Abstract
In Women’s Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil: The Rise and Fall of Dilma Rousseff, Pedro A.G. dos Santos and Farida Jalalzai provide a comprehensive analysis of the political trajectory of Brazil’s first female president. Examining how Rousseff’s presidency influenced women’s political empowerment, the authors offer a thorough account of Rousseff’s rise to power, subsequent removal from office, and the implications that this process had for policymaking and women’s political gains in Brazil.
Drawing on participant observations and interviews conducted from 2010 to 2018, the authors examine the hopeful period around Rousseff’s election, the beginning of her administration (2010–2013), and the subsequent political and economic crises and their repercussions (2014–2018). By investigating an extensive interval, the authors provide a comprehensive analysis of whether the consequences of Rousseff’s presidential mandate for women’s empowerment were short-lived or resisted her removal from office. Participant observations included party conventions, political rallies, and protests occurring in different Brazilian cities. The authors also carried extensive interviews with politicians, activists, members of the civil society, bureaucrats, cabinet members, journalists, and academics, summing 152 interviews.
Rousseff was the first woman to be elected president in Brazil in 2010. Her rise to power represented the hope of changing times in a country with historically low women’s political representation levels. While Rousseff enjoyed significant popularity in her first years in the office, the deterioration of economic conditions posed substantial challenges for her administration, and after 2013, Rousseff’s popularity quickly declined. She was still re-elected for a second appointment, following a disputed and contentious election in 2014. Nevertheless, eroding economic landscape and growing political scandals deteriorated Rousseff’s political base and public support, leading to a controversial removal from office in 2016.
The book outlines Rousseff’s political trajectory and her impeachment process. Highlighting the double-bind women face when running for offices, the authors’ analyses show how Rousseff needed to convince electors of her administrative skills and feminine attributes to win her first election. Gender was a key topic pervading the electoral campaign, with critics frequently questioning her femininity and, consequently, her ability to rule a country with entrenched gender norms. Furthermore, examining Rousseff’s impeachment process as an analytical case of violence against women in politics, the authors show how protests targeting Rousseff, the media coverage, and the impeachment process itself had an explicit misogynistic narrative. Because of the charged and dubious nature of Roussef’s removal, the book argues this process represented a backlash against women’s political gains in Brazil, seeking to disempower Rousseff and other women intending to join Brazil’s male-dominated political environment.
Addressing if a woman head of state can foster women’s political empowerment, the book devotes considerable attention to Rousseff’s cabinet nominations and policymaking priorities. This inquiry indicates that Rousseff was aware of the symbolic meaning of her rise to the Brazilian presidential office. Throughout the book, Santos and Jalalzai show that Rousseff deliberately used her influence to increase women’s political representation, nominating more women to cabinet roles than previous and (particularly) following administrations. Furthermore, from a policy perspective, Rousseff increased the budget allocation for gender-based policies and emphasized the gender aspect of pre-existing programs. Nevertheless, Rousseff’s policy strategy mainly focused on improving the living conditions of vulnerable, low-income women. While the book discusses how the focus on vulnerable groups created discontent for urban, educated women, the authors do not address how this dissatisfaction is connected to Rousseff’s subsequent loss of support among this demographic segment.
After Rousseff’s impeachment, the following administrations have drastically cut back the budget for gender-sensitive policies and the nomination of women to cabinet positions—indeed, at some point, no women occupied a ministerial cabinet in the administration that replaced Rousseff. Yet, despite this challenging scenario, Santos and Jalalzai still believe that Rousseff’s rise to power represented an advancement for women’s political empowerment in Brazil. Analyzing nationally representative opinion polls in different time points, the authors show that the public perception of women’s ability was higher after Rousseff’s administrations than before her presidencies. Moreover, the evident misogynist character of the impeachment process fostered a sense of solidarity of women’s movements toward Rousseff, reinforcing the relevance of women’s political engagement and the advancement of feminist agendas.
Santos and Jalalzai provide a crucial contribution to understanding contemporary political processes in Brazil. The book also delivers a careful analysis of the multiple ways gender norms generate barriers for women in politics. As a result, this book will likely interest scholars focused on gender, social movements, and policymaking. In addition, Santos and Jalalzai set their investigation against broader trends in other Latin American countries, contrasting Rousseff’s trajectory to female heads of state in Chile, Argentina, and Costa Rica. Therefore, this book can also be a valuable resource for graduate and undergraduate courses focused on political dynamics in the Latin American region.