The coming to power of left-wing governments in several Latin American countries at the turn of the twenty-first century, sometimes referred to as the ‘Pink Tide’, has left a complicated legacy. The term Pink Tide itself may be problematic given the uneven and diverse nature of the political movements that came to power in the region, as well as the persistence of ‘outliers’ such as Mexico and Colombia. While the legacy of this period has been assessed in terms of progress on human development, economic growth and other aspects, there has been a significant lack of analysis about sexual and reproductive rights. Elisabeth Jay Friedman's Seeking Rights from the Left assesses the complex legacy of this era. The volume not only succeeds in grappling with the contradictions and uneven gains for women's and LGBT rights, but also provides a lens from which to view and better understand the nature of the governing regimes.
Friedman's book is divided by country, with chapters covering Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador, making them useful for both classroom instruction and a general audience. In their introduction to the volume, Friedman and Constanza Tabbush summarise one of the main takeaways that emerge across the chapters: the Pink Tide should be understood as one of uneven progress across policy areas and countries, a combination of reform and continuities that highlight tensions between left governments and movements’ demands for sexual and reproductive rights. Overall, women's representation in Congress and cabinets increased and countries made significant headway on poverty alleviation for poor women through cash transfers and other welfare policies. Legislation favouring same-sex marriage and gender-identity laws also responded to long-standing demands by LGBT movements. On the other hand, they argue that the net effect of these policies had little impact on entrenched heteronormative and patriarchal values and even reinforced traditional gender roles.
For example, in her chapter on Venezuela during the 2000s Rachel Elfenbein argues that the Bolivarian missions reduced poverty and inequality through conditional cash transfers, microcredit and other measures. While they provided income security they also relied on unpaid women's labour and added to their work burdens, reinforcing a gendered division of labour.
Annie Wilkinson's chapter on Bolivia explores how redistribution programmes were tied to unsustainable and environmentally degrading extractivist industries, preventing the restructuring of the economy in a new model based on inclusion and gender equality.
Even more troubling from a gender rights perspective were ruling coalitions engaging in strategic trade-offs between different arenas within sexual and reproductive rights, what the authors in the volume label ‘pink-washing’. For example, Nicaragua under President Ortega passed a criminal code that simultaneously banned abortion while decriminalising homosexuality. During his tenure, President Correa leaned on a prominent trans-leader to act as a shield against criticism while also working to undermine gender-identity legislation. This political mechanism is more widely discussed in the chapter on LGBT and abortion rights in Argentina by Tabbush, María Constanza Díaz, Catalina Trebisacce and Victoria Keller. Here the authors tackle the complicated puzzle of explaining why the Fernández de Kirchner's administration actively supported same-sex marriage, making Argentina the first country in the region to legalise it, while preventing a congressional discussion to legalise abortion.
The value of Friedman's volume extends beyond the arena of sexual and reproductive rights and allows us to evaluate long-standing analytical frames on the Pink Tide governments. Jorge Castañeda had famously divided the left governments in Latin America into a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Left, the first one being modern, reformist, moderate and internationalist, the second one being born from the region's tradition of close-minded populism and nationalism (‘Latin America's Left Turn’, Foreign Affairs, 85 (May–June 2006), pp. 28–43). The volume's cases explicitly critique this binary by contextualising what ‘the Left’ means in each national context. That caveat notwithstanding, Chile and Uruguay, usually identified as the ‘good’ Left have also been the ones with the most progress in challenging heteropatriarchal norms. The reader therefore is left to grapple with these contradictions in a constructive manner. In particular, Uruguay has championed a national system of care for the elderly, children and the disabled informed by feminist values, an experience discussed in the chapter by Niki Johnson, Ana Laura Rodríguez Gustá and Diego Sempol that evaluates the mixed results of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) government in that country.
Despite the book's understandable focus on the shortcomings of the various left governments, the chapters also offer a more hopeful analysis for those invested in advancing sexual and reproductive rights agendas. The case studies provide lessons for social movements on how to seize the opportunities opened up by the Left in power. A key successful strategy, clear in the case of same-sex marriage in Argentina and abortion reform in Uruguay, is the building of strong issue networks that involve activists and allies in power.
This book is a must-read not only because of the various strengths and gaps that it fills discussed above, but also because it offers a call for reflection and debate within the Left and progressive movements and their allies in power. Clearly, classic tensions between left governments and women's and LGBT movements have not been fully resolved, though undeniable progress has been made. More than anything, what this book illustrates is the need for any progressive movement to make its engagement with sexual and reproductive rights central rather than peripheral to its vision for a better Latin America.
