Women, Gender and Constitutionalism in Latin America

This book discusses to what extent and how constitutional design and practice in Latin America have helped in combatting the subordination of women and LGBTQIA+ people. Covering 11 jurisdictions, the chapters identify the main elements of the constitutional gender order and survey jurisprudential and legislative developments in different areas, incorporating contextual analysis and references to history, political dynamics, social movements, feminist struggles, normative efficacy, and policy.

In the context of a constitutionalism that has been celebrated as particularly innovative and socially engaged, the book assesses constitutional performance in the quest to supersede the separate gendered spheres tradition and the subordination of women and sexual minorities to heteronormative hegemony. It fills an important gap in the field of gender and constitutionalism, which has paid very little attention to Latin America compared to the Anglo-American legal world and continental Europe. It identifies regional trends, but also variables which account for the diversity of approaches in various jurisdictions.

The book provides much-needed insight into matters that are relevant for legal and socio-legal scholars, an ever-growing number of social actors and movements, and all those interested in comparative constitutionalism and in the intersections between law and gender.

Francisca Pou Giménez is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Ruth Rubio Marín is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sevilla, a member of the Faculty of The Hauser Global Law School Program at New York University and the holder of the UNIA Unesco Chair in Human Rights.

Verónica Undurraga Valdés is a law professor at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, in Santiago, Chile, and President of Commission of Experts of the 2023 Chilean constitutional process.