Four Feminists Itineraries Introduction Patios and Graça Vilas
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Four Feminists Itineraries Introduction Dedicated to all the people that fought for Lisbon to be a city of Freedom. These Feminists Itineraries in the city of Lisbon, are integrated on the project “Memories and Feminisms: Women and the Republic in the city of Lisbon – Memórias e Feminismos: Mulheres e República na cidade de Lisboa”, and was born from the partnership established between UMAR – Women Union for Alternative and Answer, and the investigation team “Faces of Eve - Faces de Eva” from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, winners of the first edition of the award Council awards Madalena Barbosa, in the same position with AMI foundation – International Medical Aid. Our gold with the Feminists Itineraries, following the Feminist Agenda/Calendar for 2010 entitled Women and The Republic, is to break the walls of oblivion that all women that fought for emancipatory movements have been drawn. With this edition of “Four Feminists Itineraries” we start an adventure through the city of Lisbon with a special magnifier, so we can find and turn visible the voice and the leading roles of women, both in their individual paths and in collective fights, helping building and historical feminist memories. We focused on the First Republic period, but we didn’t limited ourselves to it strictly, because we don’t want to limit generations, school of thoughts, social activisms that co- existed and still coexist. One running the streets and doesn’t care about boundaries, we are faced with outstanding figures that took our way by their musicality, commitment in social change, examples of citizenship and revolutionary power. Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist pioneer more than two hundred years ago, was in Lisbon in the year of 1785. But many others joined their names to the feminist causes. Before and during the First Republic, in the fights with the Dictatorship within the New State (Estado Novo), and even after the 25 Abril 1974, the most important revolution yet unfinished, they were there: in the streets, in the rallies, on the literary events, in the republican school centers, in the feminine and feminist associations, in the editorial offices, coffee places, in the theaters, in the parks, in courts and on the barricades that took place on the 5th of October of 1910, when the Republic arose. It’s not enough to add the name of women and other relevant people, also silenced, so the city history has also a feminist perspective. It’ s necessary to go beyond and start enquiring the current values hierarchy established, that reflect women and other minority groups in a stereotyped and discriminating way, opening this way the thought to new types of knowledge and new cultural and social practices. The four itineraries suggested in these pages, follow the hills of Lisbon. In the Graça Hills we have itinerary one and two, that from the Graça and Senhora do Monte viewpoints, you can observe itinerary 3 and 4 laying on the Chagas Hill (Carmo square and surroundings), Santa Catarina (Camões square until Calçada do Combro) and São Roque (Bairro Alto). We wish you enjoy the city in the company of these relevant people that gave life to these streets, squares, gardens and built Lisbon history. (poema MC prosa poética , 2010 não traduzida) Patios and Graça vilas Página 1 The industrialization process that accentuated in the second half of the nineteen century, localized initially in the riverside areas, such has Alcântara and Xabregas, turned old fishermen into factory workers, and attracted migrants from the rural parts of the countryside to Lisbon. These people faced severe precariousness “the big majority of these men and women had precarious temporary jobs, with no kind of contractual security, let alone social assistance. Social assistance was addressed only to more qualified workers, provided by their Unions, and provided for specific purposes, such has funeral costs or diseases. Jobs in the industrial sector extended to several areas, not only in Lisbon, also on the surrounding areas of the city, specially in the south margin of the river and the city of Setúbal. Along with the big companies, small factories and shops expanded, with their doors open to the streets, to patios and alleys. The Services sector that was also expanding offered jobs in offices, Railway company, Electricity and Telecommunications companies. Since 1875, the associative movements under the influence of socialist and anarquist ideas, will influence the creation of associations, Unions, groups based on solidarity and social values, educational, cultural and recreational groups, with the main gold of improving the working class life conditions. Even though most of the male and female workers were illiterate or had a very low educational level and having a low sense of collective class, Oliveira Marques states that “ it was in the middle of these people that was growing a small active group of socialists and anarchists (more numerous), and even communists since 1918”. Just 32 days before the Republican Revolution, the newspaper O Mundo presented an article titled “The telephone slaves”, that described the terrible conditions of the female workers, emphasizing the big working hours schedule that could go to 9 or 10 hours per day along with miserable wages. We should remember that one of the resolutions of the newly created Republic created was an 8 working hours per day schedule. Women that didn’t belong to higher classes of society, usually worked in the hat industry, tabacco industry, canned goods, textiles, chocolate industries, as well as taylors and needlewomen, ironing, laundry workers, fishwives, and market sales, unpacking coal from the docks, housemaids, always with very small wages that were barely enough to survive with. The endemic poverty spread vigorously, living alongside with the richest areas of the city where the wealthy lived. At the doors of coffees shops, train stations, big groups of beggars of different ages fought for their survival, and it was usual at that time to “clean the streets” as a social measure to control poverty. In the newspaper Correio da Manhã, Raul Brandão (1867-1930) that worked for the newspaper since 1893, in his nocturnal strolls through the city, urged by strong critical spirit and social and ethical responsibility, denounced the poverty and misery in the streets “at night, as soon as it gets dark, the city lamps dispersed through the city , and as soon as the addiction opens the heart to the begging, only then poverty is creepy, mournful the groups of hungry and criminals. Liberty Avenue, is filled with infamous creatures, submitted to the unfair struggle upon them, the hunger that destroys them. It´s closely observing them, enquire them and some will say the livid stories of their bitter, desperate and moving lives.” The underpaid working families would gather, majority of them, in the Lisbon neighborhoods of Alcantâra, Graça, Alfama and Xabregas. Nevertheless some neighborhoods were showing some concerns about hygiene, especially because the Typhus, under nutrition, hunger, and tuberculosis, were killing part of the city population. Página 2 Elina Guimarães (1904-1991), in 1930 when emphasizing the importance of Feminism, mentioned the unworthy life conditions of women, by saying: “in Portugal, feminism has an important and useful roll to fulfill. In a country where thousands of female workers are underpaid, lacking of hygiene conditions, the lack of maternity wards, child day care centers, that because of ignorance and poverty of the mothers, child mortality rate is so high and shameful, it’s an imperative duty of all women with higher education and better life conditions to speak out and defend their sisters of these miserable conditions“. It was estimated that by 1940, the mortality rate was higher than 150 per every 1000 children, and that life expectancy estimated was around 40 years old. Nowadays these values are 3,4 per every 1000 children for the child mortality rate, and 78,70 years old (81,74 for women and 75,49 for men), which shows us the big improvements in Portuguese life quality, after Aprils revolution (the 25th of Abril 1974). Itinerary 1 Address: Senhora do Monte pointview Location: Senhora do Monte pointview Description: the first records of the existence of people settlements in Graça Hill go back to the middle ages, during the Muslim period, and it was designated as “almofala”. The main activity for inhabitants was agriculture, and there were plenty of olive trees, orchards and vegetable gardens. In 1147 D. Afonso Henriques, taking advantage of the strategical location, settled his troops here, to attack the city. From the hillside between São Vicente and São Gens, he was able to develop an attack strategy, in cooperation with the foreign Crusades that made camp on the opposite hillside (Mártires). Additional information: to access by public transports can be made by taking the buses 12,26,35,107 and the tram 28. Address: São Gens street, 41 Location: Angelina Vidal House Description: “Woman with an unusual talent, spent her life teaching people and fighting for the humbles, resembling them in the tragedy of their daily lives”, so it said Raul Esteves dos Santos, president of the Association Voz do Operário, in the commemoration of the centenary of her birth. Teacher, Writer, Poet and Lecturer, she had the gift of the spoken word, conquering any assembly, scientific or literary, passing through republican rallies and workers rallies. In the period of her political activity she defined herself has being a federalist republican and a free-thinker, and she was present in the worker centers where the republican ideas and the organization of the working class was taking place and getting stronger. Her lectures on the inauguration of Rodrigues Freitas Club in Oporto in 1880, became famous. They were audacious and new for, women in those times.