«A step forward in the quest for real equity»? Discursive strategies of the Uruguayan right to promote the Law of Parental Co-responsibility

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the discursive strategies used by the governing coalition of right-wing parties in Uruguay to push through the Law of  Parental Co-responsibility in 2023. Despite the feminist origins of the concept that gave the law its name, it was widely rejected by feminist and children’s rights organizations, due to its limited focus on the joint custody of children when the couple separates, even in cases where formal complaints of
violence have been lodged against the father, and its exclusion of other dimensions central to the feminist notion of co-responsibility. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the article identifies and characterizes two central aspects of Uruguayan right-wing discourse in support of the law. On the one hand, the appropriation and resignification of feminist concepts and arguments, and on the other hand, the inversion and reconfiguration of the notions of the victim, referring, in the right-wing narrative, to the father whose right to care for his/her children has been violated, and of the perpetrator, identified as
the mother, guilty of separating the father from his children, and consequently of the breakup of the family.