[Amidst violence and COVID-19 restrictions, Black women in Brazil
are mobilizing to win seats in the November 15th municipal elections
and open the gateway to electoral power. Brazil ranks 132nd out of 192
countries in women’s representation.] [[link removed]]

IN BRAZIL’S FIRST ELECTIONS UNDER BOLSONARO, BLACK WOMEN ARE
FIGHTING BACK  
[[link removed]]


 

Bruna Pereira/ Macarena Aguilar
November 12, 2020
OpenDemocracy
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ Amidst violence and COVID-19 restrictions, Black women in Brazil
are mobilizing to win seats in the November 15th municipal elections
and open the gateway to electoral power. Brazil ranks 132nd out of 192
countries in women’s representation. _

Brazilians protest the 2018 murder of Rio de Janeiro City Councilor
Marielle Franco. The sign reads: 'Marielle, we will be your voice
everywhere.' The rise in Black women candidates is part of the effort
that began in response to Franco’s murder., Jose Cabezas/Reuters

 

“When she was murdered, the Black women’s movement dealt with this
collective trauma by turning it into institutional political
action,” says Ana Carolina Lourenço, co-founder of Mulheres Negras
Decidem (Black Women Decide). She is referring to Marielle Franco, the
Black, queer Rio de Janeiro councilwoman and an outspoken critic of
police brutality, who was assassinated before Brazil’s 2018 general
election.

Worldwide, Brazil ranks joint 132nd out of 192 countries
[[link removed]] in terms of women’s
representation in legislative bodies, lagging behind most of its
regional neighbours. At the local level, only 12% of city halls are
run by women, and Black women – who make up 27% of the Brazilian
population – govern only 3% of municipalities.

But more than 1,000 Black women all over Brazil raised their hands to
run for office following Franco’s murder in 2018, a 60% increase on
the previous election cycle in 2014. Even the increase in the number
of women candidates today is seen as part of the mobilisation that
started in response to Franco’s murder.

The 2018 elections were a pivotal moment for the participation of
women in Brazilian politics. Between 2014 and 2018, the number of
women in state and district government grew from 120 to 164 – a 37%
increase. At the federal level, 51 women won a seat in the 513-strong
House of Representatives in 2014, and 77 in 2018 – a 51% increase.

Mulheres Negras Decidem_,_ a collective created in 2018 to raise the
profile of Black women candidates and to create and present data about
the challenges confronting Black women in politics, gained momentum as
part of this movement.

Lourenço traces the wave of Black women involved in politics back to
the formative decades of the 1990s and the start of the 2000s. Through
affirmative action, Black women started to access universities, and
many gained experience in government when the Workers’ Party was in
power between 2003 and 2016.

As a result, more women candidates than ever, including Black women,
are set to contest municipal elections this month – the first
elections since President Bolsonaro took power. These women are
braving violence, and opposition from the mostly all-male conservative
parties who still rule Brazil.

STRONGER TOGETHER: COLLECTIVE CANDIDACIES

For Taina Rosa, running for city council in Belo Horizonte, capital of
the south-eastern state of Minas de Gerais, it all started last year
at the iconic Ocupa Politica
[[link removed]] gathering.
There, she met a number of prominent women involved in politics and
“instantly decided I wanted to be part of this movement of Black
women occupying politics,” she recalls.

“That same day, I talked to Lauana and we created Mulheres Negras
Sim (Yes to Black Women).”

Lauana Nara is her political partner in this ‘collective
candidacy’_._

“We chose this name deliberately to emphasise a ‘yes’ to life in
view of the many murders of Black women, and a ‘yes’ to our
presence in the spaces of power from which we have always been
excluded,” explained Rosa.

First adopted in 2016, collective candidacies like that of Mulheres
Negras Sim have transformed Brazil’s political landscape, so that it
is more representative of the country’s racial mix and includes more
women. The concept is simple. A group of people with a common goal run
together for the same seat. If elected, one of the members serves as
the official representative, but the group makes decisions together.

Inspired by the experience of successful collectives such as Juntas in
Recife and Bancada Ativista in São Paulo, this approach was the
obvious choice for Rosa.

“I never thought of adopting another model,” she said. “My
experience in politics has always been one of solidarity. In order to
make our demands, we join forces.”

“Lauana and I intend to run a campaign that involves dialogue and
brings politics close to the people,” adds Rosa, who describes
herself as “a daughter of social and Black movements from the
favelas, and a product of affirmative action”.

Their campaign promises include combating institutional racism,
distributing resources fairly to reach the poorest people, and
investigating the murders of Black youth in marginalised
neighbourhoods. They also promise to do more to address the rampant
gender-based violence during the pandemic and to create 24-hour
childcare to support women who are left at home with their children.

TRAINING WOMEN FOR POLITICS

Roberta Eugênio, from the non-profit group Instituto Alziras, which
trains women candidates on campaign and communication strategies, as
well as how electoral legislation and financing works, says that women
have always been engaged in politics.

But their involvement has mostly been in neighbourhood associations,
where they have fought for basic sanitation, healthcare, education and
childcare. “What we are seeing now is a recognition of, and support
for, their formal involvement,” she said.

This year alone, Eugênio has coached almost 2,000 pre-candidates,
from a wide spectrum of political parties, on how to run for the
position of councillor or mayor in the upcoming elections. Half of the
trainees were Black women and many will run for office in some of
Brazil’s remotest regions.

Eugênio feared that the impact of COVID-19 would deter women from
campaigning, but she was encouraged by the high turnout for her
course. “Municipal elections are a gateway for women to access
formal politics,” she explained.

Instituto Alziras research found that towns run by women mayors were
almost 50% more likely to have gender parity in local government
offices.

“Even if the number of women elected in a few weeks increases by
just 1%, 2% or even 3%, which seems like a little, the multiplier
effect is big,” she explained. Many more women now have the tools
and networks to continue the race until, eventually, they make a
breakthrough.

According to the Superior Electoral Court
[[link removed]] (which regulates Brazil’s electoral
system), [[link removed]] 34% of candidates registered to
contest city council positions are women, of which 16.8% are Black.
The race for mayors isn’t as promising: only 13% of candidates are
women, of which 4.5 % are Black.

For the last decade, Brazil has required that 30% of each party’s
candidates be women, but that has done little to boost the
participation of women in state and national legislatures. Parties
often ran ‘ghost’ women candidates just to meet the quota and gave
them little support or resources.

Another law, passed shortly before the 2018 elections, required
parties to allocate at least 30% of taxpayer-financed electoral funds
to women. But again, in many instances, parties used women candidacies
to siphon money to male candidates.

Ana Carolina Lourenço from Mulheres Negras Decidem notes that quotas
for women do not necessarily mean greater inclusion of Black women,
who are still the most underrepresented group in Brazilian politics.
But she acknowledges that laws passed post-2015 to boost women's
political participation have helped to empower women within political
parties, and increase accountability and the involvement of civil
society.

BACKLASH AND HATE SPEECH

Ironically, as Black women in politics gain visibility and collect
victories, so does Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-rights agenda, which
impacts them disproportionately.

“Bolsonaro’s politics and speech clash directly and obviously with
the Black women's movement,” said Lourenço. “All the public
policies that his government destroys, or enacts, affect our
priorities, which include defending human rights as well as
mainstreaming race and gender in public policies.”

Violence against women running for office is also on the rise. A few
days ago, federal representative, Talíria Petrone, said she had
received death threats. “Attacks on women and Black bodies should
not be normalised in any context, including in the exercise of
parliamentary mandates and in electoral processes,” Petrone said
[[link removed]] in
a statement urging followers to sign an international petition
[[link removed]] calling
for her protection. Since 2017, when she became a council member in
the state of Rio de Janeiro at the same time as the late Marielle
Franco, Petrone has received regular threats.

A recent study by Instituto Alziras found that violence – along with
inadequate funding and lack of visibility in the media – was one of
the key factors still keeping women out of politics. “Violence
against female political candidates starts with minor provocations,
which are considered harmless. And then it escalates,” explained
Eugênio.

Training for prospective candidates by women’s groups usually
includes advice on online security and what to do if they become
victims of different kinds of violence.

Rosa recalls a string of hate and racist messages that appeared in the
chat during an online meeting of Mulheres Negras Sim in late
September.

“I fear that this direct violence on my body may continue,” she
said. “You see, Bolsonaro’s hate policy does not suit us. We need
to bring our culture into politics, so that it stops being grey and
starts to reflect our population.”

[_Bruna Pereira is a feminist anti-racist activist and a founding
member of the Feminists for Rights, Equality and Empowerment (FREE)
Network. She is the founder and coordinator of Black Women's Study
Group at the University of Brasilia, Brazil.  Macarena Aguilar is a
women´s rights advocate and a founding member of the FREE Network.
Previously she worked for the Association of Women´s Rights in
Development (AWID) as Interim Director of Communications and Senior
Online Communications Manager. She is the co-founder of Small World
Stories and their Digital and Business Development Director._] 

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web [[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions [[link removed]]
Manage subscription [[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org [[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]