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The Long-Term Struggle for Violence against Women Legislation: The Guatemalan Women's Movement and the Politics of Patience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2021

Erin Beck Open the ORCID record for Erin Beck [Opens in a new window]
Erin Beck*
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University of Oregon
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Abstract

A scholarly consensus depicts strong, autonomous domestic women's movements as critical for the passage of gender equality reforms, alongside openings in domestic and international political contexts. What, then, is a nascent women's movement seeking gender equality reforms to do if it lacks strength or a history of autonomous organizing? A long-term analysis of the Guatemalan women's movement's push for reforms to address violence against women demonstrates that one potential road forward is through a “politics of patience,” rooted in the pursuit of cumulative, incremental victories. Adopting a politics of patience allows nascent domestic movements in developing and post-transition contexts to achieve incremental victories that create future political openings while simultaneously building movement strength and autonomy over time. This finding highlights the temporal and strategic power of women's movements, as well as the iterative and potentially reinforcing nature of social mobilization and political reform.

Keywords

Violence against womensocial movementswomen's movementspolicy reformGuatemalaLatin America
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 1043 - 1076
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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