It’s Not Smokes, It’s Fire! Anti-Gender Crusade and Feminist Resistances in Brazil

Abstract:

Recent events positioned the gender in the heartwood of Brazilian public life. In this article, I describe two processes imbricated to it: the anti-gender crusade and the outbreak of the “feminist spring”. The first, a transnational Catholic strategy, emerged in 2014. Years later, pro-impeachment parliamentarians cast votes in favour of the family and against the “gender ideology” - expression appropriated by a powerful coalition inside and outside parliament. In 2018, the anti-gender campaign returned to national debates with Jair Bolsonaro running for president. The rejection of the candidate aggregated thousands of women in social networks and in the streets, forming the #elenão movement. But this was not a sudden or unprecedented reaction: women's resistance has demonstrating the potency of their alliances and challenging the “smoke screen” thesis that labels the tactics of the current government.

Keywords: Anti-gender Crusade; Feminisms; Conservatism; Religion