Synopsis:
I am analyzing an article published in September of 2018 and it is titled “Heart and Soul: Faith and Feminism in Brazil;” it discusses the increasingly popular feminist movement in Brazil that is working to combat violence against women. Nadiedja Souza, who is the woman leading Brazilians in this recent movement, is challenging the sexist political climate of Brazil, through a Christian faith approach.
The article, “Heart and Soul: Faith and Feminism in Brazil,” discusses how women across Latin America have been calling for an end to femicide through the #notonefewer movement. Femicide is the murder of a person on the basis of their gender. Brazil, has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, so the concept of transnational feminism is very relevant and important to the discourse surrounding Brazilian feminism and is essential to reducing gender inequality globally. The article describes the action of Nadedja, who uses her own faith to educate churchgoers about sexism. She travels from church to church across Brazil educating women and challenging their long held beliefs. While reading the article and listening to the radio broadcast I wondered to myself, how do these women of faith reconcile their well established patriarchal religious values with their struggle for equality and respect?
Nadiedja advocates for the need for urgent mobilization of women in opposition to violence against women and gender inequality. Nadiedja Souza understands the importance of establishing this feminist movement within a political arena in Brazil in order to enact real change. Brazilian Evangelical Protestant Christian women, such as Nadiedja are pushing to challenge and transform Brazil’s sexist culture by using the Bible to frame their arguments.
Rationale:
Sexist political discourse and rising feminist movements working to combat it, shows us that this feminist movement is a critical global social justice issue and is important to contextualizing modern feminism on a transnational scale. The ideology in Brazil is one of patriarchal oppressive society and women like Nadiedja are working towards a world in which women do not have to face violence on the basis of their gender or unequal access to human rights due to their gender. By using a transnational feminist lens as my primary foundation for this analysis I am able to expand my framework to consider the ways in which gender is related to oppressive structures in society and how global feminist movements are shaped.
Keywords: Society, patriarchy, femicide, religion, knowledge
Author: Smiths
Your resource is very interesting. As you mentioned, Christianity in particular has historically been used as a colonial tool. The first thought I had when reading was “how is this movement safeguarding against being similarly co-opted?” However, one can argue that Ms. Nadiedja Souza’s analysis of gender equality as part of religion is a way to re-claim or decolonize religion itself. Brazil’s strong evangelical community is a significant part of voters which makes this movement politically important as well. Souza's feminist movement is completely different from the way a Western feminist movement would engage with the issue of femicide, which I like! Yet, it is important to continually inquire how well this movement is achieving its goals. For instance, is…