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: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America | Dissident Voice
The Struggle for Women’s Equality in Latin America
by Donna Goodman / March 13th, 2009
A political transformation is taking place in Latin America that is improving the status of women throughout the region. More than half the 20 or so republics in the Western Hemisphere where Spanish and Portuguese are spoken have moved toward the political left within the last decade. A sign of these times is a phrase from Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who refers to himself as a feminist: “ True socialism is feminist.” Progressive Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa named “gender justice” — the end to discrimination against women — as part of his vision for 21st century socialism. And at the recent World Social Forum in Brazil, the Assembly of Social Movements issued the following declaration: “The social emancipation process carried by the feminist, environmentalist and socialist movements in the 21st century aims at liberating society from capitalist domination of the means of production, communication and services, achieved by supporting forms of ownership that favor the social interest: small family freehold, public, cooperative, communal and collective property. “Such an alternative will necessarily be feminist since it is impossible to build a society based on social justice and equality of rights when half of humankind is oppressed and exploited.” This article revolves around the question: