Third World Quarterly

ISSN: 0143-6597 (Print) 1360-2241 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctwq20

Gender, Sexuality and the Latin American Left:

testing the transformation

Elisabeth Jay Friedman

To cite this article: Elisabeth Jay Friedman (2009) Gender, Sexuality and the Latin
American Left: testing the transformation, Third World Quarterly, 30:2, 415-433, DOI:
10.1080/01436590802681132

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436590802681132

Published online: 28 Jul 2010.

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Third World Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2009, pp 415–433

Gender, Sexuality and the Latin

American Left: testing the
transformation
ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

ABSTRACT This article examines the extent of change under Latin American
left governments by assessing their actions on women’s and lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. To provide a historical context, it
first offers an overview of the relationship between feminist movements and
the left. It then employs a four-country comparison of Brazil, Bolivia, Chile
and Venezuela on women’s socioeconomic status; feminist state–society
relations; women’s representation in national decision-making positions;
legislation on violence against women; reproductive rights; and sexual rights.
It concludes that standard political and economic divisions among the cases
do not explain their response to the demands of feminists and LGBT activists.
While governments have improved women’s status and inclusion, the
transformation of gender and sexual power relations remains unfinished.

How deep are the transformations Latin American leftwing governments

seek for their societies? To answer this question, one key area to examine
is the status of women’s and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
rights, because these rights can fundamentally challenge the social,
economic and political distribution of power according to gender and
sexuality. Historically leftwing parties, movements and governments have
an uneven record with regard to these rights, as well as to their
proponents. How do contemporary leftwing governments compare? The
preliminary answer, based on ongoing developments in Brazil, Bolivia,
Chile and Venezuela, is one that echoes the historical record. These
governments have improved the well-being of many, opened new
opportunities for activist influence, and increased representation. But the
transformation of gender and sexual power relations is impeded by
entrenched opposition, institutional roadblocks and inconsistent commit-
ment on the part of leftwing executives.

Elisabeth Jay Friedman is in the Politics Department, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street,
San Francisco, California, 94117, USA. Email: ejfriedman@usfca.edu.

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/09/020415–19 Ó 2009 Third World Quarterly

DOI: 10.1080/01436590802681132 415
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

Feminists and the left: an uneasy relationship

The relationship between feminist movements and the left has long been
contentious.1 While feminists have worked to forge a variety of alliances
across boundaries of class, race, gender and political arena, they have been
insistent on their need to preserve ‘ideological, political, organisation, and
financial autonomy’.2 This desire has been particularly at issue in their
interactions with the male-dominated left, which has been uneven in its
promotion of gender-related issues and rights.
Feminist and leftwing agendas diverged from the beginning. Early suffrage
movements were often cooly received by large leftwing parties, many of whose
leaders assumed that the enfranchisement of women would give the Catholic
Church increased political influence, considering women’s perceived attach-
ment to the institution. Suffrage was usually championed by confessional
parties pleased with such potential developments, and by small communist
and socialist parties. Following World War II, however, left-leaning nationa-
list and populist parties mobilised women. They decreed female enfranchise-
ment and incorporated women through women’s wings or affiliated parties
such as the Peronist Women’s Party.3 Although women gained political
access, these organisations marginalised women even as they included them.
‘Second-wave’ feminism of the 1970s sprang from a deep frustration with
the subordination of women’s to workers’ liberation in both theory and
practice, as women frequently found their ideas and actions slighted by
leftwing male leadership.4 While some feminists chose to create their own
groups, others opted to engage in ‘double militancy’, organising to put
gender on the agenda of parties and movements. The resulting division
between feministas and militantes provoked intense debates over the extent to
which the former were simply enjoying the latest imperial bourgeois import
from their ‘sisters’ in the USA and Europe, or the latter sacrificing their
feminist ideals in order to mobilise masses on behalf of socialist patriarchy.
Despite deep differences, both sides agreed that their natural constituency
were poor, working-class, often indigenous or Afro-descendant, women.
Women’s movements grew in strength and numbers, but there was constant
tension between feministas, militantes and grassroots women who had begun
to organise on their own issues. The left often exploited these tensions on its
own behalf, seeking new cadres among organised women.
Although most women’s movements were struggling against the nearly
region-wide authoritarianism that characterised the 1970s and 1980s, this
period included two notable experiences with revolutionary regimes. These
leftwing governments included women and their demands, but subsumed
them to national priorities. Women played key roles in achieving state power
in both Cuba and Nicaragua, reaching an estimated 30% of the Sandinista
army. Mass women’s organisations, the Cuban Women’s Federation (FMC)
and Nicaragua’s AMNLAE, were created as official channels for women’s
demands. They helped to achieve important gains, including workplace
equality measures, anti-sexist education, daycare provision and, in the case of
Cuba, access to legal abortion. However, the primary goal of both the FMC
416
 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND THE LATIN AMERICAN LEFT

and AMNLAE, like that of other mass organisations, was to mobilise their
constituency for the revolution. This goal resulted in delaying or diluting
work for women as they shouldered extensive community duties,5 or
postponed gender-based demands during the Contra war in Nicaragua.
Constructing alternative women’s organisations was out of the question in
Cuba, given state strictures prohibiting autonomous civic organising; women
were also largely absent from political leadership. The pent-up energies of
feminists were evident following the electoral defeat of the Sandinista
government in 1990, when autonomous women’s movements mushroomed.6
With the transitions to liberal democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, many
feminists supported left-leaning parties as a channel to state power. They also
demanded, and often received, national women’s machinery—a policy-
making institution on gender-related issues. In some cases this was a fully
fledged ministry of women’s affairs; in others, an office inside another
ministry. Even as feminists gained power, the left was largely out of power:
this period was characterised by rule from the centre and right.
Because feminists entered the state just as states were beginning to shed
their responsibilities for social welfare and economic development under the
dictates of neoliberal economic models, their actions were criticised as a
‘gender technocracy’7 in collusion with ‘global neoliberal patriarchy’.8 Those
outside the state criticised those who, either through the state or the
exploding industry of internationally financed non-governmental organisa-
tions, they saw as teaching women how to cope with ‘neoliberal citizenship’
through strategies such as microcredit programmes.9
For some, feminist goals no longer seemed connected to leftwing politics.
The division between self-proclaimed autonomas, who worked in movement
arenas including the political left, and those they identified as instituciona-
lizadas, who sought change through more formal institutions, marked
another rending of feminist energies. Although coalition building became a
frequent strategy in each ‘camp’, feminists continued to be unable to mobilise
a mass following among working class and poor women.
The results of action through institutions in the 1990s were mixed, given
that feminists were operating in a centre-right context with inconsistent
support from the left. Key successes included the nearly region-wide
adoption of statutory candidate gender quotas and legislation prohibiting
domestic violence. But implemention of the legislation was uneven at best.
Argentina and Costa Rica pulled far ahead of other countries in female
representation in the lower house (at 38.3% and 36.8%, respectively),
although a regional advance was evident: currently the percentage of women
in lower houses in countries with quota provisions is 20.5%, an increase of
nearly 60% from a decade ago.10 Most of the legislation prohibiting domestic
violence was gender-neutral, addressing ‘intra-familiar’ violence through
mediation and conciliation. This move protected the family rather than
women’s human rights.11
The negotiations for these laws and other proposals did not show a
clear correspondence between feminist demands and leftwing party
support. Rightwing parties ensured that family values underpinned much
417
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

of the anti-violence legislation,12 and recognised that including

women on party lists might benefit them at the polls.13 Meanwhile, the left
refused to spend political capital supporting the feminist demand for
reproductive rights, given the unpopularity of abortion in opinion polls
across the region and the influence of the Catholic Church. In the most
notable contradiction between leftwing governance and reproductive rights,
Nicaragua criminalised therapeutic abortion, available since 1893, under the
leadership of Sandinista Daniel Ortega. Ortega’s compromises with the right
and the Catholic Church,14 political manipulation to defeat former allies, and
still-unresolved accusations by his stepdaughter of sexual slavery, have
alienated feminists. In response to his ‘reactionary’ policies the Autonomous
Feminist Movement of Nicaragua denounced his government, ‘declaring
itself in a state of ‘‘civil disobedience’’’; it has since been accused by the
executive of accepting illegal donations.15
Although feminists and the left would seem to have a shared commitment
to challenging deep-seated inequalities, this history reveals a contentious
relationship. Leftwing parties and revolutionary governments have incorpo-
rated some feminist demands, but have subordinated women and their issues
to ‘larger’ goals—and for political expedience. Moreover, the feminist agenda
for social change has proceded without much overt support from the left.

The left and women today

Although the historical record makes clear the left’s uneven support for
feminist demands, this record has been based on contexts where the left has
been out of power—or fighting for the survival of a revolution. Might the
left’s entry into democratic governance alter the dynamics described above?
To begin to answer this question, this article provides a comparison of four
countries: Chile, Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia. These cases offer a seemingly
wide spectrum of political transformation, from representative democracy
underpinned by neoliberal economics to the ‘participatory’ democracy of
‘twenty-first century’ socialism. Some analysts have offered normative
distinctions between their political and economic projects, characterising
the first two as a more reformist ‘right left’, seeking to promote liberal
democracy and equitable social policies, and the second two as a more radical
‘wrong left’, mired in an outdated and power-hungry populism.16 Others seek
to complicate such dichotomous assessments by exploring similarities across
the ‘good/bad’ divide, differences within each ‘side’, or each country’s
complex contextual realities (see the articles in this issue).
As another evaluation of the left as a whole, and distinctions within it, this
article focuses on current governments’ intervention around inequality on the
basis of gender and sexuality. The more direct challenge to neoliberal
frameworks and representative democracy offered by Húgo Chávez and Evo
Morales, and their attempts to reform their countries’ constitutions, might
predict a parallel transformation in gender relations. On the other hand,
Michele Bachelet’s gender, and Lula’s party’s historic ties to feminist
movements might also predict movement on a ‘gender agenda’.
418
 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND THE LATIN AMERICAN LEFT

To assess change within each country and across them, the article focuses
on six areas pertaining to women’s status and women’s and LGBT people’s
rights. It first presents the record of three of the four governments with
respect to improvements in socioeconomic status. To demonstrate the impact
of leftwing governance on feminist state–society relations, the second section
examines contemporary feminist movements and their relationship with state
feminism in the form of national women’s machinery. The next section
evaluates women’s representation in national decision making. The final
three sections look at three key policy issues: violence against women;
reproductive rights; and sexual rights. This ‘disaggregation’ is necessary given
that, as the review above and other studies have shown, both dictatorships
and democracies in Latin America have advanced unevenly on different
rights. Movement on one often comes without movement on another,
particularly when Church opposition is strong.17
The empirical evaluations below are limited by the availability of
information as well as by the ‘moving target’ of the topics, but they do
give a comparative sense of whether leftwing governments, and in particular
leftwing executives, are recognising feminist demands and promoting equality
and justice on issues of gender and sexuality. As this study shows, differences
in political and economic models are not good predictors of transformation
in these areas. While leftwing governments are improving women’s status,
they are internally and collectively inconsistent in their challenge to social
relations of power.

Women’s socioeconomic status

Venezuela, Brazil and Chile18 seem to be making good on the left’s promise
to ameliorate the material inequalities among their male and female citizens.
The welfare of women, particularly those of lower socioeconomic status, is
improving. Chávez’s administration introduced a parallel social service
infrastructure of misiones in 2003 which have incorporated large numbers of
poor and working-class women as recipients, volunteers or employees; since
2001 the Women’s Bank has offered micro-loans for poor entrepreneurs. The
conditional cash-transfer Bolsa Famı´lia programme, expanded under Lula,
now covers a quarter of the Brazilian population,19 and thus supports almost
all eligible poor women and their families. But the attempt to hold down
social spending has taken its toll. In one review of the ‘women’s budget’ of
Brazil—a collection of 57 federal programmes which have an impact on
Brazilian women—only those funds associated with basic healthcare and the
Bolsa Famı´lia (39% of the total) were fully paid out.20 Although Bachelet has
not implemented national programmes similar to those of Venezuela and
Brazil, she has taken action on senior health care, education and employment
for the poorest sectors.21 Over 800 new day care centres have opened since
she took office; free pre-school care is also on the agenda.
While it is hard to determine cause and effect when dealing with secular
trends such as life expectancy and the impact of previous policies, over the
past decade these kinds of programmes seem to be having an effect. As the
419
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

snapshots of Tables 1–3 show, although women are still earning far less than
men, they are, in general, living longer than them. They have also largely
moved into higher overall rates of educational enrolment. This evidence
suggests that leftwing governments do make a difference on material elements
of women’s status.

Feminist state–society relations

In moving from women’s socioeconomic status to questions of whether
feminist voices are heard by and can have an impact on state institutions, the
picture of leftwing support becomes more complex. Leftwing governments

TABLE 1. Estimated earned income

Source: Data are drawn from UNDP, Human Development Report 2007, New York: UNDP; and UNDP,
Human Development Report 1999, New York: UNDP.

TABLE 2. Life expectancy at birth

Source: Data are drawn from UNDP, Human Development Report 2007, New York: UNDP; and UNDP,
Human Development Report 1999, New York: UNDP.

420
 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND THE LATIN AMERICAN LEFT

TABLE 3. Combined gross enrolment percentage for primary-tertiary education

Source: Data are drawn from UNDP, Human Development Report 2007, New York: UNDP; and UNDP,
Human Development Report 1999, New York: UNDP.

often incorporate feminist activists and, in some cases, expand the abilities of
their national women’s machinery. But to what ends? Often to further the
national projects at hand, rather than to advance women’s rights per se.
Although affected by the political polarisation that has characterised
Chávez’s rule, feminist activists have relied on their historical strategy of
‘conjunctural coalition-building’22 to promote issues from their ‘minimum
agenda’: the application of anti-violence statutes; the decriminalisation of
abortion; gender parity for electoral lists; prohibiting gender stereotyping in
advertising; and achieving a minimum wage for homemakers. The incorpora-
tion of feminists from leftwing parties into Chávez’s government facilitated
the institutionalisation of parts of the ‘agenda’. For example, feminist
intervention in the 1999 constitutional convention resulted in the prohibition
of gender discrimination and promotion of gender equality, illustrated by the
use of gender-inclusive language throughout the constitutions (eg cuidadanos
y cuidadanas—male and female citizens). It also protects maternity, allows
women to transfer their citizenship to foreign spouses and recognises
housework as an economic activity. However, activists have not been
successful at getting the majority of women on board with the ‘agenda’.23
On the other hand, the Chávez government has made an effort to
incorporate women into the ‘Boliviarian Revolution’. Although Chávez has
not established the kind of highly institutionalised mass women’s organisa-
tion that characterised the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, his National
Women’s Institute (INAMUJER) has attempted to bring together a ‘Bolivarian
Women’s Force’ made up of members of the 22 000 Puntos de Encuentro, or
‘encounter points’, small, state-supported women’s groups. These groups
have been able to access microcredit and participate in health and women’s
rights campaigns, as well as in national women’s meetings.24 Even though
men hold leadership roles in the misiones, there is evidence that women’s
participation in such opportunities can lead to their empowerment.25
421
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

In general, INAMUJER has followed in the footsteps of other revolutionary

women’s organisations: its primary goal is to mobilise women for the
revolution. As a prominent example, the International Women’s Day
marches it has sponsored have focused on protesting at the US invasion of
Iraq, Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty and Exxon’s actions
against the Venezuelan state oil company. These marches, attended by
thousands of women, do not focus on their condition or rights.
Despite its political fealty, INAMUJER has an uncertain future. In March
2008 its head was named as the State Minister for Women’s Affairs, an
advisory position to the president rather than a ministry with its own budget.
INAMUJER, which remains part of the Ministry of Health and Social
Development, has an unclear fate, becoming yet another example of how
state feminism is subject to the whims of executives.26
In Bolivia the movement sector has not been able to overcome its
pre-existing polarisation between feminists who worked with pre-
Morales governments and those who rejected engagement with the state.27
The latter, while small in terms of numbers, have been symbolically
important both in Bolivia and the region, seeking to support grassroots
women while espousing radical, anti-patriarchal politics.
As in Venezuela some feminists have used the opportunity of a
constitutional convention to develop and lobby for a common agenda. Over
two years the Women and Constituent Assembly movement brought together
25 000 women to formulate a consensus position.28 Its influence on the draft
constitution is evident in many articles, some of which are discussed below.
Reflecting Chávez’s efforts, Morales has begun direct dialogue with low-
income indigenous women organised through the neighbourhood councils
and the Bartolina Sisa National Federation of Peasant Women. Although
they are present at some intermediate levels of leadership,29 it is an open
question whether such movements will go beyond mobilisation to participa-
tion in national leadership and decision making.30
Morales has not used his women’s machinery as a tool for mobilisation;
instead he has chosen to diminish it. He threatened to get rid of the Vice
Ministry of Women, under the Sustainable Development Ministry, as a ‘form
of discrimination’: since ‘women will be ministers’ there would be no reason to
have a special office for the sector. In sharp contrast, women within Morales’
MAS party and the leader of the Bartolina Sisa Federation insisted they would
fight to keep it, and even transform it into a fully fledged ‘Gender Ministry’.
Nevertheless, by the end of 2006 the office had been ‘demoted’ to a Vice
Minister of Gender, Generational and Family Issues in the Justice Ministry.31
With the coming to power of Concertación governments in Chile,
prominent feminist militants in this dominant political coalition established
close relationships with state actors or entered the state. As in Bolivia, radical
autonoma feminists levied strong critiques of the results of those who became
institutionalizadas, seeing them as co-opted by a liberal, capitalist patriarchal
system. Moreover, as in Venezuela there is a disconnection between
those feminists professionally active in the state and non-governmental
organisations and more grassroots organisations of women.32
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 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND THE LATIN AMERICAN LEFT

Some of this disconnection, paradoxically, has come through the relative

success of Chile’s national women’s ministry. In comparison with those of
Venezuela and Bolivia, Chile’s National Women’s Service (SERNAM) is both
well established (begun during the Chilean transition to democracy) and has
considerable political clout. Bachelet increased its budget by 13% in 2007,
making it ‘one of the biggest, best-funded and highest-ranked national
women’s agencies in Latin America’. But, like the rest of the Chilean govern-
ment, it has relied more on the technical expertise of professionals than on the
incorporation of grassroots organisations, marginalising non-elite actors.33
As in Chile, pre-existing ties between organised feminists and Lula’s
Workers’ Party have resulted in feminist access to the Brazilian state. This
access also reflects the strength of Brazil’s multifaceted feminist movement.
Its more prominent organisations span the spectrum from legislative
watchdog to Afro-Brazilian empowerment, and the ‘feminist, anti-racist’
Articulation of Brazilian Women has served as a national network for 15
years. But the government has received its share of criticism; for example,
Afro-Brazilian women have shown how the neoliberal development model
neglects the needs of Afro-Brazilian women and their families.34
Lula has re-created his national women’s machinery (also created during
the transition to democracy) as a Special Secretariat for Women’s Policies
(SPM), an advisory body with ministerial rank charged with mainstreaming
women’s issues in public policies. It has co-ordinated two national
conferences involving nearly 200 000 women across the country; in 2007
the second conference approved a series of policies to challenge gender, race
and class inequalities. SPM’s current national plan attests to its intersectional
perspective, focusing on issues such as the intertwined fight against racism,
sexism and lesbophobia, and the need to promote healthcare for all women,
including Afro-Brazilian women, indigenous women, lesbians and transsex-
uals. It also boasts of a permanent council of civil society advisors from
prominent feminist organisations. But SPM’s reach is wider than its impact,
given the frequent lack of follow-through on gender-related policies by other
ministries, and the limitations in social spending resulting from the
government’s attempt to stay on a neoliberal economic course.35
This overview of feminist state–society relations under leftwing govern-
ments reflects historical patterns, but shows new trends. In line with his
revolutionary predecessors, Chávez has attempted to mobilise women within
his ‘Boliviarian Revolution’. His national women’s machinery has been
crucial in this endeavour, prioritising national goals over the fulfilment of
women’s rights. Morales also has sought to incorporate grassroots women
into his national project, but instead of exploiting Bolivia’s women’s
machinery, has diminished its role. Although his ‘mainstreaming’ view
(‘women will be ministers’) may garner political legitimacy in a society where
ethnicity and class are more articulated politically than gender, the defence of
women’s machinery by his supporters shows its continued relevance.
In these ‘more left’ cases other political opportunities have proven more
useful for the articulation of feminist concerns. The constitutional reform
‘moments’ opened by Chávez and Morales have proved fruitful for women’s
423
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

mobilisation and their impact on fundamental legal structures, although

Bolivia’s faces a very uncertain future.
In Chile and Brazil feminist alliances with leftwing parties have given them
access to the state, and leftwing executives have championed long-standing
and high-profile women’s machinery. But the tension between state support
for feminist issues and the tendency to co-opt movement energies continues,
particularly given the governments’ commitments to technocracy and
neoliberalism. All cases manifest the historical dependence of state feminism
on the political will of the executive.36

Women’s representation in decision-making positions

The percentage of women in national parliaments is often taken as a proxy
for gender equality, for example as part of the United Nations Development
Programme’s (UNDP) measurement of gender inequality.37 Certainly the
numbers of women in decision-making positions indicates the extent of
gender equality in descriptive representation. However, descriptive repre-
sentation is not equivalent to substantive representation; female leadership
does not automatically translate into the promotion of a feminist agenda,
let alone into women-friendly policies. This is particularly true when women’s
cross-cutting identities have saliency. For example, in Bolivia ‘elite urban
women linked to the leadership of right-wing parties mainly benefited’ from
gender candidate quotas under former president Sánchez de Lozada,38
bringing their own political, class and geographic perspectives to their
governance objectives. In addition, party systems and structures have an
impact on what women are able to accomplish for women: strong parties in
stable systems will be more able to exert discipline over all their members,
whereas weak parties and fragmented systems will lead to more independence
in their members’ actions. Thus party platforms can have more impact on
substantive representation than the gender of the legislator.
With the difference between counting and consciousness in mind, this
section examines the extent that women are participating in key arenas of
national representation and decision making in the governments of Chávez,
Morales, Bachelet and Lula. The following discussion covers the percentage
of women in the lower or single house of parliament (the global comparative
measure of women’s representation), beginning with the election before the
executive (or her/his party) came to power, as well as the election(s) in which
s/he came to power. The section also examines policies to address the under-
representation of women, and cabinet positions women hold. This survey
reveals that leftwing governments are at times supportive of women’s
descriptive representation, but not across the board.
A decade after his first election, Chávez is attempting to address women’s
fluctuating representation. After increasing sharply with his first election
(from 5.9% to 12.1%), it declined with his second (to 9.7%).39 This election
followed a constitutional convention that replaced the bicameral congress
with a unicameral national assembly; moreover, it was an election in which
Chavistas won a large majority. In his third election, when Chavistas again
424
 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND THE LATIN AMERICAN LEFT

dominated the legislature after the opposition withdrew from contention,

women increased their numbers nearly 100%, from 9.7% to 18.6%, just
above the regional average of 18.5%. Despite feminist pressure, the
Venezuelan government has not restored the statutory quota of 30% it
suspended in 2000.40 Recently Chávez has proposed other measures: gender
parity for candidates for political office was part of the (failed) 2007
constitutional reform plans, and the National Electoral Council decided in
July 2008 that the candidates for regional legislative councils had to conform
to gender parity.
When Morales was elected, the percentage of women in parliament
declined slightly, from 18.5 to 16.9, but 74%, including the president of the
Assembly, were from his MAS party.41 In addition 86 of the 255 members of
the 2007 Constituent Assembly were women, achieving a quota of one-third
of the representatives. The Women and Constituent Assembly movement
lobbied for this quota and its fulfilment, as well as encouraging turn-out
among women.42
Bachelet has sought to improve the percentage of women in the Chilean
lower house. It has risen slowly, gaining about four percentage points in the
past three elections, from 10.8% to 15%. Recognising her country’s below-
average status in regional terms, Bachelet introduced a bill in October 2007
to promote equal political participation between men and women, specifying
that party lists and party leadership positions can be no more than 70% of
either gender. Parties opting to include more women than the minimum can
get extra funding.43 However, the legislature has been opposed to such
measures.
Although the percentage of female representatives has risen since Lula was
first elected in 2002—from 6.2% to 8.8%—Brazil is the laggard among these
countries, with the second lowest percentage in the region. This is particularly
notable given the statutory 30% quotas for female candidates. Rather than
placing the blame on the president’s shoulders, the failure of quota measures
has been attributed to its original design problems, including the ability for
parties 1) to put forward a greater number of men to ‘make up’ for any seats
assigned to women and 2) to leave vacant any part of the 30% of the
party list assigned to women.44 In addition, Brazil’s open list system
stimulates inter-party competition, which can often stifle female candidacies.
The revision of the quota legislation is a priority for the Special Secretariat
for Women’s Policies, according to its 2008 Second National Plan for
Women’s Policies, but the institutional obstacles may prove intractable.
Cabinet positions, appointed by executives and changed at their discretion
(if with congressional oversight), are a particularly sensitive measure of the
commitment of executives to gender equality in decision-making posts. The
finding that leftwing presidents are likely to appoint women to their cabinets
is partially confirmed here. Bachelet famously implemented gender parity in
her appointments; Chávez has a nearly 30% female cabinet; and Morales’
cabinet is 25% female, including, at first, Justice Minister Casimira
Rodrı́quez, a Quechua Indian and head of the union of domestic employees.
Although she has since left the cabinet, her position continues to be held by a
425
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

woman. As this appointment indicates, another trend in cabinet-making

is giving women non-traditional, and higher-prestige, cabinet positions,
including justice, interior, finance, and defence.45
Cabinet positions can be as easily shuffled as a deck of cards, often in
response to political crisis; one such shuffle, in March 2007, shifted Bachelet’s
cabinet away from parity (to 13 men and nine women), as she brought in
experienced politicians. This change resulted in her female cabinet members
clustering in traditional positions, such as education and health, although they
also hold positions in planning and agriculture. Chávez’s cabinet assigns
women to similar positions, with no women in prominent posts. Finally, in a
development for which he can take full credit, Lula has not appointed a single
woman to Brazil’s 23 ministries. Adding in the additional 12 authorities with
ministerial rank brings the total to two women out of 35: the chief of staff and
the head of the Special Secretariat for Women’s Policies.
This section shows that, while leftwing executives may try to improve
women’s legislative representation, they cannot ensure it. Legislative
representation is not necessarily in the hands of executives; clearly Chávez
has more sway over his legislature than Bachelet, whose efforts to establish
quotas are not being heeded by the coalition government she heads, or Lula,
who operates within the constraints of Brazilian institutional design. This
may help to explain the counterintuitive finding that the highest percentage
of women in legislatures are in the populist democracies of Venezuela and
Bolivia. Cabinet making, controlled by the executive, may be a more sensitive
measure of executive commitment to gender equality. Here Bachelet has
made a significant, if ultimately curtailed, effort; Chávez and Morales are
right behind her; and Lula trails far behind. No executives consistently place
women in the highest positions.

Violence against women

Moving from counting to consciousness, this section examines the first of
three policy areas that, given the depth of their challenge to gender and
sexuality power relation, are serious ‘litmus tests’ for the degree of
transformation leftwing governments seek. Although new legislation against
violence against women is reflective of feminist positions, governments have
been uneven in adopting and promoting it.
In Chile, Bachelet and her predecessor have overseen changes to the 1994
Law Establishing Standard Procedure and Penalties for Acts of Violence
within the Family. This law, passed while the Christian Democrats headed
the government, was criticised by feminists for following regional trends in
such legislation by protecting the family rather than the female victims of
domestic violence. The 2005 reforms, achieved with the support of SERNAM,
criminalised domestic violence, expanded sanctions for perpetrators, and
made it easier to remove the abuser from the home. That same year, Family
Tribunals were established to ensure more effective prosecution. Bachelet’s
government has also established 14 new shelters and over 30 walk-in
assistance and counselling centres for battered women.46
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Bolivia adopted the Law against Domestic and Family Violence in 1995.
The Women and Constituent Assembly movement gave language for the
proposed constitution that embodies a more feminist perspective on violence
against women: ‘All people, women in particular, have the right to not suffer
physical, sexual or psychological violence, as much in the family as in
society’. Moreover, the state is obliged to take the remedies necessary to
‘prevent, eliminate, and sanction gender violence’.47
Extensive pressure led to Chávez and Lula signing new statutes against
violence against women. In 2006 Brazil became one of the last countries in
the region to pass such legislation. The ‘Maria da Penha Law’ commemorates
the woman who lodged a complaint against Brazil at the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to protest at the government’s
repeated failure to protect her against her aggressive ex-husband. Although
his maltreatment—including a murder attempt—left her a paraplegic, two
different trials concluded without indicting him. Only after the IACHR found
in her favour in 2001, followed by five years of continuous lobbying from
civil society groups and the Special Secretariat for Women’s Policies, did
the law finally pass.48 Again responding to executive pressure to cut
spending, the federal programme, Oppose Violence against Women, only
used half of its allotted resources in 2007.49
Venezuelan women’s organisations, outraged by the Attorney General’s
2003 decision to suspend restraining orders against batterers, successfully
lobbied for the replacement of the Law on Violence against Women and the
Family with the new Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free from Violence
in 2006.50 But the government has delayed its implementation: the first
violence courts are about to open their doors, and INAMUJER’s promised
nation-wide provision of women’s shelters has been marred by delayed
openings.
On the issue of violence against women, stronger legislation has been put
into place in Chile, Venezuela, and Brazil. But in this area the state is far
from taking the lead, as illustrated by Lula’s dilatory action and Chávez’s
backsliding on fulfilment.

Reproductive rights
In the area of reproductive rights, particularly on the lightening-rod issue of
abortion, leftwing governments seem unable to resist the strong opposition
from the right and the Church. This is true across the cases, despite an
increasingly vocal and regional reproductive rights movement.
Although feminist and LGBT activists lobbied hard to use the 2007
constitutional convention in Venezuela to advance reproductive rights,
women’s ability to interrupt pregnancies in the first trimester was not
included. Religious leaders joined with secular politicians in defeating this
effort. In Bolivia some headway was made during the constitutional
convention. The proposed constitution states explicitly that: ‘men and
women are guaranteed the exercise of their sexual and reproductive rights’,
and an attempt to protect life from the moment of conception was
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unsuccessful.51 Meanwhile, work on the Bolivian law on sexual and

reproductive rights, passed by the previous legislature but not promulgated
by the then president under pressure from the Catholic Church, has been
‘frozen’ in the legislature because of the shift in priorities to the contentious
constitutional reform process.52
In Chile, Bachelet—who as health minister allowed the legalisation of the
so-called ‘morning after pill’—decreed that all contraception, including this
method, be provided free of charge in public clinics to all girls and women
over 14. This move was widely denounced by the Church and the right.
Rightwing politicians claimed before the Constitutional Tribunal that the
distribution order for the morning after pill violated the Constitution’s
protection of the right to life since the moment of conception. The Tribunal
ruled in their favour in April 2008, in a decision which cannot be appealed.
Meanwhile, although Bachelet’s party has openly stated its support for the
decriminalisation of therapeutic abortion, the political opposition to this
measure has resulted in a stalemate.53
In Brazil the first National Conference on Policies for Women (2004)
declared unsafe abortion to be a violation of women’s human rights, and
called for decriminalisation. Lula backed a law to that end, but during his
second presidential campaign told the Brazilian Conference of Bishops
that he was personally against abortion. In the 2006 elections a
Parliamentary Front to Defend Life campaigned for ‘God’s List’, a slate
of candidates who answered a questionnaire on abortion, contraception
and LGBT rights in accordance with Vatican positions. They have also
proposed the so-called ‘rape benefit’ to provide child support to any
woman who agreed to continue a pregnancy resulting from rape and raise
the child.54
The impact of over a decade of Vatican-inspired social mobilisation
against abortion and many forms of contraception is evident in these cases.
Often trying to balance demands of political allies on a topic that has been
characterised as a matter of moral absolutes, leftwing executives seem either
unable or unwilling to back a policy that deeply challenges gender roles—and
religious belief.55

Sexual rights
Although national legislation on sexual rights remains elusive in these
countries, there is no denying that, in contrast with reproductive rights,
significant efforts are underway in this area. Like feminists, LGBT activists
have made use of constitutional reform ‘openings’ and certain executives
have responded positively to their demands for human rights.
In Venezuela’s first constitutional reform in 1999, the Catholic Church
blocked the addition of a clause stipulating non-discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation (along with abortion). Eight years later the clause was
included in the unsuccessful 2007 constitutional reform. In Bolivia the
constitutional reform process promised a radical shift in anti-discrimination
policy: Article 14 of the proposed constitution states, ‘The State prohibits
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and punishes all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation [and]

gender identity’. If this text of the Bolivian constitution were to be ratified,
Bolivia would become the first country in the world to protect gender
identity-related concerns. The constitution’s definition of marriage as
between a man and a woman is evidence of the conflicting interests in the
reform process.
During the second Concertación government, in 1998, the Chilean
parliament repealed the section of the penal code that criminalised same-
sex relations between consenting adults. Although there is parliamentary
support for a civil unions bill, including the reiterated backing of Bachelet
and her Socialist Party, the government has not made a concerted effort to
promote it.56 A Law to Establish Measures against Discrimination remains
frozen in the congress.57 However, the Civil Registry now allows for name
and sex changes without undergoing sexual reassignment surgery, and the
Labour Bureau will investigate claims against unjust firing on the basis of
homophobia or transphobia.
Lula’s government has taken the most wide-ranging steps to fight
homophobia and promote LGBT rights, although legislative change remains
elusive. His party has been instrumental in advancing civil union legislation
at the federal level;58 in October 2003 pro- LGBT congressional deputies
formed the Parliamentary Front for the Freedom of Sexual Expression. The
Special Secretariat on Human Rights co-ordinates the federal Programme to
Combat Violence and Discrimination against LGBT persons and the
Promotion of Homosexual Citizenship, known as ‘Brazil without Homo-
phobia’; its mandate covers health, public security, work, education and
citizenship. The federal government also sponsors the world’s largest Gay
Pride march, held in Sao Paulo: over two million people attended in 2007. In
June 2008 the national government put on the First National Conference of
Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals. In Lula’s opening
speech, which six of his ministers attended, he championed national civil
unions and described discrimination on the basis of sexuality as ‘perhaps the
most perverse disease impregnated in the human head’ in his call to
criminalise homophobia.59
Brazil has also been at the forefront of international and regional
developments on sexual rights. The Brazilian delegation to the UN’s
Commission on Human Rights proposed the 2003 resolution on ‘Human
Rights and Sexual Orientation’ that called upon member states and the UN
itself to ‘promote and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of
their sexual orientation’.60 The Special Secretariat for Human Rights has
advocated strongly within MERCOSUR for state and regional action against
discrimination, including the adoption of the international ‘Yogyakarta
Principles’ on the equal rights of sexual minorities.61 Most recently Brazil
presented Resolution 2435, ‘Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender
Identity’, to the General Assembly of the Organization of American states
(OAS) in June 2008. This resolution is the first inter-American document to
‘express concern’ about human rights violations based on sexual orientation
and gender identity, and to request further OAS discussion.
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 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

Both Lula and Bachelet have taken steps to recognise sexual rights, even as
legislative action has proved impossible. Brazil is at the forefront, with Lula
calling for the criminalisation of homophobia and his government taking
action both domestically and internationally. Venezuelan and Bolivian
constitutional reforms promised anti-discrimination clauses, although with
those reforms currently stymied, it is unclear what impact such stances will
have.

Testing the transformation

The findings of this article reflect the historical record: today’s leftwing
governments show a mixed commitment to women’s and LGBT rights. But
having the left in power does make a difference—in some areas. Before
summarising the patterns of change, one central point should be made:
distinctions between countries based on a reified typology of political and/or
economic models cannot predict outcomes. No one left-leaning country, or
set of countries, is more or less responsive across the board. Consider Brazil,
with its national programme to promote ‘Homosexual Citizenship’ and its
lack of women in national decision-making positions; or Venezuela, with its
many misiones and its deferential women’s ministry.
In terms of gains, the attention paid to socioeconomic inequality, a
hallmark of these governments, has had a positive effect on women and their
families. ‘Participatory’ democracies such as Venezuela and Bolivia, as they
seek to include women in ‘twenty-first century’ socialist or indigenous
nationalist projects, echo revolutionary experiences in Nicaragua and Cuba
(or populist ones in countries like Argentina). While they have not organised
mass women’s organisations to the same extent as their predecessors, they
rely on women’s mobilisation.62 Meanwhile, the representative democracies
of Chile and Brazil have used executive branch resources, such as their
(relatively) powerful national women’s machinery, to promote rights when
legislative avenues are closed. Female leadership positions seem to depend
largely on national context, and in the case of cabinet positions, executive
choice. In a development that defies prediction along the lines of a ‘right left/
wrong left’ distinction, the countries leaning further to the left seem to be
making more headway on women’s descriptive representation than those
more committed to liberal democratic principles, while everyone but Lula has
appointed cabinets that are at least a quarter female.
The Bolivian and Venezuelan experiences confirm the finding that
constitutional reform processes can offer an opportunity for activists to pro-
mote women’s and LGBT rights. However, such mobilisation does not always
lead to state action, particularly when church-led opposition is strong;63 in
any case, the current reforms have either failed or face significant opposition.
In the presidentialist systems discussed here, executive interest can lead to
significant action. These results, while encouraging, could fall prey to a common
fate of policy in such systems: when an executive loses interest, action and
resources are easily removed. Meanwhile, legislative opposition has proved to
be a stumbling block in several countries, attesting to the finding that, under
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left-leaning as well as right-leaning governments, ‘the configuration of demo-

cratic institutions . . . shape[s] patterns of policy on gender issues’.64
While leftwing governments have made progress in terms of women’s
welfare and representation, they are less willing to undertake direct
challenges to gender power relations. Women’s mobilisation is often turned
to state ends, rather than to women’s rights, especially in Venezuela and
Bolivia. The implementation of anti-violence statutes, with all they imply for
disrupting familial hierarchies, is weak. And the decriminalisation of
abortion continues to elicit strong opposition and little executive support.
There is an interesting contrast here between reproductive and sexual
rights. Although both are opposed by the Church, leftwing governments are
responding to the demands of LGBT activists. From constitutional reform to
federal campaigns, executives have come out publicly in support of LGBT
human rights. It may be that the rights-based arguments used by activists,
which do not raise debates over the inception of life, can be more persuasive
in a region deeply influenced by human rights movements. But it remains to
be seen if recalcitrant legislatures will take action.
Achieving women’s and LGBT rights remains highly dependent on the
actions of activists and their allies, who seek to hold left governments
accountable. In one dramatic recent example protests by women’s organisa-
tions (and, at least in the latter case, the minister of women herself) in Chile
and Paraguay have convinced Daniel Ortega, whose present and past
violations of gender rights have earned him region-wide feminist enmity, not
to show his face at head-of-state events.

Notes
This article has benefited from the comments of participants in the ‘Left Turns?’ conference and the
detailed suggestions of Max A Cameron, Eric Hershberg and Kathryn Jay.
1 Although this article addresses sexual rights, space restrictions do not allow for consideration of LGBT
movements. However, a similarly contested relationship with the left is evident. See, for example,
N Mongrovejo, Un Amor Que se Atrevio a Decir su Nombre: La Lucha de las Lesbianas y su Relacion
con los Movimientos Homosexual y Feminista en America Latina, Mexico, DF: Plaza y Valdes Editores/
CDHAL, 2000; and FE Babb, ‘Out in Nicaragua: local and transnational desires after the revolution’,
Cultural Anthropology, 18 (3), pp 304–328.
2 SE Alvarez, EJ Friedman, E Beckman, M Blackwell, N Chinchilla, N Lebon, M Navarro & MR
Tobar, ‘Encountering Latin American and Caribbean feminisms’, Signs: Jounal of Women in Culture
and Society, 28 (2), 2002, p 542.
3 F Miller, Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice, Lebanon, NH: University Press of
New England, 1991.
4 IA Luciak, After the Revolution: Gender and Democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala,
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
5 L Smith & A Padula, Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996.
6 MT Blandón, ‘The Coalición Nacional de Mujeres: an alliance of left-wing women, right-wing women,
and radical feminists in Nicaragua’, in K Kampwirth & V Gonzalez (eds), Radical Women in Latin
America: Left and Right, University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2001, p 114.
7 K Monasterios P, ‘Bolivian women’s organizations in the MAS era’, NACLA Report on the Americas , 40
(2), 2007, pp 33–34.
8 Alvarez, ‘Encountering Latin American and Caribbean feminisms’, p 547.
9 V Schild, ‘New subjects of rights? Women’s movements and the construction of citizenship in the ‘‘new
democracies’’‘, in SE Alvarez, E Dagnino & A Escobar (eds), Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures:
Latin American Social Movements Revisited, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997, pp 93–117.

431
 ELISABETH JAY FRIEDMAN

10 B Llanos & K Sample, 30 Years of Democracy: Riding the Wave? Women’s Political Participation in
Latin America, Peru: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2008; and Inter-
Parliamentary Union, Women in National Parliaments, Situation as of 25 January 1998, at http://
www.ipu.org/wmn-e/arc/world250198.htm, accessed 7 April 2008.
11 S Chiarotti, Violence against Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1998, at http://
www.socialwatch.org/en/informesTematicso/39.html, accessed 22 April 2006.
12 F Macaulay, ‘Judicialising and (de)criminalising domestic violence in Latin America’, Social Policy and
Society, 5 (1), 2006, pp 103–114.
13 L Baldez, ‘Elected bodies: gender quotas for female legislative candidates in Mexico’, Legislative
Studies Quarterly, 29 (2), 2004, pp 231–258.
14 K Kampwirth, ‘Neither left nor right: Sandinismo in the anti-feminist era’, NACLA Report on the
Americas, 41 (1), 2008, pp 30–34, 43.
15 V Gago, ‘Dangerous liaisons: Latin Amreican feminists and the left’, NACLA Report on the Americas,
40 (2), 2007, pp 17–19; and ‘Ministry of Government announces review of NGOs’ legal status’,
Nicaragua Network Hotline, 9 September 2008, at http://www.nicanet.org/?p¼562, accessed 30
September 2008.
16 JG Castañeda, ‘Latin America’s left turn’, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006, pp 28–43.
17 M Htun, Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and
Democracies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
18 Bolivia is excluded here since the data for the tables below are not available for any time after Morales’
election; the Chilean data cover a time in which Bachelet’s party, but not Bachelet herself, was in power.
19 W Hunter & T Power, ‘Rewarding Lula: executive power, social policy, and the Brazilian elections of
2006’, Latin American Politics and Society, 49 (1), 2007, p 18.
20 ‘Em 2007, governo pagou 67,32% do Orçamento Mulher’, Jornal Feˆmea, 155, 2008.
21 PM Savelis, ‘How new is Bachelet’s Chile?’, Current History, February 2007, p 73.
22 EJ Friedman, ‘Getting rights for those without representation: the success of conjunctural coalition-
building in Venezuela’, in N Craske & M Molyneux (eds), Gender, Rights and Justice in Latin America,
London: Palgrave, 2002, pp 57–78.
23 G Espina, ‘Beyond polarization: organized Venezuelan women promote their ‘‘minimum agenda’’’,
NACLA Report on the Americas, 40 (2), 2007, pp 20–24; and Espina, ‘Sudden awakening in Venezuela:
Venezuelan women active in placing controversial issues in parliament’, LOLApress, 13, 2000, p 62.
24 Inamujer, ‘Puntos de Encuentro con INAMUJER’, at http://www.inamujer.gob.ve/index.php?
option¼com_content&task¼view&id¼21&Itemid¼44, accessed 1 August 2008.
25 S Fernandes, ‘The gender agenda of the pink tide in Latin America’, zmag.org, 7 October 2007, at
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID¼13958, accessed 5 April 2008.
26 G Espina, ‘Creado el meamujer’, El Siglo (Venezuela), 2 April 2008; and EJ Friedman, ‘State-based
advocacy for gender equality in the developing world: assessing the Venezuelan National Women’s
Agency’, Women & Politics, 21 (2), 2000, pp 47–80.
27 Monasterios P, ‘ Bolivian women’s organizations in the MAS era’.
28 Mujeres y Asamblea Constituyente, Quienes Somos, at http://www.mujeresconstituyentes.org/
quienes_somos.php, 31 Jul;y 2008.
29 L Farthing, ‘Everything is up for discussion: a 40th anniversary conversation with Silvia Rivera
Cusicanqui’, NACLA Report on the Americas, 40 (4), 2007, p 8.
30 Monasterios P, ‘ Bolivian women’s organizations in the MAS era’.
31 Bolpress, ‘Evo dijo que la instancia serı́a borrada de la estructura del Ejecutivo’, 20 January 2006; and
NotiEMAIL, ‘Diputada cree viceministerio Género es ‘‘retroceso’’ para mujeres’, NotiEMAIL, 2
October 2006.
32 M Rı́os Tobar, ‘Chilean feminism and social democracy from the democratic transition to Bachelet’,
NACLA Report on the Americas, 40 (2), 2007, pp 25–29.
33 Rı́os Tobar, ‘Chilean feminism and social democracy from the democratic transition to Bachelet’, p 28.
34 V Reis, ‘Black Brazilian women and the Lula administration’, NACLA Report on the Americas, 40 (2),
2007, pp 38–41.
35 Ibid; SPM, II Plano Nacional de Polı´ticas para as Mulheres, 2008; and M Osava, ‘Brazil: turning
women’s rights into reality’, Inter-Press Service, 16 August 2007.
36 Friedman, ‘State-based advocacy for gender equality in the developing world’; and G Waylen,
‘Enhancing the substantive representation of women: lessons from transitions to democracy’,
Parliamentary Affairs, 61 (3), 2008, pp 518–534.
37 Known as the ‘Gender Empowerment Measure’.
38 Monasterios P, ‘Bolivian women’s organizations in the MAS era’, p 34.
39 All the data on female representation are from Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in National
Parliaments, at http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif-arc.htm, accessed 7 April 2008.
40 Espina, ‘Beyond polarization’, p 21.

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41 M Draper, ‘Women and the mud ceiling’, Democracy Center blog, 3 October 2006, at http://www.
democracyctr.org/blog/archives/2006_10_01_democracyctr_archive.html, accessed 30 September 2008.
42 Coordinadora de la Mujer et al, Aportes y complementaciones al cuestionario presentado por el gobierno
boliviano ante el Comité de la CEDAW, 2007.
43 H Bunting, ‘Chile’s Bachelet signs bill to promote women’s participation in politics’, Santiago Times,
30 October 2007.
44 LF Miguel, ‘Political representation and gender in Brazil: quotas for women and their impact’, Bulletin
of Latin American Research, 27 (2), 2008, pp 197–214.
45 M Escobar-Lemmon & MM Taylor-Robinson, ‘Women ministers in Latin American government:
when, where, and why?’, Americal Journal of Political Science, 49 (4), 2005, pp 829–844; and executive
branch websites for each government.
46 L Haas, ‘The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policy making in Chile’, Politica 46, 2007, pp 199–225;
D Estrada, ‘Chile: high-profile trial opens dialogue on domestic violence’, Global Information Network,
9 May 2007.
47 Article 15, paragraphs II, III.
48 CM Santos, ‘Transnational legal activism and the state: reflections on cases against Brazil in the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights’, Sur-International Journal on Human Rights, 4 (7), 2007,
pp 29–59.
49 ‘Em 2007, governo pagou 67,32% do Orçamento Mulher’.
50 Espina, ‘Beyond polarization’, p 21.
51 Article 66; and J Friedman-Rudovsky, ‘Abortion under siege in Latin America’, Time, 9 August 2007.
52 Coordinadora de la Mujer, Aportes y complementaciones al cuestionario presentado por el gobierno
boliviano ante el Comité de la CEDAW.
53 Rompiendo el Silencio.cl, ‘Partido Socialista apoyarı́a Ley de Unión Civil’, Santiago, 16 March 2008.
54 Rede Feminista de Saúde, Eleições sem retrocesso: Un desafio para o feminismo brasileiro, at http://
www.cfemea.org.br/temasedados/imprimir_detalhes.asp?IDTemasDados¼151, 26 July 2008. In Brazil,
abortion is legal for victims of rape who become pregnant.
55 Htun, Sex and the State, ch 6, p 168.
56 Rompiendo el Silencio.cl, ‘Partido Socialista apoyarı́a Ley de Unión Civil’.
57 Movimiento de Integración y Liberación Homosexual, VI Informe Anual: Derechos Humanos Minorı´as
Sexuales Chilenas (Hechos 2007), Santiago: Movilh, 2008.
58 Although much recent policy on LGBT rights has been implemented at the sub-national level in Brazil’s
federal system, this article is focused on change at the national level. For more detail, see JP Marsiaj,
‘Expanding human rights: the Brazilian Gay, Lesbian and Travesti Movement and the struggle against
homophobic discrimination’, paper presented for the XXVI International Congress of the Latin
American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2006.
59 S Picheta, ‘Brazilian president calls homophobia a ‘‘perverse disease’’‘, Pink News, 11 June 2008.
60 See E/CN.4/2003/L.92 2003. The lack of consensus on the resolution to promote LGBT human rights
led the Brazilian government to withdraw its support two years later.
61 Movimiento de Integración y Liberación Homosexual, VI Informe Annual.
62 S Fernandes, ‘Barrio women and popular politics in Chávez’s Venezuela’, Latin American Politics and
Society, 49 (3), 2007, pp 97–127.
63 G Waylen, ‘Constitutional engineering: what opportunities for the enhancement of gender rights?’,
Third World Quarterly, 27 (7), 2008, pp 1209–1221.
64 Htun, Sex and the State, p 174.

Notes on Contributor

Elisabeth Jay Friedman teaches comparative politics (Latin America) and

gender and politics in the Politics Department at the University of San
Francisco. She is currently the chair of Latin American Studies and the
coordinator of the Eighth Annual Global Women’s Rights Forum. Her
publications include Unfinished Transitions: Women and the Gendered
Development of Democracy in Venezuela, 1936–1996 (2000) and the co-
authored Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: State–Society
Relations at UN World Conferences (2005). She served as guest editor for the
NACLA Report on the Americas’ March 2007 issue, ‘How Pink Is the Pink
Tide: Feminist and LGBT Activists Challenge the Left’.
433