Title: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America | Dissident Voice
Headings: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America
The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America
Content: Brazil elected Worker Party founder Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002. In Bolivia, the poorest republic in South America, unionist Evo Morales was elected in 2005 after mass rebellions forced out three presidents in two years. Daniel Ortega, who led the Nicaraguan Sandinista revolution in the 1970s and ’80s, was democratically voted back into office in 2006. Progressive governments have been voted into office in Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile and Argentina. Chile, the country once ruled by the fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet, is now headed by a female Socialist Party member, Michele Bachelet. The government of Argentina is also headed by a woman, Cristina Fernanedez de Kirchner. Women in all regions of the world suffer subordination to men, in economic, political and social life and in the home. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is composed of the advanced capitalist democracies, Latin American women suffer less total gender discrimination — in ownership rights, civil liberties, family codes and physical integrity — than other regions of the world except for the OECD states. This isn’t to suggest women have achieved equality in Latin America (or in the OECD states), but they enjoy certain rights denied their sisters, particularly in portions of Africa and Asia. OECD data also show that there is an important correlation between social institutions and the economic role of women.