Ut)o v cj r o V c\ , (/I j . ^ w Women in §ra£i^ Today c By MARY MK^fjAtaON _ ^ Inter-American Re pb^Je ntat-^v^^jC^ the Women's Bureau, U. S . Department of Labor U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Frances Perkins, Secretary WOMEN'S BUREAU Mary Anderson, Director WOMEN IN BRAZIL TODAY Through the dark streets of Rio de Janeiro during the practice blackouts, smartly uniformed air wardens patrol the city with confidence and authority. Each one knows how to handle the job assigned. Men and women obey their directions without question. Stran- ger than a Rio without lights is the fact that these uniformed civilians, whose word is law in the dark- ened city, are not men but women. Guardians of their country in a new sense, these women of Brazil have moved a long way from the "guarded" world their grandmothers knew. Women patrolling the city in a blackout and uniformed women carrying out their daytime war volunteer assignments add fresh dramatic interest to a feminine "revolution" in Brazil that began about 30 years ago during World War I. Women of leisure, the professions, business, and industry share the results and the honors. In typically Brazilian fashion, however, the changes come so naturally and with such good humor that only a few realize how different for women is today from yesterday. Dona Maria Sabina Albuquerque, a delightfully feminine Brazilian who is both a poet and an outstanding woman leader, is one of those who can recognize significant changes. With the war years that upset so many social patterns as her date of reference, Dona Maria Sabina said, "Before 1914 women and girls did not go out on the streets alone, even during the daytime. Now this is changed; a - 3 all go unaccompanied during the day and older women at night." This war may change what is left of that, too. Well-to-do women in Brazil have not felt the push of a Junior League or a Mt. Holyoke degree in soci- ology to urge them into volunteer social welfare or community activities as have women of the same social standing in the United States. For most of them church-inspired charity work discharges their obligation to the community. Axis torpedoes blasted the traditional pattern of life for these women, perhaps to the permanent advantage of themselves and their country. After the five Brazilian ships were sunk in August 1942 and Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy, Dona Darcy, the wife of President Vargas, took matters in hand. She organized . the Legiao Brasileira de Assistencia (Brazilian Legion of Assistance) to give aid to the men called to the armed services and to their families. The attractive, unassuming First Lady of Brazil still remembers how neighbors in small towns, where she has lived most of her life, help each other in times of emergency. Brazil was at war and some of its people suddenly needed special help. Dona Darcy called upon the women to take the responsibilities for the Legiao, frankly saying that she wanted to enlist women who had been occupied largely with their own social activities, to interest them in social welfare problems and stimulate them to do something to improve conditions. - 4 - The women responded to Dona Darcy’s call to war service with a display of energy and enthusiasm that amazed and baffled male onlookers. The story goes that some cabinet members complained to the Presi- dent because their wives were invading their offices and taking over the space and personnel for Legiao business. Legiao activities are now as large and varied as Brazil itself, embracing every phase of civilian defense and social welfare arising in a nation at war. Training thousands of willing but inexperienced volunteers for air raid warden or can- teen work, family and child welfare assistance, communications and transportation, nutrition work, and victory gardening is in itself an enormous undertaking. Very soon the need was felt for the cooperation of professionally trained persons to handle the complicated problems involved in helping the families of service men. Now women lawyers, doctors, and social workers give a definite number of hours each week to the Legiao. Home women, busi- ness girls, and factory workers have volunteered to help as they can. The semiofficial character of the Legiao is maintained as the organization has spread beyond the capital by having the wives of the governors and the mayors serve as chairmen for the States and cities. While the Legiao tends to overshadow other women's organizations at this time, the long established Brazilian Red Cross is doing excellent work with the first aid and nurses' aide training. The value 5 of this program may prove to be the greatest in its effect on the status of nursing as a profession, a question which will be discussed more fully later. In Sao Paulo 2 Red Cross services have been organ- ized by a graduate nurse now working as a volunteer; one, the ,! Samari tanas, " pledges graduates of the l-year nurses' aide course not to work for money; the other, the "Socarristas, " is for first-aid work- ers, some of whom have advanced enough to assist in the 75 Red Cross posts in the city. Smaller groups of women have blazed the trail in years past for the present widespread interest in organized activities. Since 1922 the Brazilian Federation ior the Progress of Women (Federacao Brasileira pelo Progresso Feminino) has worked ef- fectively to improve the political and civil status of women. Catholic women's associations have exten- sive educational, health, and welfare programs for employed girls, young boys, mothers, and small chil- dren. University graduates, who are usually prac- ticing members of their professions of law, medicine, engineering, pharmacy, chemistry, nursing, or teach- ing, have their "Uniao Universi taria Feminina. " There are organizations to combat illiteracy, to educate women in civic duties, and to encourage women journalists. Some thoughtful young professional women in Brazil who are interested in the changing position of women in their country believe that the war work of the 6 Legiao, the Red Cross, and other women's organi- zations will definitely affect the future attitudes and activities of upper-class women in particular. They see several possible developments extending into the post-war years. First, women who never before have worked seriously in organized groups (except perhaps in charity associations) have learned something about their i communities and social problems, and their new-found interest in social welfare will continue after the war. Second, the leisure-class women who are carrying new and exacting responsibilities in the organi- zations are coming to appreciate the need fo r formal , higher education and even professional training, and will want their daughters to continue in the high school and university instead of considering finishing-school sufficient education, whether they need to earn their living or not. The opening of liberal arts colleges in the universities will con- tribute largely to the higher education of women, and already young women form a large percentage of the enrollment in the Schools of Philosophy and Letters. Until recently, women who went to the universities had to attend the professional schools of law, medicine, or social science. Third, the dignity and reliability of the air raid wardens, nurses' aides, and first-aid workers will do much in changing the general attitude toward 7 women. The experience and confidence which women acquire by the new accomplishments will not dis- appear after the emergency period has passed. Participation of women in public life was en- couraged by granting them the right to vote in 1932, a right for which they were clamoring. Before the legislature was dissolved, several women were elected to the Congress and to State and local offices. Two women were appointed to the committee that drew up a new national constitution. Several municipal- ities have had women mayors, chairmen of municipal councils, and justices of the peace. Under President Vargas many more women have been appointed to public offices. They have served as ranking consular officers in Liverpool, Rome, Buenos Aires, and Paris. A woman is director of the National Museum, and several women have responsible adminis- trative jobs in the Department of Labor and in the Government social welfare division. A young woman lawyer was recently named to the staff of the Federal attorney general and others have served in similar capacities in some of the States. The national director of secondary education is a woman, one of many women educators to gain well-earned recognition. Women doctors, chemists, and pharmacists work in the health and education departments, helping to develop the Government's hygiene, nutrition, and child-welfare programs. 8 The Federal civil service system, called DASP ( Departamento de Administracao de Servi^o Publico), gives women equal opportunity with men — at least theoretically. Practically the DASP policy some- times has interesting results, as in the case of the woman engineer who is chief of a section in the Water and Drainage Inspection Division in the Min- istry of Education and Health, a position she ob- tained through competitive examination, or another woman engineer who has worked on road building commissions. A set-back for women occurred not long ago, however, when future employment oppor- tunities in the Bank of the Nation, in certain positions in the War and Navy Departments, and in foreign service, were closed to women. The con- vention of the Brazilian Federation for the Progress of Women made a vigorous public protest against this action, calling attention to the fact that the present constitution declares that all are equal before the law, that all public offices are equally accessible to all Brazilians. Women have done so well in competitive examinations for government jobs that men are protesting. When asked about competition between men and women for jobs in government and in business, some young pro- fessional women replied that Brazilian men resent women who threaten their security, resent them as competitors because they are that, not because they are women. 9 Government service il not the only road open to the professionally trained woman. Medical doctors and and lawyers have ample opportunities for substantial private practices and good incomes, perhaps better opportunities than their colleagues in the United States. The young woman in Sao Paulo who is an equal member of a law firm with two men is not unique; nor are the three women lawyers who share offices and form a triumvirate of specialists in criminal, civil, and labor law. A woman doctor with a large private practice was elected to the National Academy of Medicine a year ago for her specialized work in hematology. It seems that only ability and hard work determine professional status for women as for men. For younger women in Brazil one of the most sig- nificant changes taking place is the slow emergence of nursing as a skilled and honorable profession. Nursing in Brazil is still a vocational stepchild, as it was in the United States at the turn of the century. One graduate nurse, with a background of wealth and social position in Sao Paulo, said that her family and friends "were horrified" when she wanted to take the nurses' training course, because nursing had always been considered menial labor with about as much prestige as domestic service. This extreme attitude is giving way before the im- proved standards in nursing schools, the opening of new schools of nursing, and the fact that the 10 young women of good families who proudly wear their uniforms in public actually do the routine work of nurses's aides after completing a course of training. The establishment of a school of nursing within the School of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo is a decided step toward raising the educational requirements and professional standing of nursing. The growing numbers of women in the professions, business, and industry is a far cry from the world of Brazilian women before 1914. Not only was it bad taste to go on the streets alone but, according to Dona Maria Sabina Albuquerque again, "Formerly to have to work was a disaster. There might be 8 or 10 women and girls in one family with one poor man trying to support all of them. That is changed now. It is no longer a disgrace to work." Women have been employed in factories, particularly textile mills, for as long as the factories have been in operation. Women in Brazil, as in all countries, seek work in factories not because they insist on economic independence, but because their families need the money they can earn. Brazilian women industrial workers do the kinds of jobs that are always done by women in the traditional woman- employing industries such as textiles, clothing, food processing, pharmaceuticals, and electrical- equipment assembly — the monotonous, repetitive work requiring patience and manual dexterity. It is 11 reasonable to expect that as industrialization in- creases in the consumer- goods field in Brazil, more women will be employed in manufacturing. The war has not by-passed Brazilian women wage earners. The same industries that employ large numbers of women have boosted production sharply to meet increased demands from new domestic and foreign markets due to war conditions. With very limited imports from Europe and the United States, more Brazilians are buying nationally made consumer goods. Paradoxically, shipping shortages have opened new export markets for Brazil with other South American countries and with Africa, especially for textiles. An expanding army has meant increased production of cotton cloth for uniforms, canvas, blankets, socks, and other equipment manufactured in textile and knitting mills. More pharmaceutical products and, of course, munitions are now needed. Women are working overtime or on extra shifts in some plants to meet war production demands. Another decisive factor affecting the wartime increase of women in industry is that employers are required by law to pay to the dependents one-half of the salary of an employee called into the armed services. Some employers have found it less com- plicated to replace men with women than to replace them with other men subject to the draft. A few new employment opportunities have opened to women since the war. Several plants are training and using women in the machine shops and on machine 12 repair crews-; the Central Railroad trained sev- eral hundred women for jobs occupied by men; new aircraft plants have employed some women as lathe operators, solderers, and assemblers. In addition, the vocational schools and a new national apprentice- ship training program should increase the possi- bilities for girls in more skilled jobs. The women of Brazil watch the women of the United States with a great deal of interest. They ask if equal wages and equal opportunities for women are "realities" in the United States and, if not, what are the women of this country doing about it. They want to know about women's participation in the war effort. They ask what will happen to the millions of working women in the United States after the war. Women of the United States proved their ability and found a new confidence during the war years of 1914 to 1918. Women of several South American countries date from the same period the beginning of their enlarged opportunities for work and service. After the present war the women of every country will face serious adjustments. Leaders of Brazilian women believe that the inevitable changes can be met within the framework of their national traditions and customs, that new and hard-won opportunities will be opened to them. The Brazilians are on their way, not hurrying, but going.