📢Today #Chile votes in a once-in-a-lifetime referendum that could make history for women & indigenous peoples, among other groups. A quick thread on why you should care & what you need to know, focusing on why #PlebiscitoChile matters for ♀️. ⤵️ 1/8
Today's ballot has Chileans three Qs: should the country hold a convention to write a new constitution? If so, should it be #ConvencionMixta, where the authors are half citizens + half members of Congress, or a #ConvencionConstituyente, where the authors are all citizens? 2/8
How did Chile get here? Read my explainer piece in @ConversationUS w/ Peter Siavelis. Very short answer: over a year of violent protest re: economic & social injustice --> "Chile shows what frustrated peoples in democracies achieve when they rise up." 3/8 theconversation.com/chile-puts-its…
As congress negotiated the referendum, Chilean feminists & congresswomen demanded that citizens rewriting the constitution be half women. They wanted gender parity (#paridad). Here they are chanting, "we are more than half, we want half the seats." 4/8
Just 2 women helped write Chile's dictatorship-era Constitution. Chilean women's anger over violence against women, sexual assault, and street harassment has been central to the protests. Some perspective: Chile didn't legalize divorce until 2004. 5/8 theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…
Chilean women didn't just win gender parity for the candidates in the #ConvencionConstituyente: they won gender parity for those *elected.* If 50% women don't win, votes are reallocated so that the "worst winning men" get bumped for the "best losing women." This is HUGE. 6/8
Recap: if Chileans choose all-citizens' constitutional convention, Chile becomes the *1st country ever* where half women write the constitution. Will it matter? Read my @UN_Women paper on how women's presence in decision-making changes outcomes. ⤵️ 7/8 unwomen.org/-/media/headqu…
The Wall of Moms in Portland joins a long history of women activists using their maternal identities to shame and goad authoritarians. We can compare to #latinamerica. 1/5 usatoday.com/story/news/nat…
In #Argentina, for ex, authoritarian dictators claimed to defend the trad order, incl the family. When men security forces attacked women protesters, the activists revealed the regime's hypocrisy: they had attacked that which they claimed to defend. @labaldez@sufranceschet 2/5
In U.S. context, where white supremacy pretends to protect white women from men of color, the moms' Whiteness matters too. They wield both their gender and their race to contradict those who presume white women should be aligned against, not with, BLM, BIPOC, & Latinx. 3/5
In this @bostonreview piece, Shauna Shames & I argue not that democracy has failed women, but that democracy without women fails everyone. A Saturday thread about the awesome @womenalsoknow scholars whose work shaped our piece. 1/11 bostonreview.net/politics-gende…
Understanding the situation in Bolivia will require grappling with some serious contradictions that won't fit easy white & black narratives. 1/4
Evo Morales came to power in 2005 and ushered in series of reforms that truly benefited indigenous peoples. He was also a populist who modified the Constitution to stay in power after two terms. 2/4
He probably committed widespread fraud in the recent elections, where he was trying to win a fourth term. If reports are true that the military has intervened to force him from power today, and now is trying to find and arrest him, that's absolutely undemocratic. 3/4