Black Women’s Thought on Race, Class, and Gender in Brazil

• In Event: 519 - Section on Race, Class and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 05. Global/Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

The mobilization of black intellectuals and activists was essential for the insertion of social and political demands aimed at addressing the issues of the black population in Brazil after the end of the Vargas dictatorship (1937-1945). In the historiography of the political unrest of the period, the work of black women, have received little scholarly attention. As a result, the reconstruction of their ideas has been a hard task. A focus on black women activists of the time such as Arinda Serafim and Sofia Campos Teixeira, specifically an examination of their speeches, provides a complex understanding of their interlocking articulation of race, class and gender.
To investigate the thought of black women involved in racial mobilization in the late 1940s goes beyond removing these important leaders from the historical invisibility in which they languish, which at face value would be a great achievement. The performance of these women restores the role of the struggle of black women, who were not passive agents in asserting their rights. In the labor arena, the defense of domestic workers reveals characteristics of the condition of black women in that context. The participation of women such as Arinda Serafim and Sofia Campos put significant pressure on the burgeoning women’s movement. The search for female autonomy as driven by black women could not ignore their intersectional character, and actively questioned the different social positions that white and black women held in Brazilian society.

Author

• EDILZA SOTERO, Brown University