With a war in Europe that has been going on for more than nine months, rampant inflation and a food crisis, is there room for optimism?
Since the start of the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, leaders, intellectuals, and activists have argued that the post-pandemic world must be better than the pre-pandemic world.
It was about taking advantage of the crisis to overcome the extreme inequality and concentration of wealth, the increasing environmental erosion and the failure of global collective action.
The crisis could be an opportunity to guarantee fundamental social rights such as drinking water, health and education services, and basic income for the entire population of the planet, as argued by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.
To move in that direction, it was required and is required today, when the peak of the scare has passed, to have new ideas regarding where to go, but also technopolitical tools regarding
how
to go and
with whom.
It is also required to have a good sense of the opportunities and constraints for change that exist in each
context
.
This is just what the Feminist Plan for Sustainability and Social Justice prepared by UN Women does.
The Plan sets out a road map to create a new and feminist social contract while, without false optimism, it names the power structures and political dynamics that hinder change and push so many democracies towards authoritarianism.
This Plan offers a bold vision from its feminist name: it draws explicitly on the knowledge and activism of feminisms in general and on two central issues for a new social contract in particular: the organization of care and the interaction of human beings. with its environment.
Both things produce decisive public value for the sustainability of life and the survival of economies, largely outside the market.
This narrative of a transformed society based on new balances means recognizing that markets cannot coordinate all aspects of our economies, and that, in order to achieve a new social contract, public policy must be at the center of the transformations, be it to create good jobs, reorganize care, or make peace with the environment.
Second, the Plan identifies levers to move towards a feminist future.
It does so by proposing policy tools in three main areas: livelihood creation;
the reorganization of care;
and the transitions in the organization of societies, taking into account their economies, for a sustainable future.
In each of these three dimensions, the Plan addresses the delicate issue of financing changes, as well as the crucial issue of virtuous associations —in counterpoint to rent-seeking alliances, which see zero-sum games in the State.
Third, the Plan pays full attention to the actors who can drive change in their own political economy context, illuminating opportunities for mobilization and action, as well as the daunting obstacles—from weak fiscal capacity and austerity policies, to misogyny and the anti-feminist reaction.
At the same time, the pandemic generated an unprecedented level of feminist collaboration at the transnational level, and articulation with the local and national levels.
The Plan makes it clear that in order to counteract the bad news we need to rely on this experience and achieve adequate participation and representation of women and feminisms, as well as solid alliances with other progressive actors inside and outside the State.
In Latin America, the most unequal region on the planet, one thing is certain: the pandemic has shown that, under the right pressure, even governments with very weak social policies are capable of doing better by mobilizing different types of resources and, in some cases, listening more to civil society organizations.
It is true that he came from a recent generation of progressive social policies —supported by strong progressive movements— that had increased public investment in social infrastructure, responded to gender violence and, in some cases, paved the way for the creation of social systems. of care.
In terms of social protection, the pandemic led to an expansion of emergency measures in most countries in the region, particularly through cash transfers: where previous programs were more institutionalized, the benefits could effectively reach those already they were covered by existing schemes.
At the same time, the gaps and limitations of the existing systems were revealed, both in terms of coverage and sufficiency: women, boys and girls, people working in the informal sector, and those who took care of other people, were the most affected and neglected.
This neglect was particularly noticeable where a narrative that strictly equates fiscal responsibility with cuts in public social spending quickly took hold (as in Brazil, Costa Rica, and Ecuador).
In terms of responding to gender-based violence, the pandemic reinforced that adequate responses depend on having solid regulatory frameworks, activism from the State and civil society, well-financed public services, and capacities and coordination —including with women's movements— .
Individual and collective leadership also makes a huge difference, as the case of Argentina showed in counterpoint to the erosion of these responses that occurred in Brazil and Mexico.
Diverse feminist movements, highly visible before and during the pandemic, have continued to try to shape pro-gender equality public policies, even as the national leadership has moved toward austerity or misogyny.
A return to “normal” after a shock of the magnitude of the covid-19 pandemic can reinforce previous trajectories and, worse still, fuel reactions against change.
At the same time,
shocks
successive movements, with their sequel of exclusion and inequality, should also create spaces for strong and pluralistic movements to promote much-needed changes.
These movements will have to face the worrying weakening of democracies or authoritarianism in various countries.
As the Plan makes clear, nothing less than “revitalized democracies fueled by feminist politics” will be able to accept and resolve differences for sustainability and social justice.
No matter its size, a
shock
does not mechanically create conditions for change, neither radical nor incremental.
Making change happen after a
shock
like covid-19 requires a combination of new narratives, tools, and actors ready and able to make change happen through reframing the problem, building new interest groups, and seizing the moment.
This Feminist Plan is full of ideas to boost and combine the three ingredients.
Juliana Martínez Franzoni
is Humboldt 2021 Professor at the University of Costa Rica and
Sarah Cook
is the Director of the Institute of Global Development at UNSW Canberra.
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