Women's Suffrage in Brazil: Bertha Lutz
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Background
-One of the founding, key leaders of the women's suffrage movement in Brazil
-Born in Sao Paulo in 1894
-Swiss-Brazilian father, Adolfo Lutz, was a pioneer of tropical medicine in Brazil; English mother
-First educated in Brazil, then Europe for 7 years
-While in Europe, closely followed the English suffrage campaign
Movement
The Letter
Shortly after she returned home in 1918, Bertha Lutz published an article which helped initiate a formal women’s suffrage movement in Brazil. In response to a Rio newspaper columnist's opinion that feminist achievements in the United States and Great Britain would not influence Brazil, she issued a formal call for the establishment of a league of Brazilian women. Lutz did not want to be “an association of suffragettes who would break windows along the street,” but rather of Brazilians, who understood that “women ought not to live parasitically based on their sex,” but should be useful and capable of having future political responsibilities. She hoped women would “become valuable instruments in the progress of Brazil" and objected to the indulgent treatment of women as toys or spoiled children. Lutz expressed her faith in education to fix this problem, for Brazil still lagged behind dominant countries in the world.
Liga para a Emancipacao Intelectual da Mulher
In 1920, Bertha Lutz established the Liga para a Emancipacao Intelectual da Melher with Maria Lacerda de Moura, a schoolteacher and author from Minas Gerais. She concentrated on increasing women’s political and legal rights and improving their economic position with in Brazilian society rather than radically restructuring it. At the Liga para a Emancipacao Intelectual da Mulher meetings, Lutz preferred to discuss women’s political and legal rights or specific economic and educational issues rather than intellectual or sexual emancipation. The vote would serve not only as a tool for achieving feminine progress, but also as a symbol of the rights of citizenship. To achieve goal of equal work and educational opportunities, Lutz concluded that women must have access to the political process as full and equal citizens; they must have direct and legitimate political participation.
Representing Brazil
Bertha Lutz was Brazil’s official delegate at the Pan American Women’s International Committee. She also represented Brazil at the International Labor Organization’s conference on women’s working conditions. Her visit to the United States for these conferences changed her vision of the women’s movement: she preferred the Americans’ “completely calm process, with out any violence like that employed by the English suffragists.”
Federacao Brasilera pelo Progresso Feminino
The Liga para a Emancipacao da Malher transformed from a small local group into a national organization, the Federacao Brasilera pelo Progresso Feminino (FBPF),
The Challenges
As women, they had no direct access to the political process, so the press provided some of the most effective publicity for the suffrage cause. Many bills were purposed, but nothing came of them; however, the existence of bills proved the legitimacy for the debate over suffrage as well as provided a symbol about which the movement could organize. In 1922, after years of dedicated labor by Brazilian lawyers, the Brazilian Association of Lawyers officially declared that the Constitution did not prohibit women from exercising political rights and that they should be permitted to vote. However, when individual women sought to register to vote, they met with refusal.
Gaining the Right to Vote
In April 1927, Juvenal Lamartine de Faria, a longtime supporter of women’s suffrage, announced the platform for his candidacy for governor of Rio Grande do Norte. He promised full political rights for women, including the right to be elected, declaring that the federal Constitution did not prohibit women from the full enjoyment of their immutable political rights and opposing the deprivation of half of the Brazilian population of the exercise of their political rights. Although the Committee on the Powers of the Senate voided the women’s ballots in the 1928 senatorial election in Rio Grande do Norte, women could still vote in local elections in that state. Bertha Lutz and several other women met with Getulio Vargas, the president of Brazil, who agreed to full women’s suffrage. The new code, decreed on February 24, 1932, enfranchised women under the same conditions as men. Brazil became the forth country in the Western Hemisphere to grant women the vote, following Canada, the United States and Ecuador.
Brazil After Suffrage
Despite the problems and obstacles Brazilian feminists have faced, by the late 1980s the women’s movement in Brazil demonstrated more success than elsewhere in South America in organizing, raising a broad range of issues, creating new institutions, and promoting changes in government structures.
Bibliography
- Navarro, Marysa. Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. This book went into detail about the letter Lutz wrote in 1918 and contained some other background information on her life.
- Hahner, June E. The Beginnings of the Women's Suffrage Movement in Brazil, Vol. 5, No. 1, Women in Latin America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979. This book discussed not only Bertha Lutz's life, but also the social and political aspects of the Brazilian suffrage movement.
- Hahner, June E. Emancipating the Female Sex. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990. I used this book the most during this project. This is an excellent source which provided the most in depth information about Bertha Lutz's involvement in the suffrage movement.
- Macaulay, Fiona. Gender and Politics in Brazil and Chile Palgrave Macmillan. 2006 This book was helpful in finding about Brazilian life after the suffrage movement.
- Kuppers, Gabriele. Feministamente. London : Latin American Bureau, 1994. This is an informative book that contained lots of global suffrage movement; however, there was only a small amount of information about Bertha Lutz.
- Miller, Francesca. Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice. UPNE, 1991. This book contained information on many Latin American Countries, including Brazil.