50 years of the Military Dictatorship in Brazil: gender and feminist questions

Abstract

If political history is a manly thing, the history of the military dictatorship in Brazil is the radicalization of the feminine invisibility. The female political activist, engaged in political parties opposed to the dictatorship, was not seen as a historical subject, being excluded from the power scenario. Despite the many women who fought for the country’s re-democratization process, they were excluded from the historical accounts and documentation about this period. As seen by the military, the female political activist committed two sins, i.e., the insurgency against the coup policy and the disregard for the place that should be occupied by women, disrespecting established standards for both sexes. The repression used to characterize the female political activist as a “communist whore”. Both categories are deviations from the patterns established by society that incarcerates women in private and domestic spaces. Even the left wing did not allow the debate about gender relations because there was a much bigger contradiction to be resolved, i.e., the opposition between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This made the male power even stronger. Thus, feminist issues were seen as divisive of the main struggle.