This article seeks to discuss how the 2010 televised presidential campaign of the then candidate, Dilma Rousseff, mobilized feminine discourses in order to articulate notions on her identity and on the intersections between gender and politics. In order to do so, [we] the authors initially look to feminist theories in order to map four recurrent discussions on gender: (1) an equality approach; (2) a difference approach; (3) an ethics of care approach; and (4) a deconstructionist approach. Based on these discourses, we analyze Dilma's televised campaigns in the first and second rounds of the election. Finally, they discuss the consequences of mobilizing an ethics of care discourse, indicating tensions between the dangers of a pasteurizing essentialism and the potentials of strategic essentialism.
Gender; Televised presidential campaigns; Ethics of care; Strategic essentialism; Dilma Rousseff