ABSTRACT
Awareness has been growing among Third World women activists about the role the law plays in supporting the classist, racist, and patriarchal structures of society and in upholding and legitimizing women’s social and economic subordination and marginalization. This chapter identifies some of the major legal issues confronting women in the Third World and analyzes a sampling of the strategies Third World women have been using during the past decade to improve their legal status. The concept of a public versus private sphere as expressed in law is a key measure of society’s perception of women’s rights. Targeting change at the cultural level of the legal system is a requirement to success at the structural and substantive levels. Contrasted with the rather bleak picture of Uruguayan women is the situation of women in Brazil, where, perhaps as nowhere else in the world, women have had a significant opportunity to shape their political context.
