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To challenge patriarchal structures
In June 2008 we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the last feminist conference that took place in Portugal: the 2nd Feminist and Education Conference. Organized by the Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas (National Council of Portuguese Women), it was up to a new generation of women of that era to open the conference, which was performed by Elina Guimarães.
Like in those days, the need to challenge society’s patriarchal structures, which still tie women to situations of oppression and discrimination, and the importance of building ‘another possible world’, that is also feminist, constitute the essence of this impulse to generate a strong movement that leading to the realization of a Feminist Conference in 2008.
In the early 20th century it was the right to vote, the right to education and to work that mobilized intellectuals, progressives and feminists (men and women) to ensure equal rights between men and women. The half-a-century of fascist regime came as a huge step back on that road towards equality: the situation regressed in terms of education (women lost more ground, although it also regressed for men), in terms of the right to work, of their economical independence and in terms of the rights to civil and political participation (equally restricted for men). Some feminist organizations resisted still some decades of fascism, as was the case of the Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas (National Council of Portuguese Women) and the Associação Feminina para a Paz (Feminine Association for Peace), but the regime would end up prohibiting their activities, closing down their offices and persecuting their leaders.
The beginning of the 70s marked an advance for women with regard to education: coeducation was reinstalled and girls were (already, in fact since the previous decade) investing in continuing high school and, after, persuing higher education degrees (these trends occur already after the 25th of April). This investment in formal education opened doors for women to work in the service sector, namely as teachers, nurses or working in public administration and had great significance for the independence of the middle class female population. However, their citizenship rights continued to be significantly curtailed since women could then only work with the permission of their husbands; their husbands could collect their salaries; patriarchy ruled completely within the family domain; not all women had the right to vote and their political participation was only permitted when favouring the regime.
The Revolution of the 25th of April opened the doors of civil and political participation to women and it also had an enormous significance in terms of the labour rights of the working classes – “equal pay for equal work” – in supporting working mothers by increasing the number of nurseries and kindergartens and implementing other policies supporting motherhood.
Important changes were also observed in the domestic and family context – the Civil Code changed and eliminated the figure of the head-of-household – even though concerns regarding violence against women only made it onto the political agenda close to the end of the 20th century. Regarding the sexual and affective life, one could equally notice things clearly moved forward in terms of family planning and contraception, although issues regarding sexual and reproductive rights, ‘abortion, sexual education and sexual orientation,’ remained at a standstill. The 25th of April meant great progress for the feminine population of the working classes, but the long repression of feminism under the fascist regime and the absence of a feminist conscience in the Portuguese Left signified a marked paralysis in certain dimensions of women’s lives, namely the family, the affective, sexual and reproductive.
The 21st century came with improvements regarding the issue of domestic violence, with its new legal definition as public crime, and seven years after that a smashing victory of the YES in the referendum for a new abortion law, signalling a new stage for Portuguese feminism. So, though the historical memory of feminisms had been erased through the 50s and ‘feminism’ became an unpopular expression no longer part of the political vocabulary, even in a democratic Portugal, some pioneering organizations and female protagonists have been keeping the testimony and carrying the feminist ideals and causes till today.
Already in this century, and also notable, was the conquest of parity in politics, a legal move that may only be fully realized if completed by parity in terms of private and professional life. The historical victory of the YES in the referendum for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, by advancing one of the important dimensions in the determination of our destiny as women, opens a new stage to women in Portugal. This victory of the YES in the referendum for the depenalization of abortion represented the achieving of a citizenship right till then barred to women: the right to decide on their maternity. Women’s right to choose was the issue that brought most unease to the conservative forces that aligned with the NO. A stronghold of domination over women was broken and that is why we speak of a new political framework offering better conditions for the expression of women’s struggles for their rights and for social affirmation. Maybe we can state that, in social terms, ‘feminism’ is no longer an obscure word. Nevertheless, its true meaning has not yet been fully recognized, in its triple dimension, as an epistemological perspective (for scientific inquiry), as a philosophy (a set of ideas and principles that guide a perspective on the world and way of life), and as a framework for political and activist intervention. Even so, the growing numbers of women (and men) that affirm their feminism in science, in literature, in art, in work, in politics, or in intervention show that we are not ashamed or afraid of calling ourselves feminist anymore. Moreover, with great humility and the conscience that feminism is plural. This conference comes at a time in which it is necessary to put on the agenda that women have not yet achieved equality, even if moves in the right direction have been made. Patriarchy is still strongly rooted in our social structures (economical, political, legal, cultural, sexual, familial), as in the representations and in the structures and dispositions, symbolic and mental, that set the conditions for its continued reproduction.
The structural axes of discrimination are situated:
- in the access to employment where young men are chosen above young women even when the latter are better qualified and trained;
- in the persisting of wage discrimination, even against the legal precept of “equal pay for equal work”;
- in the deterioration of the living conditions of women in the worse off sectors of society, particularly since 2002, with higher unemployment and poverty rates;
- in the lack of access to leadership positions, even when their curriculum is better;
- in the lack of access to top political offices;
- in the huge overload of work that falls upon them, especially regarding domestic and care-giving tasks;
- in the application of maternity rights, particularly in the case of the working class professions and the erudite classes’ careers such as the academic, management, etc.;
- in the discrimination based on sexual orientation;
- in the discrimination in terms of socialization, due to stereotypes;
UMAR feels that it is its historical duty to bring about a great iniciative that contributes to the affirmation of feminisms in Portuguese society, appealing to broader social, cultural, associational and political sectors. That is how the idea of organising a Feminist Conference, during the 26th, 27th and 28th of June 2008, came about.
Its main end is: - to give visibility to, and simultaneously to encourage the contributions of women in society, in science, in art, in literature, in politics, in business, in work, in private life, in the family.
To this measure, the objectives of the Conference are: - to bring visibility to feminisms as a plural line of thought and action in Portuguese society, where feminist research and activism can find spaces of encounter and interaction;
- to engage diverse social, cultural, associational and political sectors so that feminisms project beyond universities and as a way of reconfiguring citizen participation and democracy itself;
- to create a context for the debate and expression of different forms of artistic and communicative intervention, around new themes that involve intercultural debate and dialogue between multiple social actors.
Already, a vast Promoting Committee, coming from diverse areas of Portuguese society, has joined this iniciative, showing how together we can fight for a more balanced society in terms of gender relations in Portugal. |
