The advance of the conservative right in Latin America: “a danger for women and sexual dissidents”

In the last decade, the feminist cause in Latin America has enjoyed a great strengthening. Ni Una Menos – a movement that was born to protest against the high numbers of femicides – and the movement Me Too – which made visible the harassment in the United States and the world – acted as catalysts for the strong presence that feminism has today in the public sphere. The Feminist May in our country, that wave of university demonstrations in 2018, was a symptom of the rise of the movement in the region.
However, just as social changes have been raised in favor of women’s rights and dissent, there has also been an opposition reaction from the traditional right and mainly the more conservative right. A sign of this response is the constant use of the term “gender ideology” to divert the discussion on human rights to a purely ideological level. 
This has had a direct impact on part of the population forming a misconception about what feminism is and what the discussions related to gender issues imply, including those that have been raised to the congress. In this context, the rise of the conservative right in the southern cone would pose a direct threat to the rights of women and dissidents.
Taking into account the triumph of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, together with the advance of José Antonio Kast to a second round in the presidential elections of Chile, the researcher of the Sol Foundation and graduate in History of the University of Santiago de Chile, Alejandra Sato, gives an account of the multiple dimensions where she worries and warns that there may be a setback in terms of women’s rights. 
The expert explains that one of the most peculiar characteristics of right-wing groups has been their ability to create reactionary movements to feminist causes. Under this line, “caricatures are established that seek to helpless feminisms from the concept of ‘gender ideology’, along with other mechanisms such as the slogans of ‘with my children do not mess’, these buses of hatred with an important pathologization of the trans community and everything that is within this norm. In that sense, what they do is seek to keep the structures as static as possible through caricaturization and demonization.” 
 
In that sense, he assures that it is no coincidence that josé Antonio Kast’s program is one “anti-rights for women”, in the same way that it is no coincidence that they are used caricatures to discredit the advance of the women’s movement and feminisms in Latin America.
The example of Brazil
One of the clearest examples of the advance of the far right within Latin America is the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. In that sense, according to Sato, the advance of the ultra-right – which poses itself as liberal in the economic and conservative in the social – has had quite direct consequences in society, but particularly in the lives of women.
The expert assures that during the Bolsonaro period there was a significant increase in femicides. During 2019, according to the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, there were 1,310 murders, an increase of more than 7 percentage points over the previous year, when 1,222 cases of femicide were registered. The graduate points out that “there is talk of a pandemic of femicides during her presidential term (…)”. 
In that sense, the academic of the University of Chile, part of the Center for Studies of Teaching Knowledge and member of the Network of Political Scientists, Gabriela Martini, assures that the advance of the extreme right in the continent has another consequence in addition to the femicides that are mentioned above.
“Another line is the direct persecution of feminist movements and their leaders and activists; intimidation. Brazil is one of the clear and sad examples of this. The arrival to formal power, institutionalization of the ultra-right in governments, gives a status of legitimacy to its followers, empowers them and gives them a framework that justifies and endorses their action. And this allows gender violence to expand in all its expressions and in public and private spaces. For example, and very specifically, assaults on a homosexual couple in a park, a lesbian couple on the bus, transgender students at school, become allowed behaviors and even legitimized by formal power.”

Dismantling of social security
According to Sato, another characteristic of the advance of the extreme right is linked to a kind of reprivatization in the field of social security, especially in the issues of pensions and the danger of going backwards in terms of unionization. 
From the first government of Michelle Bachelet, to the different discussions that have taken place in the Piñera government, and especially from the social movements, there has been an emphasis on advancing gender pay equity. “What we have seen in other governments is that the projects were totally paralyzed, added to the fact that in Chile there is already a collective bargaining structure that does not promote women’s unionization nor real equity between employees and employers. Minimum wage discussions are stalled and there are no major increases, and this is fundamental for women, because more than 60% of the people who receive the minimum wage in Chile are women.”
Finally, the researcher reflects that “it must be observed that indeed the advance of the ultra-right denies rights, but that it also brings an economic agenda that perpetuates inequality. In that sense, clearly women, because of the place we occupy in the division of labor, are the most affected around wages. The dimensions in which the far right threatens society are multiple and women and dissidents are the most affected, particularly in the world of work. There has been a struggle for economic autonomy, especially after the pandemic left more women unemployed, exposing them to more economic violence.” 

Original source in Spanish

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