FEMINIST MOVEMENTS IN THE BEGGINING OF THE XX CENTURY
Feminist movements were in fast development in Europe from mid nineteen century on, with its main focus on suffrage. Portugal made no exception. However the first initiatives that started by the end the XIX century were restricted to a limited circle of believers on equality of sex and the circle did not expand much until 1907-1908, on the verge of the change of regime, and, when it did, it was by direct interference of republican prominent leaders - men, of course.
This particularity would, in my opinion, give historical feminism in Portugal its quite unique features and destiny, because it was supposed to become an asset to the republican cause, as well as to the cause of the emancipation of women.
If not for that reason, the country did not seem to have much in its favor to be singled out for accomplishments in this special field. There was no tradition of women playing a role in public life as other southern European societies.
We know that throughout the centuries our historians portrayed a few outstanding women, monarchs, heads of state or acting as such, very influential and powerful Queens of Portugal, ruling side by side with their husbands or descent, unexpected fighters in heroic battles in faraway lands of the empire - in the Portuguese half of the world as divided by a Pope... - and a few remarkable writers, poets, artists, and even leaders or participants of mass upraises, the last one in the memory of the people being the mythical Maria da Fonte and her followers ... They were accepted and admired by their contemporaries as exceptions - our own "iron ladies".
However, european ideas, tendencies, social movements, sooner or later, had its effects among us and later than sooner "feminism" did.
By 1902, a leading intellectual and feminist Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcelos - German born, Portuguese by marriage, and the first woman to belong to the Academy of Sciences and to become professor of the University of Coimbra - wrote that there was no women's organization at all in the country and - what is still worse - that from her point of view, the point of view of someone born and brought up abroad, women's political participation was unthinkable, seen as unnatural by portuguese standards(1).
At the time, French or British feminists were already promoting huge marches of protest against discrimination through the avenues of Paris or London. In 1903, Mrs. Pankhurst was engaged in setting up the "Women Social and Political Union". In 1910, the so called "suffragettes", her potent and radical movement, organized a march that walked through several miles of streets in London on the way to the parliament, the very day a proposal on feminine suffrage was defeated. Over 200 MP'S had supported it - many, but not enough... In the same circumstances, every time an electoral law of the their Republic denied them the right to vote, the Portuguese put all their indignation in a carefully and beautifully written paper or asked for an audience to express their disillusion to a sympathetic but ineffective high dignitary - the President of the Republic himself, or the Prime Minister, or the Speaker of the House... (2)
In this field, progress or malfunction had more to do with a cultural gap “north-south” than with the nature of the regime. Stable Nordic monarchies like Denmark, Norway and Sweden, did not need to envisage a change of system in order to improve women's status - they set an example of good laws and good practices much earlier than the two revolutionary Republics, France and Portugal, and many other countries in the world...(3)
In Denmark, women were on the way to get the right to vote at local level (1908) even if they had to wait until 1915 to equal unrestricted vote in all elections and until 1921 to access to all careers, army excepted. In Norway, Camilia Collet was a pioneer activist, since 1884, followed, in the beginning of the new century, by Gina Kroeg, founder of the "Union for Working Women". Norwegian women advanced step by step, since the end of the XIX century, as full members of School Councils (1889), Social Security Councils (1890), and Municipal Councils (1901). In 1907 they were recognized as citizens with the right to vote at local and, at national level. In 1911 the first Norwegian woman was elected to parliament. By 1912 most of the careers in the public sector were open to them. In Sweden clever support of the "cause" in the literary domain and religious ideals of fraternity seem to have played a more important role than the constitutional arguments or the involvement of political personalities, mainly through the thesis and action of Frederika Bremer, contemporary of feminist writers like Ibsen or Ellen Key and herself an acknowledged writer, literary critic and a great speaker and campaigner as well. Sweden was the last northern country to approve legislation on women’s vote and eligibility for the parliament in 1919, three years later than Island. Finland had been the first to open up in this domain: in 1906 they approved the necessary electoral law, in 1907 they elected the first feminine parliamentarian..
Southern Europe pursued the trend much later. In fact, in the region, only Spain was ahead of Portugal. (4)
WOMEN OUT OF THE SHADOWS
FEMINISM IN PORTUGAL
A brief chronology
As expected by those who knew the dominant mentality on what concerned women's place in Portuguese public life, the feminist movement was not to get the same kind of visibility and popular recognition. Even historians, nowadays, tend to under evaluate their influence in the birth of the new times. The history of Portuguese women is still in waiting, unwritten to the full extent of its worth as Elina Guimarães, the last survivor of that dazzling generation appropriately asserted.( ) Facts are available. Women were there as the living proof that the female half of the republic was capable of living up to the social and cultural revolutionary ideals of gender equality, along with the visions of a new order in State and society.
In fact, Portuguese feminism was never a vast mass movement, and although it engrossed gradually with a significant number of strong-willed, well-learned women, it was not shaped to be as successful as it should have been, for several reasons, none having to do with their own capacity to make things work out better – in other time, other place…
When you compare their cultural background, and political arguments as expressed in speeches, and writings, to other leaders of European countries you find no “gap” at all...
Among them, before and after the revolution, there are illustrious medical doctors, like Adelaide Cabete or Carolina Ângelo, writers like Ana de Castro Osório, Sara Beirão or Maria Lamas, teachers like Maria Veleda, Clara Correia Alves or Alice Pestana, journalists like Albertina Paraíso or Virgínia Quaresma. Lawyers like Regina Quintanilha or Elina Guimarães (then a very young graduate).
A distinguished elite, in the company of a minority of few thousands of female citizens, unfortunately more and more divided, like republican politicians, themselves, yet not for the same reasons - just because some of the feminists, as the revolution went on and left them behind, took it better than others.
Regrettably, they had a late appearance in the course of action for Women’s rights, they occupied their political and civic space for more or less 20 years and then their lessons or patterns of civic intervention were practically forgotten and lost, after the collapse of the Republic and the advent of a long and very misogynous dictatorship, never to regain the same human dimension and radiance. (5)
We will briefly look into these two decades- from 1906/7 to 1926.
Initiatives undertaken in the end of the XIX century, interesting as they were, as the first “Feminist Congress” ,in 1892, or the first feminine newspaper (A Fronda) ,in 1897, had such limited impact that Carolina Michaelis in her judgment of feminine enterprises does not take them into due consideration.
In 1904, a few brave women did participate in the first "Congress of Freethinking"( Congresso do Livre Pensamento) - names that would be part of the history of the Republic, like Adelaide Cabete and Maria Veleda, among others.
Congresses, huge political meetings, as well as daily activities in republican centers played an important role in conscientious raising that made the impossible revolution possible. Women became partners more and more accepted and welcomed in the intense and clever effort of propaganda widened by such means. Many of them got drawn in the daily life of Masson organizations, in journalism, in associations providing all kinds of social help, to children and needy girls or women, including educational and vocational training. By the turning of the century, republican centers and clubs were being set up all over the country, many involved in social and cultural activities, publishing papers and leaflets, in an attempt to spread the republican party line, the promises of an era of freedom, prosperity, democracy, and equal participation for all. Women gained access to such clubs, mainly in Lisbon and other minor cosmopolitan urban areas. It was the proper way to prepare them for future headship and political commitment, even if, as we cannot ignore, they were given the opportunity to work for the victory of the republican cause rather than for the success of their suffragist agenda, as they would soon find out....
In 1908, leaders, like Ana de Castro Osório and Adelaide Cabete, were invited by António José de Almeida and other major members of the party, to join the Portuguese Republican Party (PRP) in an organization of their own, the "Republican League of Portuguese Women". In 1909, the "League” became a formal structure of the party.
In 1911, the denial of the suffrage in the legislation passed in March and April, grounded discontent that would lead to the coming apart of the "League". Mrs. Osório and Dr. Carolina Ângelo set up the "Association on Feminine Propaganda" APF, (Associação de Propaganda Feminista") that became a member of the "International Women Suffrage Alliance".
In 1913, a new electoral law unequivocally excluded female citizens. In 1914, another founder of the "League", Dr. Cabete formed the "National Council of Portuguese Women” (Conselho National das Mulheres Portuguesas), that was admitted to the International Council of Women, another international suffragist organization.(6)
In 1918, the electoral Law-decree, of March 30, did not open suffrage to women, and the same happened in 1919 (Decrees of March 1 and April 11). By then, no major founder remained in the League. They pursued their different ways, even if, from 1914 to 1918, they were once again all in agreement in defense of Portugal participating in the world war. In 1914, the Committee "Pro Pátria" was founded. In 1916, Ana de Castro Osório's "Portuguese Women Cruzade” (Cruzada das Mulheres Portuguesas) was very dynamic, not only in the diffusion of propaganda but also in the direct help of wounded soldiers through “Committees” of nurses, regulated and supported by the government.
In 1924, the I Congress on Feminism and Education (I Congresso Feminista e da Educação) was held. President Teixeira Lopes and future (soon to be) President Bernardino Machado were there, along with several high dignitaries. In 1928, already under incipient dictatorship, a second and last Congress took place.
The vote came 3 years later, ironically by the hand of Salazar, the quintessence of antifeminism - a restricted vote as proposed and defeated many a time during the 16 agitated years of the first Republic. (7)
2 - A TOUCH OF LONG LASTING MODERNISM
Portuguese feminists gained a few important battles, like education for women, co-education, more or less egalitarian civil laws, divorce, more opportunity for professional work, involvement in politics, in journalism, in sciences and arts. They got the moral certainty of having contributed to change and democracy...
However, they were never full citizens in the new Republic, as they never acquired the right to vote, excepting for the unique experience of Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, who became an historical exception, by voting in the very first elections after the revolution, in May 1911(8).
None of them would ever have the option of running for parliament, like Mrs. Pankhurst, or of being elected as a Member of Parliament - as Lady Astor was, in England, soon after the end of the first war... But in the 8th of March 1988, more than 8 decades after the commencement of their long struggle for emancipation and of the setting up by Cabete, Osório and others of the "Group of Women' Studies", by proposal of poet Natália Correia, then a Member of Parliament, a tribute was paid to them in the House. They were at last, "given the floor” through the voices of women of our generation ". (9)
Their language sounded surprisingly meaningful, significant and up to date. We would not say it differently... Their words point out to many challenges still to be met.
As Angelina Vidal put it:
"For us the emancipation of women is the founding stone of public morality. We recognize many difficulties to reach such a fair scope, but we cannot forget that all the great ideals of what is fair or beautiful or lawful worked out through sacrifices and merit of successive generations were formerly considered as utopias.
And in two other very interesting remarks she concluded: “We cannot separate our emancipation from men’s emancipation”. Freedom does not tolerate any kind of slavery, only freed women may bring into being free, strong, moral and healthy societies (10)
Emmeline Pankhurst who said "if civilization is to advance at all, it must be through the help of women, freed of their political shackles, women with full power to work their will in society" would agree….
Maria Veleda went along the same reasoning:
"We want a new world, without discrimination based on race, caste, without discouraging laws, without slavery of any kind, without mistrust between sexes... men and women united to reach the same scope, to share the same possessions, rights and ideals" (...) women have to walk side by side with men, calm, spirited and self-possessed”.
She defends education and the need of professional training for women and equal participation - topics still in our agenda. And she calls attention to the fact that lack of direct participation may induce evil forms of compensation: "If a woman can't elect she may conspire, she has done so in any different age, or fought with arms in their hands like those sturdy peasants who followed Maria da Fonte" (9)
Alice Pestana (her pseudonym “Caiel”) is considered more a pacifist than a conventional feminist, but in fact I think she was both. President of the "Portuguese League for Peace", since 1889, a synthesis of her thought was presented in the parliamentarian session we are referring to: “The Portuguese Nation must give women modern learning, mobilize her to get interest in social actuality they now think about much more with their heart than with adequate comprehension, instruction and intellectual capacity”.
She is above all a “peace fighter” engaged in a “war against war”:
“We ask for the creation of Committees for the cause if peace in each country, so that in the XX century we may live in harmony, meaning peace, freedom, and justice”. (10)
Nonetheless, she makes an exception, not seen as a contradiction, for what she designates the battle for a noble cause, stating that women, “have been on the side of justice, democracy and peace throughout the ages, even when written history does not mention it. In classical armies she usually finds no place, but in “guerilla”, resistance or liberation armies, in mass movements she is present.” She, specifically, refers to mass movements as those contributing to the process of independency and the foundation of national identity in Portugal.
Ana de Castro Osório was next in the list of speakers, through the voice of another XX century MP. Mrs. Osório was almost certainly the most famous of the feminists of her time and also the one who seems to have been the first one to fear the incapacity of the Republic to carry out the promise of feminine suffrage, as she once wrote: “If a Republic does exclude us from its civic laws, we cannot consider ours the country where we have no rights, where we don’t have a voice to protest”.
Suffrage is her priority, and a target always pursued and never attained, yet she does not minimize progress where it really happened, as in social and cultural spheres – education, more family rights, opportunities of revealing unexpected competence in social and civic activities, or in professional work. She stresses that things had already changed:
“One who would defend the idea of feminine subjection or inferiority in a public statement would be compared to those who would have the poor courage of being in favor of slavery".
“To be feminist does not scare anyone today, because the advancements brought by feminism are so many and so revealing of the high principles that guide intelligent women, that opponents do not dare speak against it - even if they wanted to - because their opinion would be considered as outrageous”.
Many a time she addresses “true feminism” in precisely that logic: “to be feminist is a duty of all parents". It has to do with "the aim of educating women in a practical and useful way", to turn them into “sensible and able human beings free from dependence, that denies human dignity”.
According to her, true feminism is to be shared by men and women. It is not to be seen simply as part of the social problems of class struggle or poverty. The rights of poor or wealthy women, commoners or aristocrats are to be taken in the same level of importance.
On the other side, states Mrs. Osório, true feminism is not “a defense of the egotism of one sex against the other”. It is about altruism and women’s will to take their share in collective life, to improve the situation for all, for a better society. And as a true democrat, as well, she adds: “Good and practical ideas as they come from private initiative should be supported and followed by governments that respect public opinion".
Last in the short list of the 1988 MP's in that historical session, Carolina Beatriz Ângelo was specially remembered by her celebrated solitary act of voting, as a woman citizen, in the earliest election after the proclamation of the Republic - in the 28th May 1911. She became the first southern European woman to exercise the right to vote. It was news all over Europe!
In fact, she skillfully took advantage of the text of the electoral law that admitted to suffrage all citizens who were over 21, “heads of a family” and literate. As a 33 years old widow, the mother of a child, and a doctor by profession, she formally satisfied all the conditions required to vote. Nevertheless, being woman, her registration was denied by the authorities, because no electoral law in the country had ever mentioned sex, either to include or exclude one, but women had always being implicitly barred. She went to court and won her case against the authorities. The Judge, who by the way, was a liberal republican and the father of Ana de Castro Osório (a true “feminist”, by his own daughter’s definition) decided in her favor. If the legislator intended to leave out the feminine sex, it should say so, unambiguously, ruled the Judge…
!n 1913, that is exactly what the law-makers did say. Women had to wait for over 20 years to be integrated in a limited circle of officially recognized participants in elections.
We cited the favorable press Dr. Ângelo´s suffrage immediately obtained, at national and international level. We should also refer to the general and enthusiastic standing ovation she got from all men who had the privilege of witnessing the historical moment of her ballot vote. In the Portuguese Parliament in 1988 her daring act was once again given a round of applause.
In fact, not only these few women we cited but others, who were at their side a hundred years ago, look like our contemporaries, look as if they were the age of our sisters rather than our grand-mothers… If you ask me why, my immediate
answer is because their feminism was more. Theirs was a feminism more "feminine" by comparison
inspired by the concept of gender equilibrium and cooperation, of "gender parity", as we call it nowadays than that of "gender war". It was feminism more feminine, as compared to similar movements in Europe at that time, refusing rage or hate between sexes and preaching acceptance and tolerance between them. The uttered opinion of Ana de Castro Osório : "We never witnessed violent fights as in foreign countries where the feminist question turned out to be a true sex war.”
That is how the Portuguese legislator sees it today, in our Constitution and in our laws, along with the majority of women and men engaged in the fight for gender equality, even if some of them may disagree with the existing regulation imposing the “quota system”.( )
The reasons why they seem ahead of their times are certainly due to their own merit, to their own awareness of the social problems involved and the best possible solutions, but it is also partly explained by their position in family and society. They were an elite of educated women linked by family or ideological ties with the republican counterpart, who came suddenly "out of the shadows" by their own free will, but with the help and complicity of men, with whom they shared beliefs and aims, destiny , global political projects, not only for themselves but for the country. They were ready to engage in the same revolution, to accept the same duties, to undergo the same risks as their fellow men. They believed that a Republic would mean general progress and would treat them as equal citizens with full civil, family and political rights. They were part of the cosmopolitan assertive leadership emerging in the Republican Party - or parties, as they soon were to split and fight each other... - just before the revolution, conspiring side by side with parents, husbands, brothers and friends.
For them laws concerning women’s rights were far behind social practices, at least on what concerned their own upper social class of cultured people.
In 1910 no Portuguese feminist could foresee that dreams would not come true, that the laws on suffrage would not change. Their long fighting had started in full hope and amiable complicity with men, seen as partners not enemies.
3 - A FEMINIST AND REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
A feminist and republican movement - as it was "two in one" at that time. It makes a difference when you compare the Portuguese example to others, because it was from the start apparently more republican than feminist. The advent of the Republic was truly seen as a “prerequisite” by the feminists themselves. The majority of them would, in fact, confirm in later years a pragmatic, if firm, approach to politics, including the vital issue of the vindication of women's right to vote. They even avoided asking for equal suffrage, limiting their claim to a small circle of highly educated ladies...Those outstanding women kind of ladylike way of behaving inside the political world, carefully avoiding foreign examples of radicalism, in their personal appearance in public life, rather than in their way to vehemently ask for equality and justice or to express claims, with sensible and strong arguments, some of which are, surprisingly, still valid, modern, up to date in XXI century Portugal. (1) Why? I am tempted to answer, first of all due to a fatal contradiction between the consistent and often brilliant writing or speeches of the feminist leaders, even if they were more or less temperate, and their action, their strategy of political intervention, too much "soft" to have the necessary impact and the positive results they certainly deserved.
Was their common position on the matter – regardless of many political differences between them, after 1910 - i an asset or a handicap?
It is difficult to answer.
We know for sure that that time, were defeated in many of the most relevant aspect of their fight, like suffrage, massive civic participation, or generalization of employment and work for women.
But in one, at least, they seem to have started a trend: education. Education was, as they all agreed upon, the very beginning of the emancipation of the feminine sex. Radical and law abiding feminists, and even a more conservative non feminist wing, shared that belief.
Education for women - a very limited number, of course - was already under way before the Republic was established, but they did made a difference. The focus on the relevance of opening up to them all levels of public instruction, from primary to high school and then to university, was an irreversible process, that lasted during the ages of the so called "New State" . It enables us to be, right now, at the top of the ranking, worldwide, where percentages of women graduates are concerned in almost any sector from law to medical studies women are well over 60%.
The shaping of a mentality that today values the education of women, on equal terms with men, started in the beginning of last century and the feminist republican movement played if not an exclusive role, a very important one. It was part of the significant promises and of the program of the Republican Party, as were others, never to be fulfilled.
Did they pay a price too high for having started by the hand of men ("par le fait du prince", as royalist used to say, before the advent of the republic...)?
Or did they give up the aim of immediate and full equality, to help strengthening the new regime, until it could be self confident and strong enough, to answer to their demands?
The truth is, unlike suffragists in England and almost everywhere, they seemed to be as afraid as men proved to be of the consequences universal suffrage for men as well as women... Like in many other countries, "leftist" parties feared the "conservative" vote of women - and the conservative parties, sure to gain by their voting, were simply against it, no matter what...
In Portugal, ruling republicans also rejected conservative male vote, artificially reducing the electoral universe to the very small percentage of the adult population - only those who were could read and write and paid their taxes...
There were two different ways at looking at universal suffrage before and after the revolution...
.
We know of their intervention in a few political meetings and rallies, acting as secretaries, or less often as speakers.
At that time, the Republican Party was definitely in favour of universal suffrage as well as a constituency system throughout the country - in the name of real decentralization of power. None was to be fulfilled... Portugal had at the time a population of 5 million people and only one million could read and write, among them not much more than 300.000 women.
The republicans were not popular on the whole country and they obviously considered that the feminine vote would not improve the situation, so they simply adopted the measures as to ground a majority that could legitimize the regime. Universal suffrage was out of the question for as long as the republic existed - 16 years, uncompleted...
They counted mainly on the urban vote. The hostile rural catholic vote was largely reduced by the prerequisites of alphabetization and tax-paying. Electoral laws introduced a few changes, but never eliminated these two very useful discriminations. Adverse, conservative, monarchist vote was so prevented to express itself in really free and general elections, in a more and more corporative an authoritarian republic, in many ways not very different from the previous, declining regime - certainly not an open, stable and perfect democracy by our high current standards.
Republican women were, themselves, aware of the risk of endangering the future of the regime by adopting a system of l suffrage for all and I think that explains their acceptance of the manipulation or limitation of the electoral universe, and the extreme moderation and modesty of their claiming the right to vote. They never asked it for all the women - just for the elite, the very reduced number of those who were educated. They went as far as accepting less than mere alphabetization for their sex - that means unequal vote, according to sex...
Millions of Portuguese an alphabet, along with the literate females, never got the vote, at all...
Monarchies and republics at the time - and right now, as well - seem to display the same potencial to be or not be a factor of progress as far as equality is concerned... Many of the countries where women first got equal civil and political rights, were and remained until now, monarchies. Republics, like France and Portugal, delayed fair treatment of female citizens for as long as they could. Facts speak and clear and loud, from one century to another...
Anyway, portuguese feminists had no alternative but to trust republican’s leaders. Some of them did deserve their confidence, fighting for their rights side by side with them until the end of the regime, 16 years later...
One thing women knew for sure: there was no place for them in any of the monarchist parties in the country, as the very few monarchists who were in favour of women's emancipation did recognize (f.i. Dom António Costa, who praised republicans for their defence of feminism).
Unfortunatly there was no place for them in the Republic, in its public institutions, either...
And they certainly deserved it. They worked hard for the "res publica", and they remained faithful to the republican principles, no matter what.
But their movement did spit into many smaller circles, first of all, because some were republicans, above all - lika Maria Veleda, the unconditional supporter of Afonso Costa and his democratic party - and others were more feminists than republicans, like Cabete and most of all Osório, who never gave up the fight for suffrage.
The incapacity of the republican politicians and parties to play it fair with them, made that kind of a choice inevitable.
They all lost by dissension and division in this field and in many others: it was the begining of the end of the Republic, but not of its principles and the cause of equality.
Feminist thoughts and ideals , as the parlamentarians of 1988 wanted to stress, are very much alive.We look at them, and we see them, today, not as grand mothers but as sisters. The feminist half of the republic did have more future than present - the opposite of the regime...
Looking back many Portuguese, as I, have the impression we would have been republicans and feminists in 1910. In 2010, we are simply democrats, and feminists, "true feminists", according to Osório's definition.
