Ladies in Red: An analysis of legal measures to combat political gender violence in Brazil and Portugal

Abstract

Political gender violence is a reality that demonstrates the insufficiency of existing affirmative action measures to guarantee the full exercise of women’s political rights. Thus, this article seeks to investigate how Brazil and Portugal have acted legally in the creation of mechanisms to face political gender violence. Readers’ comments addressed to Dilma Rousseff and Marisa Matias and posted on the Facebook pages of the newspapers Público and Folha de S. Paulo were analysed and sorted into the following categories of gender discrimination: Sexist Culture, Disqualification and Hate. It is concluded that, despite the alarming data on political violence against women, only Brazil is in the process of discussing legal measures to combat it.