Redemocratisation, human-rights activism and the election of leftist governments provided Latin American feminism with a favourable context to achieve significant legal reforms. In the changed circumstances of today, the movement faces a growing challenge from conservative coalitions seeking to thwart progress in women's rights and to reverse some of the advances made. A particular, though not exclusive, focus of attack is sexual and reproductive rights, seen as threatening the family, its traditional authority and social relations, and undermining the stability of society itself.
In Feminisms in Latin America: Pro-Choice Nested Networks in Mexico and Brazil, Gisela Zaremberg and Debora Rezende de Almeida set out to analyse if and how feminist movements have been able to resist these attacks. They focus on the difficult case of abortion, unquestionably the most contested issue given the moral and legal conundrums associated with it. The result of their research is a detailed analysis of the feminist movements of Brazil and Mexico over the period 2000–18 to reveal how their respective forms of organisation and strategy equipped them for these challenges. Their overarching objective is to identify what determines the success or failure of feminist campaigns.
A central factor to emerge is the importance of ‘nested networks’ in building movement strength and cohesion, securing allies and creating effective campaign strategies. Networks, understood as fluid spaces of cooperation and conflict working under the umbrella of feminism, are the focus of the empirical study, with data drawn from some 75 interviews with key informants and activists. To refine the analysis further, three dimensions of networks are identified as respectively horizontal (connecting organisations to each other), vertical (revealing influence within government institutions) and intermediary (NGOs, UN agencies, political parties, academics), with each of these further broken down into sub-dimensions allowing the authors to track, in some detail, the key actors responsible for coordinating the networks, and the different strategies they adopt. As the authors show, these are shaped to some degree by the opportunities offered by the political characteristics of each country, which help to explain their impact on legislative change.
Important differences between the two cases emerge from the analysis. Mexico legislated for abortion reform in the federal capital in 2007. This followed a long campaign by a feminist movement that was based on a fragmented, largely elite network, and which had influence (was ‘nested’) within the three main branches of government. The movement also benefitted from being connected to a political coalition that offered some opportunities for collaboration on specific issues at different times. It further benefitted from having a long-established feminist organisation dedicated to securing reproductive rights. However, in subsequent years, the movement was less able to make further advances, or to mobilise strong opposition to the conservative attacks sparked by the gains made in the federal capital. The backlash occurred in more than half of state congresses which passed laws recognising the right to life at conception. The authors argue that the difficulty feminists had in resisting these moves was due to three factors: a failure to build alliances with intersectional and LGBT+ organisations; a lack of connection with political parties over free-choice demands, which would have increased geographical influence; and the weak presence of marginal and subnational representation at government level. Yet, despite these factors, in 2021 the Supreme Court decriminalised abortion, ruling that the right to life from inception was invalid and that moral objections by medical practitioners should not interfere with women's right to abortion services. This was due to the embedding of feminists within the relevant institutions and the role of key lobbying pro-choice organisations. While this confirms the effectiveness of Mexico's elite model, it is less clear what the implications are of this success for the other propositions advanced concerning the significance of the weaker elements of the network, and this research remains to be done.
In Brazil, feminists did not achieve major abortion reforms, but were able to oppose conservative bills that aimed to guarantee the right to life from conception, and undermine some other previous gains. Brazil's networks were less vertical (fewer strong links with the judiciary) than Mexico's, although feminists worked closely with the executive, with the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, PT) and other parties of the Left. As a result, the networks were more horizontal and campaign strategies created opportunities for intersectional network-building through participatory mechanisms, national conferences and extensive party networks. Feminists were therefore able to gain significant outreach across the country and develop a more diverse and inclusive network, incorporating Black feminist and LGBT+ organisations.
What emerges most clearly from this analysis, apart from the importance of broad, inclusive networks in producing policy change, is that, as the authors express it, ‘[t]he era of institutional activism is not over […] and is still crucial to opposing conservative actors in Latin America’ (p. 7). Despite the scepticism expressed by some strands of feminism about working in or with the state, getting legal reforms passed or preventing them depends on wielding influence within, as well as outside, institutions by a strong and cooperative movement. While the authors recognise that some of their conclusions are necessarily tentative given the fluid nature of politics, in illustrating the value of network analysis for understanding how feminists bring about policy change they have cast light on some of the most important and contentious issues within contemporary feminism and point to some important lessons in political strategy.
