Gendered political violence in Uruguay: party policy and women’s narratives in the left-wing Frente Amplio

Recent studies exploring how gendered political violence (GPV) limits women’s political inclusion have produced typologies of the diverse forms this violence takes. These provide a useful framework for measuring the prevalence of this phenomenon, and allow for between country comparisons. However, in regional contexts like Latin America, where some countries experience extreme manifestations of political violence (death threats or murders, as in Bolivia or Mexico), in countries which do not have a record of such cases political violence is often rendered invisible or minimized. My starting point, therefore, is to argue that country-specific characteristics should be considered in order to adequately characterize and comprehend the phenomenon of GPV in particular cases: countries with highly institutionalized political systems, strong electoral monitoring agencies, and low rates of violence in general, such as Uruguay, are unlikely to experience the same manifestations of political violence as countries with unstable political systems, weak agencies, and high rates of social violence. On the other hand, the consideration of certain acts of political violence as more serious than others ignores the potentially cumulative effects of suffering repeated or sustained situations of “less serious” political violence: over time such experiences can strongly impact female politicians’ autonomy and their capacity to effectively exercise their political rights, leading in some cases to the abandonment of political careers or psychological trauma. Finally, the classification of political violence into discrete categories renders invisible the frequent connections or simultaneity between different types of violence. This paper builds on a first study of GPV in Uruguay, from 2021, which produced quantitative and qualitative evidence (survey and in-depth interviews with female office-holders) showing high levels of psychological and symbolic violence, perpetrated through a range of patriarchal practices rooted throughout the party and electoral systems. The current proposal presents findings from a second study of GPV within the left-wing Frente Amplio (FA), the only Uruguayan party to have voluntarily adopted gender parity in its electoral lists (2018) and a protocol for addressing cases of GPV among its ranks (2020). Despite these advances, the 2021 study showed that levels of violence against women in the FA is not lower than in other parties. The current study seeks, first, to understand how the party came to adopt the protocol, and the problems affecting its implementation, based on analysis of internal party records and semi-structured interviews with members of the FA’s decision-making bodies, its women’s rights unit and the body responsible for investigating complaints of GPV and applying sanctions. Second, it aims to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the specific characteristics and impacts of GPV from an intersectional perspective, through narrative inquiry carried out with both current and former members of the party, victims of GPV. Participants were identified through snowball sampling, combined with a conscious selection strategy to ensure a diverse range of profiles that reflect cross-cutting identities (race/ethnicity, gender identity, age and social class) that are potentially relevant for understanding differences in the experiences of GPV in Uruguay.