‘Women-friendly’ Heads of Government: An Advantage or a Curse for Gender Equality Machineries and Organized Women? Evidence from Brazil

Why do ‘women-friendly’ heads of government matter for gender equality machineries (GEMs) and organized women? ‘Women-friendly’ presidents or prime ministers have usually been the ones to establish a GEM and/or endow it with the resources, personnel, and institutional capacity needed to pursue public policies promoting gender equality. Women’s movement actors, in turn, benefit from their presence in the highest executive office, as those leaders tend to take up (at least some, if not all) their agenda items and provide them with access to decision-making arenas within the state, which enhances those actors’ claim-making capacity and ability to press for a state response to their key demands. Drawing on evidence from Brazil, and using longitudinal data and in-depth interviews with feminist insiders and civil society activists, this paper uncovers challenges arising from executive ‘women-friendliness.’ First, that factor helps the GEM cut through some forms of resistance to the gender mainstreaming process while ensuring sustained access to budget and personnel. On the other hand, the GEM can become over-reliant on particular policy tools – at the expense of institutionalizing the mechanisms that ensure the continued implementation of its agenda. Second, due to contextual and structural factors, ‘women-friendly’ heads of government may behave in idiosyncratic ways, curtailing women’s movement actors’ claim-making capacity, reducing their presence and influence in state arenas, and producing policy outcomes that do not align with their demands. All to the detriment of specific public policies for women, the GEM, and its strategic partnership with the country’s women’s movement.