Republican Women out of the Shadows

By: MARIA MANUELA AGUIAR

1910 PORTUGUESE REPUBLICAN WOMEN OUT OF THE SHADOWS
In the beginning of the XX century a feminist and republican movement made history in Portugal. In a country where there was no tradition of feminine participation in public life an elite of highly cultured, courageous and strong-minded women came suddenly out of the shadows, with the support of republican leaders, in defense of democratic ideals and righteous causes, like education for all, equal civil laws and universal suffrage.
Suffrage was a promise never fulfilled and the cause of immediate dissent among the heads of the feminist movement, because some of them were more feminists than republicans, and others definitely more republicans than suffragists, even if they all remained faithful to the new regime. Did their natural moderation and their innate republican complicity with their male partners – husbands, family and friends - play against them?
In the end, they won their main battle through future generations of women and they are alive in the memory of the Republic today.

1 - FEMINIST MOVEMENTS IN THE BEGINNING 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 – all 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. As in other southern European societies there was no tradition of women playing a role in public life. 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 alive in the memory of the people being the legendary Maria da Fonte – who inspired one the hymns of the Republic, still sung in official ceremonies . 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 that from her point of view, that 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 extended for several miles along the streets of 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 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 domain, accomplishments or lack of them have 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 and they did 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, first 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 legal 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 earliest. In 1906 an electoral law was passed and in 1907 the first female parliamentarian was elected. Southern Europe pursued the trend much later. In fact, in that geographical and cultural area only Spain was ahead of Portugal. (4)

FEMINISM IN PORTUGAL - A brief chronology

As predictable knowing the dominant mentality on what concerned women's participation in politics, the feminist movement never got much visibility and wide-ranging recognition. Even historians, nowadays, tend to under evaluate the influence it had in the birth of the new era. 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. (5 ) But facts are available for research... Women were there as the living proof that the feminine half of the republic was capable of living up to the social and cultural revolutionary ideals of gender equality, along with the principles 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 to be as successful as it should have been, for several reasons. None had to do with their own capacity to make things work out better, in other time, other place… When you assess their culture or political “savoir faire” as expressed in so many speeches, and writings, you find no “gap” at all, looking at feminist leaders all over Europe... 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 young law 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 - rather 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 misogynous dictatorship, never to regain the same human dimension and radiance.
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 essays on 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 mobilizing public support that made the impossible revolution possible. Women suddenly became partners accepted and welcomed, sharing the intense and clever effort of republican propaganda widened by such means. Many of them got drawn in the daily life of Mason 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, to promote 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 advance of their suffragist agenda, as they would soon find out...
In 1908, influential personalities, 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 approved 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" (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 went their separate ways, divided by their different set of priorities. From 1914 to 1918, they were once again reunited in defense of Portugal participating in the world war. The Committee "Pro Pátria" was founded in 1914 and the “Portuguese Women Cruzade” (Cruzada das Mulheres Portuguesas) in 1916 headed by Ana de Castro Osório. It was her last civic crusade, a last display of great dynamism and courage not only in the diffusion of opinions but also in the direct help of wounded soldiers through “Committees” of nurses, regulated and supported by the government. (7)
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 both there. In 1928, already under dictatorship, without any kind of official support, a second and last Congress took place.
The vote came 3 years later, incongruously by the hand of Salazar, the quintessence of antifeminism - a restricted vote as proposed and as defeated many a time during the 16 agitated years of the first Republic. (8)

(…)

For more visit: http://mulhermigranteemcongresso.blogspot.com/2010/10/1910-republican-women-out-of-shadows.html

By: MARIA MANUELA AGUIAR
Former Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities; Founder and President of the Assembly of the “Mulher Migrante” (Migrant Women -Association for studies and cooperation)
mariamanuelaaguiar@gmail.com