Anti-gender Populism in Latin America: The Cases of Mexico and Brazil

Abstract

Latin America has seen significant advances in both women's rights and gender equality in the last three decades thanks both to external pressures (since the Beijing conference in 1995) and the strength of the women’s movements in the continent. However, these advances are being threatened by populist regimes and strong conservative and reactionary groups within civil society, especially among Catholic and Protestant churches. This kind of anti-'gender ideology' reactions is part of a backlash that slides in a scale from constant and structural discrimination to open reversals of gender equality previous gains. This chapter will try to illustrate how left and right-wing populism in the case of Mexico and Brazil, limit or setback gender equality gains in several areas, particularly regarding political parity and the fight against gender-based violence (GBV). We chose these two cases as we think they represent two sorts of backlashes, but also because they represent two examples of populism, different in their ideological positioning but not so different in their defence of patriarchal structures and support of family values.