Abstract
The Paraguayan feminist movement is a key sociopolitical actor in the questioning of the patriarchal regime and in the democratization of both state and society. The chapter presents a general characterization of the different phases of the movement and demonstrates how the decade of the 2010s was a turning point in terms of movement renewal. We argue that the trajectory and agenda of this movement have moved at a different pace than that of other Latin American feminist movements due to conditioning factors that include a domestic gender regime that lasted well into the 1990s, when many Latin American countries had already achieve a public gender regime. The repressive nature of the state and patriarchal values of society influenced the type of claims and mobilization of the Paraguay feminist movement. Because of the societal and political shifts in the 2000s (urbanization, neoliberalism, migration, reprimarization of the economy, mass protests), the movement was able to advance its claims and create a more sustainable dialogue with government actors in the 2010s. When a reversal of government occurred in 2012, this dialogue ended and eventually led to a renewal of the movement involving massive street protests.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2012, about 32% of Paraguayan households were headed by a female (Zavattiero & Serafini Geoghegan, 2019).
- 2.
In her work on gender regimes, Walby (2004, 2009) theorizes and historicizes the relationship between modernization and gender regimes, examining their evolution over time and distinguishing between the private patriarchy of the family (the domestic gender regime) and the public patriarchy of the state (the public gender regime). In Walby’s model, a gender regime is a set of interrelated gendered social relations and institutions that constitute a system operating across four institutional domains: polity, economy, civil society, and violence. The more contemporary “public gender regime” came about through markets, political provisioning, or regulations.
- 3.
CMP was rooted in social research by feminists working in NGOs, such as CPES and BASE. The CMP governance included a board of directors made up of 14 member representatives from 14 member institutions.
- 4.
Feminists’ demands were directed at the national level of the state.
- 5.
Popular feminism involves working-class women and tends to focus on redistributive claims and raising collective rights issues (Lebon, 2013).
- 6.
For a fuller understanding of CONAMURI as a feminist peasant organization, its claims, and repertoire of collective action, please consult Jamie Gagliano’s chapter in this volume.
- 7.
Autonomists or anarchist feminist groups are understood as organizational, ideological, and financial in relation to leftist parties and governments. Their organizations are composed of small, often informal, and short-lived groups of feminists or individual activists.
- 8.
In the first decade of the 2000s, the debate on abortion continued, around a new process of reform of the Penal Code that began in 2005 and culminated in a Code approved in 2007, which, although it modifies the articles on abortion, maintains it under an almost absolute prohibition, with the sole exception of the risk to life. Other laws related to sexual and reproductive rights also were debated: one on care for victims of punishable acts against sexual autonomy; and another on sexual, reproductive, and maternal and perinatal health, between 2005 and 2007.
- 9.
Ex-bishop and Liberation theologian.
- 10.
In the document “Proyecto de Ley para la creación de la Secretaría de la Mujer,” the CMP and the Multisectorial de Mujeres presented the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies with a document based on workshop discussions coordinated by the two organizations. It contained the basis for the elaboration of a Bill for a Women’s Secretariat, at the ministerial rank. After more than three years, in December 1991, the Chamber of Deputies approved the bill, to be created under the Presidency of the Republic, which was presented by Congresswoman Cristina Muñoz.
- 11.
The Ministry of Women is responsible for the status of women and was questioned on numerous occasions, when parliamentarians proposed replacing it in 2013 with a Ministry of Social Development.
- 12.
The latter has a large indigenous population, but a low state presence, particularly in terms of gender policies.
- 13.
Ministry of Women (MINMUJER), MInistry of the Interior (MI), through the National Police (PN), the MInistry of Public Health and Social Wellbeing (MSPBS), the Judiciary (PJ), and Ministry of the Public (MP).
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Levy, C., Cabrera, M.M. (2023). The Feminist Movement in Paraguay: No Way but Forward. In: Levy, C., Elgert, L., L'Heureux, V. (eds) Social Movements and the Struggles for Rights, Justice and Democracy in Paraguay. Social Movements and Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25883-1_8
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