By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
BRASILIA, Brazil—On Sunday, Brazil elected the country’s first woman president, Dilma Rousseff. President-elect Rousseff received 56% of the vote, and has become the eighth elected woman president in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has vowed to defend women’s rights, echoing Barack Obama’s motto “Yes, we can,” by saying, “Yes, women can.”
After her victory on Sunday, Rousseff proclaimed, “Equal opportunities for men and women are an essential principle of democracy. I would like for fathers and mothers to look into their daughters’ eyes today and tell them: ‘Yes, women can.’ I would like to register my first post-election commitment: to honor Brazilian women so that this unprecedented fact becomes a natural event.” She went on to say that she will work towards women gaining opportunities “in businesses, civil institutions . . . and in the whole of our society.”
Many are hopeful that Brazil’s first female president will be successful in implementing important advances in gender equality. Sociologist Fátima Pacheco Jordão opined: “Most important in this feminist-tinged speech was that she described the advance of gender equality issues as one of the foundations of democracy. Never has a [Brazilian] president treated the gender question in this way.”
It is believed that the president-elect will promote certain women to higher governmental offices. Yet Jordão is hesitant to expect massive reform under Rousseff, noting that most senior cabinet members will still be men. According to Jordão, “The proportion of women in politics in Brazil is very limited, worse than many Latin American countries and several in Africa.”
Rousseff had been imprisoned and tortured for three years in the 1970s for opposing Brazil’s then-dictatorship. More recently, she served under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as Chief of Staff for the last five years. She ran for president as the candidate for the Workers Party.
Brazil is ranked as the world’s eighth largest economy. Rousseff, 62, will take office on January 1 of next year.
For more information, please see:
Guardian-‘Yes, women can’-Brazil’s first ‘presidenta’ pledges gender equality-1 November 2010
CBS-Obama telephones Brazil’s president-elect Rousseff-1 November 2010
Examiner-Brazil elects its first female president, Dilma Rousseff-1 November 2010
