Violence against Women in Politics in Latin America
Through decades of activism by feminist groups and national actors, Latin America has made advances in its representation of women in political positions.
Through decades of activism by feminist groups and national actors, Latin America has made advances in its representation of women in political positions.
How do people understand themselves and their relationships with other people, institutions, and authority? One way to look at this question is through the lens of gender. Throughout nineteenth-century Spanish America, men and women alike grappled with changing attitudes about gender roles and social codes related to gender. Increasingly, the debates around those changes included the question of women’s access to and participation in the workforce.
As President Donald Trump has assembled what seems to be one of the most male-dominated cabinets in recent U.S. history, many are wondering what a female president might have done in his place. It is worth looking at Latin America—which has elected female presidents more times than any other region of the world—for lessons on how and why female presidents use their power differently from their male counterparts. In Latin America, presidents have virtually no formal restrictions on who they can nominate (i.e. no legislative body approves the presidents’ ministerial picks).