An Analysis of the Current Tensions in South-America's Public Policies from a Feminist Perspective

ANZORENA, CLAUDIA

Uppsala

Conferencia; 4TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON POLITICS AND GENDER; 2015

Uppsala University - ECPR

This paper discusses the ways in which women-oriented public policies are currently devised, built and implemented in South-America. Even though in recent decades governments have changed their perspectives about women's citizenship, there is a disconnection between social policy, which attends to socioeconomic situations, and gender perspective, mostly impelled by feminist movements -focused on issues such as violence, reproductive health and discrimination.In our countries, the return to democracy provided the opportunity for legal advancements and the opening of specialized government agencies. But the neoliberal policies of the 1990s deprioritized the guarantee of women's rights. In the new century, governments considered necessary to reformulate social protection policy. This reform included discourses and interventions based on economics and social rights perspectives that were critical of neoliberal logics, but women kept being considered as the primary caregivers and their gender problems are deemed unimportant. I aim to make visible the ways in which poverty, sexism and racism are closely linked in South America, making the lack of integration between recognition and redistributive policies a huge obstacle for the transformation of gender inequalities and of the sexual division of labor.