Challenging the status quo: feminist leadership and political transformation in Brazil
Overview
Since 2020, A Tenda das Candidatas has trained feminist leaders to take on positions of power and run for office in Brazilian politics. Over the past four years, the organisation has trained over 300 women, primarily Black women and LGBTQIA+, creating a national network of feminist women in politics, A Tenda Network. This article argues that these politically trained feminist leaders, who organise themselves in solidarity networks, challenge the traditional, white, and masculinist ways of doing politics, ultimately transforming the political landscape. Their presence as active leaders, questioning their political parties and the gender and racial inequalities they perpetuate, exposes the inefficiencies and inequalities ingrained in centuries of traditional politics. To explore this transformation, the article examines in-depth interviews with feminist leaders who have participated in A Tenda’s training programmes and are running for office in the 2024 Brazilian municipal elections, as well as quantitative data from previous training programmes and data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). From the perspective of Oxfam’s Transformative Leadership for Women’s Rights (TLWR), the research aims to understand how these training programmes have shifted their political practices, strengthened them as feminist leaders, and contributed to building a more equitable and inclusive political future in Brazil.
Additional details
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2025.2503655ISBN
1364-9221How to cite this resource
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