Práticas e expressões feministas do Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher em contexto de regressão democrática

Abstract

The present work anchors itself, empirically, in the National Council for Women's Rights (CNDM) use by the advisory actors in the recent Brazilian political scenario of democratic regression (2013-2018) analysis. In different political situations, the CNDM is a historically legitimate space, mediating relations between the State and feminist civil society, since the institution is based on feminist and women's struggles, and is the result of various internal tensions of movements and organizations. We carried out a descriptive-exploratory study and, through a combination of literature review and document analysis of CNDM minutes and resolutions among the managements in force in the period 2013-2018, we located some of the practices, feminist expressions, and positions adopted by CNDM since its creation in 1985. In a second moment, we suggest that, in a parallel, from 2013, the movements of right-wing coalitions intensify, leveraging neoconservatism in Brazil and impacting the formation of the CNDM and, a new phase emerges for the institution, with new patterns of relationships, new forms of action amid tensions around the feminist perspective and new forms of incidence in national debates. This new phase, which extends from 2013 to 2018, is based in a context that has negative implications for the agendas of equality and the institutionalization of the gender perspective. Thus, the institution was called to remain, activating the need for creativity in feedback strategies of feminist interactions that, supported by a broad discursive field of action across the Council, boosted its modus which we call resilience to remanence. It was possible to verify that the performance of the councilors representing the feminist civil society denotes a type of protagonism of these actors in the condition of remanence and resilience of the space.