Women and the Revolution in

L. Valleiy-Fischer and G. Fischer

Symbols change in Portugal. The April 25, 1974, coup which eliminated a 48 year-old cruel, backward and authori• tarian regime, had its symbol--a red carnation stemming from a gun--an ex• pression of the intents of the young officers who staged the coup. The gun, symbol of violence and oppression, was to spread--instead of bullets--civi1 peace, democracy and, as expressed by the redness of the carnation, some kind of was to be established in the new Portuga1.

Since April 1974, Portugal has lived through many changes and crises. The first president under the new regime, General Antonio de Spinola, became more and more the symbol of a new right. He resigned in September 1974 and, since carnation on their suits and dresses. the unsuccessful and almost naive March As well, in the weeks before the elec• 1975 coup, shares exile in Brazil with tions another symbol appeared, this time the last president under the old regime, a photo. A in her sixties is Admiral Americo Thomaz. The young of• looking out from an open window, the ficers of the Movement of the Armed fingers of her right hand at her mouth, Forces have come into the foreground of her thoughts wandering and her face In• the political stage, occupying the key scrutable. The Christian Science Mon• positions in the new government. Mean• itor which published the photo captioned while, deep social, political, economic it: "From a window: wondering and cultural mutations have wracked what is going on."l However it is not every sector of Portuguese society. only she who is wondering what is going on and how to react to it. Also, and On April 23, 1975, the first free elec• above all, the political figures of the tions were held after long decades of country are wondering what the opinion enforced civil passivity. The symbols of the women will be and how it will be of the Movimento revived again: the expressed in elections. After all, as electors, regardless of the party they elsewhere, more than half (about 53%) of chose, went to the polls with the red the population of Portugal is women. Among the great question marks before terest in public affairs. the April elections for the Constituent Assembly was what the trend of the After the coup, it was no easy task to women's vote would be. Surveys and make women speak out on political polls in Portugal are still in their issues. The socialist-oriented Lisbon adolescence; parties and private groups newspaper, Repub1? ca, at present the initiate them, but many people simply object of harsh political controver• do not yet want to reply to question• sies, published "instant" interviews in naires. The great mass of women, par• the summer of 1974. Women frequently ticularly in the villages, are very refused to answer, especially when in cautious in expressing their opinions the presence of their husbands, or re'- and judgments on political issues. This plied that politics was not women's is not surprising since in the years of business. And this occurred in Lisbon Salazar's regime women and politics itself which is much more politically were clearly a dichotomous notion. A active than other parts of the country. Portuguese variant of the German Kinder, In the north the Armed Forces conducted Kuche, K? rche had been developed and a campaign to "enlighten" the villages, there was no place for women in the pub• encouraging the people to proceed with lic life of the country. In the north what they call "cultural dynamisat ion." of Portugal--the area of scattered vil• Peter Niesewand in the Manchester lages and small hoidings--women, even Guardian has described activities in more than their husbands, were influ• the small village of Cabana Maior, "a enced by the Catholic Church which as place of such grinding poverty that it an institution supported the now de• sends out its laboi—its young men and funct regime, and, of course, advo• women go as migrant workers to France, cated the political passivity of women. West Germany and Belgium and mail money The old system regarded women's par• back to help their relatives to survive. ticipation in politics not only as un• Few return themselves."2 The village necessary but also as indecent, almost is composed mostly of young , an insult to their womanhood, to their children and old people. The young of• motherhood and their role as wife. ficers spoke about democracy, about the Such a moral judgment was regarded as injustice of colonial wars, about no valid particularly for the daughters longer being sheep, but thinking and and wives of workers, peasants and acting independently, listening to what those belonging to the low middle the parties had to say. Lieutenant strata. As well the very high degree Tavares Pinheiro said: "You women, too, of illiteracy (about h0% in Portugal) don't let your husband tell you how to combined with the pressure of State vote. Make up your own mind." The and Church to discourage women's in• writer of the article adds, "The women sat silent and unmoving." But when from the wings of the small stage another officer, Captain Freitas the people's faces were alight Oliveira, spoke about the Church every• with glee, and the sound which body including the women came to life rocked the hall was pure national and took part in the discussion. The pride. officer mentioned that the priest has to have wages but the people were not However jaded many might have be• to be victims of extortion. One of the come in Lisbon, out here the povo women replied: "The priest gives his haven't heard the rumours or mass for the dead without being paid. A watched the manoeuverings and the few years ago it used to be 40 escudos memory of the revolution is clear you gave the priest and now it is 150 i n thei r mi nds. escudos because life has gone up." A man shouted: "The priest rides in a The correspondent of Le Monde also vis• car and my father goes walking." ited the same area during the elections. One hundred kilometers nort of Porto, A few miles away from Cabana Maior is near Cabana Maior, is a little hamlet Arcos de Valdavoz where the electricity of eighty inhabitants, Vi-llela de Lajos. cables stop. The "cultural dynamisa- The soil is poor and there is no water tion" group invited the inhabitants to or electricity; even the inn was closed the cinema. In the evening "the old --the owner had left for Montreal to black-dressed women leave their gossip• build skyscrapers. Newspapers and ing grounds on the street corners." radio are rare here. In front of the The military bands played, but the largest house in the settlement two audience was slow in warming up. Then women in black were playing with a came the famous song, Grandola Vila child. Voting? They will go in the Morena, the signal for the April 25 evening. For whom? A mute smile was coup, which has become a kind of the reply. They had the only television national song. "In every corner a set which was operated by a small gen• friend," it says, "in every face equal• erator. But it broke down and 150 ity." The effect of the song on the escudos ($50) were needed in order to men and women of Arcos de Valdavoz is get it repaired. Thus there was very described by Peter Niesewand as follows: little chance to follow the electoral Suddenly the cinema went wild. campaign. Of course they remember the Everyone sang and cheered and rose visit of the military. Yes, they were to their feet to shout slogans. here and they told them what is wrong, The povo (the people) are with the what has to be done, and above all, to MFA; they chanted. It was com• vote for what their own heads say and pletely spontaneous. Watching not the heads of others. Yes, the "others" are active also here. The re• mature enough for this sudden and porter witnessed that,at noon when complete freedom; we do not know what there was a break in the voting, the to do with it. We applaud the com• local priest came to an improvised pic• munist and we cheer the anti-communists. nic and told the people that the Church A good speaker, a good demagogue can forbids Christians to vote for Marxist succeed regardless of party affilia• parties. And the Socialists? The tion." And from the left one can hear priest answered in an uncertain way, "I similar appraisals. The leaders of the was told that they changed their program, military justify their resolution to maybe it is thus possible . . . ." But stay at the helm for five more years, the Socialist scrutineer was offended: saying that the need "No, Father, the Socialist party is a period of transition, of "civic ex• Marxist." With this reply the padre was perience," to be able to cope fully somewhat relieved that he would not have with democracy. to grant exemptions in a very dubious s i tuat ion.3 Of course it might be asked if this concept of "lack of maturity" (where do In Lisbon, further south, there are we have a fully mature public opinion?) women from every social class with is not a longing for and justification strong opinions who are courageous of some form of authoritarianism. But enough to voice and to defend them. even the statements on "immaturity" re• Their assessments of the Portuguese flect, in one sense the growing interest political situation are quite varied. of Portuguese women in the problems of The parties they preferred differ too, their country, their society, and their but the sense of "catching up," of own role within it. They are stepping filling the gap created by backward• out of their isolation. And above all ness, of eliminating the lack of equal• they are beginning to speak out. There ity between men and women is striking. was one issue on which all Portuguese were unanimous: under the former Many invoke the issue of so-called "ma• regime politics was not discussed. The turity." After 48 years without denr instinct for self preservation prevented ocracy how can Portuguese society and people from doing so—it was dangerous, particularly women assess what is good forbidden, words might be overheard. and what is bad? Democracy is a game The PIDE, the Portuguese security to be learned, exercised, practised. police, was too well organized and omni• Women influenced by the right and right present. Since April 25, 1974, it has of centre frequently complained of the been different. "anarchy" in Portugal, of the strikes, and other action in defiance of their When we visited Portugal in the summer concept of law and order. "We are not of 1974, every woman willingly spoke to us of her opinions and her concerns: publicity officer in a North American the high school teacher studying—even owned enterprise, came from a family of on the beach--documents connected with intellectuals, many of them active in the establishment of a trade-union or• opposition to the Salazar-Caetano ganization at her school, analyzing the regime—some of them also imprisoned. benefits of the options now available; Intelligent, lively, well-read, not the two textile workers--very conscious committed to any party, she expressed that the new regime has to serve thei r the feelings common to so many intel• interests—enumerating the improvements lectuals—the shame for tolerating for recently made in their social benefits. so long a fascist regime and the pride Other women were taking evening courses in finally being able themselves, on in the high school, studying French and their own, to get rid of it. And in a little English. Alert, calm, modest, summer 1971*, pride was the prevailing they were looking with confidence at sentiment: "We achieved this," was her the present and future of their country. favorite remark: "You see we can make Two young , also of working class it." The new willingness to speak out background, were observed singing in the was indicated by demonstrators in front bus through the outskirts of Lisbon, of the Government House, St. Bento, in studying and practising together the July 1974, when nurses' aides came to "International" (both Communists and present their claims and complaints, Socialists were spreading the words and asking for more recognition and better tune of this 1onq-forbidden revolution• salaries. In their white gowns, with ary song). One woman, back from London their posters, chanting slogans, they with her young son, told us of her hus• were the expression of the dual nature band who had been almost always separ• of their concerns as conscious Portu• ated from his family, often arrested, guese citizens and conscious women. tortured and was, as a result, unwell, Their had broken up; after Since there is no separate registration being jailed herself, she shared the of women voters, conclusions about their fate of two million Portuguese who voting preference are tentative but it left their country to get jobs and bet- appears that the women's vote followed ber conditions. She left for England, the general pattern of voting (more than works there in a food factory, re• 30% of eligible voters went to the married. But for her holidays she was polls). The two main slogans of the back in Portugal visiting her relatives left—and of the Movimento as well — and watching with pride and an obvious democracy and socialism, seem to have feeling of pleasure the events and the had a genuine appeal among women voters. changes. Meanwhile she remained faith• "Democracy and Socialism" were a double ful to her party, wearing its badge in negation of Portuguese women's past, the Lisbon and in London. Another woman, a denial of the authoritarian system which 699 cast were for the Socialists. constrained them to passivity and the Maria Olidia Joaquim, the owner of the repudiation of the injustice which they local cafe (her husband has a grocery suffered both as citizens and as women. shop in Lisbon), voted for the Social• Thus socialism represented for Portu• ists because she felt they had a pro• guese women their striving for an equit• gram better adapted to the problems of able, aware society, offering at least Portuguese society. Her employee Maria a prospect of equality. did the same because socialism--she heard--is a good thing for the country The Socialist Party (which received 38% and for the workers. Illiterate, she of the votes cast) was the great bene• responded to the symbols, voting for ficiary of this appeal. The party, led "the party of the clenched fist."k by Mario Soares, was successful in pro• jecting to women and men the image of a I I political force which would tie together the two components of the slogan, which The social condition of Portugal's fe• would demonstrate that there is no genu• male population provided a basis for ine socialism without democracy and no their preference for socialism. Sala- real democracy without socialist content. zar wanted to perpetuate a "patriarchal" (What will happen with democracy and society, with as little industry as socialism in Portugal, under pressure possible, to discourage the unfolding from both inside and outside the coun• of the forces of "social unrest." But try, is another question, but tq the modern times knocked at the gates of voters, the image was still pure and Portuguese society as elsewhere. The shiny.) The press in the West celebra• protracted colonial war itself acted as ted the victory of the Socialists and a modernizing factor, demanding as it the relatively poor showing of the did an infrastructure of industry, Communists (with 13% of the votes) as a transportation and services. More than victory for moderation. To some extent 200,000 Portuguese were in the army; this is true but it should not be over• another two million emigrated (some looked that the Socialists not only 150,000 to Canada) and this necessitated opposed the authoritarianism of the an increase of women within the labour Communists but also, in some respects force. Foreign industry also came to and in some areas, Socialist policies Portugal — from Exxon to Mitsubishi, from were more "leftist" than those of the General Motors to Otis. The labour Communists. Of course, votes go to the force was "cheap and docile," says Mark same party for different reasons. In Gayn 5 and, of course, European markets Sabugo, a hillside village an hour's were close, thus investment was profit• bus ride from Lisbon, 383 votes from the able. Small factories and workshops appeared even in the rural regions, many Lisbon, and Lisbon hotels and rich operating with women labourers. For houses have all the comforts and example, Applied Magnetics, an American gadgets of modern civilization, in firm, employed mainly women (about 600) the Northern district of Tras dos to make electronic components. The Montes the rural population still factory was shut down in the summer of lives in a mediaeval style, bar• 1974, when the minimum wage and employ• tering its commodities, and in ers' contribution to social services was isolated centres, hardly par• raised. A number of other foreign ticipating in a money economy.6 companies also discontinued their Portu• guese operations: e.g., Otis, Hertz. The Roman type of ox cart and primitive methods of cultivation are still found Under , Salazar's suc• on Portuguese farms. The country's con• cessor, society began to change rapidly. sumption of electricity is--with the ex• The Champalimauds, the Melos and a few ception of Turkey and Albania--the low• other families became the heads of in• est in Europe. In 1970 it was 648 kwh dustrial empires in steel, cement, per person and per annum (in Canada it pharmaceuticals, cotton and textiles. was 8580 kwh--13 times more). The contribution of industry to the Gross Internal Product in 1970 was 44% In addition to the top elite a large (industrial workers comprise about 10% middle class began to develop. Indus• of the population and about one-third trialization and urbanization, the de• of those actively employed.) The in• velopment of tourism with its services, dustrial and financial elite combined the spread of a public and private with the old elite, the landlords, to bureaucracy, protracted colonial war form the top of the Portuguese social which caused further impoverishment but pyramid. In the rural regions the also created nouveaux riches and brought disparities are striking: four of the many people to the ranks of the "better- largest landholders own 235,000 acres off"--all contributed to the emergence of land, equal with the acreage owned of a large Portuguese middle class with by 50,400 small farmers; or to put it its own needs and demands. another way, one percent of the land• owners hold 60% of the land while 60% Despite such changes, the average annual of all farmers own less than 20% of the income of the Portuguese in 1970 was land. The well known Portuguese only $610 per capita. In comparison, in journalist, Antonio de Figueiredo, de• Greece it was about $900 and in Spain scribed the contrast in 1961: $890 in the same year. The workers were Socially and technologically "under-housed, under-clothed, under-fed Portugal has no uniform age. While and under-educated,"7 with poor social- jet propulsion planes land at security and assistance benefits. With- in this highly stratified society women are often hidden from the author• represent an under-privileged stratum in ities since compulsory primary a country with an under-privileged education was introduced, because majori ty. their going to school would have short term disadvantages and long The Portuguese economist-statistician, term dangers. On the one hand, Blasco Hugo Fernandes, has written school attendance would deprive about the general low level of workers' the family of a labourer in the and farmers' incomes and that of women fields, and, on the other, educa• in particular: tion could mean the loss of a son . . . both in industry and agri• through emigration to towns of culture . . . the Portuguese foreign countries.10 woman is generally in a position of inequality and economic infer• A government which spent kl% of its iority in comparison to men. In budget for military and security pur• this respect it is worth noting poses had little money to spend for what happens in different dis• social, health and cultural needs tricts of our country where adult directly related to the improvement of women are paid on the average the condition of women. For example, in for work in the agricultural sec• Portugal in the 1960s, 60% of births tor wages which are inferior to took place without the aid of either a those of boys less than 15 years doctor or a midwife. Of 102 countries, old.8 Portugal ranked among the worst (88th) with respect to infant mortality. Other In 1971, in the district of Lisbon, the significant data reveal that only 19.6% average adult male wage was 103.3 of all dwellings in Portugal have bath• escudos--the adult woman's only 50 rooms, kl.5% electricity, and only 35% escudos. In Porto (the second largest of Lisbon homes are serviced by garbage city of Portugal) men earned 75 escudos, col 1ect ? on. women 53.3; in Setubal (an industrial zone near Lisbon) men earned 70 escudos, Social attitudes toward women were as women h0; and in Evora, men got 66.3 oppressive as other aspects of Portu• escudos, and women 36.3- In industry guese society. Annie Cohen writing on in general men received hot more than Portuguese machi smo reported that a women.9 married woman could not obtain a pass• port without the permission of her hus• Antonio de Figueiredo makes this obser• band; that he could forbid his wife to vation: work "outside" or could "withdraw" her It is a cruel world which exploits from her work. In accordance with the women and children. The latter Concordat signed by Salazar, the state did not dissolve solemnized in their "status of superiority" towards the Church, only those performed outside their female co-workers. the Church. But even in civil mar• riages, the husband had grounds for di• I I I vorce if the wife used contraceptive de• vices without his permission or if his There are many people--men and women-- wife was seen in a car with another man. who consider that the abolition of And, as in Sicily, the husband who sexism in Portuguese society is a killed the unfaithful wife and her sine qua non of the country's social lover, caught in flagrante, could ex• progress. Socialism alone will not pect to avoid punishment.il The over- create the conditions of equality re• protected wife was in many respects a quired to lift the burden of oppression "minor" in the family. from the shoulders of Portugal's women. Indeed, one of the best indicators of Abortion was not only forbidden but the progressiveness of a society is its strictly punished. (Of course that did willingness and determination to cope not mean that there were no abortions with the task of making women an equal, --only that they were risky, expensive active and responsible component in all and sometimes performed in inhuman sectors of social life. In Portugal conditions.) Prostitution was also there are now many women who reflect a prohibited; the new regime wants to growing awareness. They come from liquidate it because, in the past in different generations and social strata. spite of the interdiction, it was, The influx of women into the labour according to The New York Times, one of force in the last few years, as clerks, the most flourishing activities in workers, teachers, medical personnel, Lisbon and tolerated by the pillars of has strengthened their consciousness society: and, in many cases, their militancy with Women have noted that the same respect to their role in society. Many middle-class and upper-class men of them are better educated than ever who oppose abortion and divorce before; there are more girls than boys are the mainstays of prostitu• in the high schools and there is about tion. 12 an equal percentage in the universities. Machi smo is present among workers as well. The new regime has decreed equal Polarization among women is a charac• pay for equal work, but, of course, teristic fact of Portuguese social life there is need for time and supervision today. Some are as advanced as women in to implement this policy everywhere. other societies in their goals and Cohen cited the case of a beer factory struggles; others regard with coolness, in Via Longa, where the male workers fear, and even hostility, many of the demanded wage increases to maintain successes and North There also is Elina Guimaraes, 70 years America have already achieved. One old, petite, with lively eyes and an point is clear, however, women are expressive face. We interviewed her in highly visible in Portugal today. July 1972*. She is among the few "who saw democracy in Portugal" herself: she Members of the old generation of "fem• and her husband were both students in inists," or outstanding female activ• the pre-Salazar era. Both studied law; ists of different Portuguese parties, the husband, Adelino da Palma Carlos, are still present or have returned to led his class in the Faculty of Law and their homeland since April 25. On July she was number two. And so she remained 4, 1974, at the first public meeting of number two in her life, in the shadow of the Socialist Party in Lisbon, the party her husband who became a well-known leaders, including Mario Soares, greeted lawyer, later a professor and dean of and embraced with affection the writer the Faculty of Law in Lisbon and from Maria Lamas, who acknowledged with May 15, 1974, for two months, premier of pleasure and a smile the applause of the the country, heading the first demo• crowd. In many ways, Maria, 81, with cratic government after 48 years. Elina, her silverish hair, was the embodiment of two sons, did not practice law of the socialist fighters, their pere• in her own right with the exception of grination, their exile and now their pleading cases in the juvenile court for reunion in a new Portugal. a period of time. However, she worked with her husband, "not as a secretary At Communist Party meetings and at the but as a collaborator, as a member of first freely-held Congress in October the team."13 She considers particularly 1974, a portrait of a woman with strong, important the role of women in the legal determined features adorned posters. profession. Legal advisers are as im• Her name is Caterina Eufemia and many portant as medical ones, she claims, streets and buildings in Portugal today especially in cases dealing with mater• bear her name. Twenty-one years ago, a nity problems. She pointed out that in young, pregnant peasant woman, a party France (in general, she told us, women organizer in Alemtejo, was killed by in France have made the most progress), Salazar's national guard while leading feminist lawyers go to the factories a demonstration of farm labourers. Her for consultation on the spot with women life and struggle are projected as a who work there. symbol of the dedication of the party to the anti-fascist struggle and the She has to her credit about 100 artf* suffering of its members under the cles, which were published in French Salazar regime, a symbol also of its and Portuguese journals and newspapers, ties with women and farm workers. and two books, one dealing with the problems of crime and gui11, the other marriages had been introduced in 1910. The Law Under Which We Live (1937). It was only logical that if the State Thus she has been an active writer performed marriages it could also grant both as a feminist and as an expert on divorces, regardless of where the mar• the law. riage was solemnized. Yet, she was cautious on the issue. According to From the viewpoint of the '70's , Elina her, to allow divorce was to defend the Guimaraes is a conservative feminist. family because it would encourage more Her husband, who is also basically women to marry. Many were now reluc• conservative, sees himself like the tant to do so because of the divorce older generation of the French Radical problem (the great majority of Portu• Party, in the middle of the political guese women still want to get married spectrum, anti-fascist and anti- in the Church). But, because she communist, strongly secular and in• favoured marriage as an institution, dividualistic, at times strictly con• she did not support the Pro-Divorce servative in perceiving events and Movement which also aimed at erasing personalities, sometimes surprisingly any difference between legitimate and open and perceptive in comprehending illegitimate children. The situation them. Elina's views are similar but her for illegitimate children must be im• judgments on the political situation are proved and important steps had been more cautious and less categorical; she taken in this direction as early as lacks the political experience of her 1973- However, people get married to husband. It is not surprising that she have legitimate children. Why marry if looks at the woman problem as mainly a there is no difference between legiti• legal one and not as a social and mate and illegitimate births, she psychologica1-behavoria 1 issue. How• argued? ever, she does not forget the political aspects of the question. An anti• She was optimistic that the Church, af• fascist, she considers fascism as anti- ter April 25, could be more cautious feminist, as antipathetic by its nature and would not create too many impedi• to women's struggle for equal rights. ments to the legal extension of divorce. In the early summer of 1974, the Pro- She was right. In February 1975, the Divorce Movement was being orqanized Vatican and Portugal signed an accord to make divorce possible for those revising the Concordat of 19^0 and married in the Church. Guimaraes was "permitting Roman Catholics who mar• for divorce, saying that there is a ried in the Church to seek divorces in crying need for it. She explained that Portuguese state courts."14 The Portu• civil marriage had existed for a cen• guese government underlined the point tury in Portugal and divorce for such that "the old system contradicted the concept of the equality of citizens in leave because of the massive emigration the face of the law."15 of men, because of industrialization and the resulting demand for female In the name of equal rights for women, labour. Guimaraes1 first priority was to change the Civil Code of the Salazar regime. One of the main purposes of the book she The pre-Salazar Code had been very wrote in 1937 was to criticize man-made revolutionary but the present one was law and male-established legal dis• regressive. Article 1674, for example, crimination against women. Laws formu• states that the husband is the head of lated by men, she felt, will always have the family, he represents it and he has some anti-women bias or at least will the right to make decisions in all mat• neglect the needs and strivings of ters pertaining to conjugal life. The women. Code provides a detailed description of what particular areas are covered by She was cautiously optimistic about the this right. Guimaraes could not ac• future of her country. She had welcomed cept such a concept, especially the the April 25 coup. During our visit, idea that the control of the children she jumped up from her chair to play should be completely in the hands of Grandola Vila Morena, the song which had the father even when the child is un• signaled the revolution. Also she took born. She was against abortion but pleasure in being discovered again. The supported the right of the wife to use first visitors and interviewers were contraceptives on her own decision. from abroad, an American reporter and Even before April 25 there were plans, then us. But soon a Lisbon newspaper, she mentioned, to establish a birth Diario Popular,16 published a long in• control clinic in Lisbon but they had terview with photos under the title: not materialized. "An example of the struggle for the dignity of women in Portugal." She spoke with enthusiasm about the his• tory of women's rights in Portugal and Nostalgia can be detected in her words. about when and how women acquired voting She feels that she was born a generation rights. In the late 1960s a two-month too early. Now her opinions would find maternity leave was legislated and laws a much more fertile soil than in the were passed so that women could not be thirties. It is not so much that she dismissed without cause during preg• yearns to pursue a professional career. nancy or during the year after the birth of the child. In this case, she She is a wife and a homemaker, firmly herself was not satisfied with a legal established in her solid, patrician, explanation only, commenting that the suburban home near the palace of Belem, government had to introduce maternity a home which seems to be her castle. Moreover, she has no liking nor under• in an attempt to demonstrate that he was standing for the women "radicals." She willing and able to modernize and to used the same pejorative epithets for bring about change within the system. them as the male conservatives do; they are "prostitutes" for her. Yet she re• Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo in her mid- grets that she could not have written forties is a strong and active Catholic, her works and struggled for legal a member of the International Catholic changes in a period which held greater Movement, and the GRAAL, and a former prospects for achieving lasting reforms. national president of Pax Romana. Calm, serious, cordial and convinced in her A woman who is participating more di• opinions, she is confident of her abil• rectly in recent events is Maria de ity to handle her office. Her responses Lurdes Pintassilgo. After being Under- to our questions were cautious, often Secretary of State for Social Security diplomatic, but firm. Politically she in Palma Carlo's government, she became is and wants to be independent—strongly in July 1974, the first woman minister committed to the new system but not in Portugal, as the Minister of Social closely aligned to any political party; Affairs in the first cabinet presided her particular concern is, above all, over by Vasco Goncalves. Her career social justice. One of the main needs had already been quite unusual for a in this area, she feels, is better Portuguese woman. An industrial engi• children's care, more and better nur• neer, she worked with the Council of series, kindergartens and orphanages. Energy and also served as Director of Yet she avoided discussing the problem the Centre of Documentation in the De• of birth control or the need for better partment of Research and Planning of information on birth control as a means CUFA. As such she had represented of alleviating problems in this area. Portugal at an OECD seminar on the or• ganization of scientific research. She Her position on the problem of divorce has also been employed in the Political was a prudent one. In principle, civil •and Administrative subsection of the law should not force people to accept the Corporative Chamber (1969~74), has been proscriptions of the Church. However, a member of the Portuguese delegation the government should not force this to the United Nations in 1971-72, and issue but rather wait to determine the finally, from 1973, chaired the Social popular attitude concerning divorce. Policies Commission concerning Women, Thus she was the specialist, the expert, She argued that participation in find• the administrator and the diplomat. ing solutions to social problems is the Caetano had attracted many of these into best political schooling for women. the government sphere (most of them men) Making them more aware socially would make them more conscious politically. had no real contact—and some of its Women must participate first in volun• members did not want such a contact— tary work but simultaneously pressure with the Movimento. The split was not the government to enlarge the frame• between military and non-military but work for their participation. The between revolutionaries and non- shift into new professional areas where revolutionaries. Thus she put her women had not been active previously finger on the main issue in the Portu• would also strengthen their social guese political situation of the past activity. She mentioned that 50% of yeai—the delicate balance between the the medical students in 1974 were women. military and the parties which has been threatened so many times. V/ithout this In her wel1-polished English she offered balance there is little hope for a comments on the Portuguese political democratic, orderly political evolution situation. In some respects her opinions in Portugal. She hoped that the co• were close to those of the young mili• operation of the members of the demo• tary. She liked and respected them and cratic parties and the young military mentioned that in recent years many would endure and that the military progressive young people joined the army finally would withdraw from the politi• because they looked at it as a potential cal arena when their presence was no tool of change, an instrument for longer necessary. crushing the old regime. As a member of the second government of the post-April Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo is no 25 era, she recognized that their task longer a member of the government and would be more difficult than that of the the lack of comment in the internation• former one--this was the opinion of the al press as to why she was dropped from leaders of the Movimento as wel1. She the cabinet is perhaps significant. pointed out that the young officers had During our interview she said that she taken power reluctantly and that they had not been appointed to the cabinet would have preferred, according to their because she was a woman. (The present own confession, to remain in the back• government is all male.) In many ways ground, to act as a powerful pressure she represented more herself as an in• group instead of being responsible di• dependent individual than any group rectly for governing. But they had to whose representation was considered so replace those ministers who had failed; essential. She remains an interesting the Pal/na Carlos government had suf• and basically progressive personality fered from an inherent contradiction; of the Portuguese scene. the existence of that government was above all the result of the success of the Movimento but the government had IV Marias, has acted—it is a best-seller in Portugal—as a social shock, a hard Maria Teresa Horta is well known all knock at the long-locked door of Portu• over the world and, in her own country, guese society. Earlier its publication even notorious. One of the "Three would not have been possible, but in Marias," with Maria Isabel Barreno and recent years Premier Caetano loosened Maria Velho da Costa, she wrote a famous the censoring screw over publishing. book 17 which put her in the vanguard He is reported to have said, with of modern international feminist think• ing and struggle. reference to the publication of certain books with an obvious revolutionary content, that it would calm down some Paradoxically, in Portugal where the of the intellectuals who were in any rate of illiteracy is so high, certain books have acted as potent ferments of case already lost. Others would not change. Such was General Spinola's read them. However, New Portuguese Letters—although published originally Portugal and the Future 18 which con• vinced so many people that military in only 1380 copies—was a "political victory was not possible in Portugal's event in Portugal," according to Jane protracted colonial war. Equally potent, Kramer in her rather patronising review the New Portuguese Letters of the three in The New York Times.19 But it was more than that: it became an ?nter- their concern. AM spoke and wrote national political event when the Portu• sympathetically about them.21 And now guese authorities arrested the three the book has been translated into many Marias, confiscated the book and put its languages, read in many countries, dis• authors on trial for "outrage to public tributed by solid, "establishment" pub• decency" and "abuse of the freedom of lishers such as Doubleday in the United the press." States, Le Seuil in France.

Mary Lydon Fonesca, a free-lance writer In the summer of 1974, Maria Teresa in Lisbon, has recorded some significant Horta spoke to us in her home in Lisbon. details about these events: "When the Even before New Portuguese Letters she police began to investigate the case, was a well known poet, journalist, and they assigned an agent who was specially literary editor of a Lisbon daily. She trained in prostitution cases. He had published nine volumes of verses, wanted to know who had written what: among them a book of erotic poetry, 'I know only one of you ladies did the Minha Senhora de Mim (Milady of Me) pornographic parts and I want to know which had produced a considerable echo. which one.'"20 They were set free on She is considered the enfant terrible bail. The trial itself lasted from of Portuguese women writers, the most July 1973 to May 1974. The judge was radical of them. Neal Ascherson, in changed and his replacement with in• The New York Review of Books, calls her stinctive foresight postponed the sen• the "gaudiest personality"22 among the tencing until May 1974. Then, of three Marias and Time magazi ne the "more course, they were acquitted in triumph, emotional." their book declared to be of literary value and women demonstrators shouted The Marias, as Teresa Horta's apartment the slogan: "Women, United, Shall reflected, are middle-class, in their Never Be Defeated." thirties, convent-trained, married, mothers of sons. Maria Theresa is her• During the trial period the Marias felt self slim, rather delicate with a all the might—and their opponents as pleasant look and, contrary to the im• well--of international solidarity. pressions created by the press, soft- Women's groups and writers in many spoken and restrained. Sometimes tense countries protested. In Portugal it• but a good speaker and a good listener, self 200 writers signed a petition .she was open to dialogue. In Portugal backing them. The American PEN Club, she is by no means an outsider. She British writers, French intellectuals, could be seen at the restaurants or speakers on the CBC, writers for Time, cafes where the political elite meet. Le Nouvel Observateur, all expressed She is usually, but not always, found imong those with leftist sympathies. her a subservient being. Because of her experiences she favours the abolition of Since she believes strongly in militant marriage as an institution. And, as a , her road is separated now corollary, she regards change in the from that of Maria Velho da Costa who home as the most fundamental need for has been called "the third Maria," be• the advance of women. She views as a cause her priority has shifted to the political priority the needs of the "Third World" to which she considers 2,000,000 housewives of Portugal (of Portugal belongs, and to the economic 3,000,000 adult women): they must be liberation of men and women. For Maria approached, spoken to, organized. She Teresa, women in Portugal have to fight mentioned a very successful meeting of against both types of oppression, that housewives where thousands participated imposed by the political and economic and where the idea and the wish emerged system and that of men. She favours for the creation of a union. and foresees an interim period of pol• itical separation or perhaps of pol• One of the first photos circulated af• itical autonomy--in aims and methods— ter April 25 was that of a demonstra• for women while they battle their op• tion of a group of women led by Maria pressors. Afterwards men and women Teresa asking the new military author• will meet on an equal basis and inte• ities to assign them the headquarters grate their struggle. But the period formerly held by one of the fascist of "separation" will likely last for organizations. Parties and other some time and, in her opinion, little groups were allotted space but not progress can be made in the framework women—at least not at that time. Yes, of a capitalist society. She was em• there were women in the democratic phatic that women must refuse to co• parties but Maria Teresa was quite operate with the capitalist system. displeased with the "women-sections" of Of course Maria Teresa agreed that the the parties: these were really periph• situation of women was better since eral in determining the policy; they April 25. Meetings, demonstrations, were auxiliary groups rather than active freer expression, formation of pressure decision-makers. As elsewhere, women groups, all became possible. Before found themselves making coffee, typing, that time she had been a feminist "in preparing festivities and so on. In chamber," that is, privately. Sheltered fact although previously politically till her marriage (in the Church), un• active she was not now in any party.* happily matched, she adjusted herself to a union of conveii.ence. But Maria Teresa had said "no" to all this since her childhood, no to her father and to "She had previously been active with the. her husband, who both wanted to make MDP-CDE, an opposition group which She had the most respect for the Com• play of the Chilean experience with munist Party—it had heen the most de• women defeating the very regime which termined force in fighting fascism. began to open avenues of progress for However, she objected to its severe them? The parties, even the left-wing discipline, the lack of autonomy of the ones, say: "Do not shock women, do not mass organization it controlled (The provoke a backlash, choose the gradual Democratic Movement of Women) and, approach." But is that not again an ex• above all, to its rigid system of moral cuse to hold women back and hazardous values and principles, which are not not only for women but for the parties all "revolutionary." She told us as wel1?" about outstanding Portuguese poets, writers and singers who were denied As for the book, the authors do not party membership or, in exceptional hint at the parts written by each of cases, admitted only with utmost dif• them.23 Maria Teresa was pleased that ficulty because of their "deviant" Doubleday was publishing the book, but (homosexual) behaviour. angry that the publisher was insisting that the book be reduced to a certain number of pages. There was no politi• The atmosphere in Portugal was still not receptive to a frank discussion of cal or moral reason involved, only and feminist aims. To publicly debate strictly an editorial one, they as• abortion was quite an act of radicalism serted, but Maria Teresa suspected and even for a radical feminist it was some kind of censorship. The book was virtually impossible to raise the issue not cut, but Doubleday held out with of the rights of lesbian women. Maria respect to the title. In English it is Teresa was worried: how will women called The Three Marias and New Portu• vote? Would there be in Portugal a re• guese Letters is the subti tie.24

functioned in the Caetano period. It " The Central Committee of the Portu• contained communists, socialists and guese Communist Party, elected in left-oriented Catholics. After April November 1974, had 21 men and 2 25, it survived as a mass movement but women on it; the central organ of the became a formal party before the elec• PPD in the summer of 1974, almost ex• tions. It gained k.\2% of the votes, clusively lawyers, had no women on it; well below the expectations of its the Socialist Party in the early sum• leaders. The Socialists have asked mer of 1974 spoke of about 10,000 many times for its dissolution, arguing active male members and only 200 that it is a "fellow-traveller" of the active women. The proportion has im• Communist Party. proved somewhat since. The book is patterned on a well-known kind care, how to behave "in those huge work: Letters of a Portuguese Nun by forests," and not to "drink" any more Sister Mariana, originally written in than he had to to keep warm in those French in the seventeenth century by a "snowdrifts" and she finishes her let• Portuguese nun to her French soldier- ter: "From your wife, who is yours till lover who abandoned her. (They may death do us part." have been a literary fraud and are generally attributed to the French The book is a confession, even a pro• author and diplomat Gabriel Joseph de gram as the authors say, ". . . playing LaVergne, Vicomte de Gui11eragues.) In clever games with your pen, but never this old frame there is a completely frivolous ones."26 The style is often new painting, picturing through letters, poet i c: verses, meditations and invocations, We are females. . . the frustrations and strivings of Portuguese women. As Maria Teresa Horta Fi rmly resolved says, the book has one great theme: the never to be a prey liberation of women, a claim of their or an object right to be "different and separated." abjectly surrendering It is direct, straightforward and out• spoken, sometimes it shocks because it or deliberately giving off wants to shock. Sometimes it shouts, the odor of dry wood but one has to shout when silence goes calling ourselves glass unheeded. It covers the whole spectrum stone of the tribulations of Portuguese travelled across women. For example, there is a let• ter from a woman, Maria Ana, to her as we journey towards ourselves husband Antonio, an emigrant residing borne by a barque for twelve years in Kitimat, BC.25 or by the wind Maria Ana is illiterate and a cousin writes the letter for her. Her husband A far-ranging wants to come home, but not until he is shared circling round and round rich, "filthy rich." But what good this path we follow will that do to his wife, who feels as to find sustenance if she "were wearing widow's weeds be• cause I'll be thirty-eight this year to sink firm foundations and I bore you three children before for the dreamed-of anchorage you went away and raised them and they're all grown up. . . ." She where we now remain wants him back and writes to him with separated from others and yet so close.27 In the conclusion of her article, Annie continued its activity, produced, Cohen refers to the pessimism of some managed, administered the factory and feminists about the situation of women organized the sale of its products. in Portugal.28 It is true that women There are a number of such examples, are still victims after April 25, but some successful, some less so, which in pessimism is not the only possible con• any case reflect the increased activity clusion. April 25 has opened new vis• of women in every domain; and greater tas for the women of Portugal. The participation is the road towards matur• political atmosphere, the structural ity.

changes in industry, banking and FOOTNOTES those which are to come in agriculture, 1. The Christian Science Monitor, May 2, 1975. the pluralism of politicial life (at 2. The Manchester Guardian Weekly, February 15, 1975- least up to now), the thirst of dif• 3. Le Monde, April 28, 1975. ferent people and groups to formulate 4. The Christian Science Monitor, May I, 1975- 5. The Toronto Daily Star, June 10. 1975.

and to utter their political opinions 6. Portugal and its Empire: The Truth (London, I96I), p. 53.

have pushed many women into active or 7. Ibid., p. 55. more active social life. The intensity 8. Portugal at rave's de alguns numeros (Lisbon, 1973), P- 38 (our translation). 9. Ibid. , p. 32- of participation," the forms it takes 10. Cited by Antonio de Figueiredo in The Manchester Guardian Weekly, May 3, 1975- Fugueiredo also notes that the wages were so low that both men and may vary, but the fact remains. Ad• women had to be forced by the gendarmes to work on the large estates of mittedly, the political parties do not the Alemtejo in the south. 11. "Un mois au Portugal," Les Temps Modernes, no. 339 (October, 1974), pp. show enough comprehension of the prob• 133-139. lem of women and the military, who are 12. The New York Times, May 19, 1974. 13. Diario Popular, July 13, 1974.

increasingly powerful, do not lack 14. The New York Times, February 16, 1975. mach i smo. But, on the other hand, new 15. Ministry of Mass Communication, Portugal: Freedom: Year One (Lisbon, 1975), n.p.

participatory forms are developing such 16. July 13, 1974. as worker commissions, different types 17. Novas Cartas Portugueses (Lisbon, 1972). of neighbourhood commissions, both in 18. Ant6*nio de Spinola, Portugal e o Futuro (Lisbon, 1974). 19. The New York Times, February 2, 1975.

the towns and in the countryside. Also, 20. "The Case of The Three Marias," Ms_, III, 7 (January, 1975). recent changes present new challenges. 21. For example, see Time, July 23, 1973, pp. 49-50, and Claude Servan- Schreiber, "Les trois pecheresses du Portugal," Le Nouvel Observateur, No. Sometimes estates or factories are 46 (October 22, 1973), P- 49. abandoned and have to be taken over by 22. The New York Review of Books, March 20, 1975- 23- There is a lot of specuI ation--not always obviously well-intentioned-- the workers; thus women alongside men about their roles in writing the book. Jane Kramer, in her review (The New York Tines, February 2, 1975), assumes that the best of the book is are often literally forced to partici• written by Maria Velho da Costa and another Maria is "responsible for the dreadful monologues of maids and peasant women and the quotes from Ti- pate and to make decisions about im• Grace Atkinson." On the other hand, Claude Sorvan-Schreiber stresses that the book was accepted for publication in Portugal because Mario Teresa portant social problems. For example, Horta was already a well-known established poet and writer ("Les trois after the minimum wages were raised, pecheresses du Portugal"). 24. Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Velho da Costa, The Three the director of a confection enterprise Marias: New Portuguese Letters, tr. Helen R. Lane (New York, 197TT (Sogantal) abandoned the factory whose 25. Ibid. , pp. 150-'53. 26. Ibid. , p. 22. workers were chiefly women. Yet they 27. Ibid. , pp. 50-51 . 28. "Un nois au Portugal," Les Temps Modernes, No. 339 (October, 1174), 0. 139