On March 8, 2012 the Inter-American Dialogue held an exchange with El Salvador’s first lady and secretary of social inclusion Vanda Pignato—who discussed Ciudad Mujer, the country’s imaginative approach to providing needed services to women.
On October 20, Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College, spoke on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LBGT) politics in Latin America at the Inter-American Dialogue.
Women in Latin America have come a long way but aren’t there yet. The legacy of Iberian colonialism, male-centered Catholicism and an undemocratic past all contributed to societies that subjugated women to men.
On May 21, 2010, the Dialogue and the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University jointly sponsored an event on gender equality in Cuba. Cuba has a solid record on gender equality based on some social indicators, with higher percentages of women involved in politics than most of its Latin American counterparts, but lacks women in the highest tiers of power.
Women are integral to the process of post-conflict reconstruction in Latin America. On Friday, January 23, 2009, a panel of four women leaders from Bolivia and Colombia discussed the role of women in promoting a culture of non-violence and peace-building in the region.
Migration in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) region has become a key engine for economic growth and development and is of significance and importance.
Women in Latin America and the Caribbean are making political strides. Though long impenetrable, glass ceilings over the halls of power have begun to crack.
We are pleased to present this report on women in power in the hemisphere. Women in Latin America and the Caribbean are making tremendous strides towards achieving political leadership. In 2000, the Inter-American Dialogue and the Inter-American Development Bank partnered to host a dialogue of women political leaders.
This chapter of Civil Society and Social Movements: Building Sustainable Democracies in Latin America examines women’s social movements that emerged in the 1970s—during the dictatorships and economic crises in South America and guerrilla movements opposed to authoritarian regimes in Central America.
Women are breaking the highest of glass ceilings in politics. On Oct. 28, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became Argentina’s president-elect. Since March 2006, Michele Bachelet has been president of neighboring Chile.
Increasing women’s presence in political decision-making positions has been advocated by development organisms, activists and academics as a means to strengthen democracy and to make policy-making processes more representative of wider sections of the population.
The number of women represented in political leadership in the Americas has increased dramatically over the past thirty years. In 2006, Chile elected its first female president, Michelle Bachelet, and Jamaica its first female prime minister, Portia Simpson-Miller.
In 1975, female politicians and women’s groups from around the world met in Mexico City for the UN’s First World Conference on Women. They discussed the plight of women, from their absence in politics to the unique social and economic problems women face, and devised a set of recommendations for improving women’s status.
Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, women’s policy agencies (WPAs) have been created in the context of democratization and state modernization, a context which has exerted considerable influence over the trajectory of these agencies throughout the 1990s and 2000s.