LIST OF PANELS

Public gender policies, formulated to expand women's political, civil and social rights, have historically oscillated between conservative and emancipatory purposes. The first public policies aimed at women often reduced them to the condition of "working mother". However, in the last decades, the areas in which gender policies are formulated have been multiplied, involving themes such as violence, health and reproductive rights, sexuality, identity, education, work, job and income generation, politics, among others. For that, the feminist and women's movements were fundamental in demanding from the state an active position in the promotion of women's citizenship, based fundamentally on the principle of gender equality. In this context, some strategies aimed at promoting women's human rights have become more popular, such as the creation of institutional bodies within the state and quota policies.

Gender-based violence (physical, symbolic and psychological), sexual harassment, human trafficking, female mutilation, early marriages and wage inequality are grounds for criticism widely supported today. However, there is still an understanding deeply rooted in common sense that the domestic sphere is separate from areas such as economics or culture. Needs then characterized as personal or domestic end up becoming “fugitives”, often from a political demand that can be translated into public policy demands. The advancement of public policies faces some resistance from conservative sectors and presents important challenges, among which the little space and the weak legitimacy of the political project of gender equality in government bureaucracies, reverting to limited human and financial resources and a hostile stance in the routines operated on bureaucratic machines.

Faced with these challenges, women's movements have played a pioneering role in the development of innovative strategies, such as the “boomerang effect”, which mobilize global opinion through the denunciation of local problems (Fraser, 2009). This resulted in a promising form of transnational, multiple-scale and post-welfare state that motivates the establishment of public policies. Initiatives like these have appeared in several cities around the world, such as “Ni Una a Menos” and “#MeToo”. These movements constitute a broad, heterogeneous, polycentric, multifaceted and polyphonic field and work on the elaboration of proposals that range from the modification of school curricula to the promotion and monitoring of gender-related legislation. Thus, a new relationship with the state and its linked dynamics is established, highlighting, in turn, the transversal, intersectional and intersectoral actions that are configured in a new context (theoretical, transversal, intersectorial and transdisciplinary) of understanding phenomena such as race, generation, class, sexuality and gender, which unfolds in the need to think about micro and macro-strategies of actions built, integrated and articulated together with the state and civil society (Matos, 2013). Thus, based on the changes that have occurred in recent history, we propose to question: 1) how has the institutionalization of women's guidelines through public policies been taking place? 2) has the establishment of mechanisms and executive bodies for coordinating and managing such practices in governmental spheres reverberating in meeting these guidelines? If not, what are the challenges to be faced? 3) what are the results of the institutionalization of public gender policies? 4) what is the influence that different social actors have had on the process of making gender issues visible on the public agenda?

The objective of this panel is to gather scientific and multidisciplinary contributions that address issues related to public gender policies. We expect contributions that address the complexity of these phenomena from different disciplines and theoretical and methodological perspectives. We are particularly interested in articles that address both ethnic diversity and the intersection between different social forces, classes and cultures. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

- social movements (feminists, women, human rights organizations) and their role in public debate and in the implementation of laws and policies in defense and expansion of women's rights, including web-based activism and social media;

- educational policies and legislation on sexuality: teacher training, teaching materials, curricular spaces, gender perspective and extension of rights;

- public policies and relevant legislation to combat violence against women (laws and policies against femicide; domestic, sexual and reproductive violence; human trafficking, forced marriage, mutilation and abortion);

- innovative theories and methodologies that make it possible to critically address problems involving gender inequality.