonomy, horizontality, and economic independence (Alma and Lorenzo 2013; Sutton and Borland 2013). At the encounters, participants seek to reach consensus after intense discussion in workshops. A massive rally is held at the end. All the women I interviewed agreed that over the years these meetings have produced feminist subjects. As a structuring force, the enm is where women from different social classes, sectors, and strands converge. For poor women, for example, it has been an entryway to the women’s movement and feminism. At the 2001 encounter women from the grassroots had a significant presence, as indicated by the large number of attendees at the workshop “Women and Neighborhood Organizations.” By attending the meetings, these women adopted a feminist stance on violence against women and abortion as part of their socio-economic demands for survival. Second, for those campaigning for legal abortion, the enm has also played a key role. The meetings offer opportunities for activists to get to know one another, exchange experiences, and advance their ideas in different localities across the country. The 2003 enm hosted the Assembly for the Right to Abortion, a preamble to the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion. In the 2004 enm, the number of women interested in joining a collective in favour of abortion kept growing.6 This event triggered the widespread adoption of the green bandana as a symbol of abortion rights. The campaign would have been much slower to launch were it not for the enm (Alma and Lorenzo 2013, 158).

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National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion Currently, the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion is the most relevant player in the feminist field, with intense street activism occurring especially between 2018 and 2020 as Congress debated the abortion bill. Founded in May 2005 and popularly known as La Campaña, it is an informal albeit highly institutionalized network. It began as a group of collectives committed to securing the right to legal abortion (Anzorena and Zurbriggen 2013) but expanded quickly to include multiple organizations as well as a diversity of individuals (Bellucci 2014; Tarducci 2018). La Campaña has no formal structure (Gutiérrez 2018) and has fluid boundaries: “It is a coalition. It doesn’t have a structure [and] the membership requirements are minimal, just to agree on the principles of ‘Sex education to decide, contraceptives to not abort, legal abortion to not die.’”7 La Campaña comprises 501 groups (Gutiérrez and Rosenberg 2018), including unions, social and cultural organizations, unemployed workers’ organizations, and student groups, as well as journalists, human rights activists, academics, scientists, and health workers.8 La Campaña has considerable influence within the women’s movement. By extending the demand for legal abortion beyond feminist groups to the broader social realm, it has contributed to the diffusion of feminist demands. Several groups dedicated to the right to legal abortion have come to adopt explicit feminist language. La Campaña is also fertile ground for the cultivation of feminist activists. In addition, it has given rise to other collectives, such as Socorristas en Red, which assists women seeking an abortion (Burton 2019). Many groups that predicated legal abortion, using public health arguments, eventually adopted an explicit feminist frame, such as sexual freedom and body autonomy. For this reason La Campaña is a significant structuring force of feminism and has changed the terms of the abortion debate.

Ni Una Menos In 2015, after yet another adolescent girl had been murdered by her boyfriend, a massive heterogeneous demonstration, Ni Una Menos, was held in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires. The movement

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extended to other urban centres as well – 240 in all, involving 400,000 people (both women and men). Mobilization began on social media with the hashtag #NiUnaMenos (Annunziata et al. 2016). According to one of its founders, “the communication aspects of Ni Una Menos are pivotal.” The scale of the demonstration was startling, as expressed by an interviewee from Ni Una Menos: “We were in over our heads. None of us were aware of the scale of what we were doing. Everything was amazing.” Since 2015, the march has been held regularly on the same date, with social networks and feminist journalists playing a crucial role. The hashtag #NiUnaMenos remains the national keystone for mobilizing and gathering (Annunziata et al. 2016). The interaction that develops within “ecological concentrations” directly contributes to the emergence of social movements. This is more apparent when the spatial massing of bodies is emotionally charged (Sewell 1996). Hence the structuring effects of Ni Una Menos become evident as the annual march gathers diverse groups of women, including very young women, around the sensitive issues of femicide and gender violence. For the youth sector the march is the initiating experience to feminism and familiarization with state structures. The viral effect of Ni Una Menos across Latin America – in Uruguay, Mexico, and Chile – is evidence of its power. In recent years, participants in the movement have marched wearing the green bandana.

8M: “We Strike” In 2017 the 8M campaign in Argentina joined the International Women’s Strike. Thus, the 8M is at the intersection of local and global women’s movements. This demonstration was organized by several groups, including Ni Una Menos and La Campaña. In 2019 it was preceded by an acampe (camping out) in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires, with more than fifty women’s organizations taking part (Romero 2019). In Argentina the 8M crosscuts social protests against economic adjustment for inflation and job losses (Tejada 2019). Its impact goes beyond the 2017 demonstration, as it entails debating the issue of “how we strike” within assemblies across the country.9 Thus, organizing the 8M is itself a

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political process, with assemblies and other gatherings of women representing democratic forms of grassroots political action. This logistics in terms of the process of assemblies aimed at the consensus documents renews more democratic forms of political construction (Gutiérrez 2018). The 8M event is significant for its holistic agenda and for placing reproductive and productive labour at the core of women’s subordination. In 2020, the 8M parade was a patchwork of green bandanas, violet-coloured body glitter associated with feminism, and handwritten signs of “Ni Una Menos,” placing abortion rights as one of its main mottos.

Frame Building What is perhaps most interesting about women’s collective actions is that they are both instrumental and expressive – that is, actions combine conventional and prefigurative politics. Simply put, they seek to achieve both institutional and cultural results, and political struggles are aimed at policy and structural changes. Within this frame, access to legal abortion and the eradication of genderbased violence have become key demands in recent years. They are not single, disconnected issues but are linked to social inequality, discrimination, and freedom. Sexual and reproductive rights have been on the feminist agenda for a long time (Bellucci 2014; Tarducci 2018). Violence against women is a perennial theme of the women’s movement, though it is in constant flux and is continually being reframed: “It has become much clearer that violence makes us vulnerable to many human rights violations, and that the absence of the state generates a system of femicide violence – for which it is responsible. Femicide is not just a private matter.”10 Likewise, sexual and reproductive rights have long been on the agenda (Bellucci 2014; Tarducci 2018). Today, however, the strength of the claim for legal abortion is captured in the term green wave, for the symbolic green bandana that is widely in evidence (Gutiérrez 2018). The central discursive element of different strands of the movement is “the body” (Burton 2019; Sutton 2007). As several activists indicated, they seek to “look at politics from the perspective of the body”;11 the women’s

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movement forges a “revolution because it goes through our bodies.”12 The conception of gendered bodies has broadened because feminist thinking has benefited from queer theory, sexual diversity, and, more generally, breakthroughs in gender theory, all of which have served to reform demands that were initially built on the image of the urban, middle-class, white, heterosexual woman and to make them more diverse in scope (Barrancos 2017). The “body” is the discursive articulator of the different themes of the movement (Burton 2019; Sutton 2007). The body is also inscribed in terms of emotions and joy, as one activist expressed after the Senate had approved the abortion bill: “There are no words to describe what your body feels after fighting for something for so long.”13 The interviewees in my study argued that the agenda consisted of “thinking the problems that affect women in mix with society.”14 Hence, women combine empirical and short-term demands with long-term emancipatory demands. As long as women’s demands are interpreted vis-à-vis “the pressing issues of today” (Colectivo Ni Una Menos 2019, 6) and issues in everyday life, there will be no clear distinction between practical needs and strategic interests. Abortion and gender-based violence are “pressing issues of today” (Colectivo Ni Una Menos 2019, 6), tightly knitted with everyday life. At the same time, these demands are inscribed within the more complex language of sexual freedom and personal autonomy, non-binary identities, and social and economic gender justice. When women mobilize around practical needs, their collective struggles can well form the basis for a political transformation (Molyneux 1998), thus turning short-term demands around survival into a nuanced feminist praxis. One activist said that feminism was “one of the few movements to have a civilizing project of the society we aspire to.”15 The women’s movement is self-reflexive, and therefore conflict is fundamental to its dynamics (Masson 2007). “Being a feminist means that everything is questioned all the time. It is a practice of permanent questioning.”16 The practice of self-critique, which means dissent and conflict, leads to constant deliberation and renegotiation of strategies. This, in turn, leads to the self-regeneration and proliferation of actions.

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Movement Strategies As the movement is multi-sited, the struggles of the women it represents vary within the realm of activism. The dynamics of contestation and negotiation are therefore heterogeneous, with innovative strategies and collective actions depending on the target. Women engage in conventional and unconventional forms of protest by means of both political and cultural activities: they engage in advocacy, mass mobilization, media displays, litigation, education activism, legislative lobbying, and artistic interventions, just to mention a few. Ni Una Menos and the 8M are key elements in the strategic arsenal of the movement, as are La Campaña’s abortion rallies in front of the National Congress. These mobilizations are performative and festive, and the streets are filled with different forms of cultural expressions. In 2020, despite the covid-19 pandemic, abortion advocates made an acampe in front of Congress, wearing green hygienic masks, face glitter, and green hats and bandanas. The women’s movement has an emergent strategy. This means that, at times, collective actions may be designed a priori, but actions stem more spontaneously from daily life. In other words, collective actions may have goals set beforehand (such as the drafting of a bill), but others spring up on the spot and through fluid interaction. Fluid forms of social interaction (enredarse, tramar) occur at feminist assemblies. Not surprisingly, the activists made comments such as, “Sometimes the strategies don’t stick to the script,” and “There is no model – some strategies work well, others not so well.”17 These comments suggest that experiential learning and trial and error are part of women’s struggles. As explained by a feminist from Ni Una Menos, “we started making agreements with compañeras from different grassroots organizations and territorial organizations. These alliances are a little instinctual, with a bit of political antenna and momentum. We began gathering and organizing assemblies. This political path is not ipso facto; it entails plotting and talking and working together.”18 On the one hand, political struggles are aimed at policy and structural changes. Collective actions challenge the patriarchal system at the normative, legal, and institutional levels. Women seek to eliminate discrimination through policy reform by means of political pressure, and to effect legislative change by means of lobbying. Their arsenal includes litigation

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(particularly in relation to abortion) as well as the institutionalized strategies used by activists in formal structures (e.g., universities and universities), which led to the adoption of protocols against sexual harassment and gender-based violence.19 At universities the struggle takes a form other than the street demonstration and is aimed at the elimination of gender stereotypes. Despite the institutional imprint, this struggle adopts culture-busting strategies in order to end discrimination. Women engage in cultural battles using street fairs and talks to produce and disseminate all sorts of materials and flyers. Digital communication and social networks are intensely used (Twitter hashtags, Instagram accounts, and Facebook pages are countless).20 On the other hand, women’s struggles are prefigurative, which means challenging patriarchy in everyday life. They develop performative and cultural actions aimed at a symbolic transformation of the gendered order. Activists seek to reduce alienation by increasing the range of self-expression, celebration, and identity display. For example, there are poetry-reading groups aimed at the decriminalization of abortion, artistic acts during the Ni Una Menos marches, 8M concerts and exhibitions, and demonstrations such as El Tetazo, all united by the demand for gender equality and autonomy (“We just want equality”). Art and the expression of alternative selves are means to achieve social change by connecting with others (Gutiérrez 2011). Within the enm, expressive struggles are well established, with street art and performances (such as graffiti and scratches) (Tarducci 2017). These cultural battles also reduce the alienation associated with an unfair gender order. The cultural presence of the feminism demands also reveals the work of feminist journalists (Carbajal 2017), actresses, and artists, whose networks have access to mass media (Annunziata et al. 2016). Prefigurative actions can also take the form of activists providing support for battered women and for women who seek an abortion (Burton 2017). Prefigurative actions are prominent among younger activists, according to some informants: “A young activism that bursts onto the public scene using another language, painting their bodies, showing their breasts, making parodies like the ‘SlutWalk,’ questioning us in other ways – it is another experience of activism, much more performative, linked to putting bodies on the street.”21 Struggles and strategies are invested with activists’ time,

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commitment, resources, and knowledge. A feminist from La Campaña stated: “What sustains all these is a strong feminist activist spirit … an effort to put knowledge and expectations on the table, in a deeply collective work. In this, there is strength. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”22 Assembly is a “political, theoretical and affective tool” for strategizing. It embodies a logic of horizontal debate and intermingling: “We work with the compañeras. We do not come from anywhere to explain anything to anyone. The path is forged by walking and is politically interesting. There are moments of political intensity that are felt physically. It is a very powerful experience.”23 This is an important feature of the movement given that, in Argentina, external financial support is minimal.

Movement Outcomes The statement “The green wave is unstoppable” refers to the multiple changes and transformations that activists produce. Some of these occur at the micro level, others at the macro level. Some of the changes are cultural and have an impact on subjectivities and meaning structures. Others are tangible, as expressed in legislation, policy, and resource allocation. The movement has resulted in at least six major achievements, some of them the outcomes of purposeful actions, others the unintended consequences of women’s struggles. The first outcome is agenda setting. A wide range of themes are on the public agenda and in the media as a consequence of the movement’s longterm efforts. This suggests that outcomes result from the maturation of actors and the overcoming of opposition. Almost all themes dearest to the movement are currently in the public eye: “The issue of feminism entered the agenda; it is visible.”24 Getting the abortion debate put on the social and the political agenda is one of the greatest achievements of the movement to date. The fact that the discussion is rooted in micro and macro institutions (the family, schools, Congress, universities, unions) reflects the social embeddedness of the abortion issue. In 2018 an attempt to legalize abortion in Argentina passed through the lower house, only to be narrowly defeated in the Senate. Nevertheless, the issue became irreversible. As one activist said, “the abortion debate is an impressive achievement of recent times, as

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important as divorce and the vote were in their day. It’s already a victory; you cannot keep turning your back on the subject.”25 Two years later, Congress passed the abortion bill. The law legalized abortion in all cases up to fourteen weeks of pregnancy.26 Another important outcome is new legislation on women’s rights, as well as innovative gender policies (Barrancos 2017). Advances in sexual and reproductive rights, sex education, decreased gender-based violence, political parity, gender identity, and same-sex marriage are noteworthy achievements. In 2018, Congress approved the Brisa law (economic compensation to children of victims of gender violence) and the Micaela law (which made mandatory the training of public officials on gender issues and violence). In 2017 it approved Gender Parity for Congress and the Law of Automatic Loss of Parental Responsibility due to Femicide. These new laws built upon sex education (2006), violence against women and girls (2009), same-sex marriage (2010), and gender identity (2012). However, while all the informants I interviewed highlighted the normative outcomes and institutional inroads, they signalled difficulties in making headway with sustained policy change, mentioning bureaucratic inertia as well as overt opposition from conservative groups in areas such as legal abortion and sex education. Policy-implementation gaps constantly threaten established rights. More recently, the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity (created in 2020) raised expectations about overcoming these drawbacks. Feminist ideas have spread beyond the capital. Changes in small towns represented by conservative politicians traditionally tied to the Catholic Church are palpable. “These are epochal changes: deputies and senators are thinking more in terms of the people and not the parish priest. These are changes that have taken a long time and a lot of work. You could not have reached this point without everything that had been done before.”27 These cultural changes directly undermine one of the main opponents of the women’s movement, the Catholic Church, which is highly influential in Argentina’s political and social life, particularly in the provinces. Cultural changes are apparent in the language used and, to a lesser extent, in behaviours. “We hear people talking about women’s rights, but they are not linked to the feminist movement. You realize then that there are cultural

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schemas that have permeated society.”28 Despite attempts by conservative groups to label feminists as feminazis, the word feminist is now widely accepted. It has lost its negative connotations and has become associated with gender justice and social freedom. Some informants indicated that these cultural changes also translate into sorority: “If they touch one of us, they touch us all” (Si nos tocan a una, nos tocan a todas).29 This sorority responds to the diffusion of what might be called an increasing feminist consciousness or an awareness of the patriarchal process of women’s subordination. The following comment captures this sisterhood: “We see each other, and we have ourselves. There is a specific code that we have enabled and that didn’t exist before. It snaps you out of the zombie state and there’s no turning back. We are awake; among women, we know that we are among compañeras [comrades]. The fundamental thing about this individual liberation is that we see ourselves within a network.”30 Moreover, women are confronting domination more openly now than they did in the past: “We do not shut up anymore. We denounce. Denouncing, not remaining silent, as individuals or organizations.”31 “A girl in her twenties can now think of street harassment from a gender perspective and respond confrontationally.”32 Many other topics are on the agenda, and there appears to be no turning back. One state feminist said: “Today we have bills for parental leave. I’ll never forget, ten years ago, when we sought changes to the labour law, legislators answered, ‘You are crazy, we can’t.’ … It took years talking about the same things, in a society that didn’t [accept them], years forming union cadres [based on] gender. Today, some of these unions are demanding women’s rights.”33 Many of the movement’s achievements represent a transformation of ingrained beliefs. The informants were unanimous in seeing the major achievements as cultural. Gender-based violence is no longer a “natural” event but is a crime. Even abortion has been “socially decriminalized,” a metaphor for profound changes regarding body autonomy. Another result of the movement is the exponential institutionalization of gender equality within government, universities, and unions. One informant stated: “The union organizations that today are demanding numerous rights and have joined the global feminist movement are the same

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actors that ten years ago had no idea what gender was.”34 Feminist scholars have also noted the increase in gender issues at universities – in the curriculum and in the structures (Vázquez Laba and Rugna 2017). Structures for gender equality and women’s rights have been bolstered at the national and sub-national levels. Besides the Ministry of Women, there are specialized gender-equality structures at the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Labour, and the Ministry of Defence, to mention just few examples. Local councils have adopted structures for women’s rights and/or actions to prevent gender-based violence, many of these with women’s local groups (Ruga 2014). Some labour organizations have adopted gender structures to prevent sexual harassment and guarantee equal opportunities. In line with sorority, another outcome of the movement is its generational renewal and the fact that younger women are identifying as feminist. They wear the green bandana for abortion rights, at school, in public spaces, or on public transportation. In the current context of an enabling environment defying stereotypes, a legal framework granting more rights, and the more open demands for body autonomy, they take the movement a step further and are bolder than their predecessors. Two activists commented: “This is one of the most important changes. I think it’s also important to recognize that it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s not that one day young girls woke up and [demanded legal abortion]. It comes from decades of struggle, from enm; this trajectory is super important.”35 The pibas (a colloquial term referring to very young women and adolescents) are radical in their protests and more vocal in questioning gender injustices. In the long hours of the 2018 and 2020 abortion debates they sustained street actions. The final outcome – also unintended – of the Argentine movement is its international influence. Ni Una Menos is Argentine women’s contribution to the world, having already been adopted by other countries in the region. Also, the 19F (pañuelazo, or protesting by banging pots together to make noise), a demonstration featuring the green bandana, has added a date on the feminist calendar in Argentina, Latin America, and the world: Green Action Day for the Right to Abortion, 19 February (Tejada 2019).

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Conclusions The feminist movement has become a sounding board for all social conflicts, plotting alliances that rupture patriarchal hierarchies, building complicity between struggles, developing new practices and languages for emancipation. ~ Colectivo Ni Una Menos (2019)

The Argentine women’s movement is complex and heterogeneous, but it is not fragmented. Activists form their own collectives but relate to other movements as well, embedding feminist demands within them. The movement is not hermetically sealed but porous, a feature that explains its massiveness and its strength. Having a presence at multiple sites provides actors with considerable cultural and political resources. The women’s movement is a bricolage because it is resourceful. Women create diverse expressions of collective action by combining the existing political and cultural materials in innovative ways. Organizational networking is central to the movement, allowing for its expansion and renewal. The movement is also a sounding board for Argentina’s social conflicts, with alliances that defy patriarchy at all levels, create emancipatory meanings, and reshape institutions and political practices. By interconnecting rights surrounding autonomy, democracy, representation, and gender and economic justice, it maintains a far-reaching agenda. Not surprisingly, conservative forces treat feminists and the women’s movement as their fundamental foe. After all, the movement’s proposed transformations would alter all realms of society, disabling multiple systems of oppression and subordination. In 2021, with allies in the state executive and the real and symbolic achievement of an abortion law, feminists still have challenges ahead. These include overcoming policy gaps, addressing normative vacuums, confronting conservative actors that will oppose abortion in practice, and overseeing access to sexual and reproductive rights. However, if the feminist spirit is able to keep women mobilized, the goal of a meaningful life for all is likely to be realized.

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notes

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17

The author would like to thank the book editors for their invitation, feedback, and support. Elisabeth Friedman and Valeria Llobet provided very insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The author takes full responsibility for this chapter. Femocrats are women in state management positions with an explicit feminist agenda (Eisenstein 1996). Página 12 is an Argentine newspaper that covers feminist events regularly. Argentina’s 1991 gender quota laws helped increase the number of women in legislative settings, which allowed the entrance of women with gender-sensitive agendas. Ni Una Menos, interview by the author, November 2019, in Buenos Aires. This is not to say that experiences of networking did not exist before – for example, the Multisectorial de Mujeres in the eighties. Accessed January 2021. http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/about. Feminist and member of La Campaña, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. Accessed 14 February 2019. http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/about. Feminist and member of cta trade union, interview by the author, May 2018, Buenos Aires. Feminist 1 in the state, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. Feminist and member of the trade union ute-cetera, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. Feminist and member of the social collective Mala Junta, interview by the author, April 2019, Buenos Aires. Tom Phillips and Amy Booth, “Argentina Legalises Abortion in Landmark Moment for Women’s Rights: Country Becomes Only the Third in South America to Permit Elective Abortions,” The Guardian, 30 December 2020, https://www.theguardian.com. Feminist and member of Ni Una Menos, interview by the author, April 2019, Buenos Aires. Feminist and member of La Campaña, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. Feminist and member of latfem, interview by the author, November 2019, Buenos Aires. Feminist and member of the piquetero movement Frente Darío Santillán, interview by the author, May 2018, Buenos Aires.

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18 Feminist and member of Ni Una Menos, interview by the author, 2019, Buenos Aires. 19 Feminist and member of the University Network against Gender Violence, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 20 According to Annunziata et al. (2016), Argentina leads the region in number of Facebook users, with 59 per cent use of this network, and the third-largest online audience in the region after Brazil and Mexico, with 18.6 million unique users. Facebook has 16 million active users per day, and Twitter 4.7 million active users per month. 21 Feminist and member of a political party, interview by the author, November 2019, Buenos Aires. 22 Feminist and member of La Campaña, interview by the author, 2018, Buenos Aires. 23 Feminist and member of the Yo No Fui social collective, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 24 Feminist and member of the ngo ela, interview by the author, 2018, Buenos Aires. 25 Feminist 2, Campaign for Legal and Safe Abortion, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 26 Abortion was already legal when a pregnancy resulted from rape or endangered the life or health of the woman. 27 Feminist and member of Ni Una Menos in Mendoza, interview by the author via Skype from Buenos Aires, April 2019. 28 Feminist and member of the ngo ela, interview by the author, June 2018, Buenos Aires. 29 Feminist and member of Ni Una Menos, interview by the author, November 2019, Buenos Aires. 30 Feminist and member of the Yo No Fui social collective, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 31 Member of the feminist section of a left-wing party, interview by the author, April, 2018, Buenos Aires. 32 Feminist 1 in the state, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 33 Feminist 2 in the state, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 34 Activist and member of ute-cetera, interview by the author, April 2018, Buenos Aires. 35 Activist in the ngo ela, interview by the author, June 2018, Buenos Aires.

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Colectivo Ni Una Menos. 2019. “Llamamiento al Paro Feminista 8M.” Página 12/Las 12, 8 February, 6. Dillon, M. 2019. “Paramos porque se nos canta.” Página 12/Las 12, 8 March, 8–9. Di Marco, G. 2011. El pueblo feminista: Movimientos sociales y lucha de las mujeres en torno a la Ciudadanía. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Biblos. Eisenstein, H. 1996. Inside Agitators: Australian Femocrats and the State. Philadelphia, pa: Temple University Press. Escalante, P. 2012. “Intervención en el marco de la 30° Jornada Feminista de Mujeres sobre: ‘30 años de Feminismo en Argentina.’” In 30va Jornada Feminista sobre: 30 años de Feminismo en Argentina, edited by atem “25 de noviembre,” 39–44. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Brujas. Ferrer, L. 2019. “Una multitudinaria marcha coronó el 34 Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres.” Página 12, 14 October. fob (Federación de Organizaciones de Base). n.d. Arriba las que lucha: 10 años de asambleas de mujeres. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Cooperativa Gráfica La Voz de la Mujer. Friedman, E.J. 2005. “The Reality of Virtual Reality: The Internet and Gender Equality Advocacy in Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society 47, no. 3: 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2005.tb00317.x. González Oviedo, C.A. 2018. Activismo feminista en internet y su impacto en la ciudadanía de las mujeres. Documento de curso del priggep. Buenos Aires, Argentina: flacso. Gutiérrez, M.A. 2011. “Todo con la misma aguja: Sexualidad, aborto y arte callejero.” In Voces polifónicas: Itinerarios de los géneros y las sexualidades, 162–226. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones Godot. – 2018. “Feminismos en acción: El debate en torno a la ley de interrupción voluntaria del embarazo.” Sociales en Debate, 14. https://publicaciones. sociales.uba.ar. Gutiérrez, M.A., and M. Rosenberg. 2018. “Evita no usa pañuelo.” Revista Anfibia, 19 February. http://revistaanfibia.com. Laudano, C. 2018. “#abortolegal: El grito que tiñó las redes.” Bordes: Revista de Derecho, Política y Sociedad, November. http://revistabordes.com.ar. Maffia, D., L. Peker, A. Moreno, and L. Morroni. 2013. Mujeres pariendo historia: Cómo se gestó el primer Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres; Reseña íntima y política de las integrantes de la Comisión Promotora. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Legislatura Porteña.

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Masson, L. 2007. Feministas en todas partes: Una etnografía de espacios y narrativas feministas en Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Prometeo Libros. McBride, D.E., and A.G. Mazur. 2010. The Politics of State Feminism: Innovation in Comparative Research. Philadelphia, pa: Temple University Press. Meyer, J.W., and B. Rowan. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 20: 340–63. Molyneux, M. 1998. “Analysing Women’s Movements.” Development and Change 29: 219–45. Monfort, F. 2018. “El sabor del Encuentro: Trelew se prepara para el 33o Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres.” Página 12, 6 October. https://www.pagina12.com.ar/ 147079-el-sabor-del-encuentro. Oria, P., and C. Caride. 2003. Movimiento de Mujeres y Movimiento Feminista: Para una discusión abierta y plural. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Librería de Mujeres. Pita, V.S. 2007. “Volviendo del silencio: Voces en conflicto, espacios en disputa; Experiencias feministas en la Argentina de los ’90.” Feminaria xvi, no. 30–31: 68–78. Romero, I. 2019. “Un acampe para entonar la jornada de lucha.” Página 12, 8 March 2007, 10–11. Ruga, C. 2014. “La conformación del tablero: El movimiento feminista y la participación en la agenda de igualdad de género en la Ciudad de Santa Fe (2007–2013).” ma thesis, Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Sewell, William H. 1996. “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille.” Theory and Society 25, no. 6 (December): 841–81. Sutton, B. 2007. “Poner el Cuerpo: Women’s Embodiment and Political Resistance in Argentina.” Latin American Politics & Society 49, no. 3: 129–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2007.tb00385.x. Sutton, Bárbara, and Elizabeth Borland. 2013. “Framing Abortion Rights in Argentina’s Encuentros Nacionales de Mujeres.” Feminist Studies 39, no. 1: 194–234. Tarducci, M. 2017. “‘Poner el cuerpo’ en las calles: Los enfrentamientos de las activistas feministas y los grupos anti-derechos.” Cadernos Pagu 50 (December). http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/18094449201700510021.

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– 2018. “Escenas clave de la lucha por el derecho al aborto en Argentina.” Salud Colectiva 14, no. 3: 425–32. Tejada, A. 2019. “Llega el tercer paro feminista.” Página 12, 8 March 2019, 8. Vázquez Laba, V., and C. Rugna. 2017. “Acción colectiva en torno a la agenda feminista sobre violencia de género en las Universidades Nacionales argentinas.” Boletín Científico Sapiens Research 7, no. 1: 13–21. Vegas, M.L. 2017. Actores políticos, funcionarias y activistas: El desarrollo de las políticas de género en el Municipio de Morón. ma thesis, Universidad Nacional de San Martín and Georgetown University.

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The Women’s Movement in Brazil simone bohn and charmain levy

Having access to central government has been paramount for women’s movement actors to guarantee the approval and implementation of several of their preferred gender-related public policies in several polities around the world (Bustelo 2014). In this sense, for Brazil, the 2002 presidential elections marked a watershed moment. Faced with an unprecedented opening of policy arenas to social movements, large contingents of the country’s women’s movement fundamentally altered their pattern of engagement with the state. They moved from a stance of protest, or, at times, of restrained, ad hoc collaboration with the state, to a dynamic of close proximity and deliberate collaboration with it, which entailed direct or indirect participation in the crafting of gender-centric public policies (Bohn 2010). It was time – under the Workers’ Party (pt) presidencies of Lula da Silva (2003–06, 2007–10) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–14, 2015–16) – for the “agitation from below” to give rise to “policies from above” (Hernes 1987). In 2021, five years after the end of more than a decade of the pt’s control of Brazil’s federal government, it is important to reflect upon how much this substantial change in state–civil society relationship sheds light on the transformations experienced by the Brazilian women’s movement (bwm) in the twenty-first century. This chapter argues that the close proximity and intentional collaboration with the state – by no means the only explanatory factor – has had an impact on the agenda of the women’s movement and its pattern of interest articulation (Almond 1961). In the context of this chapter, the latter is understood as the clear identification

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and formulation of specific demands or claims by organizations or networks of organizations. In order to map the bwm’s pattern of changes and continuities in the last decade, this research makes use of extensive in-depth interviews with the movement’s leaders and militants from different regions of the country, as well as of archival data, such as official governmental statistics, nongovernmental reports, and newspaper articles. The research design enables the inclusion of the voices of bwm activists into the analysis (Harding 2004), without losing sight of objective indicators that can fine-tune subjectivebased narratives. The chapter begins by drawing upon scholarly works that have examined either directly or more tangentially the situations in which the state opens its policy arenas to non-state actors. Those studies, which are based upon other national contexts, provide a framework for the analysis of the Brazilian case. The methodological underpinnings of this work are detailed in the second section, after which some of Brazil’s historical specificities are examined. The fourth to seventh sections present the key findings when it comes to the movement’s agenda, and the changes in the way the agenda articulates its platform of demands. The take-home lessons of this chapter are that the opening-up of policy domains to social movement actors can have transformative effects on the state –in terms of both the use of inclusive patterns of policy design and the concrete outcomes of policy – as well as on civil society actors. As the public policy ramifications of the bwm-state interaction have been discussed elsewhere (Bohn and Levy 2019), this study will centre on the analysis of changes in the internal dynamics and articulation of the women’s movement. We will show that the close proximity and collaboration with the state have promoted simultaneously the crystallization of pan-movement demands and the surfacing of substantial intra-movement diversity.

Organized Women Engaging with the State This work sees social movements as dissatisfied and unrepresented social groups that seek social, political, cultural, and economic change (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001). Those groups resort to collective action that is usually

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beyond conventional means, such as the occupation of public spaces, protests, general strikes, and even acts of civil disobedience. Although this is not always the case, in most circumstances social movements tend to focus their actions on the state, with a view to opposing and changing the political status quo (Tilly 2008). Social movements, however, are not homogeneous entities (McCarthy and Zald 1977). Rather the opposite: they “are complex sets of groups, organizations, and actions that may have different goals as well as different strategies for reaching their aims” (Guigni 1999, xx). In this sense, each social movement is composed of several social movement organizations. Although the latter possess the same mission and general goals, they may not share the same “strategy of contention” and thus may be closer to certain groups, such as political parties, unions, elected officials, and even governments (Tarrow 1998). In other words, the activism of social movements is founded upon “a shared collective identity” (Diani 1992, 3), but they differ in their tactics, strategies, and alliances. From this perspective, the women’s movement is understood as a collective entity, led and operated by women, which sees “existing gender relations as oppressive and in need of change” (Ferree and Mueller 2004, 577). It is important to mention that the feminist movement is deemed a subgroup of the overall women’s movement (Beckwith 2005) and that the boundaries between the two involve issues or claims that vary across polities around the world. As with other social movements, the women’s movement primarily – but not exclusively – targets the state, in its different levels, to attain its gender-centric objectives. An additional similarity is that the women’s movement comprises several social movement organizations. Although each organization or cluster of organizations may have group-specific gender-based goals and differ in their tactics, organizational structure, and networks, they collectively identify as part of the overarching women’s movement. In the political contexts in which the women’s movement has an antagonistic relationship with the existing government, the sheer oppositional stance contributes to further cementing the movement’s collective identity, even amidst its internal diversity. In circumstances that unmistakeably separate the “us vs. them” (Melucci 1996), the women’s movement tends to see the state (which, in some cases, is conflated with the government in place)

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as an institutional reflection, or as a guardian, of a patriarchal status quo. As a regulatory body, the state is in firm control of several policy arenas that have a direct impact on women and their lives – such as reproductive rights, child-care regulations, labour policies, and adoption and marriage policies (Bohn 2019). When the movement and the state have a clearly marked boundary between them, the women’s movement, albeit not in its entirety, tends for the most part to resort to confrontational tactics, such as petitions, public letters of opposition, public marches, and other public acts of resistance (Sharp 1973). With the opening of one or several of the state’s policy arenas to leaders and activists of the women’s movement (or fractions of it), usually the movement tends to employ more conventional tactics, such as writing policy reports and bill proposals, advocating for the diffusion of innovative policy experiments, and lobbying elected officials for the approval of gendercentric policy proposals (Nelson and Johnson 1991). Policy arenas are understood as formal and informal structures within the state apparatus, in which state and non-state actors interact with a view to producing policy outcomes (Lasswell 1936), that is, the enactment of different types of public policies (Lowi 1971). However, it is important to distinguish between influence and access. In some contexts the opening of a policy arena to the women’s movement might mean that the latter is able to openly liaise with women-friendly politicians and public policy experts that occupy that policy environment, with a view to pushing for particular policy outcomes. In other situations the aperture of a policy domain to actors not previously included in that space takes place, and the newly admitted actors themselves take up positions endowed with real power over policy design, approval, implementation, and monitoring. Evidently the nature of the policy environment does matter, as the newly included actors – that is, members of the women’s movement – might become powerful “inside agitators” (Eisenstein 1996) or actors embroiled in the tug of war typical of “adversarial policy communities” (Dudley and Richardson 1996). How do these considerations help one understand the case of the women’s movement in contemporary Brazil? As mentioned before, the Brazilian women’s movement (bwm) did change substantially its relationship with the state, especially after the early 2000s with a change in the federal government, when a massive opening-up of policy arenas to the

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movement took place. Did the ensuing pattern of close collaboration with the state have an impact on the agenda of the women’s movement? Furthermore, how did the new circumstance – with some bmw actors inside and some outside the state – contribute to transformations of the pattern of coalition building among the movement’s organizations? The next section expounds the changes in the relationship between the state and organized civil society in Brazil, especially the women’s movement. The goal is to show how different political opportunity structures (Meyer 2004) have presented themselves to organized women due to transformations at the state level and the governmental level, and how those changes have affected the women’s movement’s agenda and its internal coalition-building pattern.

A Methodological Note This study relies primarily on the content analysis of archival data and semi-structured interviews with strategically placed actors from civil society and the state. Gender-centric laws, bills, and other governmental documents, especially the National Plans of Public Policies for Women elaborated by the Secretariat of Public Policies for Women (spm, in Portuguese), also inform this work. In addition, the authors carried out thirty-nine in-depth interviews with representatives of women’s nongovernmental organizations and state actors (such as femocrats working in city-level and national-level women’s secretariats, and members of women-centric public defence offices). The women’s organizations had offices in both large metropolitan centres and rural areas; some had a cadre of paid professionals in their midst; others depended mostly on voluntary labour; some relied primarily on international funding; and others had only domestic funding, especially from the state. The interviewees themselves belonged to different ethno-racial groups and had distinct levels of education. These interviews took place in twelve Brazilian cities: Cabo de Santo Agostinho, Campina Grande, Campinas, Dourados, João Pessoa, Olinda, Piracicaba, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and São Paulo. The interviews occurred between June and October 2016. That interval coincided with the impeachment process of President Dilma

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Rousseff, which started in December 2015 and finished on 31 August 2016. Consequently, the interviewees had the prospect, or the clear certainty, of a post-pt era in the federal government.

Engaging with the State in Brazil Brazil, as did some of its South American neighbours, underwent a period of closure of the channels of political participation. Between 1964 and 1985 the country was under a military dictatorship (Skidmore 1989), which, in varying degrees over time, suppressed the liberties and freedoms that are essential for organized civil society to undertake interest articulation (Almond 1961) and, more importantly, any politically meaningful collective action (Olson 1965). Nevertheless, despite this politically repressive environment, Brazilian women’s groups did organize around some demands during the military dictatorship. Their most salient group-specific issue was the need to compel the state to respond to the rampant problem of violence against women. As Bohn (2020) shows, the visibility and the repulsive and outrageous nature of the so-called passion crimes (Corrêa 1981) prompted some groups of Brazilian women to organize themselves and successfully push some state-level governments – not the federal government – to address the issue (albeit not with comprehensive policies) and to create some modicum of state-based services to women victims of violence. Evidently, the other pressing issue around which organized women coalesced during this period was the imperative to reopen the arenas that would enable free political participation. Brazilian women organized to press for the country’s re-democratization, using a variety of tactics, such as public manifestos for the concession of an amnesty to political prisoners (Zerbini 1979), the creation of pro-democratization publications, and the public enactment of artistic performances devoted to the cause of human rights and the return to democracy (Lobo 1991). Those two demands – for a comprehensive policy to combat violence against women and for the country’s re-democratization – united organized women during this period and in a way temporarily mitigated their differences. However, even during the military dictatorship interval, there

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were intra-group dissimilarities. Organized women from the lower socioeconomic rungs focused their efforts primarily, albeit not exclusively, on issues of material survival (such as the improvement of child-care offerings so that women could be part of the workforce) and the creation of solidarity networks (such as collective kitchens) to face the negative impact of some of the economic policies of the military dictatorship, especially those enacted in its last years (Lobo 1991; Sarti 1989). Middle-class organized women rallied mostly (but, again, not uniquely) around the need to change state policies related to reproductive rights, such as access to contraceptive methods and family-planning services (Muraro 1983; Studart 1974). It is important to mention as well that some segments of women – especially from the upper classes – had participated in large numbers in events that directly or indirectly supported the military takeover of the Brazilian political system in 1964 (Simões 1985). Similarly, but on the other side of the aisle, countless numbers of women took part in the guerrilla movement with the goal of toppling militarily the dictatorship (Colling 1997; Ridenti 1990). Finally, the dictatorship was also an important period of the growing consciousness of the struggle of Afro-Brazilian women, especially after the creation of the Unified Black Movement in 1978 (Alberti and Pereira 2007; Domingues 2007; Hanchard 1994; chapter 9 of this volume). The transition to civilian-controlled democratic order in 1985 was an important juncture for the women’s movement in Brazil. The debate regarding its alliances with other political actors, and relatedly about how to define its autonomy, gained new contours with the change in political regime and its related state-level transformations. First, with the resumption of full-blown party politics, several organized women migrated to political parties – especially, but not exclusively, to the pt – where women’s cells were created. However, some other groups, which in that particular moment saw themselves as “autonomists” (Falquet 2011),1 chose to remain outside of the party system and to dedicate themselves exclusively to growing the women’s movement as an entity that belonged to civil society – even though the movement, the latter admitted, could have ad hoc dialogue with strategically placed political actors (Lobo 1987). Second, when sub-national governments – that is, some states and cities – opened some of their policy arenas to organized women, the same debate took place and resulted in another chasm within the movement: some individual women chose to take

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up positions inside the state, while several groups, concerned with the possibility of cooptation and the decrease of a politics of contention, preferred to remain outside of it (Schumaher and Vargas 1993). One key entity within the state in which women participated was the National Council on the Condition of Women, which was created in 1985 to articulate women’s interest and press for policy changes (Jurema 2001; Santos 2006). Regardless of those divisions, organized women did help shape the new democratic order in important ways. They clearly perceived the process of elaboration of a new constitution in 1988 as a critical juncture (Pitanguy 2011). In fact, through what became known as the “lipstick lobby,” organized women were able to enshrine in Brazil’s new Magna Carta a series of advances, particularly when it came to women’s right to family planning, the equality of man and woman within marriage, women’s labour rights, and the criminalization of violence against women (Bohn 2010, 86). It is important to underscore that, whereas the struggle for re-democratization momentarily united the bwm and put the intra-movement diversity in the backburner, as discussed previously, after the country’s return to democracy there was an explosion of differences, with each and every single organized group of civil society actors in general trying to affirm their particular identity and platform of action (Moisés 1986). This surfacing or resurfacing of differences was more than an identity-affirming cultural exercise. Brazil’s “dual transition” (Cook 2002) took a toll on the life conditions of the most marginalized socio-economic sectors of the population and exacerbated the fissures of an already fragmented class structure. In addition to having a regime change, the Brazilian state also fundamentally altered in the late 1980s and early 1990s its relationship with the market through a progressive implementation of structural adjustment policies, amidst a fiscal crisis of the state, hyperinflation, and economic stagnation (Sallum and Kugelmas 1991). Needless to say, those policies had a regressive impact on overall human development levels and socio-economic inequality (Hira 2007), and – for the purposes of this work – affected very negatively poor and extremely poor women (Guimarães 2002), especially Afro-Brazilian women (Lavinas 1996). Those two macro-level processes – a political transition to democracy and a change from a highly interventionist state to a neoliberal state – further accentuated the previously existing inequalities among groups of women. These changes enabled the rise

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of multifarious women’s organizations (Alvarez 1999), which provides evidence of the vibrancy of the movement as well as of its diversity. At this point in time, what was the relationship between the bwm and state actors? The next section analyzes the movement’s pattern of engagement with the federal government during the first civilian presidencies and discusses whether there were policy arenas open to the bwm’s influence or access at that level of government.

First Civilian Presidencies Under the tumultuous administration of the first elected civilian president after the transition, Fernando Collor de Mello (1990–91), there was a rather marked boundary between the bwm and the federal government. Issues of material survival were front and centre for several segments of organized civil society, as the process of structural adjustment received great impetus under the Collor presidency, which, as mentioned before, led to a substantial restructuring of the state, the economy, and the labour market. During this period, despite having some influence over a few womenfriendly allies in Congress, women’s groups did not have much access to the state’s federal structure. On the contrary, President Collor decided to dramatically reduce the funding to the existing women’s council within the federal government, the National Council on the Condition of Women. This measure was taken by the women’s movement as the end of whatever feeble exchange there had been with that particular administration (Pitanguy 2003). Once President Collor had resigned after a massive corruption scandal, the same relationship was visible under the administration of his former vice-president, who became the next president, Itamar Franco (1991–94). The boundaries between organized women and the federal government remained pronounced throughout most of the federal administrations of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–98 and 1999–2002), even though the movement still could count on the support of their womenfriendly allies. The Cardoso governments did create an innovative transversal policy framework, such as the Comunidade Solidária (Solidary Community), which involved civil society, in addition to several federal

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ministries and state-level policy actors. The Solidary Community design, as explained by its members, relied on the contributions of “21 personalities from civil society” (Peliano, Resende, and Beghin 1995, 25). Those twentyone individuals comprised primarily television stars, singers, and academics, and their selection process was visibly top-down. Hence, even though there was the participation of private individuals in this new initiative, there was not an inclusion of leaders or activists of social movement organizations. Rather the opposite: the two Cardoso administrations had a clearly antagonistic relationship with some social movements, especially the Brazilian landless movement, or mst (Pereira 2003). When it comes to the women’s movement in particular, the Cardoso second administration innovated during the few months before its end in December 2002. In May of that year it created the Secretariat of Women’s Rights (sedim) (Pitanguy 2003), which, among other things, was immediately entrusted with the job of crafting an official report of Brazil’s process of implementation of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women (Sardenderg and Costa 2014, 64). Although sedim’s creation, as Bohn (2010) discusses, was well received among some groups of organized women for creating a point of access to policy arenas in the federal government, its lack of institutional autonomy and its feeble administrative structure limited its ability to act within the federal government. Consequently, during those first civilian presidencies, the women’s movement exercised some influence over some of its allies with a view to shaping public policies. However, its direct access to policy arenas at the level of the federal government – its inclusion as an actor in those spaces – was essentially non-existent. Its national council, for all intents and purposes, was rendered unviable due to the cuts in funding during the Collor administration. Cardoso’s sedim, however, was created at the very tail end of this president’s stint in power and had considerable institutional limitations. Furthermore, although it included small fractions or leaders of the women’s movement, it barely had the time to pursue any particular public policy. During this period there were changes in the way some individual organizations from the women’s movement structured themselves and operated. In fact, some consider the 1990s as the decade of non-governmental

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organizations’ hegemony (Alvarez 1999) because some organizations became highly professionalized in order to be able to access funds from international agencies, amidst a moment of state retrenchment. Some of these organizations also moved away from mobilization and protest toward research, consulting, advocacy, and service provision (Lebon 2013). Others dedicated themselves to lobbying or followed and monitored the implementation of policies and international treaties involving women’s rights. In the light of this previous trajectory, President Lula da Silva’s presidential election in 2002 marked an important turning point in the relationship between the bwm and the federal government (Levy 2012). Before delving into those changes, we provide a few words about the configuration of the bwm at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Brazilian Women’s Movement in the Twenty-First Century Although vigorous social movements possess multifarious organizations, they create pan-movement networks to share ideas and experiences and, more importantly, to build together a common platform of action around one or several issues that represent their common core values and goals, despite their diversity. In addition, over time they develop a cadre of diverse and seasoned leadership. Finally, the organizations that are part of the movement are able to sustain themselves over time either through the voluntary labour and contributions of their members or through a diverse array of contributors who do not have an impact on their strategy of contention (Della Porta and Diani 2006). What were the key features of the bwm at the dawn of the twenty-first century, which essentially coincides with the outset of President Lula’s first term at the helm of the federal executive? One important first observation regarding the bwm is that it comprises a mosaic of organizations with different years of existence. There are both very old organizations, with over half a century of existence, and somewhat newer ones, which were created in the 2000s (14.1 per cent of the total) and 2010s (14.1 per cent of the total).2 The bulk of the existing bwm’s organizations – approximately 72 per cent of them – predate the 2002 electoral victory of President Lula, and the pt’s stint at the federal government. As

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discussed by other authors, the post-redemocratization period saw the creation of a considerable number of women’s organizations (Alvarez 1999). In fact, this study finds that 32.4 per cent of the existing organizations date back to the 1980s, and 29.6 per cent to the 1990s; 9.8 per cent were created in the 1960s or 1970s. As a reflection of both the number and the age of several organizations, the movement’s leadership is extremely diverse and very seasoned, with individuals who experienced organizing under a military dictatorship and amidst the vibrancy associated with the regime change, the difficult economic environment of the 1980s “lost decade” (Ortiz 2012), the effervescence around the writing of a new constitution, and the devastating consequences of the structural adjustment process of the early to mid-1990s. Another noteworthy feature of the bwm is its considerable disparity when it comes to its physical distribution across the Brazilian territory. For instance, the cities of Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and (greater) Recife concentrate a large number of organizations. Approximately 75 per cent of all women’s movement organizations are situated in those cities. In terms of regional distribution, the southeast has the largest concentration of women’s organizations (50.7 per cent of them), followed by the northeast (26.8 per cent). The other three regions have fewer organizations: 7.0 per cent are in the north, 8.5 per cent in the centre-west, and 7.0 per cent in the south. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of them are found in urban centres, and there is more movement organization in capital cities – where about eight in ten women’s movement organizations are located. Needless to say, this physical distribution has implications: first, for the organizations’ mobilizational resources, as, for instance, unlike other groups, women from urban areas can count on their cities’ transportation system and telecommunications to organize; and second, for the issues that the majority of the movement raises. Despite some overarching similar problems (such as violence against women), urban-based women have life experiences and demands that are different from those of rural-based women – not only rural workers and owners of small properties but also women from the traditional communities, such as Indigenous and Quilombola women (Bohn and Grossi 2018). Interestingly, umbrella organizations that weaved together these diverse groups emerged, such as the Articulation of Brazilian Women (created in

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1994). In addition, theme-based networks formed, such as the National Feminist Network for Health, Sexual and Reproductive Rights (created in 1991 and still active) and the Women’s Network for Education (created in 1980 and active until the early 2000s). Rather than mounting a wholesale opposition to the extant administration, the women’s movement thus strategized to gradually infiltrate the state apparatus. Those networks were created to broaden influence and seek access to policy arenas related to particular policy domains – such as health and education in the case of the organizations mentioned. Interestingly, these pan-group organizations indicate that, despite their diversity, organized women were able to coalesce around some shared priorities, join forces, and create a common plan of tactical and strategic action. Finally, when it comes to the resources needed to maintain their organizations over time, several groups rely on the voluntary labour of their members to support them. In addition, there have been quite a few organizations from the women’s movement that developed a successful history of accessing resources from international co-operation: “We never, never had only one source of funding. Neither did we have funding that was simultaneous: we always created a space of transition between one project funded by one funder and the subsequent one funded by another entity. And in this way, we were very zealous in the defence of our political autonomy … Now we have headquarters that we purchased … and enough resources to pay for its expenses such as association fees, electricity, etc. In addition, we make use of a lot of voluntary labour in our projects.”3 “Since the beginning, our first funding and it is true nowadays … the bulk of our resources always came from international co-operation.”4 All these features indicate that, when the administration of President Lula took place, the bwm had organizations with diverse histories, levels, and types of experience, capacity, and predisposition to seize that historical opportunity. Several organizations had one decade or more of existence. They already knew how to operate in networks – mostly theme-based – to articulate their interests (Almond 1961), gather strength, and better coordinate their efforts. Moreover, some had experience with voluntary-based activism and successfully dealing with international co-operation. Therefore, the vibrant and highly articulated bwm was well positioned to seize

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changes in political opportunity structure and to have an impact on policy outcomes in ways that are favourable to the movement. Did the pt-led federal government represent a historical opportunity for the bwm when it comes to accessing policy arenas at the level of the federal government? This question is addressed next.

The Lula Governments as a Critical Juncture The 2002 election of Lula da Silva as president of Brazil introduced another substantial change in the political opportunity structure not only for the bwm but also for all social movements in general (Levy 2012). Interestingly, leaders and activists within the women’s movement perceived that moment as a paradigmatic change: “When Lula won, there definitely was the view from our part, from the part of the women’s movement, that ‘we have the presidency and now everything will be better.’”5 The pt-led federal governments pursued a set of concrete policies to enlarge Brazil’s social contract (Bohn 2018). In doing so, they made use of a rather inclusive governing style, which will be analyzed in what follows. Lula’s presidencies provided the women’s movement with unprecedented access to several different policy arenas within the state apparatus at the federal level. One of the first significant moments in which President Lula’s administration materialized its promise to the women’s movement was the creation of the Secretariat of Public Policies for Women (spm). More than just establishing a new agency, the government endowed the spm with administrative autonomy, ministerial status, an independently controlled budget, and a fixed cadre of professionals (Bohn 2010). Rather than a continuation of President Cardoso’s sedim, which was subordinated to the minister of justice, the spm was a de facto new policy arena where the process of gender mainstreaming of the state (at different levels) could effectively take place. Most importantly, there was a substantial improvement in access to public policy-making that the bwm readily seized. In fact, as evidence of the inclusionary pattern of governance of the pt-led federal government, the spm developed its national plans of public policies for women based upon

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extensive consultations with the women’s movement (Bohn 2010). In fact, city-level conferences took place in the most different municipalities of the country to articulate the demands of public policies and to elect city delegates for participation in state-level conferences. The same process was repeated in the twenty-six states of Brazil’s federation as well as in the federal capital, where national conferences occurred. In all, several thousand women participated in the four waves of conferences (Bohn and Levy 2019). Remarkably, this process of close collaboration with the pt state actors had a dual effect on the movement’s agenda. On the one hand, it contributed to a crystallization of a pan-group common agenda; on the other, it allowed for the surfacing of the intra-group diversity of claims – as can be observed from the analysis of the National Plans of Public Policies for Women (pnpms) that follows. As the spm incorporated most of the demands raised in the aforementioned conferences into its official platform of action, the pnpms mirror the diversity of voices within the women’s movement and, as a consequence, provide good material for one to pinpoint this multiplicity of group-specific claims. What issues are emphasized in the national plans? Whereas the panmovement demands refer to essentially women and feminist issues, such as violence against women and reproductive rights, the intra-group demands are much more markedly intersectional. If throughout the military dictatorship and the first years of civilian-controlled presidencies, as discussed earlier, the diversity of claims among organized women in Brazil was primarily an effect of the classes to which they belonged (the strengthening of Afro-Brazilian women was noted), the analysis of the pnpms reveals the demands that arise out of the intersections of class and race or ethnicity; class, race, and physical place of belonging; class and age; and of sexuality, class, ethnicity, and ability or disability. Hence, the pnpms refer to a cluster of eleven target groups of women: Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous, Quilombola, rural, young, old-aged, sexual-minority, homeless, incarcerated, Roma, and disabled. The main group-specific claims pertain primarily to the realms of health, education, socio-economic empowerment, and political empowerment. When it comes to health, although the increase in access to health care is an issue for almost all intra-movement groups (particularly for rural, homeless, and incarcerated women), emphasis is placed on the particular

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need to address Afro-Brazilian women’s disproportionally high rates of maternal mortality (pnpm iii 2013) and young and old-aged women’s high rates of hiv/aids infection (pnpm iii 2013). The training of midwives or the retraining of health-care professionals to work with the latter is an important necessity for Indigenous (pnpm ii 2008) and Quilombola women (pnpm ii 2008; pnpm iii 2013). Finally, sexual-minority, Roma, and disabled women will especially benefit from the sensitive training of healthcare professionals and the elaboration of group-specific pamphlets to create group awareness of their own health-care rights (pnpm i 2004; pnpm ii 2008). In the education policy domain, the concern with reducing the rates of illiteracy and with improving the rate of retention of girls in schools is common to almost all groups. Increasing the access to tertiary education is a priority especially for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous women as well as their counterparts from rural areas (pnpm ii 2008). Given their specific needs stemming from their age, the main educational concerns of young women include the increase in the number of offerings in technical and professional schools for the group, and the need to augment the group’s presence in technical and scientific careers (pnpm iii 2013). The socio-economic empowerment of Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous, and sexual-minority women, as well as old-aged women, calls for measures that address the dual discrimination that affects them in the marketplace (pnpm ii 2008; pnpm iii 2013). Similarly, the plans target Indigenous, Quilombola, and rural women as a priority group for the creation of networks to commercialize their products (pnpm i 2004), as well as technical assistance in their production (pnpm iii 2013). To foster their economic and financial autonomy, rural women have a host of additional demands, such as changes in the labour code, in the policy that regulates the titling of rural properties, and in the credit policy (pnpm i 2004; pnpm iii 2013). Incarcerated women’s access to programs of professional retraining is deemed essential to their reintegration into the job market and to their economic autonomy (pnpm iii 2013). In order to increase their political empowerment, certain groups of women, such as the Afro-Brazilian, Quilombola, and young women (pnpm ii 2008), see the need to access training to be better able to participate in political arenas. Furthermore, these three groups, as well as disabled women

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and sexual-minority women, aim to increase their presence in the process of designing, monitoring, and evaluating public policies (pnpm iii 2013). Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous women have politico-electoral ambition when it comes to elected legislative and executive positions (pnpm iii 2013). Finally, old-aged, young, and Indigenous women want to improve their intra-group organizational networks (pnpm iii 2013). The process of participation in the spm-sponsored conferences, thus, enabled the incredible diversity within the bwm to surface. In response to the call to come up with public policy priorities, the movement’s organizations participated in an exercise in which they were able express their different identities and positionalities, and particular demands and grievances, without losing sight of the need to focus on the common goal of fighting gender oppression. In addition to including the women’s movement in its agenda-setting process, the spm had a presence and functioning at the level of the federal government – and later it helped spur the activism of its counterparts at the state and city levels – that contributed to an unprecedented degree of opening-up of policy arenas to the movement.6 Several leaders and activists of the women’s movement became “insiders,” or “femocrats,” as they were recruited to become part of the women-centric public policy state agencies at different levels. Although there were certainly collateral effects to the functioning of their organizations, as Bohn and Levy (2019) discuss, these “insider activists” brought with them profound knowledge of the movement’s key claims to the state and of the diversity of its demands. In contrast to previous periods of Brazilian history, in which only a handful of leaders and activists of the women’s movement entered the state (i.e., at its sub-national level), under the pt-led governments the number of movement insiders was substantially larger. Nevertheless, similar to those in historical moments previously described, there were groups of “autonomists” who refrained from becoming insiders. Some of those autonomist women’s organizations were also leery of another feature of the new pattern of state–civil society relationship: the spm’s federal grants program. Given that the spm was not a state agency directly in charge of executing public policies, it created a line of federal grants to fund projects of women’s movement organizations. From its inception and every year until 2014, the

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spm issued a public call for women-centric proposals, in which women’s organizations, as well as states and municipalities, could take part. The proposals were then adjudicated in committees in which the bwm leaders and activists, in addition to public sector representatives, could participate (Bohn 2010). Over the years, millions of Brazilian reals were disbursed through these grants to fund a great variety of gender-based projects. From 2003 to 2014, over one thousand projects were funded. Reflecting a trend noticed elsewhere (Banaszak, Beckwith, and Rucht 2003), in which the state off-loads the execution of public policies to civil society entities, several of the spm-sponsored projects directly provided services to women. In terms of concrete public policies, the accomplishments of the pt federal government are substantial. One of the most important policies was the approval in 2006 of an advanced legislation to combat violence against women, which has been popularly known as “Maria da Penha Law.” This law mandates the creation of a comprehensive network of public services devoted to preventing violence against women and supporting victims or women (and their children) in situations of violence. Some of the other important policies were the passage of a bill that enhances the labour protection of domestic workers, who have traditionally been in an overwhelmingly female profession; the increase in the level of access to official documents (such as birth certificates and identity cards) by women from the so-called traditional peoples; and the inclusion of women (i.e., wives) in the land titles of rural properties. In addition, as Bohn and Levy (2019) discuss, several social policies of the pt federal government – such as conditional cash transfers, public housing, and agrarian policy – had a gendered lens in their design and execution and added poor women or single women who were heads of households to the priority pool in terms of disbursement of resources (Levy, Latendresse, and Carle-Marsan 2016). Unfortunately there was a key (almost universal) pan-movement demand that remained unaddressed at the end of the pt-led federal government. That was the issue of the decriminalization of abortion. The interruption of a pregnancy in Brazil is only allowed in very restrictive circumstances, which leads Brazilian women, particularly those from the lower socio-economic rungs, to resort to unsafe practices, with devastating consequences, including death. Unlike measures from other policy domains, this reproductive right was (and still is) part of a quintessentially

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adversarial policy community. As Bohn and Levy (2019) demonstrate, the antagonistic character of this policy domain was a direct effect of the constraints faced by the pt’s legislative supporting coalition. The coalition contained social and political actors – particularly religious political leaders – who were absolutely adamant against any relaxation of the existing reproductive rights’ legal framework. The same applies to the issue of homosexual civil unions in Brazil. The women’s movement and its other social movement allies were not able to prevail in this adversarial policy community in Congress. Despite some legal advances in the issue made by the judiciary power, the country still limits the rights of its sexualminority citizens.

Interest Articulation: New Types of Networks Were there important changes when it comes to the dynamics of organization within the bwm? This section documents the transformations and continuities of the movement’s pattern of internal coalition building, in particular three changes: the rise of intersection-based networks of women’s organizations; the emergence of coalitions of organizations whose leitmotif was the obtaining of direct access to policy arenas; and the proliferation of newer forms of activism, which have introduced additional topics to the movement’s agenda and are based upon different organizational methods. First, as mentioned earlier, the post-transition period in Brazil saw the rise of theme-based networks of women’s organizations, such as those in the areas of health and education. Over time, the bwm witnessed the proliferation of intersectional-based coalition-building patterns. An example of these is mamu (the Articulated Movement of Women from the Amazon), which was created in 1998 and brought together women’s organizations from all the states of Brazil’s Legal Amazon, as well as their counterparts from Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia (cfemea 2003). Another illustration is the case of the National Forum of Afro-Brazilian Women, which held its third national meeting in 2001, when it had congregated member organizations from more than ten states of the Brazilian federation (cfemea 2001). About four years later, in 2005, the National

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Network of Afro-Brazilian Young Feminists (Articulação Nacional de Negras Jovens Feministas) was created, with the goal of “creating a process of activism, socialization and dialogue” around the implications of one “being a Black feminist young woman in the Brazilian society” (ulf 2009). Second, whereas the theme-based network of organizations initially sought allies with access to the policy arenas of their interest, other networks, particularly those active in the 2000s, saw an important change in the political opportunity structure under the pt-controlled federal administrations. Without losing sight of the need to maintain strong ties with allied state actors, they strove to obtain access to policy arenas in which they themselves could participate directly. One example of this kind of network was the National Network of Traditional Midwives (rnpt). According to one of this organization’s leaders, the ancestral traditional midwives are the by-product of “the fusion between the African and the indigenous systems of knowledge” and seek to humanize the birth experience (Carvalho 2015). The rnpt was created with the deliberate objective of being an “inside agitator” (Eisenstein 1996): making itself present in the policy arenas with real power over maternal health in order to have direct influence over the sector’s public policies. This network has held several national and international meetings of member organizations and was able to gain a seat in the National Commission for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Implementation of the National Pact to Reduce Maternal and Neonatal Mortality (Ministry of Health 2011, 57), created by the Ministry of Health under President Lula. Interestingly, the National Network of Women Rural Workers (Articulação Nacional de Mulheres Trabalhadoras Rurais), which was created in 1995 (Deere 2004), employed a similar strategy in seeking to occupy directly spaces within decisional arenas and doing away with the invisibility of the rural women in Brazilian society (Sales 2007). Its key target arenas were sites with decision-making power over rural pension reform, expansion of health-care services to rural areas, and issues related to family-based agriculture (cfemea 2000). Finally, the mid-2010s witnessed the emergence of new grassroots forms of contention. This type of activism comprises, for the most part, young feminists, lacks central coordination, and yet has substantial mobilization capacity. It primarily uses social media as a mobilizational tool (Martinez 2019). One evidence of this type of activism was the so-called Feminist

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Spring (El País 2015). In late 2015, thousands of women (primarily) took to the streets in several capitals of Brazil to protest a variety of issues, such as sexual harassment against women and girls, cases of open misogyny (as visible in a primetime television show in Brazil that was being broadcast at the time), and, most importantly, a bill in Congress that sought to restrict even further the access to health-care services for women whose pregnancy stemmed from rape (El País 2015). Ultimately, the 2015 Feminist Spring amounted to a grassroots reaction to the threats to the already weak reproductive rights, as well as a flurry of other issues such as domestic and police violence, racism, and sexual harassment experienced by most Brazilian women. In addition, this grassroots eruption of young feminist activism demonstrated the diversity of the movement and its capacity to occupy the public space agenda with multiple issues, bringing attention to specific and intersectional problems through sustained public protests (as chapter 10 of this book also emphasizes). However, its vibrancy transformed this new pattern of activism into the political punching bag of conservative sectors of society, which were essential to the rise of the right-wing presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.

Conclusions This chapter has argued that the pt-led federal administrations represented a moment of paradigmatic change in the process of opening up public policies to actors from organized civil society. In the case of the bwm, the close collaboration with state actors, especially the spm, had an impact on both its claims and its coalition-building pattern. As shown, at the dawn of the Workers’ Party governments, the heterogeneous bwm already had substantial organizing experience, even under an authoritarian regime and under the economic stress that had clouded the first decades of the re-democratization process in the country. When it comes to the movement’s agenda, its sheer diversity came to the fore with the change in political opportunity structure brought about by the pt federal administrations. In addition to the pan-movement historical claims, intersection-based demands crystallized and became the basis for

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movement organization and networking. As a consequence, there was not only an increase in the number of networks within the bwm but also different axes around which each coalesced. Furthermore, instead of seeking to liaise with state actors that had access to and direct power within important state-level decision-making arenas, networks within the bwm pursued and, in several cases, obtained a seat, voice, and vote within power loci of the state structure. These spaces of influence within the state that they won through the pt governments facilitated the creation and implementation of public policies that favoured the women they represented. With regard to outcomes, overall, the bwm advanced several issues from its agenda through its collaboration with state actors. The partnership with the spm offered material gains to large swaths of Brazilian women. In addition, it also helped to sustain some women’s organizations and their work. As Bohn and Levy (2019) make clear, the bwm made gains in several important fronts, particularly the issue of violence against women and the prioritization of women in the design of public policies. However, the movement clearly lost out on the question of reproductive rights, especially the decriminalization of abortion, which are part of “adversarial policy communities” (Dudley and Richardson 1996) in the Brazilian context. Paradoxically, the fight against any further erosion of reproductive rights at the end of the pt stint in power (at the federal level) helped spark a new cycle of contention in Brazil, this time led by grassroots groups formed primarily by young feminists. Whereas the Workers’ Party era in Brazil’s federal executive denoted a period of inclusive public policy design, the post-pt period, particularly the Bolsonaro administration, has been so far distinctly marked by the closure of decision-making arenas to organized civil society actors. The question as to what strategies of survival and contention Brazil’s diverse, resilient, and experienced women’s movement will employ to deal with this profound and sudden change awaits further historical developments.

notes This study was generously supported by an sshrc Insight Development research grant (number 430-2015-00858). 1 Autonomists form organizations that are ideologically, organizationally, and

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financially independent from political parties (including those on the left) and governments. They might be willing to embrace direct action and partake in high-risk activities that involve some degree of illegality (Cross and Snow 2011). These numbers stem from a database of existing organizations created by the authors. The database compiled information on existing bwm organizations, using data from abong (the Brazilian association of ngos), Encontros Feministas (meetings of feminist organizations) and mamu (a website dedicated to mapping feminist collectives in fifteen states of Brazil). It is important to mention, however, that the data presented in this chapter excludes organizations solely based on a virtual network. Nevertheless, the chapter will briefly address the emergence of social-media-based activism. Women’s movement actor, interview by the author, in Porto Alegre, 16 June 2016. Women’s movement actor, interview by the author, in Cabo de Santo Agostinho, 24 October 2016. Women’s movement actor, interview by the author, in Olinda, 25 October 2016. It is important to mention that this opening-up of policy arenas to social movement actors was not exclusive to spm. In fact, it was a feature of the overall Lula administrations. Several of its ministries developed state agencies or created public policy arenas that incorporated leaders and activists from a variety of social movements.

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Ridenti, Marcelo. 1990. “As mulheres na política brasileira: Os anos de chumbo.” Tempo Social 2, no. 2: 113–28. Sales, Celecina de Maria Veras. 2007. Mulheres rurais: Tecendo novas relações e reconhecendo direitos. Revista Estudos Feministas 15, no. 2: 437–43. Sallum, Jr, Brasilio, and Eduardo Kugelmas. 1991. “O Leviathan declinante: A crise brasileira dos anos 80.” Revista de Estudos Avançados 5, no. 13: 145–59. Santos, Yumi Garcia dos. 2006. “A implementação dos órgãos governamentais de gênero no Brasil e o papel do movimento feminista: O caso do Conselho Estadual da Condição Feminina de São Paulo.” Cadernos Pagu, 27: 401–26. Sardenderg, Cecilia, and Ana Alice Costa. 2014. “Contemporary Feminisms in Brazil: Achievements, Challenges, and Tensions.” Revista Feminismos 2, no. 2: 53–82. Sarti, Cynthia. 1989. “Reciprocidade e hierarquia: Relações de gênero na periferia de São Paulo.” Cadernos de Pesquisa 70 (August): 38–46. Schumaher, Maria Aparecida, and Elisabeth Vargas. 1993. “Lugar no governo: Álibi ou conquista?” Estudos Feministas 2, no. 1: 348–64. Sharp, Gene. 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston: Porter Sargent. Simões, Solange. 1985. Deus, Pátria e Família. Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes. Skidmore, Thomas. 1989. The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964–85. New York: Oxford University Press. Studart, Heloneida. 1974. Mulher, objeto de cama e mesa. Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes. Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. “Contentious Politics and Social Movements.” In Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 54–71. New York: Cambridge University Press. ulf (Universidade Livre Feminista). 2009. “Articulação Nacional de Negras Jovens Feministas promove encontro em Salvador.” Feminismo. https:// feminismo.org.br/articulacao-nacional-de-negras-jovens-feministaspromove-encontro-em-salvador/236. Zerbini, Therezinha. 1979. Anistia, sementes da Liberdade. São Paulo, Brazil: Gráfica das Escolas Profissionais Salesianas.

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Black Feminist Activism in Brazil: Political Discourse in Three Times cristiano rodrigues and viviane gonçalves freitas Translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato

The impact of Black Brazilian feminist activism in the last decade can be observed in many facets of society. In social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter, a growing number of young Black women are sharing their experiences of intersectional oppression and speaking up in favour of social practices that recognize them as political subjects, promoting gender, race, sexual, and generational equity, among other hierarchizing categories ubiquitous in Brazilian society. It is important to point out that the terms Black Brazilian feminism and Black women’s activism are not synonymous. The Black women’s movement is older, vaster, more capillary, and more diverse than Brazil’s Black feminism. There are several perspectives within the Black women’s movement, such as womanism, among other distinct characteristics, that allow the participation of men. Furthermore, there is an important generational component: the term Black feminism has grown in popularity since 2010, first among young Black women and cyber-activists, and later being incorporated, little by little, by activists of other generations. In this chapter, therefore, when discussing Black feminism, Black feminists, or Black feminist activism, we are referring to organizations and activists that identify as such, and when discussing the Black women’s movement or Black women’s activism, we mean organizations and activists that do not necessarily selfidentity as feminist. Despite the exponential growth of distinct kinds of Black feminist activism in Brazil and its interconnections with similar phenomena in other parts of the world, systematized studies of its local, national, and interna-

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tional importance are rare. This chapter aims to fill the gap by presenting an empirical as well as theoretical discussion, on the one hand analyzing political and historical contexts that have enabled the emergence, consolidation, and pluralization of Black feminism in the country, and on the other hand showing the changes in its political discourse over the years and the rise of new co-operation and confrontation strategies with the state and other political agents. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first, “In between the Women’s Movement and the Black Movement, We Continue to Be Black Women,” presents the emergence of the Black Women’s Movement in the 1980s, analyzing its co-operation and confrontation strategies with the Black and feminist movements and in the discourses that appear in Nzinga Informativo, “perhaps the first periodical in the history of Brazil’s black feminism as an autonomous movement” (Rios and Freitas 2018, 29). The second, “Institutional Advocacy and Realignment of the Feminist and Antiracist Political-Discursive Fields,” analyzes changes in the political discourse within Black feminist activism in the 1990s and early 2000s, characterized by the attempt to establish formal channels of political engagement for Black women within state bureaucracy and international organizations. The third section, “Intersectional Feminism: Shaking up Existing Structures to Promote Good Living,” discusses the resurgence of street demonstrations in the 2010s along with two emerging political movements led by young Black activists. The first can be interpreted as a movement to “occupy politics,” represented by the growing presence of Black women in legislative positions. The second is the emergence of a generation of young Black feminists who are reformulating and creating new repertoires (both discursive and contestatory) in the streets, social networks, and arenas of political representation.

In between the Women’s Movement and the Black Movement, We Continue to Be Black Women Most of the participants in the Black women’s movement in Brazil began their activism as double militants: for both the women’s movement and the Black Brazilian movement, which re-emerged in the 1970s. However, as

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in other parts of the world, such as the United States, Canada, and England, in Brazil Black women felt acknowledged neither by feminism, which was treated as hegemonic or universal, mostly disseminated by white middleclass women, nor by the Black movement, whose leadership space were filled almost exclusively by men. Both in the women’s movement and in the Black movement, Black women were considered “implicit subjects” (Ribeiro 1995). These movements became institutionalized around the idea of equality: among women, race was a secondary dimension, while among Black people, gender inequality was ignored (Bairros 1995; Carneiro 2003; Ribeiro 1995). Hence, these movements ended up being internally oppressive, silencing anyone who spoke up about racism or sexism and putting Black women in a disadvantaged position. Caldwell (2010) draws attention to an important intellectual tradition among Black Brazilian women that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, in which works by Lélia Gonzalez, Beatriz Nascimento, Sueli Carneiro, Thereza Santos, Edna Roland, Luiza Bairros, Matilde Ribeiro, and Fátima Oliveira, along with double militancy, became essential for the development of Black feminist thought and practice in Brazil. At the same time, as Rios (2017) points out, the presence of Black women in anti-dictatorship circles, especially in leftwing organizations, and in processes of leadership formations, both in the Black movement and in the feminist movement, contributed to the emergence of autonomous political subjects. At that time, the Black women’s movement was becoming established as the product of social struggles by institutionalized organizations (mainly non-governmental organizations, ngos) and less formal independent organizations that faced conflict within left-wing movements and Black organizations, given that issues specific to women were seen as minor and divisive (Moreira 2007). In the words of Rios (2017), “the effervescent context created the need for independent politics and a new political agent that spoke up about the domination of sexual and ethnic-racial dimensions and the exploitation of lower classes, and therefore the emergence of black Brazilian feminism” (239). In 1975, when white middle-class feminists, whose references were white middle-class women from Europe and North America, gathered at the Brazilian Press Association for the Congress of Brazilian Women celebrating International Women’s Year, Lélia Gonzalez and her partners presented

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a document articulating the circumstances of oppression and exploitation of Black women: “The fate of black women on the American continent has been, since their arrival, to be a thing, an object of production or sexual reproduction. Thus, the black Brazilian woman has received a cruel inheritance: to be not only an object of production (much like the black man) but an object of pleasure for the colonizers. The product of this cowardly procreation is what is called the only national product that cannot be exported: the Brazilian mulata. Though the quality of this ‘product’ is perceived as high, the treatment they receive is extremely degrading, dirty and disrespectful.”1 The Black Women’s Manifesto was the first in a series of formal statements by Black feminists against hegemonic white feminism. In the following years many Black women’s groups were founded: Aqualtune (1979 in Rio de Janeiro),2 Nzinga Black Women’s Collective (1982 in Rio de Janeiro),3 Mãe Andresa (1986 in São Luís),4 Black Women of Espírito Santo (1987 in Vitória), Maria Mulher (1987 in Porto Alegre), and Geledés (1988 in São Paulo)5 (V.G. Freitas 2018; Rios 2017; Rios and Maciel 2018; Rodrigues 2006). Although groups led by Black women emerged in the late 1970s, it was only in the latter half of the 1980s that this new political movement saw significant growth, with an identity of its own and quickly reaching across the country. Rios (2017) writes that this innovation by Black women was at the intersection of two agents that fostered collective mediation through the identity promoted by Black and feminist narratives. Lélia Gonzalez is an important figure not only for our understanding of this moment in the Black women’s movement but also because she foresaw many of the conversations that are now being echoed in the intersectional debate, especially those focused on the gender-race-class tripod. At the same time, as she moved between the Black movement and feminist movements, Gonzalez was critical of both and stressed that feminism should pay attention to the multiple forms of women’s oppression. According to Rios and Ratts (2016, 395), Gonzalez’s ideas were precursors of the concept of political and theoretical intersectionality, as she questioned society (and academia in particular) about the disadvantages and privileges of sex (use of the term gender was not yet common), race, and class and offered a new perception of feminism that transcended the global north, capitalist model. In the words of Caldwell (2000), “the apparent liberation

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of white feminists [was linked] to the continued subordination of black women” (99). Gonzalez, a Brazilian anthropologist and activist, highlighted the organizational autonomy of Black and Indigenous women, as she believed that “no one is more qualified than these women to voice their own interests and ways of symbolizing the social world” (Rios and Ratts 2016, 399). When speaking for themselves and sharing multiple experiences, these women could achieve empowerment through their discourse, which was at times silenced by men as well as other women. The starting point for a Black women’s autonomous movement6 was the Third Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentro, held in Bertioga, São Paulo, according to Ribeiro (1995) and Moreira (2007). At the event, the Nzinga Black Women’s Collective proposed a motion against racism in South Africa (Lemos 1997). The encuentro (convention), whose theme was feminism and racism, had registered 850 women, of whom only 116 selfidentified as Black or multiracial. However, a group of Black women associated with community movements (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro had not registered, claiming that they could not afford to do so. The event’s organizers prevented them from attending, so they camped outside the hotel at which it was held, thus causing conflict. That was the point at which Black feminists began to form an autonomous movement because they did not feel acknowledged by the platforms and struggles of the feminist movement. They decided to hold a National Convention of Black Women (Ribeiro 1995; Soares 1994), which took place in Valença, Rio de Janeiro, in 1988, with the participation of 450 women from seventeen states in all five regions of the country. Not all of the participants came from openly feminist organizations (Rios and Freitas 2018). At the convention they debated themes that directly affected the lives of Black women, as described by Joselina da Silva (2014): civil society organizations, work, education, legislation, the myth of racial democracy, the ideology of racial whitening, sexuality, the media, African and Brazilian history, art and culture, politics and population control, health, violence, aesthetics, and sexism. The fifth edition of Nzinga Informativo (March 1989) touched on the aftermath of the convention. Nzinga Informativo, founded by the collective of same name, ran from June 1985 to March 1989, with five editions published irregularly. Lélia

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Gonzalez (1985), its first editor, stressed that the choice of headquarters at the Morro dos Cabritos Association, on the west side of Rio de Janeiro, was symbolic and also reflected the proximity of the Black and favela movements amidst the effervescent re-emergence of social movements in the early 1980s (Bairros 2000; Ratts and Rios 2010; Viana 2010). In order to reach the largest number of people, regardless of colour, race, or gender, who were concerned with the issues addressed in the journal, Nzinga Informativo was not politically sectarian or exclusivist about identity, though Black women were at the centre of the journal’s identity (Rios and Freitas 2018). Its main agenda comprised issues specific to Black women (Apresentação 1989). The fifth edition was different from the first four not only because it had almost twice the number of pages – from an average of six to more than sixteen – but also, according to Rios and Freitas (2018, 32), because the convention in Valença was recorded through “written testimonials signed by representatives of different black women’s collectives from several Brazilian states, which shows the reach of the periodical and the dialogue between the groups active at that time.” The twenty-two testimonials showed what these women and so many others took away from [the convention], and the strength of their solidarity. The editorial for this issue, published on the cover, was a tribute to all Black, white, Indigenous, and multiracial women, those who knew they were oppressed and those who had yet to realize it (Apresentação 1989). Several collectives in eleven of the seventeen Brazilian states represented at the convention – Paraná, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Maranhão, Bahia, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Espírito Santo, and Rio Grande do Sul – sent letters. Women from political parties, local communities, labour unions, religious groups, women’s movements, and Black movements finally had a place “where they could speak up and defend their proposals, as well as to reject referrals” (Souza 1989, 3). They talked about the gender-race-class triad (Leni 1989, 12), about “the few opportunities black women had to gather and discuss their particular problems” (Oliveira 1989, 10), and about “creating or reaffirming their racial, sexual, Afro-Brazilian identities” (Freitas 1989, 4). In an attempt to help change Black women’s realities, Nzinga Black Women’s Collective defended their right to fight for social justice from a

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democratic perspective. Nzinga Informativo was for all intents and purposes a tool for disseminating information about Black women’s struggles, increasingly giving voice to organizations for Black women and other segments of society in order to mobilize socially and politically. In addition to sexism, the struggle against the racism and racial discrimination that made Black women “the most exploited and oppressed section of Brazilian society” justified collective action with an agenda distinct from that of white women at the time (O que é o Nzinga? 1985, 1:2). The distinction between the values of the Black women’s movement and those of hegemonic feminism was stressed in every issue of the publication, given that this was the direction of the collective itself. The periodical’s capillarity and its role as a reference for groups and collectives being formed across the country can be inferred by the events listed in its political and cultural calendar: releases of books by intellectuals from the Black women’s, feminist, and Black movements; meetings and parties in cultural centres that would become centres of Black culture and the Afropop aesthetic, such as Clube Renascença; activities of the Movimento Negro Unificado (Unified Black Movement) in Bahia and “peripheral communities”; events at the Black Cultural Centre in Vitória, Espírito Santo; promotions for the newspaper Porantim about Indigenous issues; events organized in the peripheries of São Paulo by Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional (Rios and Freitas 2018). The editorials in all five issues centred on the identity and unique struggle of Black women (Freitas 2018), which aligns with the term blackening feminism to cut a distinct path for Black women within Brazilian feminist movements, while at the same time stressing the urgency of sexualizing (or “gendering”) the antiracist agenda (Carneiro 2003). Thus, Black women sought double affirmation, with their specific agenda in the Black movement as well as in the feminist and women’s movements. According to Rios (2017), it is impossible to understand the movement without linking it to the feminist and antiracist debate, “crucial fields in the construction of ‘black women’s’ collective identity and the dissemination of the movement” (252).

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Institutional Advocacy and Realignment of the Feminist and Antiracist Political-Discursive Fields The 1970s and 1980s had witnessed a continuous process of building an autonomous Black women’s movement. The next two decades saw a collective effort to maximize the presence of Black women on the political scene. The growth of Black feminist ngos (e.g., Geledés, Fala Preta!, Criola, Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra, Maria Mulher), the creation of the Afro-Latin-American and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Network in 1992, and the participation, at first individually and later in a more collective and organized manner, of Black feminists in United Nations international conferences were all part of a concerted effort to make a long-term institutional impact. At the beginning of the 1990s, from their brief experience participating in state arenas through the Condição Feminina of São Paulo and the National Women’s Rights Council in Brasília over the preceding decade, Black feminists saw a decrease in spaces for political co-operation between the bureaucracy and social movements, at both the state and the federal level, for issues of gender and, as a consequence, for issues of interest to Black women. However, there was a change on the international scene that positively influenced the debates on gender and race. This was a realignment of the feminist and antiracist political-discursive fields, and it was exemplified by (1) a reformulation of the constitutions of fifteen Latin American countries, which generated what many authors call a “multicultural spin” within the continent (Rodrigues 2020); (2) the pluralization and globalization of Latin American feminisms, in what Sonia Alvarez (2014) defines as a process of “sidestreaming” the movement within the continent; and (3) the consolidation of international advocacy networks, which provided both financial resources and training for Black Brazilian activists. Some Black feminists established relationships with international institutions and ngos, such as International Women’s Health Coalition, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation in the early 1980s and the Bank of Boston Foundation in the 1990s. In this way they were able to bring about important initiatives like the first health program and the project sos Racismo do Geledés (Roland 2000).7

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In this context, new discursive repertoires (Tilly 1995) – which are the by-product of the conflict between those who have power and their challengers – came to the fore, shaping both the Black feminism movement internally and its trajectory toward more autonomy from the Black and feminist movements. The confluence of Black feminists from diverse political leanings around health and sexual and reproductive rights guaranteed consistency and compatibility in the Black women’s movements in Brazil throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The National Seminar on Politics and Reproductive Rights, organized by Geledés and held in Itapecerica da Serra (São Paulo) in August 1993, was a milestone for the Black feminist movement. It was part of a series of events leading up to the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, which was attended by fifty-five leaders of women’s organizations, Black organizations, feminist organizations, universities, and public health services. At the seminar the Itapecerica de Serra Declaration was presented, signed by virtually all the political figures in the Black women’s movement (Ribeiro 1995; Roland 2000). Rodrigues and Prado (2013) offer three reasons why the Itapecerica da Serra Declaration was perceived as a crucial document for the future of Black Brazilian feminism. First, this was the first time that Brazilian Black women’s organizations had produced a document expressing a uniform political position: “The role of the state basically is to treat reproduction as a public issue and the means of maintaining life as a private matter. Understanding this reversal of roles is essential in this preparatory conjuncture of the Third World Population Conference … Reproductive freedom is essential to marginalized ethnicities. Thus, it is necessary to fight for reproduction to be a private decision, leaving the state to safeguard reproductive rights and ensure safe conditions for maintaining life” (Itapecerica da Serra Declaration 1993, 3). Second, the authors cite the impact that the focus on health and reproductive rights had within the Black women’s organizations. In practice, most of the organizations had the creation of health programs for Black women as one of their purposes, and they received funds to develop projects in this area from many sources, including Brazil’s Ministry of Health, international women’s ngos, and international philanthropic institutions. For Rodrigues and Prado (2013), the centrality of reproductive rights and

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health as a new political discourse relied on other influences besides the Itapecerica da Serra Declaration. Research by the Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning, an important supporter of Black feminist organizations, produced data on Black women’s health conditions and their relevance to public health in general – items that were always present on the agenda of feminist movements. The third reason highlighted by Rodrigues and Prado (2013) is that the Itapecerica da Serra Declaration established the principal space for dialogue among Black women’s organizations, the Brazilian government, international advocacy networks, and international regulatory bodies. For example, although some women joined the organization Planeta Fêmea during the International Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and attended the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, their participation was not the result of a collective decision with defined strategies and goals. Only with the International Conference on Population and Development was there systematization of this collective organization. In the first half of the 1990s, mobilization around the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and the first meeting of Latin American and Caribbean Black Women in Santo Domingo in July 1992 was pivotal to the consolidation of a new political discourse around the strengthening of formal state institutions, which guided the actions of Black feminist organizations until the end of the decade. Black feminists attended all statewide assemblies in advance of the world conference, achieving broad visibility for their issues. Furthermore, a significant number attended the National Conference of Brazilian Women in Rio de Janeiro in June 1995, thus ensuring that race was one of the themes in the documents for the world conference in Beijing and also in the official document of the Brazilian government. During the Fourth World Conference on Women, the intervention by Black feminists brought the discussion of race to the global stage. They made it clear that racism manifested in all societies, to a greater or lesser degree, creating hierarchies among racialized social groups and privileging white people to the detriment of all others. They pointed out that racism was not limited to any one region or culture and was often a determining factor in social exclusion.

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After this process in Beijing, but not as a result of it, there was another realignment in terms of discourse within Black Brazilian feminism. There was a continuous displacement of perspectives on how distinct forms of discrimination and social hierarchizing manifested in favour of intersectional explanations. For Bairros (1995), the acceptance, throughout the 1980s, that some groups were more discriminated against than others makes it difficult to assert that all people, both men and women, are affected by sexism in its many forms: homophobia, machismo, misogyny. Hence, intersectional perspectives became more central, especially as they affirmed that sexist oppression takes place through the position one occupies in the matrix of domination, in which race, gender, and class intersect at different points. For Collins (2017), it is important to examine how women of colour (including Latina, Indigenous, and Asian women) dealt with the challenge of finding their own empowerment, coming, as they were, from different standards of negotiation in the political context of social movements – that is, a structural circumstance that had a significant effect on the symbolic dimensions of the intersectional discourse from that point on. Thus, discussions on the priorities of Black feminism – fighting against racism or sexism – became unnecessary because the intersection of gender, race, and class could not be de-constituted. In a process that might be called transnational political-discursive alignment, Black feminists from Brazil and other parts of the world, who were influenced by standpoint theory (especially the works of Donna Haraway that were often cited and debated in Brazil in the 1990s and 2000s) and by North American Black feminism, began to criticize the notion of collective identity that was entrenched in feminist practices. There was a clash between Black and white feminists, as Black feminists wished to add the categories of race and class when addressing the concept of gender. Black feminists sought to de-essentialize collective identities, presenting them as controversial, precarious, and contingent on their relationship to the social structure. Hence, even among Black women, there was no unity or consensus once that specificity was not given as a condition but, rather, was constructed and legitimized in the political struggle. The Third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (iii wcar), held in Durban, South

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Africa, in August and September 2001, was another milestone because of its aftermath and because it brought to fruition the Black Brazilian women’s political-discursive strategy of exerting influence over formal institutions of power and over the elaboration of public policies. The struggle for reparation and affirmative action in Black organizations throughout the 1990s became central after iii wcar, when diverse organizations joined forces around such concerns and the dialogue with the state became more and more heated. The events leading up to Durban afforded Black feminists more visibility, as they were able to make use of their experiences at previous un international conferences in the 1990s. In a series of preparatory conferences for iii wcar, Black feminists showed a greater organizing ability and a better understanding of the inner workings of negotiations than they had earlier. As a result, the Brazilian delegation was the largest at Durban, at approximately six hundred, and Edna Roland, president of the ngo Fala Preta!, was second in the iii wcar hierarchy as general rapporteur. Moreover, negotiations to have the term Afro-descendant used for the descendants of Black African people enslaved outside of Africa, and the proposal that reparative policies be drawn up for Afro-descendants, were successful due to the tireless efforts of Black Brazilian feminists. The Durban conference had two immediate results, one in terms of theory and the other in terms of interactions between Black feminists and the state. According to A.C. Pereira (2016), the use of the word intersectionality in the Brazilian academic literature was driven by the increased visibility of networks of Black feminists after their participation at Durban. Pereira explains that the concept of intersectionality first appeared in a Brazilian periodical a year later. Luiza Bairros edited the “Dossier” section about the conference in Revista Estudos Feministas, with a contribution by Kimberlé Crenshaw and another by Maylei Blackwell and Nadine Naber dealing with different aspects of intersectionality. There followed an abundance of articles by Brazilian feminists incorporating the concept of intersectionality. Regarding the interaction between Black feminists and the state, the post-Durban context also represented change in terms of political mobilization. Until then Black feminists’ participation in the state did not involve any explicit concerns. After Durban, the National Articulation of Black Women’s Organizations produced a strategic action plan with proposals

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for increasing the spaces for dialogue with several ministries regarding social security, work, health, and education. Black feminists believed that, in addition to taking specific measures, it was essential to have input across the government agenda so that action could be taken to mitigate race and gender inequalities in all spheres. The Workers’ Party administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2003 to 2010 implemented a number of programs and policies promoting racial and gender equality. The Black movement and the Black women’s movement had cultivated discussions around the effects of racism and sexism on Black communities, and the government instituted a continuum from the discussion of ideas to the implementation of policies specific to Afrodescendants.8 According to such authors as Pereira (2008), Lima (2010), and Rodrigues (2019), relations between the Black movement and the state became positively synergetic during the Workers’ Party rule. Previously, relations had been external and characterized by little political involvement. In the Workers’ Party government, militants from the Black movement held seats within institutions devoted to the formulation and growth of racially sensitive policies. Hence there was an acceleration and intensification of policies directed at the Black population. In previous administrations such policies either were never fully realized or had less reach. Black women’s organizations increased their influence over the state after 2003. They aimed to translate dialectics and activist strategies into the language of the state. This process began in the 1990s when they devised functional structures devoted to the creation of areas of action within the movement, while undergoing processes of specialization aimed at professionalization related to the integration of temporary professionals and the training of activists in strategic issues. At the same time, the federal Secretariat of Policies for Women (spm) and Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (seppir) were founded. In this new political scenario, characterized by greater institutional permeability, Black feminists began to play a more prominent role in dialogue with the state. However, the plan by the National Articulation of Black Women’s Organizations to disrupt the government’s agenda did not go as expected. Most of the policies adopted by the executive branch during the Workers’ Party rule concerned seppir and to a lesser extent spm. As Rodrigues (2020) demonstrates, even in these secretariats, activity was focused on public policy and the hiring of consultants. Not coincidentally, seppir

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was headed on three occasions by Black women – Matilde Ribeiro (2003– 08), Luiza Bairros (2011–14), and Nilma Lino Gomes (2015–16) – who had been directly or indirectly involved in the creation and consolidation of Black women’s organizations in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s – while spm was headed only by white women during that period. Between its implementation and its incorporation into a new ministry in 2015, seppir (the government agency that employed the highest number of Black feminists) brought with it a series of impasses and contradictions. It had sustainability and budgetary problems during its entire existence. Moreover, it had relatively little political-administrative autonomy because its primary purpose was to develop racially sensitive policies to be implemented in partnership with other ministries and secretariats. seppir’s sustainability issues also stemmed from a lack of financial resources. In 2003 it had no budget, having only been created that year. In 2004 its budget was rs$17.2 million. Between 2009 and 2015 its average budget was rs$30 million. By way of comparison, seppir received, on average, 28 per cent of the amount allocated to the spm, whose average budget was rs$106 million over the same period.9 Machado and Rodrigues (2015) note that, after the end of Lula’s second term, new political tendencies led to a drastic change in the relationship between social movements and the state. The political landscape that once had been promising became uncertain, especially during the Dilma Rousseff administration. It was only during and following the 2010 elections, in particular in 2014, that “moral” issues became politically central, and, due to a dispute over the average electorate, major Brazilian parties made a deliberate choice to move in the direction of conservatism. After the 2014 elections the Rousseff administration not only maintained but strengthened its alliances with some of the most archaic sectors of national politics, thus contributing to the increased political influence of conservative parliamentarians. The election of Marco Feliciano to the House of Representatives’ Commission on Human Rights and Minorities in 2013, and all the controversy that his election generated, was a milestone in this new sense of political uncertainty in terms of the dialogue between social movements and the state (Machado and Rodrigues 2015). The impeachment of President Rousseff in 2016 intensified the uncertainty, aggravating the political and institutional crisis, especially for the most vulnerable social groups. Unsurprisingly, one of the first steps of

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the next government was a ministerial reform that eliminated the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality and Human Rights, which had been established in October 2015 from the unification of seppir, spm, and the Special Secretariat of Human Rights. With this, the political discourse that had begun in the 1990s and focused on co-operation between the state and multilateral agencies lost its centrality, which had been an essential strategy for Brazilian Black feminism.

Intersectional Feminism: Shaking Up Existing Structures to Promote Good Living In the 1990s and 2000s many Black women’s collectives had been formalized as ngos (Alvarez 1998; Rodrigues and Prado 2013). The Maria Mulher (initially part of an international network of ngos called sos Racismo, which was founded in France in 1984) and the Geledés Institute of Black Women were the first such organizations. It is important to note that not all Black women’s collectives became ngos in this period. This was more common among organizations in the south and southeast, while collectives in other parts of the country remained less institutionalized. This discrepancy can be partly explained by the economic and educational disparities between regions, with the south and southeast, on average, displaying higher numbers of such organizations than the rest of the country. Black women’s ngos (and other social movements) have four distinctive features in relation to autonomous collectives, from the point of view of political strategies and discourse. First, ngo members are at higher educational and socio-economic levels than Black activists from noninstitutionalized groups. Second, ngos are staffed almost exclusively by salaried professionals rather than volunteers. Third, because of their higher degree of bureaucratization and their focus on advocacy, Black women’s ngos have, since the 1990s, aimed at policy formulation and implementation. Finally, ngos, due to their collaborative or partnership relations with transnational ngo networks, international regulatory bodies, and state bureaucracy, have to move away from confrontation and resistance strategies, becoming essentially service providers for their target population.

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While these distinctive features of ngos had a profound impact on the development of policies promoting racial and gender equality, they also contributed to ruptures in the Black women’s movement, especially with regard to regional contradictions. According to Roland (2000), the increased access to information and resources by the southern and southeastern groups was seen as a threat to the survival of northern and northeastern groups. However, in the mid-2000s ngos began to lose their centrality, for a number of reasons, chief among them the following. First, new institutions and programs were set up by the Workers’ Party government with the aim of reducing inequalities. Second, the country was repositioned in the global economy. It was declared the seventh-largest economy in the world by the World Bank in 2014. Such repositioning caused international ngos and various un agencies to reduce their funding of social projects and even, sometimes, to terminate their activities in the country. The continued loss of the centrality of Black women’s ngos was accompanied by the rise of new forms of activism: cyberfeminism, young Black feminists, music events and poetry slams in the Brazilian peripheries, Black women’s collectives on college campuses, and a resurgence in resistance or confrontation strategies, especially the Black women’s march. In a phenomenon that some Black intellectuals call “occupying politics,” an increasing number of Black women are running for office and garnering a significant number of votes. In a comparative study of political representation by women of African descent in Latin America, Htun (2014) found that these women act as “surrogate representatives” because their mere presence in such spaces increases the visibility of social identities and experiences shared by marginalized groups who are absent from the public sphere because of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression.

From Black Feminism to Intersectional Feminism? In their analysis of Brazilian Black feminism, Rios and Maciel (2018) write that by choosing to hold the first convention of young Black feminists in 2009 in the city of Salvador (Bahia), the Workers’ Party government opened up new opportunities that contributed to the emergence of other

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forms of activism and the creation of new institutions, including seppir, spm, and the National Youth Council. The authors also demonstrate how the participation of young Black feminists represents a break from earlier forms of activism and political strategies. In a similar vein, Rodrigues and Assis (2018) argue that the rise of young Black feminists and intersectional agendas can be credited to three factors: a) the increasing popularization of the intersectional paradigm; b) affirmative action policies allowing for the inclusion of more Black women in universities; and c) a change in the discourse on oppression. In the 1970s and 1980s, the hegemonic debate within Brazilian feminism had as its central axes class and sex/gender. Other issues, race included, were considered secondary in a political agenda aimed at achieving equality between men and women, restoring democracy in Brazil and engendering public policies that would reduce socioeconomic inequalities. The impact of post-structuralism in the Brazilian academy in the 1990s and of queer theories more recently, combined with a number of other social processes, contributed to a relocation of the analytical axis from class-gender to racism-sexism-homo/ lesbo/transphobia. While this triad of oppressions demands better operationalization, it is often deployed in different spaces of political intervention and thus has prompted an academic debate that attempts to establish connections and intersections among these different axes of social hierarchization.” (Rodrigues and Assis 2018, 171) Still in the context of political opportunities, the collective Blogueiras Feministas (Feminist Bloggers) was formed in 2010. Although it was not the first Brazilian feminist project to use information and communication technology to broaden its reach, Blogueiras Feministas’s emergence illustrates an intergenerational change and the resulting shift in the politicaldiscursive strategies of feminism in general. Since its inception, hundreds of women have posted to the blog, covering a range of themes across the personal, social, and political spheres. This, however, is not the innovative element brought by this model of activism, because feminist epistemology has addressed, since its inaugural texts, the need to abandon public-private

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dualism (Sardenberg 2007). Its main contribution lies in discursive strategies widely used by young feminists. One such strategy is the reaching, linguistically and aesthetically, across different social networks. These activists favour blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram as intervention spaces. Each of these platforms reaches diverse audiences, albeit with a high degree of juxtaposition, and the mastering of different languages is essential to successfully reaching their audience. Therefore, young Black feminists are better equipped to adapt their discourse to these platforms. Other innovative strategies include the use of original hashtags – a few that have gone viral in recent years are #MeuPrimeiroAssedio (#MyFirst Harassment), #MeuAmigoSecreto (#MyAnonymousFriend), and #Sera QuéRacismo (#IsThisRacist) – organized efforts to push certain hashtags to trending topics on Twitter, and collective blogging. Blogueiras Feministas served as an incubator for other networks. Initially, several young Black feminists contributed to the blog, which featured a variety of feminists from different backgrounds. However, in a phenomenon that Cohen (1999) calls “secondary marginalization” – that is, when internal differences between members of marginalized groups end up becoming hierarchized and reproduce external marginalization – Black feminists began to warn others of their invisibility within the group. In 2011, Luana Tolentino, one of the blog’s contributors, wrote a post stating that of the 282 texts it had so far published (up to 25 August 2011), only three discussed gender and race at the same time, two of which were written by her.10 The creation of Blogueiras Negras in 2013 also brought political-discursive innovation.11 As with the changes that took place in the 1980s, in the 2010s Black feminists’ pursuit of specific platforms to voice their concerns emerged in response to marginalization practices within the feminist movement. What distinguished Blogueiras Negras from the groups that followed was the substance of the women’s protests. Their agenda and guidelines were less institutional. Collectives such as this had little interest in maintaining a dialogue with the state; their discourse was to be found in blogs and on social media such as Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The vocabulary and practices of these Black youth-led groups, often focused on aesthetic and individual representation or empowerment, differ

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greatly from the pattern of institutional activism that became hegemonic among Black feminists of previous decades. It is important to note that the influence of young Black feminists goes beyond activism on social media. The resurgence of political discourse aimed at these organizations is due to the efforts of young Black women from different regions of the country. We will now discuss the importance of some of these new organizations in broadening Black-feminist thinking to reach a more diverse audience and in building the pillars of intersectional feminist thinking with typically Brazilian characteristics. The process of Black feminist protest and affirmation within hip-hop culture has been responsible, according to Castro (2016), for innovating cultural and literary production in the Brazilian peripheries. Some womenled rap groups, such as the collective Hip Hop Chama (created in 2001) and the organization Mulheres Negras Ativas (created in 2003), both in Belo Horizonte, have developed important campaigns for female empowerment and against machismo. In addition, they have served as a platform for some young Black feminists to envisage political careers in more formal spaces. Áurea Carolina, one of the founders of Hip Hop Chama, was invited to join the Belo Horizonte Municipal Youth Council in 2005 and then built a career in institutional politics, culminating in her election as a federal deputy in 2018. Larissa Amorim Borges of Negras Ativas has reconciled activism in informal spaces with executive positions. Amorim Borges was a member of the coordinating team for the Living Youth Plan of the National Secretariat of Youth (2012–15) and was the state undersecretary of Women’s Rights during Governor Fernando Pimentel’s term in office (Workers’ Party) in Minas Gerais (2015–18). It is with the music events and poetry slams in the peripheries, however, that Black feminist affirmation has found a wider audience. These events (known as saraus) can be defined as meetings in public places (bars, restaurants, community centres) in neighbourhoods on the outskirts of a city, in which residents speak or read their own or other people’s texts in front of a microphone. Slam das Minas,12 a spoken-word competition founded in Brasília and expanded throughout the country, was one of the spaces created specifically for women, mostly Black, to present their poetry in order to increase their visibility in the slams.

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Castro (2016) explains that to understand the impact of the work by these women, such as Elizandra Souza and Tatiana Nascimento, one must consider a multiplicity of elements, such as alternative methods of community outreach, hip-hop culture, and saraus. The author states that Elizandra Souza’s novel Águas da Cabaça “challenges a male centrality that has become predominant in the narratives of and about the periphery, while pointing to a transnational alliance with other writers of the African diaspora” (Castro 2016, 53). The cultural centre and urban quilombo13 of Aparelha Luzia,14 created in 2016 in São Paulo by the artist and educator Erica Malunguinho, follow the same pattern of intersectional feminism aimed at extending the debate on race and gender beyond the academy and typical middle-class spaces. Malunguinho sees Aparelha Luzia as a reclaiming of historical patrimony, a reinstatement of property.15 The place’s name and the plan for it to become an urban quilombo demonstrate the continuity of a fundamental feature of Brazilian Black organizations: the indivisibility of the cultural and political dimensions of antiracist activism. Aparelha is the feminine of aparelhos, a resistance cell against the military dictatorship, while Luzia is a reference to the oldest fossil ever found in the Americas. This is a place for Black women and men to write their own narratives and spread the politics of everyday life to institutional spaces. The Latinidades Festival, conceived by the journalist, stylist, and cultural producer Jaqueline Fernandes and held in Brasília since 2008, has become an important space for intersectional dialogue. The theme of the twelfth edition in 2019, held in São Paulo, was “Reinstatement of Property,” referring to the assertion of the Black historian and activist Beatriz Nascimento that Black people not only need to have access to more spaces but need to reintegrate things that are and are not recognized as typically Black – for example, thought. This was the first time that the event took place outside Brasília. The purpose of the festival is to promote AfroLatin-American and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Day, celebrated on 25 July. Fernandes was undersecretary of civics and cultural diversity at the Secretary of Culture of the Federal District during Governor Rodrigo Rollemberg’s term in office from 2015 to 2018 (Brazilian Socialist Party, psb, Federal District).

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The complexity of the processes of connection, juxtaposition, and confrontation between lived and online experiences of activism and the search for greater social and political representation show the profound impact that young Black feminists have had on Brazilian political culture. It is important to stress that the questioning of an aesthetic standard based on whiteness, in an aesthetic-racial hierarchization that privileges delicate features, straight hair, and fair skin, is a significant feature of contemporary Black feminist activism. Coily and curly hair, for example, has become more than merely ornamental; it is a symbol of recognition, dignity, self-assertion, and political expression. It superimposes and disrupts the beauty-ugliness antithesis through a narrative of opposition, both individual and collective.

Shaking Up Existing Structures through Political Representation Several scholars (Campos and Machado 2015; Hanchard 2001; Kossling 2007; Rios, Pereira, and Rangel 2017; Rodrigues 2020) have attempted to explain the lack of Black representation in political spaces: “The many branches of government that make up Brazilian democracy have members from specific social groups. The predominance of white men in much larger proportion than in the Brazilian population suggests that there are selective mechanisms that have favoured this social segment over others, reproducing a racial and gender hierarchy in national politics” (Rios, Pereira, and Rangel 2017, 39). The absence of data or the poor quality of the data that are available is the main barrier to the elaboration of a more precise reason for the underrepresentation of Black people in party politics. Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court did not require the inclusion of colour or race information on application forms until 2014. Until then, papers that included a politician’s race or colour as a category had to use photographs from the websites of congressional and state assemblies or politicians’ self-reported information. Still, as noted by Campos and Machado (2015), it is likely that some politicians who identify as Brown or Black will not be seen as such by others. Another factor that hinders more comprehensive analysis of Black women’s under-representation in Brazil is the absence of continuous aca-

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demic production that works simultaneously with race and gender. Research on electoral dynamics consistently shows that race has a less negative effect on voters than gender does. White women get fewer votes than nonwhite men, and non-white women are even more disadvantaged. Therefore, Black and Indigenous women suffer the most from racial inequality during elections and are virtually absent from political representation at all levels. Hence the need to increase research that uses an intersectional approach, such as the work of Htun (2014) and Rios, Pereira, and Rangel (2017). Rios, Pereira, and Rangel (2017) categorize the candidates and elected politicians for the fifty-fifth National Congress (2015–19) by gender and race. Using data from the Supreme Electoral Court, they find that 108 Black politicians were elected to Congress. The 540 parliamentarians (513 deputies and 27 senators) included 97 Black men and 11 Black women.16 Htun’s (2014) findings are similar. Htun analyzes the data for seven countries in Latin America – Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela – and concludes that Black women are under-represented in every country except Ecuador. In the face of these results, Black feminist collectives began to connect with other groups in an attempt to strengthen their agendas and carefully choose candidates in order to “occupy the politics,”17 in the words of Congresswoman Áurea Carolina (Socialism and Freedom Party, psol, Minas Gerais). In Belo Horizonte such connections began to materialize in 2009, following the revival of its street carnival, and especially in 2010 when Decree 13,798 took effect. This decree, signed by Mayor Márcio Lacerda (psb, Minas Gerais), prohibited the holding of events of any kind at Praça da Estação.18 Young people from different collectives then organized Praia da Estação, a political, cultural, and leisure event, for the purpose of reoccupying the city’s public spaces. The following year some organizers of the street carnival and Praia da Estação joined activists from other collectives to form the Fora Lacerda Movement, whose purpose was to expose the irregularities of the Lacerda administration regarding the closure of popular venues and his favouring of the interests of large corporations over those of the people. At that moment there was a confluence of autonomous collectives with different agendas around a common enemy: Belo Horizonte City Hall. For Áurea Carolina, this political effervescence coming from the streets and

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public squares was essential for the creation of Muitas, a collective-led movement whose aim was to occupy institutional politics, starting in 2015: Muitas is in Praia da Estação, it is in Carnival, it is in the resistance at occupations, first Dandara and then Isidora,19 because the resistance against the evictions was cultural. These were spaces of working together. We had evictions to stop and a carnival to plan. And then came the days of action [jornadas] and the popular assembly, which was a very important legacy of the days of action [jornadas]. This was a unique legacy in Brazil – not all cities had it by the end. Tarifa Zero comes from the popular assembly and is also part of Fora Lacerda, Muitas, and Gabinetona. I see it like this: we were inspired by all the uprisings – 15M 2011, Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street. When we got to Muitas, we were already very influenced by these experiences of occupation.20 Despite the history of collaboration between different struggles for the purpose of occupying politics, Áurea Carolina reported that the intersectional perspective was not automatically incorporated into Muitas: I kept pushing intersectionality as an agenda. I remember that we had to defend [the idea] that representation matters. When discussing leadership at Muitas, the group would say: “What is this representation stuff – gender, race, stuff like that? That’s not important. What matters is what we stand for. Whose face will be representing it doesn’t matter much.” And I would say, “No. What we defend with our bodies is,” I always said, “A politics of ideas and a politics of presence.” I remember I sent an email to everyone – I got some “representation matters” images of various kinds – lgbt, black, women – and sent [them] to the group. “This is what I’m talking about. Look, look!” And that was important in laying the foundation for the diversity of bodies, not just for a political agenda. Because one cannot exist without the other.21 The organizing of collective candidacies at Muitas and their intersectional approach ended up being quite effective. In the 2016 municipal elections Áurea Carolina (psol, Minas Gerais) was elected to council with

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17,420 votes, the largest number of votes in the city of Belo Horizonte. After taking office, she and another Muitas candidate, Cida Falabella (psol-mg), built a new model of institutionality, Gabinetona, working in partnership with Bella Gonçalves (the first alternate for psol-mg, who took office when Áurea was elected federal deputy in 2018), in an open, popular, and shared term in office that became a reference within the country and abroad. In total, thirty-two Black women were elected in Brazilian capitals in 2016, with Áurea Carolina and Marielle Franco (psol, Rio de Janeiro) receiving 46,502 votes in Rio de Janeiro, the most reported on victory. Like Mansbridge (1999) and Htun (2014), we believe that the presence of Black women and members of other minorities in politics plays an important role in mitigating democratic deficits. They act as “surrogate representatives” because there is evidence that Black women in legislative positions advocate for other vulnerable groups, help to democratize decision making within their parties, and reverse the historical invisibility of Black people in spaces of political power (Htun 2014). Áurea Carolina’s account corroborates this argument: I suddenly became aware of the need to strengthen the bonds between different struggles, and that was a turning point … But it is always a process, because the tendency is to stay self-referential, in a group, wanting to hegemonize, in a party, above all, wanting to hegemonize, wanting to control, that some languages, certain experiences are not able to enter. The opening up of the movement is … the most difficult, but also the most promising … I attribute the phenomenal number of votes I received to this. I have never been a Black movement candidate or a women’s movement candidate, a youth movement candidate, a hip-hop candidate. I am a candidate for all of it.22 The transformations brought about by the presence of Black women in party politics can be a factor in the refusal of those in power to give way. The fear that the presence of minority candidates in positions of power will directly challenge the status quo and “shake up existing structures” may have been a factor in the murder of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco (psol, Rio de Janeiro) and her driver, Anderson Gomes, by militiamen in March 2018. On 12 March 2019, retired Rio de Janeiro military-police sergeant Ronnie Lessa and former military police officer Élcio Vieira de

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Queiroz were arrested, suspected of being involved as gunman and driver, respectively, in the murders. However, it remains to be seen if Franco’s murder was ordered and what the motive might have been (Otávio, Araújo, and Leal 2019). The phrase “they tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds” reflects events of the past year. Following the murder of Marielle Franco, Black women have led thousands of protesters into the streets of major cities shouting “Marielle, presente” (Marielle is here). The international media have widely reported on the murder, and there are still demonstrations in the streets and on social media demanding, “Who ordered Marielle’s murder?,” given that the investigations have not yet been completed. The murder of Marielle Franco has brought greater visibility to the need for more Black feminists in party politics, which can be summarized by the activist slogan “I am because we are.” Renata Souza, Dani Monteiro, and Mônica Francisco, “the seeds of Marielle,” were elected to the Rio de Janeiro legislative assembly for psol in October 2018. The sharing-of-office model from Muitas in Belo Horizonte in 2015 was replicated in other Brazilian capitals, with groups such as Bancada Ativista in São Paulo, Vamos in Salvador, and Juntas in Recife. During the 2018 elections, Áurea Carolina was elected a federal deputy in Minas Gerais, with 162,740 votes, the fifth-largest number of votes in the state. Talíria Petrone, from the same political group as Marielle Franco (psol), was elected a federal deputy in Rio de Janeiro, with 107,317 votes. Erica Malunguinho (psol), founder of Aparelha Luzia and Mandata Quilombo, became the first trans Black woman elected to the São Paulo assembly, with 55,223 votes. Olivia Santana (Communist Party of Brazil) was elected the first Black state deputy in Bahia, with 57,755 votes. A member of Bancada Ativista, the journalist Mônica Seixas (psol), was elected to the São Paulo legislative assembly with 149,844 votes. In Recife the travelling salesperson Jô Cavalcanti was elected with 39,175 votes to the Pernambuco legislative assembly representing Juntas. The number of selfdeclared Black women doubled in the legislative assemblies, from seven in 2014 to fifteen in 2018, while the number of self-identified multiracial women went from twenty-nine to thirty-six. In Congress the number of Black women also increased, though less significantly, from ten to thirteen

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in the House of Representatives, in addition to two self-identified multiracial women in the Senate.23 In total, Black representation in the House of Representatives increased by almost 5 per cent in 2018 compared to 2014. Of the 513 deputies elected in 2018, 385 (75.00 per cent) self-identified as white, 104 (20.27 per cent) as multiracial, 21 (4.09 per cent) as Black, two (0.39 per cent) as Asian, and one (0.19 per cent) as Indigenous. Joênia Wapichana (Rede Sustentabilidade, Roraima) became the first Indigenous woman to be elected federal deputy. The election of these Black women and men, coupled with the growth in the number of women parliamentarians (fifty-one in the fiftyfifth term, and seventy-seven in the fifty-sixth), sheds light on the current political challenges in Brazil. The desire for change, visibility, and representation has resulted in partial victories for groups that have been historically discriminated against.

Black Women’s March against Racism and Violence – and for Good Living As discussed, the political discourse on Black Brazilian feminism is aimed at increasing political presence through advocacy strategies (incorporating demands into state bureaucracy) and increasing “occupation in politics.” Conventions of Black Brazilian feminists and international ngo networks are also important for the formulation of socio-political intervention agendas from the perspective of Black women. The Black women’s march in November 2015 in Brasília brought together some fifty thousand people, revealing the strengthening and increasing political presence of contemporary Black feminism.24 According to Lemos (2016), the march had three goals: to draw attention to the impact of racism and sexism on the lives of Black women; to celebrate the historical struggles of Black women; and to elaborate alternative strategies for the building of a more just and equitable society. The idea for such a march originated in 1992 during the first convention of Latin American and Caribbean Black Women, held in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. This occasion marked 25 June as Afro-Latin-American and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Day. However,

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the initiative would not gain strength for another two decades, during Afro XXI: Annual Iberian-American Convention of Afro-descendants in 2011. The format and date of the march were officially set in 2013, during the third National Conference on the Promotion of Racial Equality. The official theme of the march reflects the primary concerns of contemporary Brazilian Black feminism. On the subject of violence and racism, the founders of the march wished to expose the genocide of the Black population, the disproportionate number of Black youth from the peripheries being victims of police brutality, and the increased incidence of gender violence against Black women. The theme of “good living,” a concept originating in the Andes region, reflects not only the sisterhood of Indigenous women celebrated through the first Conference on Politics for Women but also the need for a new “civilization” pact.26 “A Letter from Black Women,” handed to President Rousseff soon after the march, proposed the collective construction of “another dynamic life and political action, which is only possible through the overcoming of racism, sexism and all forms of discrimination, which are responsible for the negation of humanity of Black women and men.”217 The document listed several rights and demands: the right to life and freedom; the promotion of racial equality; the right to work, employment, and the protection of Black women workers in all activities; the right to land, property, and housing in the city; environmental justice, defence of common goods, and the non-commodification of life; the right to social support (health, social assistance, and social security); the right to education; the right to justice; the right to culture, information, and communication; and improvement of the public safety system. The Black women’s march in 2015 not only synthesized the main protests led by Brazilian Black feminists since the 1980s but also introduced, in an intersectional manner, new subjects into the fight against oppression. The march showed how racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of social hierarchy prevent Black women from being recognized as equals in terms of rights, including access to material and symbolic resources, and promoted the collective construction of another “civilization” pact.

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Final Considerations Since the beginning of the Black women’s movement in the 1980s, Black feminists have engaged in vast political discourses and conflict strategies. Their goals have been to change the negative stereotyping around Black women; to positively influence formal institutions to plan and implement policies that promote gender and racial equality; and to promote the empowerment of Black women. Their strategies were initially aimed at consolidating the autonomy of the Black and feminist movements. These were followed by attempts to establish a collective identity of the “Black woman” as a political subject. The 1990s saw consolidation of forms of Black feminist activism specific to Brazil and Latin America. The following decade witnessed both continuity and a rupture of the forms of activism that had been consolidated in the preceding decades. The ascendancy of young Black feminists in the 2010s, with their innovative ways of doing politics, along with a surge in the volunteer base and political occupation strategies, form the essence of Brazilian Black feminism. In shaking up existing structures, Black feminists experienced attacks and a general backlash against their political activism. The backlash involved continual delegitimizing of their theoretical and epistemic production – considered by their critics to be “liberal,” “not academic,” “excessively militant,” and “postmodern” – derision and discredit in relation to the transformative character of their political discourse, and elimination of their political bodies, much like what happened to Marielle Franco. Today we are witnessing a shift in the profile of those who attend university or enter the political arena, which means that the protests of Lélia González and so many other Black women over the past decades are resonating with a new generation of Black feminist women. The search for “reintegration of property,” in reference to the motto of Latinidades in 2019 and to Beatriz Nascimento and Erica Malunguinho’s Mandata Quilombo, has been present in electoral politics, culture, and education and in the questioning of public policies. However, advances and changes do not occur without resistance and struggle. The resistance movements since 2016 against the closure of institutional channels and against backward social politics made Marielle

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Franco a symbol of the fight. In 2018 the same elections that saw the ascendancy of far-right politicians also saw the victory of progressive Black women. Despite the institutional barriers that have hampered their political participation, and decades of negative stereotyping, Black women are getting to occupy politics, in a broad sense, and to take on roles and functions that bely the negative stereotyping associated with them.

notes A prior version of this article appeared in Portuguese as Cristiano Rodrigues and Viviane Gonçalves Freitas, “Ativismo Feminista Negro no Brasil: do movimento de mulheres negras ao feminismo interseccional,” Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, no. 34 (January–April 2021): 1–54. Some of the empirical data presented in this chapter, especially in the second and third sections, were collected under the project Black Women in Movement(s): Trajectories, Intersections and New Scenarios for Black Feminist Theory and Praxis in Brazil, funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Case 432980/2016-4). Some of the reflections in the first section are from Freitas’s 2017 doctoral thesis, “Which Feminisms Are We Talking About? Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Women through the Brazilian Feminist Press from the 1970s to 2010,” written with the support of a Social Demand grant from capes (April 2013–March 2017). In 2018 the research was published as a book, Feminisms in the Brazilian Alternative Press: Four Decades of Struggles for Rights (Paco), which is referenced in this chapter. 1 Black Women’s Manifesto, presented on 2 July 1975 during a meeting of the Brazilian Press Association; Gonzalez 1982, 35–6. 2 Aqualtune was an African princess from Congo who, as a warrior and strategist, led an army of ten thousand men to defend her kingdom against the Portuguese invasion in 1695. After their defeat she was enslaved and sold in Brazil. While pregnant, she escaped to Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest fugitive community in Latin America. Her sons Ganga Zumba and Ghana became important leaders in Palmares, along with her grandson Zumbi, son of Sabina, her third daughter (Arraes 2017). 3 Nzinga was an African queen who, as a warrior and strategist, became a symbol of the struggle against Portuguese colonialism in Angola. After thirty-five years

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of conflicts, she was killed on the battlefield in 1663. Without their commander, the warriors surrendered, and many were imprisoned and taken to Brazil (Mulheres Negras e Guerreiras 1985, 1:2–3). Mãe Andresa, or Andresa Maria de Souza Ramos (1854–1954), was one of the most important Afro-Brazilian priestesses in the state of Maranhão. She assumed the leadership of Casa Mina Jeje at the age of sixty and remained in the role for four decades. She was generous and highly respected among practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions, becoming well known in other states as well (Lemos 2017). Geledé, in the African tradition, refers to a kind of religious, women-run secret society originating in traditional Yoruba communities. Today the society is a World Heritage Site. It expresses the worship of feminine power over the earth’s fertility, procreation, and the welfare of communities. It is also linked to the reappropriation of Black cultural traditions, celebrating the symbolic heritage of Black women in the face of Judeo-Christian feminist ideologies (Borges 2009; Carneiro 2017). Meaning autonomous from women’s organizations, the feminist movement, and the “mixed” Black organizations of the Black movement. E. Roland, interview by Cristiano Rodrigues, 7 January 2006, São Paulo. The ascension of the Workers’ Party to the presidency, specifically the inauguration of Lula da Silva in 2003, marked the first centre-left government after the military dictatorship, which had lasted more than twenty years (1964–85). The Lula administration was part of the “pink wave,” in which several Latin American countries had heads of state who were aligned politically to the left between the 1990s and the early 2000s, such as Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), and Néstor Kirchner (Argentina); this also meant that there were closer ties with social movements, an agenda focused on reducing economic and social inequalities, and public policies focused on equal opportunity. Since Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration in January 2019, all budget information has been removed from the Integrated Federal Budget System. Therefore, we thank Noëlle Silva for providing us with the information that she had compiled through the Federal Budget Panel for 2009–15. Accessed 27 March 2019, https://blogueirasfeministas.com/2011/08/25/mulheresnegras-cade. Accessed 27 March 2019, http://blogueirasnegras.org. Accessed 27 March 2019, https://slamdasminas.wordpress.com.

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13 Originally, quilombo referred to a hard-to-reach settlement to which black slaves went to rebel or flee captivity. Quilombo can also be understood as an ideological instrument against forms of oppression. Malunguinho’s concept of “urban quilombo” juxtaposes the two concepts: it is both a space that is hard for nonBlacks to reach in São Paulo and a space of symbolic resistance to oppression. 14 Accessed 27 March 2019, https://www.facebook.com/aparelhaluzia. 15 We would like to thank Bruna Jaquetto Pereira for drawing our attention to this fact and for her comments on a previous version of this chapter. 16 As is the standard in academic research on racial inequalities in Brazil, we use Black as the sum of those individuals who declared themselves as either Black or Brown on their application forms. 17 Áurea Carolina de Freitas e Silva, interview by Cristiano Rodrigues, 8 December 2018, in Belo Horizonte. 18 The decree was signed on 9 December 2009 and took effect on 1 January 2010. Among the alleged reasons for the prohibition was the difficulty of limiting the number of people and ensuring public safety due to the large concentration of people and the destruction of public property. Another decree, also signed by Lacerda (no. 13,960), revoked the previous one, on 4 May 2010 (Belo Horizonte 2009, 2010). 19 Dandara is an unregulated urban occupation in the Pampulha region of Belo Horizonte, where approximately 1,800 families live. The Isidora urban occupation is made up of the Vitória, Rosa Leão, and Esperança communities, located in the northern region of Belo Horizonte. Some 9,000 families live in the Isidora occupation, which was made official and transformed into a Special Area of Social Interest by the city of Belo Horizonte in 2018. 20 Áurea Carolina de Freitas e Silva, interview by the author, 12 August 2018. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Election results for 2018, accessed 27 March 2019, http://divulga.tse.jus.br/oficial/index.html. 24 The Black women’s march became an annual event held in multiple cities in Brazil during the week of Afro-Latin-American and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Day (25 July). The title of this section is taken from the name of the official march in 2015. We use this reference because it is also the theme of the present discussion. 25 According to Gudynas e Acosta (2012, n.p.), “Good living emerges from societies

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that have historically been marginalized. It is a platform for discussing conceptual alternatives as well as a solution to urgent problems that developmentalism cannot solve. It is as much a critique of developmentalism as a set of alternatives. It abandons the conventional idea of development and does not attempt to reformulate it; on the contrary, it aims to transcend it.” 26 Accessed 27 March 2019, https://www.geledes.org.br/carta-das-mulheresnegras-2015.

biblio g r aphy Alvarez, S. 1998. “Feminismos latino-americanos.” Revista Estudos Feministas 6, no. 2: 265–85. – 2014. “Para além da sociedade civil: Reflexões sobre os campos feministas.” Cadernos Pagu 43: 13–56. Apresentação. 1989. Nzinga Informativo 5: 1. Arraes, J. 2017. Heroínas negras brasileiras: Em 15 cordéis. São Paulo, Brazil: Pólen. Bairros, L. 1995. “Nossos feminismos revisitados.” Revista Estudos Feministas 2: 458–63. – 2000. “Lembrando Lélia Gonzalez.” In O livro da saúde das mulheres negras: nossos passos vêm de longe, edited by J. Werneck, M. Mendonça, and E.C. White, 42–61. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Pallas, Criola. Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais). 2009. Decreto n. 13.798 de 09 de dezembro de 2009: Proíbe realização de eventos de qualquer natureza na Praça da Estação, nesta capital. https://leismunicipais.com.br. – 2010. Decreto n. 13.960 de 04 de maio de 2010: Revoga o Decreto n. 13.798, de 09 de dezembro de 2009. https://leismunicipais.com.br. Borges, R. da S. 2009. Sueli Carneiro. São Paulo, Brazil: Selo Negro. Caldwell, K. Lilly. 2000. “Fronteiras da diferença: Raça e mulher no Brasil.” Revista Estudos Feministas 8, no. 2: 91–9. – 2010. “A institucionalização de estudos sobre a mulher negra: Perspectivas dos Estados Unidos e do Brasil.” Revista da abpn 1: 18–27. Campos, L. Augusto, and C. Machado. 2015. “A cor dos eleitos: Determinantes da sub-representação política dos não brancos no Brasil.” Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, 16: 121–51. Carneiro, S. 2003. “Mulheres em movimento.” Estudos Avançados 17, no. 49: 117–32.

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– 2017. “Sobrevivente, testemunha, porta-voz.” Interview by Bianca Santana. Cult no. 223: 12–20. Castro, S. Lorenso. 2016. “Elizandra Souza: Escrita periférica em diálogo transatlântico.” Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea 49: 51–77. Cohen, C.J. 1999. The Boundaries of Blackness: aids and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collins, P. Hill. 2017. “Se perdeu na tradução? Feminismo negro, interseccionalidade e política emancipatória.” Parágrafo 5, no. 1: 6–17. Freitas, M. do Socorro. 1989. “Paraíba: Opinião sobre o 1º Encontro Nacional de Mulheres Negras.” Nzinga Informativo 5: 3–4. Freitas, V. Gonçalves. 2018. Feminismos na imprensa alternativa brasileira: Quatro décadas de lutas por direitos. Jundiaí, Brazil: Paco. Gonzalez, L. 1982. “O movimento negro na última década.” In Lugar de negro, edited by L. Gonzalez and C. Hasenbalg, 9–66. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Marco Zero. – 1985. “Mulher negra.” Afrodiáspora 19, nos. 6–7: 94–106. Gudynas, E., and A. Acosta. 2012. A renovação da crítica ao desenvolvimento e o Bem Viver como alternativa. http://www.ihu.unisinos.br. Hanchard, M. 2001. Orfeu e o poder: Movimento negro no Rio de Janeiro e em São Paulo. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora da Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro. Htun, M. 2014. “Political Inclusion and Representation of Afrodescendant Women in Latin America.” In Representation: The Case of Women, edited by M. Escobar-Lemmon and M. Taylor-Robinson, 118–134. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Itapecerica da Serra Declaration. 1993. Seminário Nacional Políticas e Direitos Reproductivos das Mulheres Negras. São Paulo, Brazil: Geledés/Health Program. Kossling, K. Sant’Anna. 2007. “As lutas antirracistas de afrodescendentes sob vigilância do deops/sp (1964–1983).” ma thesis, Universidade de São Paulo. Lemos, R. de Oliveira. 1997. “Feminismo negro em construção: A organização do movimento de mulheres negras no Rio de Janeiro.” ma thesis, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. – 2016. “Do Estatuto da Igualdade Racial à Marcha das Mulheres Negras, 2015: Uma análise das feministas negras brasileiras sobre políticas públicas.” PhD diss., Universidade Federal Fluminense.

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Leni. 1989. “São Paulo: Reflexões paulistas do I Encontro Nacional de Mulheres Negras.” Nzinga Informativo 5: 12. Lima, M. 2010. “Desigualdades raciais e políticas públicas: Ações afirmativas no governo Lula.” Novos Estudos 87: 77–95. Machado, F. Viana, and C. Rodrigues. 2015. “Movimentos negros e lgbt no Governo Lula: Desafios de institucionalização segmentada.” In Estado, Ambiente e Movimentos Sociais, edited by F. Viana Machado, G. Massola, and M. Auxiliadora Ribeiro, 22–45. Florianópolis, Brazil: Abrapso. Mansbridge, J. 1999. “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent ‘Yes.’” Journal of Politics 61, no. 3: 628–57. Moreira, N. Regina. 2007. O feminismo negro brasileiro: Um estudo do movimento de mulheres negras no Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo. ma thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Mulheres Negras e Guerreiras. 1985. “Mulheres negras e guerreiras: Nzinga (1582–1663).” Nzinga Informativo (Rio de Janeiro), no. 1: 2–3. Oliveira, J. 1989. “Rio Grande do Sul: ‘Parabéns à comissão executiva do 1º enmn.’” Nzinga Informativo 5: 10–11. “O que é o Nzinga?” 1985. Nzinga Informativo no. 1: 2–3. Otávio, C., V. Araújo, and A. Leal. 2019. “pm e ex-pm são presos pelo assassinato de Marielle Franco.” O Globo, 12 March. https://oglobo.globo.com. Pereira, A. Mendes. 2008. Trajetória e perspectiva do movimento negro brasileiro. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Nandyaia. Pereira, A.C. Jaquetto. 2016. “Pensamento social e político do movimento de mulheres negras: O lugar de ialodes, orixás e empregadas domésticas em projetos de justiça social.” PhD diss., Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Ratts, A., and F. Rios. 2010. Lélia Gonzalez. São Paulo, Brazil: Selo Negro. Ribeiro, M. 1995. “Brancas e negras: Semelhantes, porém diferentes.” Fêmea 24: 11. Rios, F. 2017. “A cidadania imaginada pelas mulheres afro-brasileiras: Da ditadura militar à democracia.” In 50 anos de feminismo: Argentina, Brasil e Chile, a construção das mulheres como atores políticos e democráticos, edited by E. Alterman Blay and L. Avelar, 227–53. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, fapesp. Rios, F., and V. Gonçalves Freitas. 2018. “Nzinga Informativo: Redes comunicativas e organizacionais na formação do feminismo negro brasileiro.” Cadernos Adenauer 1: 25–45. Rios, F., and R. Maciel. 2018. “Feminismo negro em três tempos: Mulheres negras, negras jovens ativistas e feministas interseccionais.” Labrys 1: 120–40.

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Rios, F., A. Claudia Pereira, and P. Rangel, P. 2017. “Paradoxos da igualdade: Genero, raca e democracia.” Ciência e Cultura 69, no. 1: 39–44. Rios, F., and A. Ratts. 2016. “A perspectiva de Lélia Gonzalez.” In Pensadores negros – pensadoras negras: Brasil, séculos xix e xx, edited by A.F. Magalhães Pinto and S. Chalhoub, 387–403. Cruz das Almas, Brazil: edufrb; Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Fino Traço. Rodrigues, C. 2006. “As fronteiras entre raça e gênero na cena pública brasileira: Um estudo da construção da identidade coletiva do movimento de mulheres negras.” ma thesis, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. – 2020. Afrolatinos em movimento: Protesto negro e ativismo institucional no Brasil e na Colômbia. Curitiba, Brazil: Appris. Rodrigues, C., and M. Prandini Assis. 2018. “Academic Feminism and Exclusion in Brazil: Bringing Back Some of the Missing Voices.” In Gender Studies and the New Academic Governance, edited by H. Kahlert, 153–78. Berlin: Springer vs. Rodrigues, C., and M. Aurélio Prado. 2013. “A History of the Black Women’s Movement in Brazil: Mobilization, Political Trajectory and Articulations with the State.” Social Movement Studies 12: 158–77. Roland, E. 2000. “O movimento de mulheres negras brasileiras: Desafios e perspectivas.” In Tirando a máscara: Ensaios sobre o racismo no Brasil, edited by A. Sergio Guimarães and L. Huntley, 237–56. São Paulo, Brazil: Paz e Terra. Sardenberg, C. 2007. “Da crítica feminista à ciência a uma ciência feminista?” Labrys 11: 45–65. Silva, J. da. 2014. “I Encontro Nacional de Mulheres Negras: O pensamento das feministas negras na década de 1980.” In O Movimento de Mulheres Negras: Escritos sobre os sentidos de democracia e justiça, edited by J. Silva and A. Mendes Pereira, 13–39. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Nandyala. Soares, V. 1994. “Movimento feminista: Paradigmas e desafios.” Special issue, Revista de Estudos Feministas, 11–24. Souza, H. Maria de. 1989. “Rio de Janeiro.” Nzinga Informativo no. 5: 3. Tilly, C. 1995. “Cycles of Collective Action: Between Moments of Madness and the Repertoire of Contention.” In Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action, edited by M. Traugott, 89–116. Durham, nc: Duke University Press. Viana, E. do Espírito Santo. 2010. “Lélia Gonzalez e outras mulheres: Pensamento feminista negro, antirracismo e antissexismo.” Revista da abpn 1: 52–63.

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Autonomist Feminisms in Brazil: Protest Politics and Feminist Self-Defence laura frança martello Translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato

In the 1990s and 2000s, with the participation of non-governmental organizations in the Beijing Conference, and with the Workers’ Party in power, Brazilian feminism was concerned mainly with vertical mainstreaming – the introduction of a gender perspective into the highest echelons of political power (Alvarez 2014). The advocacy of rights within public and institutional policies became a recurrent theme in “feminist and gender fields” and was often the focus of feminist analysis and theorizing (Matos 2010, 2012). At the same time, a process of decentralization began as feminist discourse spread across various social spheres, and especially as activists from several fronts of the feminist movement – rural, urban, Black, Indigenous, lgbt – also began to make demands (Alvarez 2014). This dynamic, termed by Alvarez as “sidestreaming” or feminism’s “horizontal flows,” whereby the historic demands of feminism, already advocated for within other social movements, became an integral part of the project of political transformation. This period, in the midst of the Latin American Feminist Gathering,1 which facilitated networks and debates on feminist policies, saw the emergence of a group reclaiming autonomy from political parties, governments, and international organizations. These autonomous feminists, with their severe criticism of the issues raised by the professionalization and specialization of feminism, as well as its foray into formal institutions, became a model for various feminist groups and projects (Falquet 2014; Gargallo

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2006). Thus, while most feminist narratives in the 1990s were marked by the “Beijing Process,” they also coincided with the emergence of an autonomist struggle in Latin America, heavily influenced by anarchist feminists and communist libertarians, along with the Indigenous, Black, and youth resistance movements. The spread of this autonomist2 culture across Latin America and Brazil over the last three decades has resulted in feminist movements that believe in autonomy as an ethical principle, direct action as a form of protest, selfmanagement as a means of resource mobilization, horizontality as a decision-making structure, collectives3 and affinity groups as organizational tools, self-defence as a form of resistance to patriarchal violence, activist self-care as a means to ensure longevity and continuity of the movement, and alternative media as a way of disseminating information in a democratic manner (Martello 2015). Recent studies on autonomist movements make reference to feminist criticism of patriarchal dynamics and their effects on political spaces created under social mobilization policies. However, there are few studies that treat autonomist feminisms in Brazil as movements in their own right. Despite being immersed in multiple political spaces at once, feminist groups – made up of cis and trans women, lesbians, non-binary, transmasculine, and intersex people – have their own dynamics, diverse as they are, that must be analyzed specifically if we are to truly understand the complexity of autonomist movements as a whole. This chapter contributes to the literature on autonomist movements, which gained prominence in the academic field of social movements with the protests of 2013 (Andrade 2017; Sarmento, Reis, and Mendonça 2017; Sousa 2014). I will first identify the role of autonomist feminisms in street protests and mobilizations; their proximity to or distance from other social movements; their influence on the priorities and dynamics of demonstrations, occupations, and rallies; and their participation in large feminist mobilizations. The concept of autonomist feminism includes all activists for whom autonomy is an organizational principle and whose daily political practice takes up non-institutional spaces of struggle and resistance. This chapter also adds to the debate on feminist activism, which is prominent in the literature on the Feminist Spring – a phenomenon characterized by a return to the streets, in the last five years, as a fundamental

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space for feminist intervention (Annunziata, Arpini, Gold, and Zeifer 2016; Brito 2017; Duarte and Melo 2017; Gomes 2017; Gomes and Sorj 2014; Lemos 2017; Martini 2016; Moraes, Boldrin, and Silva 2017; Madeira and Gomes 2018; Santini, Terra, and Almeida 2016; Sciortino 2018). This literature examines the presence of the forms of feminism in protest politics and focuses on the many expressions of protest on the internet. However, little has been written about daily mobilization within these forms of activism or about the implications of the autonomist imaginary for the projects and strategies of new feminist groups and collectives. Autonomist feminists criticize strategies to fight patriarchy and genderbased violence centred on institutional change at the state level, but what exactly are they proposing? Which resistance practices are being promoted through their demonstrations, training activities, and other interventions? Considering the wide diversity of autonomist feminisms, are there commonalities in their forms of activism? Previous studies (Carmo 2013; Marques and Pedro 2012; Martello 2015; Rios and Maciel 2018) have outlined, through analyses of Brazilian and Latin American autonomist feminist encuentros (gatherings), the organizational principles of these groups (autonomy, self-management, selforganization, mutual support, and horizontality) and the political dynamics of fighting oppression in the context of Brazilian social movements (actions against patriarchy, capitalism, lesbophobia, transphobia, racism, ageism, and speciesism). These works also touch on the implementation of “feminist self-defence.” I observed the activities of autonomist feminist groups, including collectives, in the city of Belo Horizonte from 2013 to June 2019. Beginning with the multitudinous protests across Brazil in June 2013, known as Jornadas de Junho, I observed the multiplication, diversification, and restructuring, as well as the expressions of feminism, within the autonomist leftist camp. Given the state repression of demonstrators, enforced by the military, and the increasing persecution and criminalization of social activists during this period, there has been growing interest in the security of activists. Self-defence is a strategy shared by feminists to help them not only survive sexual and domestic violence but also cope with patriarchal violence within political organizations. Feminist self-defence therefore includes the physical, psychological, community, and digital aspects of feminist safety

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culture. Given that self-defence is presented in workshops and debates as a form of resistance, transformation, and autonomous justice from a feminist perspective, I invited some of its proponents to be interviewed for the study. In 2018 and 2019, eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted, in which were raised the issues in the trajectory of struggle and the notion of feminist self-defence and its various aspects. The interviews, lasting from one to two hours, were transcribed and sorted by category – determined from participant observation – using maxqda software, which allows for detailed and complex analysis of qualitative data. The results will be presented within four categories: 1) physical self-defence and the practice of fighting among feminists; 2) psychological, emotional self-defence, selfcare, and mutual support; 3) self-defence based on territory and forms of community organizing; and 4) digital self-defence, cyberfeminism, communication, and free media. These categories are intertwined; however, it was important for me to examine each category individually regarding specific aspects before considering the relationships among them.4 This chapter will analyze the meanings and practices of feminist selfdefence and the extent to which it has become part of feminist auto nomism, with the goal of identifying the theoretical contributions of feminist activists and their reflections on feminist self-defence in the Brazilian context.

Feminist Autonomisms and Autonomists in the Context of Latin America Autonomy has always been a central theme in social movements, especially in feminist movements, with different meanings across different political contexts, whether they be international, national, regional, or local (Falquet 2014; Gargallo 2006). The political-ideological field that permeates different forms of collective autonomist actions includes movements and theorizing with anarchist, libertarian communist, feminist, Indigenous, and Black resistance influences (Benzaquen 2015). Feminism has been central to and constitutive of the autonomist activism by introducing the anti-authoritarian and anti-hierarchical ideas

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and practices that have transformed the autonomous left, especially since the 1970s.5 Autonomist feminists are partly responsible for affinity groups as a form of political organization. They have also developed consensusproducing processes – known as “feminist processes” during the 1970s Spanish autonomist movement (Dixon 2014) – and played a role in developing the notion of prefigurative politics, by which people strive toward the utopian ideal through their day-to-day interpersonal relations. In the Latin American context the benchmark for the autonomist ideal was the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in 1994, when radical politics became a guiding principle for the self-determination struggles of Indigenous Peoples across the region (Oliveira 2012; Sousa 2014). Zapatismo became a point of reference for autonomists around the world, mobilizing translocal6 solidarity in a configuration never envisaged by the traditional left and fulfilling the dreams of the resistance to globalization in a Latin American context that included the strong presence of Indigenous women. The antiglobalization protests in Latin America against the onrush of neoliberal politics began in the early 1990s and have managed to significantly slow down neoliberal advances in the region, such as the proposed Free Trade Areas of the Americas agreement (Sousa 2014). In the realm of feminist movements, Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso (2009) and Ochy Curiel (2007) see autonomous feminism as a rupture of the nonexplicit representational logic of the movements and the professionalization of militancy, both of which are highly elitist. Such political-ideological ruptures, the growing institutionalization of feminist movements, and the subordination of these movements to the agendas of international funding agencies were discussed at the Latin American Gathering in 1993, with the founding of the collective Las Cómplices by Chilean and Mexican feminists including Maragarita Pisano and Ximena Bedregal. This new current merits attention as one of the most pointed statements against the subordination of feminist movements to political parties, mixed social movements, the state, and international bodies, with a focus on the impact of financial backing on the movement’s autonomy (Villaverde 2014). For members of this first generation, however, there were severe limitations on the concept of autonomy because they had adopted a reactionary posture on issues raised by Black, lesbian, and Indigenous autonomist feminists like Julieta Paredes, Ochy Curiel, and Yuderquis Espinosa Miñoso

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regarding the importance of intersectional feminism (Crenshaw 2002). They refused to reflect on other dimensions of oppression faced by feminists, claiming that intersectionality assumed fragmentation. This current was displaced from its monopoly position in autonomous Latin American feminist discourse, giving way to a multiplicity of autonomous feminist voices and actions. The rise of autonomist feminisms in recent times is a result of the diffusion of political culture, primarily through demonstrations featuring music, theatre, video, literature, performance, photography, dance, and other expressions of popular culture. These cultural and political demonstrations fill the streets with various forms of mobilization, from a small theatre intervention to protests bringing together several causes and movements: “Feminism has this strong irreverence as a political and cultural movement. Historically, women used music, drumming … posters, stickers, stencils, and urban interventions as strategies for communicating and taking action. Through the lived experience of reflection, of making things, I was unlocking my artistic potential. This kind of urban intervention, of putting art in the streets, happened through feminism. Feminism introduced me to women who became models for me, showing me militancy and social insertion into political life, which is different from institutional spaces.”7 The realm of social struggle in Brazil was marked by a series of demonstrations in 2013, which became known as Jornadas de Junho (June days of protest).8 The most interesting aspect of this period of intense political activity was the organizing of assemblies to coordinate the demands and interests of several left-wing movements. As a result, groups advocating for housing rights and other urban issues and against incarceration became stronger. Many new feminist groups, including collectives, also grew stronger and continued to defend women’s and lgbt rights (Sarmento, Reis, and Mendonça 2017). Most of the collectives were made up of young people who were taking part in protests of this magnitude for the first time and who have since become more militant (Sarment, Reis, and Mendoça 2017). This was also a moment of collaboration among various movements, as they focused on local matters and organized occupations in municipal chambers, state legislatures, and government agencies. Feminist and lgbt issues were high-

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lighted and had a great impact on the criticism of the patriarchal and racist dynamics that remained embedded within the movements: “Even in the projects I work on today, militancy won’t leave my side. In … cultural production, I often comment on issues of misogyny and the problems that surround it. It is everyday militancy. The perception of the political context in Belo Horizonte in Brazil is what divides us when it comes to issues of race, which feminism has not yet been able to address … the intersectionality of feminism, trans-genderness – we haven’t been able to grapple with it. We haven’t understood homeless women, we haven’t reached women from the favelas, because feminism still wears an academic vest.”9 Despite the drawbacks, social movements continue to work intensively on housing and cultural rights, trying to stop evictions and dealing with threats from the real estate industry as well as threats to the lives of Indigenous and other traditional peoples such as the Ribeirinhos and Quilombolas. Feminist groups continue to organize meetings, festivals, workshops, debates, and other events. Therefore, the proliferation of autonomist feminisms is connected to the increasing participation in street protests, even those organized by feminist groups that had existed prior to this period. The year 2015 witnessed the greatest phenomenon in the history of women’s mobilization in Latin America, which has had an influence to this day: the Feminist Spring (Annuziata, Arpini, and Zeifer 2016; Scortino 2018). Although it was a year of important victories for Brazilian feminism, such as the securing of labour rights for domestic workers after decades of struggle, 2015 was marked by the advancement of conservative politics and the introduction of conservative bills.10 Still, the Fora Cunha and Fora Temer protests,11 part of the Feminist Spring, were the most expressive and well attended protests in decades and were able to prevent several setbacks (Brito 2017): In the past few years, I have been moving away from the more formal, institutional kind of feminism, because I was tired of it, exhausted – the relationships can be very exhausting. We were making institutional progress for several years, with laws … very precarious still, but with some support for citizens … I feel that day-to-day in Belo Horizonte this has changed a lot, talking with people, or even when I worked at the ministry or at the university. We find it a lot easier, and

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our discourse has already made its way into people’s lives. Some things that were normalized before, like violence, are now being questioned. But there is also a strong reaction. We get a lot of that. We have organized a bit more to [address] the setbacks.12 The street protests also led to mobilizations against social-rights setbacks due to the passage of Labour Reform and Social Security Reform laws in 2017. Thousands of women rioted because of the undervaluing of women’s work. The reforms had a greater effect on women than on men, with the imposition of double and even triple shifts and heavier workloads. The Women’s General Strike, which took place in several countries, was especially prominent in Latin America. Participation in the Brazilian event, held on 8 March, was significantly greater than in previous years (Daflon, Borba, and Costa 2017). In the context of horizontal streams of feminism, autonomy as a goal has propelled the ways of organizing movements by affinity, choosing direct action as the tool par excellence. In the realm of protest, direct action has played a role in the growth of street mobilizations and occupations of public places as spaces not only for voicing demands but also for interacting, forming alliances, and reinventing decision-making processes and grassroots democracy. It was in the midst of this environment of resistance to conservativism and neoliberalism that my fieldwork took place in 2016–18. The language of the interviewees revealed feminist self-defence to be an intrinsically intersectional issue. Self-defence was prominent in their speech, while their perceptions of what is essential to feminist self-defence were informed by the conditions facing women, lesbians, trans, and Black persons. These activists articulated distinct positions with respect to self-defence practices.

Feminist Self-Defence from the Perspective of Autonomist Activists Research has tended to approach feminist self-defence as a technique for preventing violence, centred on the ability to avoid or survive an attack (Brecklin 2008; Hollander 2004; Searles and Berger 1987). It argues that vul-

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nerability to structural violence depends on the particular oppressed social group to which one belongs, and therefore one’s ability to react to attacks is understood through one’s membership in this group. For autonomist activists – the interlocutors in this study – the notion of self-defence assumes that the opponent has an advantage over you, be it gun possession in particular or power in general. In other words, the opponent knows that you are in a vulnerable position that you cannot immediately overcome. For autonomist activists, self-defence can be considered political when the reality being defended is collective and political. In addition, practising self-defence can transform one’s knowledge regarding community relations and must be appropriate to the particular context of domination and oppression: “Ideally, we should know what the enemy knows so we can react. But we never know, and I think one of the main difficulties of feminist selfdefence is that women are assaulted in so many different ways. It also depends on where the sexism is taking place, how and the extent to which it is manifested, how it affects one’s life, personal relations et cetera. Selfdefence has to be fostered by understanding this reality.”13 Nox, who offers self-defence workshops based on an advanced knowledge of ninjutsu, claims that everything can potentially be included in the concept of self-defence, depending on one’s life trajectory and personal needs. For Nox, therefore, the practice of self-defence requires an understanding of the relationship we have to society, the world, and people around us and of the relationship we would like to have, what we need to change in order to get there, what depends on us, and what depends on other people in the community. According to our interlocutors, to practise self-defence one needs to know one’s risks, how to react to those risks, and how to minimize damage. We cannot assume that responsibility for one’s well-being falls to the other side. To Aziza, who gives self-defence workshops based on advanced knowledge of Krav Maga, issues of sexual diversity14 are central to political action, especially feminist self-defence, since cis-hetero-patriarchal violence mostly has an impact on feminists who do not conform to gender and sexuality norms: “For me, feminist self-defence is directly connected to my understanding of self-defence, and the word feminist encompasses the most vulnerable aspect of society … I put more emphasis on lesbians and bisexual women, trans women, cross-dressers, trans men as well, intersex-

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uals, queer persons, and people who do not fit into any established gender or sexual identity. I think feminist encompasses these people – and has to encompass them when it comes to self-defence – because … they are the most vulnerable to social forms of violence … not only physical, but also verbal, psychological.”15 Beyond sexual orientation and gender identity as key issues in feminist self-defence, race issues are prominent in the speech of interlocutors, many of whom are Black. They speak of these issues as irrevocably making Black and Indigenous people more vulnerable but also allowing them to draw from a millennia-old history of resistance as a means of emancipation. For Imani, the notion of ancestrality is significant for organizing and mobilizing young Black people and sharing intergenerational knowledge and world view; it also plays a role in feminist politics and preservation of Black identity and culture. The concept of ancestrality as the basis of the struggle applies, simultaneously, to the survival of Black youth and to respect for and community care of elderly people and historical activists who are the incarnation of the wisdom and trajectory of resistance movements and of Black culture: We often connect Black feminism to the memory of our ancestors, to the livelihood of women in the communities where we live – our mothers, our aunts, our grandmothers. So many of these women are strong and hold leadership positions … in our communities. So we end up wondering if this grows from our ancestral memory of our ancestors, of the many struggles that women have faced, such as for the right to child care, the right to formal employment, domestic workers’ rights. In the realm of ancestrality, from our mothers, grandmothers, who have suffered exploitation as workers, it comes from our livelihood.16 Black feminist spaces also gave rise to autonomist groups and activities. Black women led many groups dedicated to confronting police brutality and the genocide of Black people, such as React or Die, and Us for Us. Feminist perspectives grew within expressions of Black culture such as coco de roda and capoeira and poetry slams in the peripheries.17 The group Crespas e Cacheadas, which promotes Black empowerment through uplifting an-

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tiracist aesthetics and Black hair, became popular online, leading to an increase in the number of activists who had not previously participated in social movements. Meetings of autonomist Black students, like those held by the eecun (Encontro de Entidades e Coletivos Negros Universitários) collective, were also responsible for changes in the Black student movement (Xavier 2016), which suggests growing identification with autonomist perspectives. Imani speaks of her experience with this movement, pointing to the need for social movements to act together with incarcerated people as a form of selfdefence, protection, and mutual support, especially among Black women: I worked in this space, raising awareness about gender violence, violence against women, violence against Black youth in the peripheries, the erasing of our youth. I brought up issues of housing protection in cities, with the understanding that women are at the front line and that most households among poor and peripheral people today are managed by women, who most of the time cannot afford rent and food, and having housing is key. We understood that taking personal hygiene products was not … part of an assistentialist politics in the women’s movement, but that … the bringing of personal hygiene products to prisons ended up contributing, helping these women there, who most of the time are tortured, do not have people to talk to outside of the system, and our presence in that place of the antiprison movement, of human rights, ended up contributing to the decrease in rights violations against these women. So we understand that it is important to be in these spaces, and one of the ways of being there is to bring these personal hygiene products.18 The perspective of interlocutors on feminist self-defence is therefore centred on their ability not only to confront sexual or domestic violence but also to defend a number of collective rights, which influence their vulnerability to various forms of violence due to gender, race, or class oppression. Access to high-quality public education was an important issue for autonomist activists. At a historic moment, when Black youth started to enrol in universities and professional programs in significant numbers for the first time, they ran into problems with the proposed constitutional amend-

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ment, pec 241.19 There emerged one of the largest autonomist student movements in Brazil, with students occupying 1,000 public schools and 171 universities to protest budget cuts to public education. Despite police repression, the occupations had the support of teachers and the community concerning the right to high-quality public education for school and university students and to school meals, research funds, and greater general access. While the primary goal of these occupations – the withdrawal of pec 241 – was not met, student movements grew stronger, and many participants learned organizing and self-defence strategies. Various feminist, anti-racist, and anti-lgbtphobia groups were organized during these protests, which transformed both those who participated in the actions and the Brazilian student movement itself. By taking part, many young people had their first introduction to feminist and lgbt issues (Roig and Cavalcanti 2016; Santos and Miranda 2017; Silva and Tavares 2018). Hence, for a number of young feminist activists, autonomist practices are at the core of their participation, especially in the realm of self-defence. The critical theory of self-defence developed by autonomist activists involves forms of domination and how domination is both an embodied and a social experience. Feminist self-defence can also be analyzed in terms of its many dimensions and forms, even beyond its role in preventing oppression and its multiple intersectional perspectives on resistance. The areas discussed by the interlocutors fall into four categories: physical selfdefence and fight practices among feminists; psychological self-defence, self-care, and mutual support; territorial self-defence and community organizing; and digital self-defence, cyberfeminism, and communication.

Feminist Self-Defence and Its Multiple Dimensions Feminist activists are recovering old practices of fight and struggle that might help them to develop their reflexes, to be alert to dangerous situations, and to learn techniques to escape and counterattack when necessary in order to ensure body integrity and self-preservation. For feminist selfdefence instructors – generally, women of approximately thirty years of age with extensive martial arts experience – self-defence is related to awareness

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of the environment and the danger that can surround one’s life, as well as awareness of one’s physical abilities and the best possible course of action: I think self-defence is not necessarily knowing how to hit someone, or counterattack, or even physically defend oneself during a physical attack. I think self-defence has more to do with self-confidence and self-knowledge than actually knowing how to hit someone. Selfdefence, for me, is a form of self-awareness, awareness of your skills, of what you can and cannot do, of the tools you have at your disposal. If the tool is your body, you use it in the form of hitting. If the tool is your voice, you also need to use it. And if the tool is your legs so you can start running, it is that too.20 For Aziza, feminist self-defence implies being aware of one’s tools, searching for new ones, and knowing that we always need more than one tool in a situation of danger. That is why feminists have to practise their skills in the distinct realms of defence. For her, even minimal knowledge of self-defence is useful because often the aggressor does not expect the person to react at all. Putting oneself in a position of confronting the aggressor can prevent a violent situation. Nox also speaks of the importance of firmly putting oneself in the position of having to react. According to these two instructors in feminist self-defence, one must feel safe – but not too safe – in order to act safely in a dangerous situation. For Nox, casual self-defence training can help but is not ideal. It is important to develop body memory, which will provide dexterity in reacting to different types of aggression or in helping someone else. She believes it is important to let go of the need to be right in an argument or situation; the aggressor will not hear any argument because he has already begun to act violently. In her training, Nox teaches people how to escape without relying on rational argument or trying to convince the person of the correct attitude, to not get into the logic of who is right. The important thing is to exit the situation and cut contact with the aggressor as quickly as possible in order to reduce the chances of getting hurt. According to Alika, fight practices also include psychological and emotional care for oneself and others, as well as self-protection and awareness of how we expose ourselves. Self-defence practices include instilling self-

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confidence and self-awareness, and awareness of who you are in the world, what your political actions are, who you are with, and who you interact with. As emphasized by the activist Siomara, self-defence practices serve to prevent physical and psychological violence and stalking: “The process of self-confidence and honing one’s senses is very important. It is like I was able to more quickly identify situations of danger and situations where I was more exposed.”21 The notion of self-defence in autonomist feminism implies the possibility of autonomously responding to patriarchal violence and directly responding to the cis-heteronormative system, without having to rely on the police or the justice system – both of which are inefficient and misogynist, racist, lesbophobic, and transphobic (Miñoso 2009). It is important to point out that autonomously does not mean individually, because the processes of knowledge building in self-defence take place through millennial ancestrality and through communities of resistance and sharing, which are also considered part of self-defence: Today I am the product of yesterday. Society is still dealing with the racial conditions we are living through post-slavery. I think that domestic violence has a colour of its own. We see it in the numbers. The issue of femicide also has a colour. We know about women who suffer everyday violence, not just physical violence at home but also [violence] in work environments, places of servitude, which are also bodily aggressions. Self-defence belongs not only in the home but also in society. We live traces of what our bodies carry. Abortion is a fight for the body as well; it is a feminist fight.22 For feminist activists – Indigenous and Black as well as lesbian and trans – in Latin America, gender violence is perpetrated mostly by state forces and/or capitalist, neoliberal, and authoritarian forces. Hence, collective and community strategies are a fundamental aspect of feminist self-defence.

Psychological Self-Defence, Self-Care, and Mutual Support Emotional and psychological strengthening, which is included in physical training, allows us to react to violent situations and increases our survival capabilities in a structurally violent context. Essential steps include renew-

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ing self-confidence, taking care of oneself, and using local knowledge to heal wounds from previous violence and abuse. The repertoire of activities and the literature on autonomist feminism show that self-defence is honed through theory-praxis subjectivation of justice and politics (Martin 2014; Monteiro and García 2011a). Self-defence can be interpreted as praxis of knowledge and liberating pedagogies. In analyzing self-defence as an alternative to the punitivism found in left-wing politics and also in feminism, many activists believe in the potential of transformative practices with respect to justice – that is, practices that incorporate reflection in order to overcome elements that perpetuate logics of domination. The interlocutors’ approach to self-defence rejects the tendency to label fight strategies against sexism as individual feminist self-defence techniques for violence prevention, as well as the tendencies centred on structural changes through institutional or state support to fight violence and threats against women activists working to defend human rights. They favour feminist self-defence strategies that are collective based and community based. Such strategies include sharing experiences to respond not only to domestic violence and sexual abuse but also to the many forms of violence that target allied women. When political power is challenged, the authorities try to silence those who denounce, criticize, question, or confront them. Tactics include distancing from the authoritarian state, military, and police; opposing the exploitation of nature and work in a capitalist economy; and escaping the hegemonic channels of dissemination of information. Autonomist activism offers survival strategies for community-based and decolonial anti-racist feminist self-defence and diffuses cultures of resistance (Kautzer 2018).

Territorial Self-Defence and Community Organizing Territorial self-defence has been historically championed by women, especially among traditional peoples whose territory has been invaded for the purpose of exploitation, such as mining. Women, who are always at the front lines, demonstrate a stronger connection to their territory and land, both because of the patriarchal obligations assigned to them and because of personal identification. Territorial battles are not generally seen as a feminist topic, largely because of the rural-urban dichotomy. Feminism is still

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associated with urban struggles. In addition, rural peoples have historically been perceived to have stronger patriarchal relations. Many of these women at the front lines of territorial and community battles are now self-identifying as feminist. Women are the foundation of urban occupations because they occupy and construct the home and also organize and lead community associations. When they join social movements, women perform three times more tasks than men do. They have not only to fight against misogyny in general but also to deal with misogyny within their organizations, with internal disputes that require an enormous amount of energy. One of the conclusions of my study is that, in the realm of territorial self-defence, feminist autonomy implies a rejection of Leninist logic, by which feminist collective decisions are subject to mixed spaces that are predominantly male. Autonomist activists favour distance from movements that are mixed spaces, prioritizing feminist demands and articulating these demands with collective ones, especially those around race and class: I think that the most depth in feminist theory I have found was when I joined a political organization where there were many cases of sexism. That’s when we realized how sexist the left is. We found ourselves dealing with cases of sexual abuse within the organization: men silencing women, interrupting us, not letting us hold positions of public visibility or prestige within the organization. We ended up only organizing. We were the ones who were present in the actions, taking care of banners, mobilizing people to participate in the actions, cleaning the spaces. When we found ourselves in situations of sexual abuse, it was a lot to handle. I began to realize what feminism was. I already understood what violence against women was, and I already understood femicide. But that’s when I understood that misogyny comes not only in the shape of [outright] violence, that within political organizations there are correlatives of such forces (women versus men). Also, how we combat and take over power is in fact destroying the patriarchy within organizations because otherwise we would not progress.23 These activists worked to support mobilizations and urban occupations, offering organizational and legal assistance to women from the peripheries

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who were facing the constant threat of eviction. They explained that it was often more productive to help women who were victims of domestic violence, but that men in their organizations still did not do so. This sex-based division of political work has an impact on the shaping of positions of power within political organizations, which are rarely held by people from minority groups. Groups specifically geared toward minorities in mixed organizations end up being only one form of mobilization, and there is no integration of these groups in processes of decision making. Having one’s own house and land to live in and to produce freely is a necessary condition for women’s autonomy. Also essential is women’s participation as community leaders so that they have rights and are respected within the social fabric. Self-organized groups are, then, essential for addressing the inequalities that specifically affect women. However, women face situations of violence in their own territory as well: “I think it is more important, more urgent, to build networks for support, networks for mental health, networks for self-growth. Women have political power within these spaces, they grow politically in these spaces that are already made political, so that these communities can be … it will reinforce an alternative to the power of the state.”24 According to our interviewees, therefore, self-defence extends to the way in which one perceives oneself in a territory or community. Some speak of economic hardships in autonomist collectives; as most of these collectives are new, they have not had time to work on issues of self-management. One dimension of emergency defence discussed was security within knowledge networks in cyberspace. Structural problems can serve to distance people from fight spaces; often, for example, no member of the collective is an authority on cybersecurity and hacking, so activists end up being vulnerable and having their safety threatened. Digital self-defence should be considered a fundamental aspect of feminist safety culture.

Digital Self-Defence, Cyberfeminism, and Communication Feminism online has grown and become more inclusive of the diversity of women involved in the fight against misogyny. Campaigns such as “Meu primeiro assédio” (My first harassment), in which women reported their first experiences of sexual violence in childhood and adolescence, had great mobilization power. This particular campaign fostered support

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and solidarity among women as they shared their experiences, and also exposed the gravity and the proximity of the phenomenon (Santini, Terra, and Almeida 2016). Other campaigns, such as “Meu amigo secreto” (My secret friend), denounced misogynistic practices and offered examples of the myriad microaggressions faced daily, sparking debate on how best to respond (Moraes, Boldrin, and Silva 2017). The political aphorisms that resulted, such as “enough catcalling” against street harassment and “30 against all” against gang rape, mobilized thousands of women as part of the Brazilian Feminist Spring, online and offline. The hashtags became slogans for the movement (Duarte and Melo 2017; Martini 2016). The internet has served to amplify women’s voices, but it also has the ability to expose and make women more vulnerable, especially those who are already vulnerable in their role as human rights activists. Technology and communication groups have been working on secure alternative platforms to support the voices and perspectives of social activists. For most digital self-defence activists, their first contact with feminism is online. For Clara, a digital self-defence activist, the difficulty in spreading digitalsecurity culture among feminists lies in the fact that technology is still a male-dominated and misogynistic field; as a result, the issue of cybersecurity is not always addressed within feminist movements. According to Clara, digital-security information is insular, intimidating, unattractive, or inaccessible, and the language is still highly technical and therefore exclusive. She suggests opening up the subject and entering these spaces in order to mitigate the damage. People will not always be able to use the safest tool, so it is important to think progressively about the use of technologies, gradually introducing activists to tools that are safe for them to use. The important thing is to never underestimate the issue of privacy and digital security: “In … online privacy and security, we are always working on damage control, because … it is impossible for you to have … zero probability of having information leaked. Some invasion, this possibility will always exist, there will always be a chance of it happening.”25 Finally, just as corporations ride the wave of social and feminist movements, maintaining control of their agenda for marketing purposes, feminists appropriate corporate tools to create opportunities for employment, facilitating communication and information exchange, natural gynecology,

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and initiatives to support the protection of women. The field of digital selfdefence may be growing stronger because of the increasing participation of feminists. Cybersecurity can provide better tools for sharing experiences as well, and better tools for resistance and self-defence, whether they be physical, psychic, or territorial.

Final Considerations Conservative groups frame their work around the control of women’s bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and gender norms. Their actions can be found at many levels, reinforcing antifeminist discourse in all aspects of day-today life, especially in spaces of political power (Biroli and Miguel 2016). Young, old, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, cross-dressing, Black, Roma, Indigenous, disabled, and incarcerated women have experienced violence, though they have resisted and shown strength in daring and creative ways, illustrating the achievements of autonomist feminism. Recent feminist-led protests, such as Fora Cunha in 2017 and Ele Não in 2018, as well as protests against sexual violence and femicide, have been the most well attended in decades. This suggests that women’s movements are more organized than ever, reaching public spaces, operating at the local and translocal levels in Latin America, and standing up to right-wing attacks in Brazil. The limited media and state interest in these protests is a result of police repression as well as economic and symbolic violence. The autonomy of feminist collectives in terms of day-to-day organizing – micropolitical and community-based – is made possible by the revival of knowledge about different forms of resistance, which are used in collective efforts to fight all forms of oppression. Such efforts are characteristic of subjective identity and a democratic, intersectional perspective. Additionally, feminist collectives have developed a repertoire of actions against patriarchal violence. The collectives have focused on developing alternative, self-generated solutions. These forms of activism encompass the development of methodologies and pedagogies that foster self-awareness and self-determination. Methodologies include the sharing of subjective experiences and interpretive perspectives on reality. Self-defence is also present in these spaces

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because it is an autonomist form of feminism. Self-defence is cultivated in four distinct forms: physical self-defence (through feminist reappropriation of millennia-old martial arts); psychological-emotional selfdefence (through self-care, revival of ancestral knowledge); territorial self-defence (through community organizing); and digital self-defence (through cyber-activism and cybersecurity). As self-defence is a central autonomist aspect of political action, it can be seen as an alternative to state revindication. Self-defence practices are becoming more common due to a more critical and distanced position in relation to the state and its repressive apparatus, and act as agents of lesbians, trans persons, and all women for a life free from violence. The feminist activists interviewed for my study are dedicated to promoting workshops that foster resistance in daily life. They refuse to submit to the repressive apparatus of the state or to the punitive rationale of the Brazilian criminal-justice system; they understand that institutions are structurally racist and patriarchal. The practices and discourses of autonomist feminists have spread widely during the last decade (although they have been in existence since the 1990s). This suggests concerted mobilization and organization efforts in terms of feminist resistance. The phenomenon becomes apparent only through abundant women-led protests, as has happened in the past five years. Self-defence is a central concept of autonomist feminism and the cultivation of body histories and memories of resistance struggles on the part of Brazilian feminisms. Self-defence is seen within autonomist feminism as a prefigurative form of politics and direct action toward the goal of selfpreservation through the sharing of knowledge and support among lesbians, trans persons, and all women. The results of this study show clearly that patriarchy, cissexism, heteronormativity, and racism are inherent not only in political institutions but also in community relations and intimate relations. The voices of this study’s participants reveal that it is essential that we strive toward the full realization of the autonomy, at every level, of each and every woman, lesbian, and trans person.

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notes 1 The first autonomous feminist gathering, whose goal was making community in the house of differences,” took place in Mexico in 2009 and was followed by several others across Latin America. The publication of autonomous feminist manifestos and the holding of feminist meetings over the years have led to the emergence of new feminist discourses and autonomous groups. Despite various conflicts and ruptures throughout the history of autonomous feminism in Latin America, and even though a single current cannot be pinpointed, there are common objectives, methodologies, and types of organization. 2 Autonomism comprises a variety of housing movements, urban occupations, ecologists, and anti-capitalist and alter-globalist movements, as well as antinuclear, anti-war and anti-militarist, anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, anti-xenophobia, and immigrant and refugee rights movements, in addition to feminists, ethnic minorities, racial groups, and sexual and gender dissension groups. Such heterodox formation and ideological diversity is characteristic of autonomism, in addition to strong criticism of vanguardism and party bureaucracy, which are also characteristic of the socialist left. 3 Collectives are characterized by their fluidity and contingency, affective relationships, and the absence of a division of labour, hierarchy, and spokespersons (Carmo 2013). However, their horizontality does not equate with the absence of conflict, violence, and power relations. The term has been used by autonomist movements since at least the 1990s and has been adopted increasingly by young feminists since the 2000s. While a large number of women’s groups focus on self-awareness and organizing around local issues, as has been the case in the feminist movement since the 1970s, the collective is unique in its horizontal decision-making structure. It has been the most common organizational format among young feminists in Brazil since 2010. 4 The events, projects, groups, collectives, spaces, and themes of the feminist autonomist resistance in Belo Horionte included in the field research and interviews were as follows: Rede Feminismo Ocupa a Cidade; Festival DiVeRsAs: Feminismo, Arte e Resistência; Coletiva Pêlas; Espaço de Convivência e Sociabilidade Lésbica Brejo das Sapas; Grupo Negras Ativas; Associação Lésbica de Minas (alem); Coletivo de Mulheres Negras Bloco das Pretas; Coletivo Manas; Projeto Resista Minas; and IProgramadoras Feministas Independentes. 5 An example of how the feminist imaginary has formed the imaginary of autonomous movements is the impact of Reclaim the Night. This feminist

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movement in England aimed to reclaim the freedom and security of women walking in the street, through demonstrations by hundreds of women walking at times and in places not considered “safe.” The concept of translocality links the geographies of power in different spheres – local, regional, national, and global – to the different positions of the subject with regard to gender, sexuality, class, and ethnicity or race (Costa and Alvarez 2009). Siomara, interview by the author, 2019, in Belo Horizonte. The meaning of these protests changed considerably in the course of the events and was intensely disputed by the media and the different political actors. The 2013 cycle of protests began with a series of demonstrations against a bus-fare increase, staged by Movimento Passe Livre, an autonomous movement for the right to free public transport. Various young people, students, and activists from the militant left took part (Sousa 2014). Dayo, interview by the author, 2019, in Belo Horizonte. Eduardo Cunha, who assumed the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies in 2015, representing the conservative faction, attempted to reverse the historic gains made by women, such as access to the morning-after pill and hospital care with legal termination of pregnancy in cases of rape. The 2016 coup d’état (Geraldes et al. 2016; Souza 2016) that deposed the first elected woman president of Brazil – Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party – was part of a chain reaction orchestrated by conservative sectors against advances made in recent years by the feminist, Black, and lgbt movements, especially in the realm of sexual and reproductive rights (Biroli and Miguel 2016). After the judicial-parliamentary coup, Vice-President Michel Temer assumed the presidency, acting to defend the interests of the most conservative sectors. Yeji, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. Nox, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2018. Due to perspectives like this, autonomous feminists also have a strong presence at events such as the lesbian and bisexual walk for rights, respect, and visibility. The groups that come together to organize this event have increasingly diversified their activities in order to attract people who are not part of social or lgbt movements (Rodrigues and Irineu 2014). Aziza, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. Imani, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019.

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17 Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatics, and music. It was developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is known for its acrobatic and complex manoeuvres, often involving hands on the ground and inverted kicks. Coco de roda is an African-influenced musical rhythm and dance that originated in northern Brazil in communities of escaped slave refugees during colonialism. 18 Imani, interview by the author, 2019, in Belo Horizonte, 2019. 19 During the Workers’ Party terms in office the government created 360 federal technical institutes, 18 federal public universities, and 173 university campuses in the countryside; also, its Law 12.711 guaranteed affirmative action on race and socio-economic issues at universities (e.g., quotas) (ipea 2017). Michel Temer promulgated pec 241 (Chamber of Deputies) and pec 55 (Senate), also known as pec of the Ceiling for Public Expenditures or New Fiscal Regime, which establishes a limit on public investments in education for the next twenty years. 20 Aziza, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. 21 Siomara and Zi, interviews by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. 22 Dayo, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. 23 Joana, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. 24 Aziza, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2019. 25 Clara, interview by the author, Belo Horizonte, 2018.

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Contributors

simone bohn is associate professor of political science at York University, Canada. She co-edited Mothers in Public and Political Life (Demeter Press) and is currently working on a sshrc-funded project on women’s policy agency in Brazil. leila celis is a sociology professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada. Her research focuses on class, gender, and colonial power relations. Her most recent publication is Perspectives sociales et théoriques sur la vérité, la justice et la réconciliation dans les Amériques (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2020). denyse côté holds a doctorate in sociology and is a tenured professor of social work at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, Canada. As an activist and community organizer, she focuses her research on community, women’s, and Haitian feminist groups. maría angélica peñas defago is a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, Argentina, and an assistant professor of sociology in the School of Law at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina. Her research interest includes issues on sexuality, gender, human rights, and religion.

294

contributors

viviane gonçalves freitas is a researcher at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She holds a doctorate in political science. Her research interests include feminist press, Black women, media, and politics. ana laura rodríguez gustá is a tenured professor at the School of Politics and Government at the National University of San Martín, Argentina. She has notably published articles in Social Politics, Woman’s Studies Journal, ids Bulletin, and Colombia Internacional. marta lamas is a tenured professor at the Center for Research and Gender Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She has ten published books and more than 150 academic essays on body and subjectivity, sex work, and gender politics. charmain levy is a tenured professor of social sciences at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, Canada. Her research falls within the field of political sociology and focuses on social movements in Latin America. laura frança martello holds a doctorate in political science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, with the dissertation “Me cuidan mis amigas, no la policía: Autonomy and Self-Defense in the Feminist Activism in Oaxaca, México, and in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.” inés m. pousadela is senior research specialist with civicus and teaches comparative politics and global civil society at Universidad ort Uruguay. Her work focuses on global civil-society trends, political representation, and social mobilization in Latin America. cristiano rodrigues holds a doctorate in sociology and is a professor of political science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. His research focuses on comparative perspectives on Afro–Latin America, feminist theory, and political representation of ethno-racial minorities in Brazil. linda s. stevenson is a professor of political science, in Latin American and Latino/a Studies, at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, US. She researches Latin American women and politics, and immigration issues.

Index

8M campaign, 183, 186–7, 189–90 15M uprising, 252 abortion: in Argentina, 184–5, 191–2; in Brazil, 219; in Chile, 136; decriminalization, 10, 13, 41, 190, 223; in El Salvador, 71– 85; in Mexico, 26–28, 40–41; in Uruguay, 153–6. See also Assembly for the Right to Abortion; legal elective abortion; National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion accessible education, 12 advocacy, 26, 64, 105, 164, 182, 255; advocacy network, 55, 237, 239 Afro XXI: Annual Iberian-American Convention of Afro-descendants, 256 Afro-Latin-American and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Day, 247 Afro-Latin-American and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Network, 237 agenda-setting process, 4, 218 Agrupación Ciudadana (El Salvador), 78–9, 250 Águas da Cabaça (Souza), 249 Alianza Nacional por el Derecho a Decidir, 27 Amnesty International (Haiti), 61 anarchist feminists, 39, 226 antiglobalization, 269 anti-racism: agenda, 236; political-discursive field, 231, 327

Aparelha Luzia, 249 Aqualtune, 233 Arab Spring, 252 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (president), 51–2 Assembly for the Right to Abortion, 184. See also abortion; legal elective abortion; National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion Aurea Carolina, 248, 252, 253 autonomist feminism, social organizations of, 5, 17, 208, 218, 265–70 autonomistas, 6 Ayotzinapa (Mexico), 35, 36 Bairros, Luiza, 232, 243 Bancada Ativista, 254 Bank of Boston Foundation, 237 Beijing Conference, 52, 127, 162–3, 240, 265–6 Belém do Pará Convention, 52, 66n17, 148 Belo Horizonte, 248, 251–2, 254, 267, 271 blackening feminism, 236 Blackwell, Maylei, 241 Black women: empowerment, 274; feminism, 230, 234, 248, 274; feminist ngos, 237, 249–50; left-wing organizations and, 232; manifesto, 233; march, 255; movement, 232; representation, 250–4; student movement, 275; women of colour, 240; youth, 275 Black Women’s Manifesto, 233

296 Blogueiras Feministas, 246 Blogueiras Negras, 247 body memory, 277 Borges, Larissa Amorin, 248 Brisa Law (Argentina), 192 Cairo (Egypt): International Conference on Population and Development, 87n18, 238; Third World Population Conference, 238 Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, 181–5 capoeira, 274 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique (president), 210 Carneiro, Sueli, 232 Catholic Church, 28, 73, 104, 131, 134, 192 Cedras, Raul (president), 52 Chiapas (Mexico), 37 child care, 40, 153 citizens’ associations, 26, 122, 133 Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), 30 civil society, 8–9, 150, 164, 206–7, 209 Clinton, Bill (president), 58 Clube Renascença, 236 collective leadership, 132, 183 Collor de Mello, Fernando (president), 210 Communist Party of Brazil, 254 community-based action, 100, 156, 268, 276, 279, 283 Comunidade Solidaria movement, 210 Condição Feminina, 237 Congress of Brazilian Women, 232 conservatism, 15, 73, 83, 85, 243 conservative policies (Haiti), 49 content analysis, 206 Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women (Brazil), 211 cooptation, 209, 165 covid-19, 42, 83, 85, 117, 119, 189 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 241 cultural calendar, 236 cultural production, 25, 271 Curiel, Ochi, 269 cyber-activism, 182, 284 cyberfeminism, 12, 245 cyberspace, 281, 282

index Dandara occupation, 252 decision making, 8, 28, 154, 221, 223, 266, 272 decolonial feminism, 55, 64, 279 democratic inclusion, 29, 40, 211 democratic transition, 5, 16, 28, 126, 128, 149–50, 161, 208–9 depoliticization, 48–9 discrimination, 99, 102, 121, 127, 189 divorce, 192 domestic violence, 61, 107, 131, 146, 158, 160, 267, 278 domestic workers, 26, 34, 53, 157, 219, 271 double militancy, 5, 131–2 Durban (South Africa): World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, 240–1, 246 Duvalier, François (president), 50 earthquake in Haiti, 54 economic South, 54, 56 Ecuador, 251 Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (ezln), 37, 269 Ele Não protests, 283 El Tetazo demonstration, 190 emergent strategy, 189 empowerment, 157, 216–17, 234, 240, 248, 257, 274 Encontro de Entidades e Coletivos Negros Universitários, 275 Espírito Santo (Brazil), 233 evangelical Christians, 41, 85 evangelical churches, 10, 28, 65 Facebook, 12, 33, 35, 145, 181, 190, 230, 246, 247 Falabella, Cida, 253 Fala Preta!, 241 favelas, 234, 271 Feliciano, Marco, 243 femicide/feminicide, 108, 116, 123, 159–61, 166; in Argentina, 186–7, 192; in Brazil, 278; in Mexico, 30, 37, 40 feminazis, 36, 193 feminism: decolonial, 55, 64, 279; in Haiti, 62 feminismo villero, 182

297

index feministas anarcas, 39, 226 feminists: calendar, 183, 194; collectives, 182; information networks, 182; organizations in Haiti, 48; protests in Mexico, 41; revolution, 181; scholars, 194; self-defence, 267–8, 272 Feminist Spring, 33, 118, 221–2, 266, 271, 282 femocrats, 127, 164, 181, 183, 218 Fernandes, Jaqueline, 249 Fora Cunha, 271, 283 Fora Lacerda Movement, 251 Fora Temer, 271 Ford Foundation, 237 foreign influences, 49, 63; instrumentalization, 61; interference in democracy, 15, 50, 57–8 frame building, 74, 83, 97, 187, 283 Franco, Marielle, 253–4, 257 Free Trade Areas of the Americas agreement, 116, 269 Freitas e Silva, Aurea Carolina de, 248, 251, 253 Geledés Institute of Black Women, 233, 244 gender experts, 64, 164, 183 gender-race-class triad, 235 gender sexual harassment structures, 123, 190, 194, 222 gender theory, 188 global feminism, 54–5 globalization, 237; from below, 55 Gonçalves, Bella, 253 Gonzalez, Lélia, 232, 233–4 graffiti, 39, 190 grassroots women’s movement, 41, 51, 75, 93, 98, 109, 127, 150, 184, 187, 222–3 green bandana, 12, 184, 186, 194; green handkerchief, 38; green wave, 187, 189, 191 Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida, 26 Guanajuato (Mexico) women, 37 hacking, 281 harassment in universities, 123, 130, 160, 190–1, 246, 275 hate crimes, 30 hetero-patriarchy capitalism, 34

Hip Hop Chama, 248 hip-hop movement, 248–9, 253 horizontal alliances, 6, 17, 166, 183, 191, 267 humanitarian aid, 58–9; organizations, 57; rescue paradigm, 64, 63 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, 206, 243 Indigenous Peoples, 64, 95, 116–18, 150, 216–17, 234, 240, 255–6, 269, 271 insider, 181, 218 Instagram, 12, 190, 246, 247 institutionalization, 26, 103, 145, 161, 193, 269 institutionalized networks, 180 International Conference on Environment and Development. See Rio de Janeiro: International Conference on Environment and Development International Conference on Population and Development. See Cairo (Egypt): International Conference on Population and Development international development agencies, 26 international feminism, 270 International Women’s Strike, 156, 186, 272 intersectional approach, 252. See also Crenshaw, Kimberlé intersectionality, 166, 233, 240, 252, 271. See also Crenshaw, Kimberlé Isidora occupation, 252 Itapecerica da Serra Declaration, 239 Jornadas de Junho, 252, 267, 270 Juntas movement, 254 Kay Fanm, 51 labour organizations, 154, 194, 235 Lacerda, Mário (mayor), 251 Las Cómplices, 269 Latin America: feminisms, 237; feminist gatherings, 235, 239, 265, 269. See also Afro-Latin-American and AfroCaribbean Women’s Day; Afro-LatinAmerican and Afro-Caribbean Women’s Network Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentros, 234, 267

298 Latinidades Festival, 249 Lavalas movement, 51 Law of Automatic Loss of Parental Responsibility, 192 legal elective abortion, 27–8, 38, 153, 184–5. See also abortion, Assembly for the Right to Abortion; National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion “Letter from Black Women,” 256 lgbtq: anti-lgbtq, 276; rights, 118, 136, 150, 270 lipstick lobby, 209 litigation process, 9, 78, 189 Living Youth Plan, 248 locus of emancipation, 55 Lula, Luis Inácio da Silva (president), 202, 242–4 MacArthur Foundation, 237 Mãe Andresa, 233, 259n4 mainstreaming, 161, 164, 215, 265 Malunguinho, Erica, 249, 254, 257, 260n13 Mandata Quilombo, 254 maquila, 36 Maria da Penha Law (Brazil), 219 Maria Mulher, 233, 244 “Marielle, presente” movement, 254 massacre of students in Ayotzinapa (Mexico), 35 mass media, 80, 190 #MeToo movement, 35, 37–8 “Meu amigo secreto” campaign, 247, 282 “Meu primeiro assédio” campaign, 247, 281 Michaela Law (Argentina), 192 micropolitical action, 283 militants for peace, 16 military dictatorship and amnesty in Brazil, 207 Ministry of Health (Brazil), 238 Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity (Argentina), 182, 192 Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Women’s Rights (Haiti), 52 Miñoso, Yuderquis Espinosa, 269 “Mi primer acoso,” 35 Morro dos Cabritos Association, 235 Movimento Negro Unificado, 236

index Muitas collective–led movement, 251–2, 254 mulata, 233 Mulheres Negras Ativas, 248 “My first [sexual] harassment,” 11 Naber, Nadine, 241 Nairobi: UN Third World Conference on Women, 127, 184 Nascimento, Beatriz, 232, 249 Nascimento, Tatiana, 249 National Articulation of Black Women’s Organizations, 241, 242 National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion, 183, 185. See also abortion, Assembly for the Right to Abortion; legal elective abortion National Coalition for Women’s Rights Advocacy, 53 National Commission of Human Rights (Mexico), 39 National Conference of Brazilian Women (Rio de Janeiro), 239 National Convention of Black Women, 234 National Coordination for Women’s Rights Advocacy, 63 National Council on the Condition of Women in Brazil, 209 National Feminist Network for Health, Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Brazil, 214 National Forum of Afro-Brazilian Women, 220 National Plan for Public Policies for Women in Brazil, 206 National Round Table on the Prevention of Violence against Women, 53 National Secretariat of Youth, 248 national security ideology in Latin América, 4 National Seminar on Politics and Reproductive Rights, 238 National Truth and Peace Commission (Haiti), 52 National Women’s Encounter, 182, 184 National Women’s Rights Council (Brasília), 237 National Youth Council, 246 necro-politics, 31, 40

index neo-colonial paradigms, 56 Network of Afro-Brazilian Young Feminists, 221 ngo-ization, 26, 48–49, 64 “Ni Una Mas,” 38 Ni Una Menos movement, 12, 136, 165, 181, 185–7, 189–90 non-governmental organizations (ngos): in Haiti, 49; in Mexico, 26 Nzinga Black Women’s Collective, 233–4 Nzinga Informativo, 231, 234 Obrador, Andrés Manoel López (president), 39, 40 “occupy the politics,” 231, 251 Occupy Wall Street, 252 Oliveira, Fátima, 232 pañuelazo, 194 Paredes, Júlia, 269 parental leave, 11, 193 Partido de la Revolución Democratica (pru), 27 Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (pri), 27 Partido del Trabajo de Mexico (pt), 27 peace negotiations, 16, 72, 75, 93, 103–36 pec 241 constitutional amendment (Brazil), 276 pibas, 194 Pimentel, Fernando (governor), 248 Pink Tide administrations, 8, 129 piqueteros, 182 Planeta Fêmea, 239 policy and legislation, 182 policy arenas, 205, 208, 210, 215, 220–1 political alliances in Mexico, 28 popular feminism, 182 Porantim (newspaper), 236 Praia da Estação, 252 privatization, 7, 128, 131 professionalization, 28, 126, 242, 265, 269 racial equality, 242, 255–7 racism, 61, 232, 236, 239, 255–6, 284 radicality, 17, 26, 35, 92, 120, 194 rape: in Brazil, 282; epidemic in Haiti, 51, 53, 60–1; in Mexico, 27, 31

299 reinstatement of property, 249 religious philanthropy in Mexico, 26 reproductive rights, 10, 31, 83, 136, 150, 187, 192, 208, 223, 238 Revista Estudos Feministas, 241 Ribeiro, Matilde, 232, 243 Rio de Janeiro, 206, 213, 233, 234, 239, 253, 254; International Conference on Environment and Development, 162, 239 Roland, Edna, 232 Rollemberg, Rodrigo (governor), 249 Rousseff, Dilma (president), 202, 206, 243 same-sex marriage, 192 Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), 239, 255 Santos, Thereza, 232 scratches, 190 Secretariat of Public Policies for Women, 206, 215 Secretariat of Women’s Rights (sedim), 211, 215 self-determination, 269, 283 #SeraQuéRacismo, 247 sex: education in Argentina, 185, 192; terrorism in Mexico, 40; slaves in Mexico, 36; trade and trafficking in Mexico, 31 sharing-of-office model, 254 sidestreaming, 237, 265 Silva, Joselina da, 234 Slam das Minas, 248 Slut Walk, 190 Social Democratic Coalition Party in Mexico (prd), 27 social exclusion, 96, 239 Socialist Party of Brazil, 249 social media, 12, 57, 81, 92, 120, 134, 166, 182, 186, 221, 230, 247–8, 254 Socorristas en Red, 185 Solidarité Fanm Ayisyèn, 51 sorority, 99, 166, 168, 193, 194 sos Racismo do Geledés, 237 Souza, Elizandra, 249 standpoint theory, 240 state feminism, 182 stereotypes, 147, 190, 194 street harassment, 159, 160, 193, 282

300 structural adjustment policies, 7, 55, 209, 213 Tarifa Zero Movement, 252 Third World Population Conference. See Cairo (Egypt): Third World Population Conference transnational feminism, 54–5, 62, 64 Twitter, 11, 12, 33, 35, 190, 230, 246, 247 un conferences: on Environment and Development, see Rio de Janeiro: International Conference on Environment and Development; on Human Rights (Vienna), 162, 163, 239; against Racism, see Durban (South Africa): World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance; on Women (Beijing), 52, 127, 162, 239, 265–66; on Women, see Nairobi: un Third World Conference on Women un Decade for Women, 51, 162 un Stabilization Mission in Haiti (minustah), 53, 57, 63 union organizations, 99, 149, 153, 160, 165, 181, 191, 193 urban occupations and struggles, 280 urban quilombo, 249 Us for Us, 274 Vamos movement, 254 violence: against women, 9, 53, 60, 61, 62, 65, 93, 101, 102, 107, 108, 116, 151, 158, 159; in Argentina, 187, 192; in Brazil, 12, 207–8, 211, 219, 223, 275; institutional, 9, 31; march against, 35; in Mexico, 30–3, 40; structural, 32, 273 Violet Spring, 33, 35

index Wapichana, Joênia, 255 Western modernity, 56 women and development paradigm, 57; labour rights in Brazil, 209; as victims in Haiti, 59 Women’s Action Committee (Haiti), 50 Women’s General Strike, 122, 156, 186, 204, 272 Women’s House. See Kay Fanm Women’s International League for Peace (Haiti), 50 Women’s Network for Education (Brazil), 214 Workers’ Party of Brazil (pt), 17, 202, 215, 222, 223, 242, 245, 248, 265 Women’s Solidarity (Haiti), 51 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. See Durban (South Africa): World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance youthcide, 32 YouTube, 246, 247 Zapatistas, 37, 269