Addressing the advance of ultraconservative sectors in gender policies

In a new installment of the “Dialogues” space of CLACSO TV, the Executive Secretary of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, Karina Batthyány, had a one-on-one with the Argentine Laura Pautassi, professor at the University of Buenos Aires and researcher at Conicet.

The conversation revolved around what is happening with gender inequalities and with the feminist movement in Latin America in general and in Argentina in particular.

Pautassi highlighted the progress made in her country in recent years, with the National Campaign to Guarantee Safe, Free, and Legal Abortion and the involvement of the women who lead the green wave movement. But she warns about “The very strong retreat of conservative sectors, the decline of the concept of gender ideology at the regional level and throughout Latin America with tremendous force, is causing more than a few sleepless nights for all of us who are concerned about equality. This is truly taking on aspects of something we had perhaps greatly underestimated, entrenched in political parties, electoral strategies, and social strategies. The peace plebiscite in Colombia exposed the advance of these ultraconservative sectors in overturning the social will, driven by the fear of the supposed advance of gender ideology.”

Karina Batthyány, in turn, considered that “There are very important cases of persecution against young Latin American activists who defend rights and the gender and diversity agenda. Perhaps there is still an area where we need to investigate, work on, and produce more knowledge to try to interpret both these new forms of expression of the feminist youth movement and the reaction mechanisms of conservative sectors.”