Considerations on combating violence against women in Brazil and the United States

Abstract

The low level of female representation in power in Brazil, especially in the various spheres of the Brazilian parliament, is a reality that has called for reflection by various civil society groups and the justice system itself. Brazil ranks last in the world in terms of female participation in politics, and violence against women in Brazilian society, which permeates the political and justice systems, has been considered one of the main causes of this scenario. Nevertheless, there is legislation that has been improved over the years, based on the commands of the universal and regional human rights system, integrated by Brazil. The United States of America also faces the same problem in different dimensions. However, despite the lack of specific constitutional legislation on the subject, which is appropriate in the common law system, there is a greater representation of women in the federal parliament of that country, notably in its House of Representatives. This leaves that country much better positioned than Brazil in terms of gender and its intersectionalities. The 2020 general elections in that country demonstrated this growth in plural female participation. Brazil and the United States of America, in addition to other similarities in terms of territorial and population size, have similar situations in terms of the democratic system based on periodic elections, with equal conditions for contestants. The model of the constitutional system in both countries, however, is quite different. If, on the one hand, Brazil has a very rigid normative hierarchy, based on an analytical Constitution, the USA conducts its federative system based on judicial precedents that interpret and apply the law on the basis of a very synthetic Constitutional Charter. Brazil has a consistent normative system to materialize the right to equality between men and women, a fundamental right provided for in the Constitutional Charter, while the US does not have a normative system on this subject, and judicial decisions are based on the few Constitutional Amendments that regulate the fundamental rights of US citizens. However, the comparison between female representation and the intersectionality of gender, race and other markers in the political sphere in this country, especially in its Federal Chamber, based on the 2020 election and indicated by the UN Inter-Parliamentary Union, demonstrates the existence of a greater and more significant participation of women in political life. One of the hypotheses put forward by this essay to respond to this factual situation is that greater organization and awareness of rights on the part of society, especially organized civil society, can lead to more consistent results than the mere normative provision of these same rights, as is the case in Brazil, without greater engagement and participation on the part of society.