Feminist movements transforming spaces of political participation

strategies to achieve demands

Abstract

This article addresses the role of feminist leaders in political participation spaces in Brazil, focusing on the strategies they adopted between 2018 and 2022. The period under analysis was marked by crises in the presidential administration and cuts in policies protecting women. The article aims to analyze whether, during the period under analysis, feminist social movement leaders used institutional participation spaces as instruments to achieve their demands. The qualitative research was based on documentary analysis of semi-structured interviews collected from an extensive database. The interviews involved five leaders of nationally recognized feminist organizations and were conducted between July and September 2022. The central theory of social movements used in the article is network theory, which defines social movements as networks of informal interactions between diverse individuals, groups, and/or organizations involved in political or cultural conflicts, based on shared collective identities. The results highlighted that despite the structural limitations in participatory spaces, such as the lack of deliberative power and the impacts caused by conservative governments, leaders emphasize the importance of these spaces for advancing their demands.