Social movements and public policies: advances and setbacks in the construction of health rights

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how different configurations of the relationship between the state and social movements have produced different public policies on women’s health since the turn of the 21st century. Over the last four decades, various sectors of society have worked to develop and expand citizenship rights. Among these groups are the feminist movements, which have combined the struggles for the right to health and for democracy, building practices that affirm articulation with the state to influence the formulation of public policies grounded on human rights. Based on documentary research from an anthropological perspective, the documents and contexts in which the main national public policies on women’s health have been enacted since 2000 are analyzed. It argues that a systematic dialogue between social movements and government representatives, through popular participation in the formulation of public policies, can result in proposals that are more in line with collective demands in the field of women’s health, even if these achievements are subject to partisan influence and conservatism. This approach makes visible a process of mutual construction between gender and the state, which simultaneously makes it possible to influence the political-institutional scenario, redefine political-social agendas and operate a critical watch on government practices.