Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America

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