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Introduction

Women’s societal roles in Brazil have been heavily impacted by the patriarchal traditions of Iberian culture, which hold women subordinate to men in familial and community relationships [1] As the largest catholic nation in the world, religion has also had an important impact on the perception of women in Brazil, though over the past century the Brazilian government has broken with the Catholic church in regard to issues concerning reproductive rights. Brazil is though to posses most organized and effective women's movement in Latin America, with visible gains having been made in favor of the legal and political rights of women. [2] Despite the gains made in women's rights over the past century, significant gender inequality persists in Brazil today and is most pronounced in the rural areas of the Northeast. [3] In 2010, the United Nations ranked Brazil 73rd out of 169 nations based on the Gender Inequality Index, which measure women’s disadvantages in the areas of reproductive rights, empowerment and economic activity. [4]. Women’s movements in Brazil have traditionally been led and supported by upper middle class women and tend to be reformist rather than revolutionary in nature, though clear exceptions exist to these assertions. [5] Though suffrage was granted in the 1930s, it was not until the 1970s and onwards that a broader, more potent women’s movement took hold in Brazil.

Suffrage movement

Brazil was the fourth country in the world to grant women to right to vote in 1932, following the United States, Canada and Ecuador. [6] Though a feminist movement had existed in Brazil since the mid-nineteenth century and women did petitions for suffrage to be included in the 1891 Republican Constitution, the drive towards enfranchisement did began in earnest under the leadership feminist, biologist and lawyer, [[Bertha Lutz]. [7] Following the publication of an article in the Revista da Semana, which called upon women to prove their worthiness to men through their achievements and organize to demand the right to vote, various women’s organizations appeared.[8] Lutz founded her own organization in conjunction with American suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt in 1922, the Brazilian Federation for the Advancement of Women, which would become the leading suffrage organization of Brazil and was affiliated with the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance.[9] Brazilian suffragists were literate, professional women, and made up only a small percentage of the female population in Brazil, which remained largely illiterate. The campaign for suffrage was by no means a mass movement, and was decidedly moderate in nature. [10] The decidedly conservative character of the suffrage movement provoked little resistance from government, and suffrage was declared by Getulio Vargas in 1932 and confirmed in the 1934 Constitution.[11] Just two years after women’s suffrage was declared in the 5th Constitution of Brazil, there were two women in Congress, ten female mayors and assemblywomen, and thirty councilwomen in Brazil. [12] Though government jobs had been available to women in the passed, women had not held electoral positions until after suffrage was won.

Constitutional Rights

5th Constitution of 1934

Appointed by the Provisional Government in 1933 to draft the first page of the new Constitution, Bertha Lutz included various provisions regarding equal rights between men and women. Not only were women granted the equal right to hold government office, equal pay for equal work, but also given preference over men in all government jobs dealing with home, motherhood, children, and working conditions for women. [13] The preferential treatment afforded to women in regard to certain government positions was controversial at the time.

Citizen’s Constitution of 1988

The Citizen’s Constitution declared women equal to men in all legal respects, explicitly stating in Article 5 of Title II that “men and women have equal rights and duties under the terms of this Constitution.” [14]The National Council on Women’s rights, formed in 1975, advocated successfully on behalf of including gender conscious in the new constitution. [15] At the suggestion of the Council, a clause was added to the document announcing that land distributed by agrarian reform could be assigned and titled “in the name of the man, woman, or both, independent of civil status.” [16]This was the first time in Brazilian history that women could legally be named beneficiaries of agrarian reform measures. The 1988 constitution also declared for the first time that urban and rural women and men had to same rights to social security benefits. [17] Despite the declaration of such rights, as of 2000, institutions had not been established to enable or enforce gender equality in land reform issues. [18]

Economic Rights

Property Rights

Under the Civil Code of Brazil, married women could not lawfully acquire or possess their own property until 1962. [19] Presently, inheritance law differs based on matrimonial regimes, of which there are four. Below the full common-property regime, which was inherited from the Portuguese legal tradition, widows do not inherit from husbands unless there are no living children or parents. Under the separation of profits regime, which is default regime, widows have the right to one-quarter to one-half their husbands’ estates (depending on the presence of chidren), yet are not granted ownership rights over this any property inherited and automatically loses all privileges if she remarries.[20] This regime has been criticized as positioning widows as mere custodians of property for children, rather than legitimate property owners. [21] Indeed, studies show that a women’s ability to exercise her right to inherited property was largely influenced by whether she is viewed as a potential agriculturalists.[22] Women are often denied access to inherited property because they do not inherit from their fathers and are not recognized as worthy heads of productive units. [23] Though hough consensual unions were recognized by the 1988 Constitution, women were not endowed with the same inheritance rights until 1994. [24]

With the return to civilian rule in 1985, President José Sarney made the more equitable distribution of land one of his attested objectives, issuing a directive to Ministry of Agrarian Reform and Land Development in 1986 urging that beneficiaries of land be chose “independently of sex.”[25] In conjunction with the democratic opening of the 1980s, a rural women’s movement emerged with calls for inclusion of women in rural unions and guarantee of social security benefits, such as paid maternity leave and retirement pensions, for rural women. The National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG), which is the largest organization of agricultural workers in Brazil, tackled women’s rights for the first time during its fourth congress in 1985, when it decided to extend membership to more women and actively work to end discrimination against women. [26] Demands for more equitable agrarian property rights, championed by organizations such as the Central Worker’s Union, the Ministry of Agriculture, the national women’s council led to agrarian reform measures in the 1988 Constitution. [27] Grievances still abound regarding equal land distribution in Brazil, evident in the Marcha da Margaridas of 2000, in which over fifteen thousand women marched on the capital to demand joint allocation of land to couples, rather than just men. [28]

Employment and Contracts

Though large parts of the female population remained illiterate by the late 19th century, a growing number of middle-class women began to higher education and work outside of the home. Many early female workers found employment in school, government and commercial offices. The formation of the Union of Professional Women in the 1920s, which embraced university and professional women, played a large role in the suffrage movement. By 1936, over a million Brazilian women worked outside the home, which led to changing perceptions of women’s family roles and a remodeling of the nation’s commercial usages (Garciaro 1936). Despite the growing number of women in the workforce, women’s employment rights were not fully addressed until 1978, with the passage of a law declaring that women be paid equally for equal work. Working class women began to organize on behalf of women’s issues in the 1970s, and this interclass alliance has done much to strengthen the women’s movement in Brazil. Working class women’s organizations, such as the Housewives’ Association of Sao Paulo and the Mothers’ Club of Sao Paulo, became increasingly important areas for women to express grievances with regard to care work and the cost of urban living. Women’s involvement and leadership among unions have been less successful, as is often the case in other Latin American countries. The first Congress of Female Metalworkers of Sao Paulo, help in 1978, was harassed and threatened by employers to the extent that only 300 of the 800 women who had signed up actually attended. Current female participation in the labor market is 65 percent for women compared to 85 percen for men

Prostitution and Sex Worker’s Rights

Though the exchange of money for sex is legal in Brazil, it is illegal to operate a brothel or employ prostitutes and punishable by up to five years in jail. Prostitution is not considered a profession and hence sex workers do not have labor rights. Fernando Gabeira, founder of the Green Party, introduced a piece of legislation to Congress to establish prostitution as a recognized profession, though the bill was defeated in 2007.

Center for the Study of Prostitution (NEP) Brazil's National Network of Sex Professionals

Reproductive Rights

Contraception

Until the legalization of contraceptives in the early twentieth century, Brazilian law placed contraception, abortion and immorality in the same classification. Three factors that have impacted contraceptive laws on Brazil are the influence of the Catholic Church, the legacy of Iberian culture, and the historically conservative approach to women’s status in Latin America. BEMFAM (Bem-Estar Familiar no Brasil), which is funded by Planned Parenthood international, is the leading NGO in the country dedicated to family planning in Brazil. A laissez-faire attitude adopted on the part of the Brazilian government in the 1960s has led to predominance of private organizations in providing family planning services. The government has of late taken measure to extend planning to poorer Brazilians, subsidizing birth control pills and sterilization at government clinics. The current birth rate in Brazil is at about replacement rate at 2.18 births per woman estimated for the year 2011. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/br.html>Brazil has witnessed one of the most dramatic reductions in family size in modern history. Indeed, the average number of children per Brazilian women has been steadily decreasing for over the past four decades due in large part to the use of contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion. <http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/brazil.html#9>.

Sterilization has become increasingly popular in Brazil since it became legal and free for women over 25 in 1996 and is regulated by the Health Ministry Decree 144. Sterilization had been a popular practice among poor communities before the legalization of sterilization, and was practiced in private clinics. In 1994, over sixty percent of women in Goias, and over seventy percent of women in Maranhao and Mato Grosso were sterilized. After the 1996 law, sterilization became part of the population control policy of the Brazilian government at this time. Though some view sterilization as an inexpensive form of birth control and useful tool in population control, others see the mass use of sterilization in Brazil as contrary to promoting women’s choices in contraceptive use. Indeed, sterilization is most common among Afro-Brazilians in the Northeast of the country who are too poor to afford other types of contraception and uneducated on the consequences of sterilization. Scholars such as Andre Caetano and Potter claim that sterilization has been used as a political means of garnering votes while controlling population growth among Afro-Brazilians. [29]

Abortion

Abortion is illegal in Brazil except for the case of rape, or when the mother’s life is in danger. Though abortions are against the law, it is estimated that over one million abortions are performed in Brazil each year, though data on abortion incidence is not systemically collected. Over two hundred thousand women are treated for abortion complications each year in Brazilian hospitals. [30] The punishment for a woman performing an abortion on herself or consenting to an abortion is one to three years imprisonment. The punishment for those performing abortions is one to fours years of imprisonment, and this number increases by one-third if harm is caused to the women, or one-half if the abortion leads to the death of the woman. [31]

Rape and Sexual Violence

Sexual Harassment

Views on sexual harassment in Brazil has been influenced by both culture and sexual harassment laws, making for a disconnect between official regulations and general attitudes. [32] In a study done by Rebecca Merkin, it was found that unlike their American counterparts, women in Brazil do not express decreased job satisfaction when face with sexual harassment, illuminating the more acceptable nature of sexual harassment in Brazil. [33] Following the passage of the 1988 Constitution, a law was passed in 1991 outlawing sexual harassment and making it a crime punishable by a fine of up to $20,000. In 2001, a contentious law was passed under the civil code making raising to one to two years of imprisonment. [34] Despite the presence of such strict regulations, Brazil has one of the worst reputations in terms of harassment of women in the workplace and in the home. Fiedler and Blanco claim that men rarely follow sexual harassment laws, and that few sexual harassment cases have been brought to trial in Brazil. [35]

Age of Consent and Statutory Rape

The age of consent in Brazil is 18, and

Domestic Violence

Human Rights and Women’s Rights

Women’s rights have long been connected with broader political issues, and as such demands from women’s groups have been articulated within the context more general social issues related to democratization and socioeconomic inequality. Most of those women involved in feminist movement were also involved in other political movements and the formation of political parties. [36] Hence, the women’s movement in Brazil has often been understood in the larger context of a push towards greater political participation. The Amnesty movement was one that gained much support from feminists, evident in the establishment of the Feminine Movement for Amnesty of the 1970s. At the same time, feminist movements have attempted to maintain balance between their specific goals and wider political demands. [37]

Key Activists and Organizations

Nísia Floresta

Bertha Lutz

Carmen Lucía Paz

National Council on Women

Feminine Movement for Amnesty

Center for the Development of Brazilian Women

Brazilian Women’s Center

Family Welfare in Brazil (BEM-FAM)

National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG)

Center for the Study of Prostitution (NEP)

Brazil's National Network of Sex Professionals

  1. ^ Metcalf, Alida C. Women and Means: Women and Family Property in Colonial Brazil, Journal of Social History. Vol. 24, No 2 (Winter 1990) pp. 277-298
  2. ^ Fiedler, A. M., & Blanco, R. I. (2006). The Challenge of Varying Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: An International Study. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 7, 274-291
  3. ^ Caipora (Organization). Women in Brazil. London: Latin American Bureau, 1993. Consideration of reports submitted by states parties under article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: combined initial, second, third, fourth and fifth periodic reports of states parties : Brazil. New York: United Nations, 2002
  4. ^ http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/89106.html
  5. ^ Schmink, Marianne. Women in Brazilian Abertura Politics. Signs. Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 115-134
  6. ^ Hahner, June Edith. “The Beginnings of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Brazil.” Signs. Vol. 5. No. 1. Women in Latin America (Autumn 1979). Pp. 200-204
  7. ^ Hahner, June Edith. Emancipating the Female Sex: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Brazil, 1850-1940. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
  8. ^ Hahner, June Edith. Emancipating the Female Sex: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Brazil, 1850-1940. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
  9. ^ Hahner, June Edith. Emancipating the Female Sex: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Brazil, 1850-1940. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
  10. ^ Hahner, June Edith. “Women’s Rights and the Suffrage Movement in Brazil, 1850-1932.” Latin American Research Review. Vol. 5. No. 1. (1980) pp. 65-111.
  11. ^ Hahner, June Edith. Emancipating the Female Sex: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Brazil, 1850-1940. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
  12. ^ Garciario, Frank M. “BRAZIL'S WOMEN SCORE GAINS: Their Right to Vote Is Widely Used and a Million Hold Jobs Out.” New York Times (1923-Current file); Nov 8, 1936; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2007) pg. D9
  13. ^ Garciario, Frank M. “BRAZIL'S WOMEN SCORE GAINS: Their Right to Vote Is Widely Used and a Million Hold Jobs Out.” New York Times. pg. D9
  14. ^ http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Brazil/.html
  15. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  16. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  17. ^ Dore, Elizabeth. Gender Politics in Latin America: Debates in Theory and Practice. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997.
  18. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  19. ^ Crake, Nikki, and Maxine Molyneux. Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
  20. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  21. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  22. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  23. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  24. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  25. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  26. ^ Dore, Elizabeth. Gender Politics in Latin America: Debates in Theory and Practice. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997.
  27. ^ Eva Alterman Blay. “Social Movements and Women's Participation in Brazil.” International Political Science Review. Vol. 6. No. 3. Women in Politics (1985). pp. 297-305.
  28. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  29. ^ Caetano, André J. and Joseph E. Potter. Politics and Female Sterilization in Northeast Brazil. Population and Development Review. Vol. 30, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 79-108
  30. ^ IPAS.org
  31. ^ Reed Boland, The Current Status of Abortion Laws in Latin America: Prospects and Strategies for Change, The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, vol. 21, issue 69, Spring 1993.
  32. ^ Fiedler, A. M., & Blanco, R. I. (2006). The Challenge of Varying Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: An International Study. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 7, 274-291
  33. ^ Merkin, R. “South American perspectives on sexual harassment: The standpoint in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile”, Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 10. 2009, 357-376.
  34. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1253870.stm
  35. ^ Fiedler, A. M., & Blanco, R. I. (2006). The Challenge of Varying Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: An International Study. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 7, 274-291
  36. ^ Deere, Carmen Diana. Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  37. ^ Dore, Elizabeth. Gender Politics in Latin America: Debates in Theory and Practice. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997.
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