Bukele attacks gender theory and removes it from public schools in El Salvador

Nayib Bukele attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, on February 22, 2024.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, 42, has attacked gender theory and has decided that it shouldn’t be included in the public education system of the Central American country. Bukele has said that he won’t allow “[gender] ideologies in schools and colleges,” and the Ministry of Education has announced that it will implement the controversial president’s decision. “Confirmed: we have removed all traces of gender ideology from public schools,” was the response posted on social media by Minister of Education José Mauricio Pineda. This step has aroused criticism from feminist organizations.

Bukele’s decision comes a week after the Electoral Court of El Salvador settled the dispute over the election results and ratified the president’s victory: he won his re-election bid with 84% of the vote. The body also reported that the vote count to elect legislators to the National Assembly has ended, giving a large majority to Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas) party. It is now the main political force in the country, allowing for the president to expand his controversial policies. This includes extending the state of emergency that he imposed more than a year ago.

Bukele has enormous support from the Salvadoran population. He sees this support as giving him carte blanche to implement various measures, such as those related to gender theory and sex education.

Minister Pineda has stated that “every use or trace of gender ideology” has been “removed from public schools,” without giving more details about the implications of this decision in one of the countries that has one of the highest femicide rates in Latin America. Data from U.N. Women show that, in 2019, the rate was 6.48 murders per 100,000 women. In addition, the organization cites reports from the Attorney General’s Office of El Salvador, which indicate that, in the first-half of 2021 alone, 315 women were reported missing. Meanwhile, the 2019 National Sexual Violence Survey reflected that 63% of women nationwide (6 out of 10) expressed having experienced at least one incident of sexual assault. “In general terms, women and girls experience continuous forms of violence and discrimination that are based on the patriarchal system… [This requires] a comprehensive and integrated approach to contribute to its eradication,” U.N. Women warns.

The controversial decision made by the Salvadoran government comes after Bukele said — during the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that was held in the United States — that he considers it “important that the curriculum doesn’t [include] gender ideology and all these [other] things.” He stated that “parents should be informed and have a say in what their children are going to learn.” Bukele had already expressed his rejection of abortion and same-sex marriage. The president has been the subject of criticism for how he has shifted his position on social issues, since he was once a part of the FMLN, El Salvador’s major left-wing party, which emerged from the guerilla movement.

Salvadoran feminists and activists have also criticized the president’s positions, which they consider to be a violation of the rights of women in the small country. “Bukele is a messianic figure, a patriarchal leader… a [paternalistic] president who watches over us and who [seems to think that he’s] anointed by God,” human rights activist Celia Medrano told EL PAÍS at the beginning of February, in the middle of the electoral process. “He’s a highly conservative man with a very clear tendency to manipulate religion [in favor of] the message that women have to be kept at home. Our role is to combat that narrative,” Medrano emphasized.

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