Brazil has struggled to elect women to political office. Upcoming elections could change that.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
On a sunny September morning, Joyce Trindade works her way around the stalls of a secondhand clothing market here, distributing hugs and political pamphlets in equal measure. A candidate in this weekend’s Rio de Janeiro city council elections, she’s in the bustling commercial neighborhood to show that a woman’s place is in politics, she tells the vendors, all of whom are women.
This is the first time that Ms. Trindade, in her late 20s, is running for a seat on Rio’s city council. She’s one of 158,000 female candidates participating in nationwide local elections, and seeking to break into the overwhelmingly male world of electoral politics.
Despite electing a woman president in 2010, Brazil has one of the lowest levels of female political representation in Latin America, ranking almost dead last. Women hold just 17.5% of seats in the lower house of Congress, and are similarly absent from state and municipal bodies, even after more than two decades of legislative and grassroots efforts to increase their presence. As many Latin American countries have reached political parity – a benchmark associated with policies that often better serve women and children – Brazilian political parties have found ways to work around the law, and cultural stereotypes about women are widespread, experts say.
Read here the full article published by The Christian Science Monitor on 3 October 2024.
Image credits: The Christian Science Monitor
On a sunny September morning, Joyce Trindade works her way around the stalls of a secondhand clothing market here, distributing hugs and political pamphlets in equal measure. A candidate in this weekend’s Rio de Janeiro city council elections, she’s in the bustling commercial neighborhood to show that a woman’s place is in politics, she tells the vendors, all of whom are women.
This is the first time that Ms. Trindade, in her late 20s, is running for a seat on Rio’s city council. She’s one of 158,000 female candidates participating in nationwide local elections, and seeking to break into the overwhelmingly male world of electoral politics.
Despite electing a woman president in 2010, Brazil has one of the lowest levels of female political representation in Latin America, ranking almost dead last. Women hold just 17.5% of seats in the lower house of Congress, and are similarly absent from state and municipal bodies, even after more than two decades of legislative and grassroots efforts to increase their presence. As many Latin American countries have reached political parity – a benchmark associated with policies that often better serve women and children – Brazilian political parties have found ways to work around the law, and cultural stereotypes about women are widespread, experts say.
Read here the full article published by The Christian Science Monitor on 3 October 2024.
Image credits: The Christian Science Monitor