CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Hummelgen, Isabela |
|---|---|
| Title | Is the priority vaccines or pads: The Brazilian government's veto on menstrual health care during the covid-19 crisis |
| Summary | In October 2021, after its approval by the Brazilian Congress, the legislation to institute a national menstrual health program (Law n. 14.214) was substantially vetoed by President Jair Bolsonaro. Urged to offer an explanation, Damares Alves, the Minister of the Woman, the Family, and Human Rights, reacted by asking: “Is the priority vaccines or pads?” In this thesis, the debates around law n. 14.214/2021 serve as a case study to address the political discourses about menstrual health in Brazil. Alves’s statement is an initial point to consider how the neoliberal rationale hinders the implementation of (gendered) health care rights by disregarding them as a priority. Considering this context, this research aims to analyse the government’s discourses about menstrual health care and austerity during an aggravated crisis (of the covid-19 pandemic). The methodological frame adopted is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which is a qualitative technique that allows for a reading of the legal texts and discourses embedded in their socio-political context. Based on the analysis of the case study, this research finds that the lens of care serves to place the discussions about menstrual health into the context of systematic crisis, in which the government’s neoliberal politics justify their disregard for gendered human rights by relying on the austerity claim that there is no alternative. Thus, Alves’s statement unravels that menstrual health care is not a prioritized public policy because it is considered a personal crisis, to be solved at the private sphere by the individuals themselves. |
| Supervisor | Winkler, Inga |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/hummelgen_isabela.pdf |
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