Brazil's female diplomats in new equality push after dark days of Bolsonaro

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) More than a century after Maria José de Castro Rebello Mendes became, in 1918, the first woman to enter Brazil’s diplomatic service, the country’s female diplomats have launched a new push for equal rights and opportunity. Women make up less than 25% of Brazil’s diplomatic corps and just 12% of ambassadors.

“We are blossoming at this moment of democratic government,” said Irene Vida Gala, a senior diplomat who served as ambassador to Ghana and is now the president of the newly created Association of Female Brazilian Diplomats.

This institutional push to address the lack of diversity within Brazil’s foreign office, known as Itamaraty, after the 19th-century Rio palace where it was once housed, coincides with the return to power of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after the four-year term of his openly misogynistic far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Lula, who has appointed Brazil’s most diverse cabinet ever, promised a fresh start after the trail of devastation left by Bolsonaro.

In the case of Itamaraty, this means “total reconstruction, because what we have today is scorched earth,” said Marília Closs of Plataforma Cipó, a thinktank focused on governance, peace, and climate. “Bolsonaro’s foreign policy wasn’t used as a tool to guarantee Brazil’s national interest, but instead as a tool for bolsonarismo.” ...........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/23/brazil-diplomats-women-equality-lula-bolsonaro

[obamanut2012]

1. k & r -- this is important news