Cynthia Sarti

Sarti, Cynthia (1989). The panorama of feminism in Brazil. New Left Review I/173, pp. 75-90.

The Panorama of Feminism in Brazil

The women’s movement in Brazil—of which feminism is one aspect—has

reflected the condition of women themselves, whose unity as a gender is
cut across by other fundamental references (ethnicity, social class, etc.) and
has above all been cross-class in character.* Its heterogeneous composi-
tion stems directly from specific features of Brazilian society, its strong
internal pluralism and the broader political context in which it devel-
oped.1 On the one hand, the marked inequality in the distribution of wealth
and resources has created a modern, economically privileged sector open to
innovation whose demand for material and cultural consumption is similar to
that in any large city in the industrialized countries. On the other hand, the
majority of the population, living in the urban periphery and rural areas, is
excluded from the benefits of highly concentrated economic growth. To these
very different realities correspond very different demands. In the urban peri-
phery these concern the provision of basic needs: water, electricity, sewage,
paved roads, health and education. The needy inhabitants of the major cities,
although excluded from its comforts, are exposed to its modernity. They can
75
make use of the networks of public services it offers. They are able, as
residents, to demand access to its benefits. Changes in patterns of
behaviour propelled by the most modern and privileged sectors thus have
their impact upon the different urban groups, rich and poor, peripheral
and central, and are adapted to the specific situations of each. Feminism
began to find fertile ground among the urban middle sectors as a radical
proposal to politicize the private, to rethink or reinvent the most funda-
mental relationships in the family, in daily life, in habits which had
become ‘natural’. But it developed in accordance with local circum-
stances, becoming a movement with its own characteristics and seeking to
take account of the varied situation of women in Brazil.

Different material conditions, particularly with regard to paid work and

household life, provide foundations for very different political perspec-
tives. For women from the popular classes the roles of mother and house-
wife have a much greater weight than paid work in their definition of
themselves and the constitution of their social identity. Their daily life is
demarcated by domestic activities, strongly linked to neighbourhood rela-
tionships. For women of the middle sectors—who, though discriminated
against, have a higher level of education and some degree of professional
training—the choice of occupational activity is more likely to be a source
of gratification. Moreover, the presence of domestic servants in most
middle and upper class homes decisively influences the options of this
part of the female population, as well as reducing the conflicts between
men and women which might arise from an overload of domestic
labour.2 Wage labour, then, clearly has diverse meanings for someone
who has ‘chosen’ her profession and lives it as the realization of an indi-
vidual project, and for someone who simply works out her fate, under
pressure from the limited options of a disadvantaged social condition.
The different representations reflect structural class differences.

The ‘modernization’ of the Brazilian woman from the 1960s onwards—

her attachment to modern individualistic values, including the use of
contraception and recourse to psychoanalysis, access to higher education,
and incorporation into the labour market3—took place in a strongly

* The first version of this text was written for UNIFEM (the United Nations Women’s
Fund), as part of a consultancy on women in Brazil.
1 This analysis of the women’s movement considers only its contemporary manifesta-

tions, from the 1970s onwards. This does not mean that it is the only period in which
women have mobilized in Brazil. Feminist demonstrations have been recorded in con-
nection with the campaign for the abolition of slavery in the last century. Early in the
twentieth century the campaign for the vote brought women into the public arena,
although the suffrage movement never achieved the mass character observable in
Britain and the United States. (See B.M. Alves, J. Pitanguy, O que é feminismo, São Paulo
1985.) After it had been won in a number of states, female suffrage was confirmed in
the Electoral Code introduced by Getulio Vargas in 1932. As in other countries where
suffrage movements developed, there was then a lull in the women’s movement. Nor
was the political conjuncture conducive to its further development, as the dictatorial
New State banned all popular demonstrations in 1937.
2 See C. Bruschini, Mulher e trabalho, São Paulo 1985; and A. Candido, ‘The Brazilian

Family’, in L. Smith, A. Marchant, eds., Brazil: Portrait of Half a Continent, New York
1951.
3 The IBGE Census recorded a little over 6 million women as economically active in

1970 (equivalent to 20.7 per cent of the economically active population), and 12 million
(27.4 per cent) in 1980.

76
hierarchical society in terms of class, race and gender, and reproduced
these sources of differentiation. Female independence bears the mark of
class and of race. The resources and opportunities offered to women
brought benefits primarily to the most developed regions of the country,
the south-east, ‘whiter’ and more urban. The existence of the domestic
servant is an integral part of this hierarchical context. It is worth stressing
that domestic servants tend to be black. It is a legacy of slavery that there
is a direct association between being black, and working in low-status
areas of employment.

The maids who have eased the process of ‘liberation’ lived by other
women, their employers, have not remained immune to the process.
Domestic service is still the leading form of employment for Brazilian
women.4 But times have changed. Neither maids nor employers are the
same, at least in the major urban centres (this qualification is always
necessary in so heterogeneous a country). The woman who employs the
maid works outside the home and does not run the household with the
same efficiency as her grandmother, but in accordance with new patterns
of domestic organization. Nor does the maid behave as she once did; she
acts more as a professional. She defines herself more as a worker than as
an additional member of the traditional Brazilian family.5 She demands
her rights as a worker, which under Brazilian law are not the same as
those of other workers. Inequality, today, is reproduced in new ways.

A Distinctive Trajectory

Beginning among the middle sectors, feminism spread through a particu-

lar form of reciprocal articulation with popular sectors. The feminists
who organized themselves in the country, linked for the most part to
organizations and parties of the Left, acted politically across the whole
range of mobilizations in which women were involved, giving their own
activity a distinctive note of its own. They influenced and were influenced
by the demands of the popular classes, which were also related to changes
in the sexual behaviour and patterns of fertility and reproduction.

The link between feminism and the popular sectors gave rise to a delicate
relationship with the Catholic Church,6 an important source of opposi-
tion in the political vacuum created by the military regime. The Catholic
Church remains dominant throughout the country, despite the steadily
4
The 1970 Census showed that domestic service accounted for 31.3 per cent of the
total of economically active women. Ten years on, however, this was the category of
female employment which had suffered the most significant relative decline, down to
20 per cent of the economically active female population (Bruschini, op. cit.).
5
G. Freyre, Casa Grance e Senzala, Rio de Janeiro/Brasilia 1980; Candido, op. cit.
6
The theme of women and religion is analysed in M.L.Q. Moraes, ‘Familia e femi-
nismo: reflexões sobre papéis femininos na imprensa para mulheres’, doctoral thesis,
mimeo, University of São Paulo 1982. S.E. Alvarez (‘The Politics of Gender in Latin
America: Comparative Perspectives on Women in the Brazilian Transition to Democ-
racy’, PhD dissertation, Yale 1986) also emphasizes the intricate relationship between
feminism and the Catholic Church. Within the Church, there is the discordant voice of
the nun, Maria Jose Fonteneles Rosado Nunes (Sister Zeca), whose work has been sys-
tematically orientated towards the analysis and questioning of the role of women in the
Church. See, for example, M.J.F.R. Nunes, Vida religiosa nos meios populares, Petrópolis
1985.

77
increasing expansion of the non-Catholic sects, particularly Pentecostal,
but also those of African origin such as candomble, and the tendency to
syncretism in the sects. Yet the Church is far from being monolithic. Its
conservative wing co-exists with a progressive wing, influenced by Libera-
tion Theology. Under the inspiration of this theology a substantial
amount of community work was carried out among the poor from the
1970s on, through the Base Ecclesiastical Communities (CEBs), which
became a focal point of resistance to the authoritarian regime ruling the
country.

The women’s organizations in the poor neighbourhoods emerged and

grew in strength as part of this tradition of pastoral work. This locked
feminism and the Church in constant struggle for hegemony over popular
groups. The predominant tone, however, was one of a politics of alliance
between feminism, the Left and the Church, all three swimming against
the current of the authoritarian regime. Conflictual issues such as abor-
tion, sexuality or family planning continued to be discussed privately in
small groups, but were not brought into public debate. The activity of the
Church, from a feminist perspective, always had clear limits. The links
common to its various factions—in particular obedience to the ecclesias-
tical hierarchy, with the Pope as its highest authority—led to a politics of
advance and retreat, in which a rigidity of principles, not always visible
in daily practice, ultimately prevailed in the ‘burrowing away’ of its most
progressive representatives. This explains the unanimity on issues relat-
ing to sexual morality, with the outright condemnation of abortion,
divorce and family planning.

Analyses made by the women’s base organizations reveal the possibilities

and limits of the strong influence of the Catholic Church in the daily lives
of women, who make up the major clientele of the religious communities
of the country. Chiriac and Padilha have demonstrated that the interests
of the Church as an institution are placed above those of women, making
difficult discussions which go against its conception of relations between
the sexes. Alvarez has shown how the hegemony of the Church in popular
organizations circumscribes the content and the political direction of the
‘consciousness raising’ of women from the popular sectors.7 And Moraes
makes these limits explicit when she comments that the Mothers’ Clubs
reflect both the evangelical conceptions of Liberation Theology and the
precepts of orthodox Catholicism with respect to the family, promoting
the participation of women in the life of the community but at the same
time reinforcing their continued adherence to traditional family roles.8

Another relevant difference between Brazilian and at least European femi-

nism lies in the character of social movements.9 The social movements
which have arisen in Europe since the late 1960s have a strong cultural
connotation, questioning the values of industrial society and seeking to
show that not all is well when basic needs are guaranteed. In their actions
they oppose themselves to the state, questioning the notion of social
7 Alvarez, op. cit.
8 M.L.Q. Moraes, Mulheres em movimento, São Paulo 1985.
9 See A.O. Costa, C. Barraso, C. Sarti, ‘Pesquisa sobre mulher: do limbo ao gueto?’,

Cadernos de Pesquisa 54, 1985.

78
welfare. In Brazil urban social movements are organized on a local basis
and are rooted in the daily experience of their protagonists, the inhabit-
ants of the urban periphery. Demanding a better distribution of urban
infrastructural provision and collective consumption goods, they direct
their activity at the state, as an agent which should promote social wel-
fare. Paving, electricity, water and sewage are watchwords without mean-
ing in societies with an assured minimum of social well-being. Here they
are the fundamental object of women’s demands. This form of women’s
participation in neighbourhood movements has as its reference point the
world of reproduction, including the family and its conditions of life.
Feminism made its presence felt within this general framework, seeking
to live with diversity without denying its own particularity. This required
a great deal of caution. Initially, feminism had a negative connotation.
One was caught in cross-fire. For the Right it was a dangerous, immoral
movement, while for the Left it was bourgeois reformism. For many
women and men, moreover, independently of their ideology, it had a defi-
nite anti-feminine connotation. Feminism was associated with an opposi-
tion between man and woman, whose manifestations in Brazil never took
on a radical form. The image of ‘feminism against femininity’ even had
strong repercussions internally in the women’s movement, dividing its
groups with exclusive self-denominations. To call oneself a feminist
implies the conviction that problems specific to women will not be
resolved as social structures change, but will need special treatment.
Brazilian feminism developed by fusing together groups from the middle
sectors and the popular movements, not least because of their close links
with democratic struggles in opposition to the military regime.
In the context of authoritarianism which marked the beginning of the
movement, the ‘general’ problems of society were given priority over the
‘specific’ problems facing women. Feminist issues gained their own space
as the process of political ‘opening’ was consolidated and a large number
of groups declared themselves openly feminist. Conflicts and disagree-
ments with the Catholic Church and with some sectors of the Left, conser-
vative as regards sexual morals, began to surface more clearly. Within
this multiplicity of forms and orientations, Brazilian feminism became
distinctive as some of its sectors attempted to influence public policy not
only as pressure groups, but also through the use of institutional channels
created within the state itself.
The First Steps

International Women’s Year, 1975, as decreed by the United Nations,

was the starting point for the present mobilization of women in the coun-
try. After 1968—when Institutional Act No. 5 abolished indefinitely the
constitutional limits to government action, closed Congress and granted
exceptional powers to the executive authority—Brazilian society had
lived through a most dramatic period of kidnappings, exile, disappear-
ances and torture, in which the delegates from the Censor’s Office and the
agents of the secret services haunted us daily, and every citizen was, in
principle, suspected of some crime against national security. The opposi-
tion struggle had withered away, with the space for resistance confined
only to clandestine action. From 1974, with the presidential succession,
79
there began a period of change, albeit partial and limited, known as
General Geisel’s project of ‘slow and gradual reduction of tension’. The
consequences of the ‘economic miracle’ became acute as inflation and the
concentration of income dulled the euphoria of the earlier years. Popular
discontent was made manifest by the only means available, the Congres-
sional elections of 1974. The desire for change was revealed in the
emphatic victory of the opposition MDB over the government party
(ARENA), in the two-party system which had been imposed in 1965 and
would last until the reorganization of the parties in 1980.
In this period, when the feminist movement was developing at a broad
international level, we took our first steps in Brazil despite the continuing
climate of censorship and political repression. The issue aroused curiosity
and interest, mainly expressed in interviews and articles in the so-called
‘alternative’ press. Discussion groups began to form. However, feminism
was generally seen at the time as something alien to our reality, a petty-
bourgeois preoccupation.
International Women’s Year, 1975, was particularly important because it
served as a pretext for women to discuss and organize, in a context in
which the channels of political participation were closed. Activities
during the year opened the way for the first collective women’s groups,
linked in most cases to the still-clandestine parties and organizations of
the Left. They gave birth to the Centre for the Development of Brazilian
Women in São Paulo and the Brazilian Women’s Centre in Rio de Janeiro,
which brought together mainly professional women. The women’s move-
ment began to become visible. The founding of the Women’s Amnesty
Movement, also in 1975, made a significant contribution to its expansion.
Arising in the state of Parana and then moving to São Paulo, its journal,
Brasil Mulher (from 1975 to 1980), raised the banner of struggle for
amnesty and democracy, and later turned to issues associated with femin-
ism. In 1976 (until 1978) another journal appeared, Nos Mulheres, which
defined itself as feminist from the start. From 1975 we began to celebrate
the 8th of May, Women’s Day, and commemorative events had a signifi-
cant impact, particularly in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in bringing
women’s issues to the fore and drawing all the women’s groups together,
although there were always cleavages which permeated the movement.
As we have seen, the feminist groups acted alongside women’s neighbour-
hood associations which had been in existence since the 1960s: Mothers’
Clubs or Housewives’ Associations, organized in the poor districts and
linked in most cases to the Church through the base communities. They
were social groups whose participants carried out typically feminine acti-
vities, working with their hands (at knitting, crochet, etc.) or engaging in
religious activities (such as catechism). But from the middle of the 1970s
these groups took on a more demand-oriented character, focusing on the
conditions in which they lived in accordance with the pastoral option of
defending the poor and oppressed. One of these Mothers’ Clubs, in the
southern zone of the city of São Paulo, was the birthplace in 1973 of the
Cost of Living Movement—a protest against high prices which was to
have considerable national impact.
The feminist groups also had links with occupational associations (of
maids, for example), or with unionized women. By 1978, although women
80
still only accounted for 20.5 per cent of unionized workers (against 36.1 per
cent of the economically active population), the number who belonged to
unions had increased by 176 per cent since 1970, while the urban female
labour force had grown by 123 per cent, according to figures given by
Gitahy et al.10 These authors argue that these trends help to explain the
initiatives directed at women by union leaders from 1978 on. In recent years,
women have been playing a growing role even in union leadership.11 In
addition, Brazilian trade unionism is developing a concern for the
situation of working women, above all in the wake of the organization of
meetings and congresses of women in specific occupational categories.12

Feminism Makes Its Entrance

Although the groups calling themselves feminist—by which they meant

concerned specifically with women’s issues—had a leading presence in
the unified celebrations of 8 March, the feminist accent was hardly heard.
This trend was further strengthened by a definition of the woman worker
as the main subject for feminism. Discussion revolved around unequal
wages, the ‘double shift’, and the level of labour market discrimination in
general. Partly this was a question of strategy: women’s work was a theme
permitted and accepted by all women, and unity was a major considera-
tion in joint events. But the emphasis also came from a dominant ten-
dency in the movement which believed that since women workers were
the object of a double oppression, of class and of gender, they would be
the principal agent of feminist transformation. This is explained by the
fact that the Brazilian feminist movement had traced out its path with
reference to the Marxist ideology of the Brazilian Left, and to the idea,
also present in liberal feminism, that paid work was a fundamental
instrument of liberation of the housewife.

At this time the political situation favoured the alliance of democratic

women against the ruling authoritarian regime. One of the major unify-
ing issues, which gave rise to an intensive collective mobilization (though
in fact it did no more than group together separate initiatives), was the
movement for creches. It was a demand which arose out of various
motives and from a variety of groups: women workers, women on the
urban periphery, and feminists (who came primarily from the educated
middle classes). The demand for creches sought to create conditions in
which women could participate in the labour market—particularly
women who lacked the resources to pay for replacements to carry out
their domestic and maternal duties.
10
L. Gitahy, H. Hirata, E. Lobo, R. Moyses, ‘Operárias: sindicalizacão e reivindica-
ções (1970–80)’, Revista Cultura e Política, Rio de Janeiro 1982.
11
M.V.J. Pena, ‘A participação das mulheres na luta dos trabalhadores e no movi-
mento sindical’, in Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher, Mulher Trabalhadora,
Brasilia 1986.
12
Worthy of note, among others, are the Women Metalworkers Congresses held in
São Paulo and São Bernardo in 1979, as a result of the strikes of 1978 which began in
the ABC industrial region on the outskirts of São Paulo City. The Second Congress of
Women Metalworkers took place in São Paulo in 1985, and in 1986 CONCLAT (the
National Coordinator of the Working Classes) organized the First National Congress
of Women Workers, with the participation of more than four thousand rural and
urban delegates from all over the country.

81
For the feminists, the creche movement was part of a broader effort to
redefine family roles and women’s struggle for autonomy,13 while for
women on the urban periphery it tended to be part of a more general
participation in neighbourhood social movements, where the ‘woman
question’ was not posed so explicitly. The very act of involvement, how-
ever, placed them in a new, public space, and exposed them to new exper-
iences which transcended the domestic space. It is worth emphasizing
that in the São Paulo periphery, the protagonists were essentially house-
wives who did not work for wages, although many—not all—of them had
it in mind to do so. This reveals the primordial character of the neigh-
bourhood struggle for improvements in the conditions of local life.

While the feminists engage in such struggle as a form of opposition to

their traditional role as ‘mother’, in the sense of redefining it through
public institutions that take upon themselves the education of children, it
is precisely as a fulfilment of the role of ‘mother’ that women participate
in these movements. They seek improvement in the conditions of life of
their family, better opportunities for education and nutrition for their
children, through struggles for better urban infrastructure in their neigh-
bourhoods in the form of creches, health posts, and so on. The role of
mother motivates and legitimates their leaving the home for the public
sphere, whether in paid work or in political activity.14 The feminists
leave the home with the deliberate intention of transforming this role.

Unity, without these differences made clearly explicit, was the mark of the
women’s movement until the beginning of the 1980s at least, when the
various groups remained united around particular issues and the oppo-
sition struggle for democracy. Motives and perspectives varied, in accord-
ance with different social conditions, and feminism was restricted, as an
ideology and a practice, to one sector only of the women’s movement.
Alleging the priority of the fight against authoritarianism and the inequal-
ities which existed in Brazilian society, some tendencies relegated the
feminist problem to a secondary plane. There was the usual opposition
between tendencies—linked to organized political groups—which gave
priority to general struggles, seeking to impose their programme and to
relegate the woman question to insignificance, and the tendency which
took feminism as its banner, defending the autonomy of the women’s
movement.

Even within the sector which defined itself as feminist, divisions remained
between two principal tendencies. The first, more concerned with the
public activity of women, directed its energies to their political organiz-
ation, concentrating upon issues relating to work, the law, and the
redistribution of power between the sexes. This tendency worked above
all through pressure groups. The other tendency was primarily concerned
with the fluid terrain of subjectivity, with inter-personal relations, and
13
F. Rosemberg, ‘O movimento de mulheres e a abertura politica no Brasil: o caso da
creche’, Cadernos de Pesquisa 51, 1984.
14
C. Sarti, ‘É sina que a gente traz (ser mulher na periferia urbana)’, mimeographed
dissertation, University of São Paulo, 1985. On the participation of women in social
movements, see T.P.R. Caldeira, ‘Mujeres, cotidianeidad y política’, in E. Jelin, org.,
Ciudadanía y identidad: la mujer en los movimientos sociales en América Latina, Geneva 1987.

82
saw the private world as its privileged sphere of action. It made its
presence felt principally in study, discussion or shared living groups.

Consolidation of the Movement

From 1978 onwards, as the women’s movement consolidated its position

within the emerging array of political forces, new paths were presenting
themselves, and differences were becoming more apparent. New spaces
were opened up for political discussions of general interest, and the old
opposition between general and specific struggles lost much of its
strength, making it possible for women to focus more on their own prob-
lems. An explicitly feminist discourse emerged, in which gender relations
were the point at issue.15 Feminist ideas permeated the social arena, not
only through the activity of particular groups but also in response to the
receptive climate of demands of a modernizing society. In the attempt to
address innumerable concerns—above all, those of a female population
which, in going out to occupy public spaces and to work for wages,
lacked new points of personal and social reference—the media opened up
space for the woman question, and thus conferred, albeit indirectly,
greater visibility and credibility upon the social movement. Feminist
groups spread through the country; the feminist movement achieved
significant penetration in occupational associations, parties and unions,
giving legitimacy to women as a specific social subject. In the congres-
sional elections of 1978, in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, groups of
women involved themselves for the first time in electoral campaigns,
retaining their own distinctive propaganda and making support for a
candidate conditional upon his or her commitment to their demands.

Nineteen-eighty was the year of the most intense mobilization of women’s

groups as a collective movement, bringing together women in very
different situations. São Paulo was the site of the Second Congress of
Paulista Women, attended by more than four thousand women. This
high-point, however, was also the moment at which internal conflicts
within the women’s movement began to be revealed more clearly.16 The
movement was being radicalized by the appearance of themes which
touched more openly and directly upon the issue of gender relations, as in
the marches and protests against cases where women had been beaten or
murdered by their husband. In Belo Horizonte (in the state of Minas
Gerais) feminist groups organized in August 1980 the Centre for the
Defence of Women’s Rights, a pioneer initiative repeated in other cities.
15 The range of issues that have been raised is reflected in the book Mulheres em Movi-

mento, organized by the Women’s Project of the Cultural Action Institute (IDAC) in Rio
de Janeiro, as well as in the feminist press whose principal organ since 1980 has been
the São Paulo journal Mulherio. With varied weight in different parts of the movement,
discussion has concerned education, law, work, health, means of communication,
sexuality, abortion, creches, and sexual violence, in addition to such questions as new
knowledge, new forms of expression and new interpersonal relationships.
16
Wide-ranging discussions of the internal contradictions and conflicts in the
women’s movement can be found in the analysis of Moraes (op. cit., 1982 and 1985); A.
Goldberg, ‘Feminismo em regime autoritário: a experiências do movimento de mul-
heres no Rio de Janeiro’, 12th World Congress of IPSA, 1982; M. Schmink, ‘Women in
Brazilian “Abertura” Politics’, Signs 7/1, 1981; H. Pontes, ‘Do palco aos bastidores: o
SOS Mulher e as práticas feministas contemporâneas’, mimeographed dissertation,
IFCH da UNICAMP, 1986.

83
In São Paulo the issue of violence against women was broached at the
Second Congress of Paulista Women, and taken up again in the Women’s
Meeting at Valinhos, from which there arose the idea for the creation of
SOS Mulher (SOS Women), brought to fruition in October 1980. In Rio de
Janeiro a Committee against Violence was formed, and in October 1981
SOS Mulher opened in Porto Alegre in the southern state of Rio Grande do
Sul. These bodies sought to give legal and psychological support to
women who were the victims of violence.

Unity Undone

The 1979 amnesty and the return of women exiles, often influenced in
their personal life and political activity by direct experience of European
feminism, also contributed to the strengthening of the feminist tendency
within the movement. But while the issue of violence kept the flame of the
movement alive during 1980, the year 1981 might be called the year of
‘internal violence’,17 on account of the explosive tensions which had been
building up. The difficulties of coping with unity in diversity—particu-
larly as differences were not made perfectly explicit—led to the erosion of
the relationship between feminist groups and the others (‘women’s
groups’). Unity had been established in a vacuum and could not be
sustained when the mere fact of being an opposition no longer sufficed to
bond the movement together. It was precisely the fundamentally ‘politi-
cal’ character of the women’s movement, to the detriment of issues relat-
ing specifically to women as such, which was the motive for the growing
discontent of the current identified with feminism as a struggle against
sexual oppression.

In addition there were conflicts within feminism itself. Differences

between the groups, and their social heterogeneity, were accentuated with
the rise of the gay and lesbian movement; the interconnections with the
black movement also highlighted the difficulty of coping with difference
within feminism. These cleavages were faced by the women’s movement,
to a greater or lesser extent, in all the states in the country where feminism
had taken hold. As feminist groups began to demand space for their spe-
cificity, it became impossible to continue with united actions; the idea of
a Women’s Federation, which had gone the rounds in the movement,
seemed further than ever from realization. The splitting of the 8th of
March celebrations in São Paulo in 1981 was a sign of things to come. As
Moraes noted, ‘the women’s movement was in pieces, and time had
shown that feminism had to appear in new forms.’18

In the 1980s, at the same time that social consciousness of the oppression
of women was spreading through the country, the feminist groups and
their activities were fragmenting. The nuclei lost their generic character,
and organized themselves around specific issues. The groups which had
formed around the banner of women’s oppression melted away, and
more specialized activities, with more technical and professional per-
spectives, gained ground. Particular mention should be made of groups
which developed around problems in the areas of health, sexuality and
17
The expression is taken from Moraes, op. cit., 1985.
18
Ibid.

84
reproduction, offering medical services and psychological assistance, and
putting feminist demands into practice. This was the case with the SOS
Corps of Recife (in the state of Pernambuco), the São Paulo Women’s
Refuge, the Grajau Women’s Refuge (also in the state of São Paulo), and
the Sexuality and Health Collective (São Paulo). These groups were
created out of the critique of government policy in the area of health,
which until recently ignored women, or simply sought to impose pro-
grammes of control, without any attempt to consult the people affected.
They represented an advance in that they showed ‘the maturity of a move-
ment, which, without abdicating its authority, conducts a dialogue with
the state, proposing courses of action to it’.19

There was also a broad development of research on women, particularly

in the social sciences, demography, psychology, literature, communica-
tions, and history. From a picture of individual initiatives in an academic
atmosphere at first unreceptive or even hostile, a movement took place
towards a phase of growing expansion and institutionalization. Centres of
Women’s Studies have now been created in universities in eight different
states, and their presence is increasingly felt in scientific associations and
meetings. Although women’s studies are now recognized as legitimate,
problems remain, particularly as regards their isolation, and the lack of
dialogue with the human sciences as a whole—the tendency to ‘ghettoiza-
tion’—persists.20 In terms of publishing, there has been a veritable explo-
sion of books, articles and journals on the condition of women. Finally, a
number of documentation centres have been founded, among them the
CIM (Women’s Information Centre) in São Paulo, which has accumulated
a mass of material particularly relating to feminist organizations and the
women’s movement in the country.

The events of 1982 gave evidence of a movement which was still an active
force, but whose forms of manifesting itself had diversified. The Bertha
Lutz Tribunal was held in São Paulo, a spectacle organized by a group of
feminists which put on trial the discrimination to which the working
woman is subjected, along with drama, music and dance on the same
theme. The intention was to seek a new language, to give a cultural
expression to the political struggle through an innovative aesthetic ven-
ture. In September of the same year the First National Festival of Women
in the Arts was organized in São Paulo, coordinated by Ruth Escobar and
financed by Nova magazine from the Abril publishing house. In addition
to displaying women’s creativity in the arts (cinema, theatre, literature,
music, dance, and plastic arts), the festival was an event in itself, with
women’s delegations present from various parts of the world. It provided
space for the presentation of feminist works from different parts of the
country, using varied audiovisual and theatrical techniques and resour-
ces. The festival was all the more animated by the climate of effervescence
which preceded the November elections.

The 1982 Elections

At the end of 1982 elections took place for Congress, and, for the first time
19 C. Barraso, A saúde da mulher, São Paulo 1985.
20 Costa et al., op. cit.

85
since 1965, for state governors. The two-party system imposed in 1965 had
been abolished, and the opposition now divided into three parties: the
Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), the heir of the pre-
vious opposition party, the MDB, which retained its character as an oppo-
sition front, and contained within its ranks the orthodox Communists of
the PCB; the Workers’ Party (PT), organized around the union leaders
who appeared at the end of the 1970s and had as their principal repre-
sentative Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula), alongside intellectuals and the rem-
nants of leftist groups in the country; and the Democratic Labour Party
(PDT), whose legacy of populist trabalhismo went back to Getulio Vargas,
and whose leader, Leonel Brizola, exiled during the years of the dictator-
ship, was elected governor of Rio de Janeiro after his return under
amnesty.
These elections were particularly important because of the changes they
brought about in the structures of power. The majority support for the
opposition parties gave them the government of the economically most
important states, reducing the power of the pro-regime PDS to the poor
states of the north-east, dominated by old-fashioned clientelism.
In view of the internal division of the women’s movement and the frag-
mented character of feminism, the women who participated in the
electoral campaign organized themselves in accordance with their sup-
port for different opposition candidates, particularly from the PT and the
PMDB. This division then defined their future relationship with the
authorities who took power. Feminist demands were included in the
debate over the questions of party reorganization and the election cam-
paign, involving all the issues under discussion in the country. Some can-
didates, in the PT and PMDB, identified themselves with feminism, within
a general context of launching new initiatives on ecology, the drugs prob-
lem, and the Indian, homosexual and black issues.
After the 1982 elections the trend to more specialized and less general
forms of activity grew stronger. A number of women took up positions in
public administration, and the shift in the balance of power fuelled hopes
that more space would become available for demands to be met. With
greater penetration in the fabric of society, feminist activity took on a sec-
toral pattern. Feminists in public administration, in their political
groups, or in their specific professional activities are active in the sense
that they have incorporated their perspectives on life and work into these
areas. This more sectoral pattern of activity, in place of the unity around
general principles which marked the early phase, characterizes the
women’s movement today.
Women Workers in the Countryside

A new development which merits attention concerns the mobilization of

women workers in the countryside. In 1978 the Third Congress of CONTAG
(the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers) took place at a
time when echoes of the demands of urban workers were being heard in
its affiliated unions and professional associations. A programme for the
redistribution of land was proposed, with women not even mentioned as
possible beneficiaries: ‘In speaking of the advantage of family plots, they
86
disregard the woman’s efforts, although all their arguments would be
invalid were it not for the presence of this figure in the family’, in view of
the significance of the woman’s role in production of this type.21 Her
work is not recognized as such, but is considered as part of her domestic
responsibilities.

Politically active women are not a novelty in the countryside. It is a recur-

rent feature of our history that women whose husbands become peasant
leaders and are killed at the landowners’ behest take their place in the
struggle. What is unusual is that meetings should have been held to dis-
cuss the specific situation of the rural woman worker. First regional and
then state-level meetings took place, culminating in 1986 with the first
National Congress of Rural Women, attended by 350 delegates from all
over the country. Goals shared by all rural women, regardless of their
conditions of work, are the struggle for the unionization of women and
the demand that title to the land be granted to women, whether they have
families or are single, as well as to men. This last demand was a con-
stant feature in discussions over the National Agrarian Reform Plan pro-
posed by the present government, and an issue which, along with the
increasingly severe tensions over land conflicts, has fired the spirits of
rural workers in recent years.

The creation of a top-level government organization to stimulate, pro-

mote and guarantee equality between the sexes was a recommendation of
the World Plan for the Decade, confirmed in 1980 at the Copenhagen
Conference, primarily on the basis of an evaluation of existing national
experiences.22 Largely as a result of the authoritarian character of the
regime, however, this proposal was discussed neither at government nor
at non-government level, neither among the parties nor among the social
movement. With the issue of its own autonomy always on its agenda, the
women’s movement ran a course parallel to official institutional policy;
there was no dialogue or exchange. Only with the establishment of a
democratic government in 1982 did debate really begin about such an
official agency. The shift in the balance of power, with the election of
opposition candidates in the most developed states, opened the way for
Councils on the Condition of Women, concerned with the definition of
policy with respect to women, within the adminsitrative structure of state
government. The pioneer states were São Paulo and Minas Gerais. In
August 1985, on the initiative of the São Paulo State Council and the State
Secretary for Public Security, five reception posts (delegacias de defesa de
mulher) were set up in São Paulo City and some towns in the interior to
assist women who had been the victims of rape, beatings or any other
form of violence. This initiative was designed to overcome the restraints
which inhibit women from reporting crimes of a sexual nature, and for
this reason the posts are staffed exclusively by women. The São Paulo
Council has made it a priority to train and equip police and legal officers
for work of this kind, and the thirty-three posts now spread across eight-
een states enjoy great popular Surport.

21C. Spindel, ‘A “invisibilidade social” do trabalho da mulher na agricultura’, mimeo-

graphed paper, 9th Annual Meeting of ANPOCS.
22A.O. Costa, A política governamental e a mulher, São Paulo 1985.

87
The range of activity of the Councils on the Condition of Women is sur-
prising, particularly in view of their relative lack of access to public
resources. From a primarily symbolic activity, allowing the dissemination
of social consciousness of sexual inequalities, the Councils have been able
to go further and gradually break down the impenetrable structure of
state administrations, providing a steadily growing space for effective
policies directed to the needs of women. Today these Councils exist in
four more states, and have also been set up, at municipal level, in twelve
cities in Brazil.
The National Council for Women’s Rights

In 1984, by which time Brazilian women had accumulated nearly ten

years of experience and developed many demands, the National Cam-
paign for Direct Elections Now, calling for direct election of the President
of the Republic, set in motion a broad process of mobilization across the
country. Hundreds of thousands of people marched on the streets of the
largest cities bearing witness to strong popular pressure for effective par-
ticipation. Although an amendment providing for direct elections was
defeated in Congress, the struggle over the succession was able to build on
the existing momentum. The Democratic Alliance—a heterogeneous
coalition formed by the Party of the Liberal Front (PFL), a dissident
faction of the government PDS, and the PMDB—launched the candidacy of
Tancredo Neves for the presidency against the official candidate, Paulo
Maluf. As a result of the strength of the opposition revealed in the cam-
paign for direct elections, Neves was elected by official Electoral College
based on the National Congress. He died, however, before he could take
office, an episode which moved the entire country. The New Republic,
installed by indirect election, had as its first President a civilian, Jose
Sarney, Tancredo’s running mate for vice-president. Twenty-one years of
military rule had come to an end.
The accumulated organizational experience of women forced the govern-
ment to recognize the discrimination to which they were subjected in our
society. From the period of Tancredo’s candidacy discussions had been
taking place on the creation of a Council on the Condition of Women at
national level, and in September 1985 a Council for Women’s Rights
came into being. It constituted a historic watershed, the first time that the
federal government had recognized the existence of sexual inequality and
the importance of the activity of Brazilian women. The country thus
began to take the first steps, at federal level, to guarantee women full citi-
zenship within a global strategy for the construction of democracy. The
multi-party character of the Council contributes to the range of its activi-
ties, which have passed from merely formal declarations to the terrain of
concrete action.
The 1986 Elections and the Constituent Assembly

To the effervescence which generally precedes congressional elections

there was added in 1986 the contest over the choice of a new Constituent
Assembly, composed of the federal deputies and senators elected by
each state, and responsible for writing a constitution for the consolida-
tion of a still fragile democracy. Although Brazil at present has a civilian
88
government, the remnants of the authoritarianism imposed on the
country by military governments from 1964 onwards still make them-
selves felt. It is sufficient to remember that the president of the country
was chosen not in a direct election but through an indirect process
centred on Congress. In this context, the new Magna Carta represents the
decisive step towards an effective transformation at the institutional level.

The efforts of political groups and economic interests active in the coun-
try are concentrated at present on guaranteeing their representation in
the new order. Women who have been politically active over the last
decade are among them, and the 559-member Constituent Assembly con-
tains a substantial group of twenty-six women. This has no historical pre-
cedent in Brazil. In 1933 Carlota Pereira de Queiroz was the only woman
deputy to enter the Constituent Assembly,23 and in 1946 no woman was
elected. Indeed, the women elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1986
outnumber the cumulative total of women elected to Congress in the
whole history of the Republic. A further advance is the presence of a
black woman among them.

The composition of the bloc of women members is heterogeneous. In

terms of party affiliation, the Left elected a higher proportion of women
than the Right. Thus the right-wing PDS elected 6 per cent of members
but only 4 per cent of women members; the centre-right PFL elected 26
per cent and 27 per cent respectively, and the centrist PMDB 53 per cent
and 38 per cent; the Left, including the Communists (both pro-Soviet and
pro-Chinese, now legalized), the Socialists and the Workers’ Party (PT),
took 5 per cent of the seats but elected 15 per cent of the women. The
women’s bloc has a different composition from that of Congress, with the
balance tilted a little more to the left, and a probable tendency to more
progressive action. The regional balance is less favourable, as the less
influential states account for the bulk of the women elected.

The election of women was not directly linked to their activity in the
political arena. Some are political militants or feminists of long standing;
others owe their election to the political prestige of their father or hus-
band. One thing, however, appears certain. The significant weight of the
women’s movement among the social struggles in the country in recent
years has put onto the Congress agenda such issues as equal wages, equal-
ity in the civil code, and the provision of creches.

After a period of fragmentation, then, feminism has become institution-

alized, above all through participation in the apparatus of the state,
reflecting its recognition and legitimacy and providing an effective chan-
nel for pressure on the decision-making process. But it also expresses its
loss of ground as a social movement, at the level of civil society. The
23
Another woman, Almerinda Gama, was present in the Constituent Assembly as one
of the forty ‘class’ representatives (twenty from the employers’ union and twenty from
the workers’ unions) who also participated in the writing of the 1934 Constitution. See
Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher, Mulher e Constituinte, Brasilia 1985.

89
women’s social movement made one thing clear, and this is its most
evident gain. Its impact has given the problem of gender identity a social
presence of which account must now be taken. For this reason, although
the final shape of the constitution has not yet been clearly delineated,
everything indicates that the recent social struggles of Brazilian women
will echo through the new institutional order.

90