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We consider Brazilian society as a case and evidence for a noteworthy transformation — albeit not unique to Brazil — toward gender equality that has resulted from an evolving interplay of transforming gender relations and women’s participation in feminist as well as in a wide range of other organizations and social movements, enabled by national as well as global contexts. We claim that the transformations of gender and feminisms in Brazil in the last four decades have been intertwined and closely linked to changes in socio-economic structures and political regimes. Gender equality processes advancing institutional, economic, social, and cultural changes have unequivocally resulted from women’s active role in the social and political movements engaged in fighting the military regime in the 1970s, in the transition to democracy in the 1980s (which we call the second wave), and in the democratization of the country in the 1990s (the third wave), as well as from the ongoing processes of growing institutionalization and policymaking (the fourth wave). Throughout the last four decades, feminism has increasingly spread horizontally, creating “horizontal fluxes of feminism,” or, in other words, a perspective that highlights the continuity of gender discrimination, but goes beyond that to equally value the principle of non-discrimination based on race, ethnicity, generation, nationality, class or religion, among others. In fact, we argue that this is a case of increasingly “intersectional feminism.”

This chapter seeks to situate theoretically and comparatively the definitions and praxis of feminism by women activists of the Brazilian participatory state feminism in comparison to the current and emerging definitions in the theories and praxis of transnational feminisms. It analyzes the answers to attitudinal as well as behavior questions to a survey conducted in 2016 among delegates to National Conference for Policies for Women, representing over 150,000 women activists from all over the country and from a wide range of organizations and movements (women’s and feminist organizations, trade unions, political parties, black movements, environmental groups, LQBT organizations, etc.). The main research question addressed in this chapter is whether current Brazilian feminisms – constructed by several generations of women – have had a trajectory, convergent with those of the feminisms of the global north and the global south, moving from the “rights feminism” of the 1970s to the current intersectional and emancipatory feminism, which goes beyond the affirmation of women’s rights and gender equality, and moves on to use the broader concept of social justice to propose equality for the whole of society, not just for women.

This chapter critically examines dialogues between indigenous feminists and academic feminists about the role and significance of indigenous epistemologies in constructing social scientific knowledge, particularly feminist epistemologies. We argue that the term indigenous feminisms must be understood as broadly linking gender equality, decolonization, and sovereignty for indigenous peoples. In Latin America, this term typifies an activist and practical movement with cultural, economic, and politically specific dimensions. We posit that analytical and theoretical frameworks developed from indigenous women’s ways of knowledge production should be recognized and legitimated in feminist discourse because much is learned from their worldview about women’s emancipation, the importance of intersectionality in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender in indigenous contexts, in addition to political and cultural critiques. We show that indigenous feminist theoretical formulations are not homogenous but overlap in some areas of theoretical and practical formulations that involve new conceptualizations of the body, space, time, action/movement, and memory.

This chapter provides the introduction of the book and argues why gender and feminism matter in theory and praxis in the 21st century. It includes the conceptual interrogation of the meaning of gender and feminism and its practice in western and non-western contexts; global currents in feminist struggles; thematic organization of the book; and the future under ‘feminist eyes’. The thread of shared struggles among diverse groups of women based on selected themes — movements, spaces and rights; inclusion, equity and policies; reproductive labour, work and economy; health, culture and violence; and sports and bodies — situates Canada as a western society with avowed egalitarian ideals favouring gender equality and social justice, but with its own issues and concerns like women in other countries facing their own challenges.