Rethinking Legal Strategies for Gender Equality in Brazilian Corporate Governance

This article critically analyses Brazil’s 2025 gender equity law, which mandates a 30 per cent gender quota on the boards of public companies. Drawing on feminist legal theories and over a decade of Brazilian parliamentary debates, we examine the justifications used by parliamentarians, from liberal and cultural feminism to a rationale grounded in social justice and intersectionality. Although the law represents an important legislative advancement, it faces two key limitations. First, its scope is restricted to public companies, leaving listed corporations to voluntary self-regulation, which data show has produced slower progress on gender and racial diversity; we argue that the public interest rationale that justifies mandatory quotas for public companies should also apply to listed corporations. Second, by focusing on top-tier positions, the law risks promoting a narrow and non-representative universal woman, disregarding the compounded disadvantages faced by Black and economically marginalised women, as shown by Brazilian labour market data. Despite these limitations, the law makes a unique contribution, combining an intersectional quota with mandatory data disclosure requirements. We conclude by proposing pathways for more comprehensive and transformative gender equity policies.