Female Presidents in Latin America
The female influence in politics of Latin America
While studying Latin American region I was questioned why this region has more numbers of female presidents. Therefore, in this essay, I did some small analyze with a list of female representatives as a head of states.
I think the role of women is everywhere essential and can include significant influence as in social life so in politics. Some people argue that women’s presence in power is a simple question of fairness. Fairness that demands women to get their proper share of power regardless of whether they us this power to promote women’s interests.
Another reason is considered to be the spread of globalization. This phenomenon has given the impulse for raise of feminism in Latin American region. Therefore, the greater presence of women in national legislatures coincided with unprecedented attention to women’s rights issues like domestic violence, reproduction and family law. Women from different political parties were forming alliances to put women’s issues on the policy agenda and then to pressure their male colleagues to support changes in law.
One dramatic example of the potential changes women leaders brings comes from Mexico. In 2000, Rosario Robles, then mayor of Mexico City, broke the Latin American abortion stalemate by introducing legislation to modify the city’s criminal code on abortion matters. The proposal, approved through support by the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) and PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) parties, legalized abortions performed if the mother’s health (not just her life) is at risk and if the fetus has birth defects. Robles accepted the long-standing feminist argument that abortion is a public health problem, since resorting to clandestine abortions poses grave risks for women’s lives and health. No other Latin American country has liberalized its abortion laws since the 1940s.
The 1990s we saw steady growth in women’s participation in political
While studying Latin American region I was questioned why this region has more numbers of female presidents. Therefore, in this essay, I did some small analyze with a list of female representatives as a head of states.
I think the role of women is everywhere essential and can include significant influence as in social life so in politics. Some people argue that women’s presence in power is a simple question of fairness. Fairness that demands women to get their proper share of power regardless of whether they us this power to promote women’s interests.
Another reason is considered to be the spread of globalization. This phenomenon has given the impulse for raise of feminism in Latin American region. Therefore, the greater presence of women in national legislatures coincided with unprecedented attention to women’s rights issues like domestic violence, reproduction and family law. Women from different political parties were forming alliances to put women’s issues on the policy agenda and then to pressure their male colleagues to support changes in law.
One dramatic example of the potential changes women leaders brings comes from Mexico. In 2000, Rosario Robles, then mayor of Mexico City, broke the Latin American abortion stalemate by introducing legislation to modify the city’s criminal code on abortion matters. The proposal, approved through support by the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) and PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) parties, legalized abortions performed if the mother’s health (not just her life) is at risk and if the fetus has birth defects. Robles accepted the long-standing feminist argument that abortion is a public health problem, since resorting to clandestine abortions poses grave risks for women’s lives and health. No other Latin American country has liberalized its abortion laws since the 1940s.
The 1990s we saw steady growth in women’s participation in political
References: Mala Htun. 2001. “Advancing Women’s Rights in the Americas: Achievements and Challenges.” Working Paper. . Women’s Participation in Mexican Political Life, ed. Victoria Rodríguez (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998). Htun, Mala. 2001. “Women’s Leadership in Latin America: Trends and Challenges”. Politics Matters: A Dialogue of Women Political Mala N. Htun: «Mujeres y poder político en Latinoamérica» book http://www.remezcla.com/2011/latin/women-presidents-government-officials-latin-america/ Alya Babirli April, 2011A