Friday, March 29, 2024

From the Power of Women to Women in Power

THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IS A CLASSICAL ODYSSEY OUT OF WHICH WE SEEK TO CONVEY A BRIEF RETROSPECTIVE PORTRAIT, TO REACH FROM CLASSICAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT, TRACING THE PROFILES OF SOME OF THE WOMEN WHO, VARYING IN AGE, FROM THE LEFT TO THE RIGHT IN POLITICS, FROM THE NORTH TO THE SOUTH IN GEOGRAPHY, HAVE A ROLE IN LOCAL POWER, IN PARLIAMENT OR IN GOVERNMENT.

A chance of gender equality in the management of something public is a centuries old aspiration but really only from the philosophical point of view. In order to encounter the origins of those who, in a political-philosophic essay, raised such a hypothesis then we have to reach back many centuries all the way to Ancient Greece and more precisely to the philosopher Protagoras of Abdera, in almost 500 B.C. The prospect may well have inspired the most significant conquests of this period as they were expounded by the women of Sparta, the first to be able to enjoy on mass the pleasures of leisure and political discussion, managing households and small family businesses even if not exercising full and equal rights and powers.

However, despite the historical precedent of this field of ideas, it was then necessary to await Kate Sheppard, in 1893, just 124 years ago, to see the first suffragist to win, in New Zealand, the right to vote for women. Prior to this, irrespective of the records of matriarchal societies where, despite the vote still remaining a mirage, women were recognised as holding decision making powers by other mechanisms, however, whenever the vote appeared in history, it was only exercised by man and always destined for the election of men. Even under Athenian democracy, there were only rare, where not mythological examples, such as the women of Attiki in the times of King Cecrop I, of when women were able to vote. There were women with power in classical times but names such as Cleopatra provide the exception that confirms the rule that lasted throughout the different types of patriarchal societies in which women were limited to domestic labour or agricultural tasks while men held onto a monopoly over the management of public life.

From winning the right to vote in New Zealand through to 1948, the date of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which for the first time an overwhelming majority of nations committed to the idea of the “universal and equal right to suffrage”, fifty years of struggle by female and male suffragists reaped greater rewards than entire centuries of history in which advances had only ever been residual, partial and tardy. One example that still remains today would be Saudi Arabia where, despite legislative changes in 2015, the right of females to vote is still restricted by a set of rules that prevent it being universal. However, irrespective of the uneven levels of progress, in truth, in a little over a century, there have been more advances than in many of the previous centuries put together and it would eventually have been unthinkable for a historian from the last century to grasp the changes that would see women such as Angela Merkel lead nations like Germany and Christine Lagarde heading a financial institution such as the IMF.

In Portugal, Carolina Beatriz Ângelo made recourse to a loophole in a law from the first Republic in order to cast her vote, becoming the first woman to exercise this right nationally but in doing so provoked a backlash from an already Republican but still overly patriarchal society to allow the vote for women. Carolina Beatriz Ângelo was a head of family after having been widowed and “heads of family” was the expression that the first electoral law used to define just who was eligible to vote. However, as a consequence of this episode, and as from 1913, the law became more specific and stipulated that both the vote and those running for office had to be “male in gender heads of family”.

With the first Republic falling by the wayside and in the wake of the coup carried out on 28 May 1926, the vote was extended to “heads of family widowed, divorced or judicially separated and having family in their care, and those women married but with their husbands absent in the colonies or abroad”. However, it was not until the first election in post-25th April revolution Portugal, on 15 November 1974, that the right to vote became universal without any restriction other than adulthood.

With democracy came change to the legislative restraints even if in practice such changes were not automatic and while the problem may have been resolved in terms of the right to vote, the fact demonstrates how the participation of women has been a slow process and still highly unbalanced. Despite making up around 50% of the active population, only once has there been a female President of the Republic and the percentage of women in parliament, in terms of the decades of the 70s, 80s and 90s, the presence rose only to 6.9%, 7% and 10.5% respectively. Furthermore, only in the last legislature did the first woman, Assunção Esteves, preside over the Assembly of the Republic.

These numbers reveal that there is still much ground to be covered and that we shall certainly also reach new levels of female representation in local power, in parliament or in government, so that we have a more equal society in terms of the rights of women and men.

PROFILES

CARLA NUNES TAVARES

PS

AMADORA

Born on 15 August 1970, Carla Nunes Tavares graduated in Management from Lisbon’s Autónoma University and is a Financial Technician/Accountant by profession. From the outset, she engaged in political activities having held the positions of member of the Reboleira Parish Assembly between 1993 and 1997, member of the Amadora Municipal Assembly between 1998 and 2002, and a Member of Parliament in the 8th Legislature between 1999 and 2002. She was councillor and vice-president of Amadora Municipal Council between 2002 and 2013, where she held roles in the fields of education, sport, youth, social development, human resources and finances. She has also served as President of the Aveiro Federative Department of Socialist Women. She has been President of Amadora Municipal Council since 21 October 2013.

ASSUNÇÃO CRISTAS

CDS

LISBOA

Aged 42, she was born in Angola, in Luanda, on 28 September 1974. Her complete name is Maria de Assunção Oliveira Cristas Machado da Graça, but her “campaigning name” is Assunção Cristas, which she adopted late but just as she began her meteoric rise in political life. She joined the CDS in 2007 and was Minister of Agriculture and the Sea between 2011 and 2015 and currently leads the CDS-PP party, a role held since 13 March 2016. She graduated in Law from the Faculty of Law, University of Lisbon in 1997, is married and has four children. In January 2013, on learning of her pregnancy, she became the first woman in Portugal to be with child while holding the office of minister. Took CDS to the best result ever in Lisbon.

JOANA MORTÁGUA

BE

ALMADA

Born in Alvito in 1986, she is among the youngest candidates for the office of Municipal Council President nationwide. Daughter of Camilo de Mortágua, a founding member of Luar and twin sister to the MP Mariana Mortágua, she began her political activities at a young age in movements dedicated to the defence of human rights and the rights of women. A student activist, she joined the BE at the age of 18, where she was a lead member of the campaign for the decriminalisation of abortion entitled the Youth Movement for YES. Head of the electoral list for Évora in the 2009 parliamentary elections, she has already been backed by her party in the 2013. She was now elected councilor of the BE in the Municipality of Almada.

INÊS DE MEDEIROS

PS

ALMADA

Inês de Medeiros, aged 49, is an actress by profession and currently serves as vice-president of INATEL. Inês de Medeiros began her political life when she publicly backed Jorge Sampaio in his first campaign for the Presidency of the Republic and simultaneously to her high profile national and international acting career. In 2009, Inês de Medeiros ran as a PS candidate for the European Parliament and again stood on the Socialist electoral list for the parliamentary elections in the same year. On getting elected, a position she held until 2015, she stood out for her defence of Culture. She also served on the parliamentary commissions for Education, Science, Culture, Social Security, Employment, Ethics, Citizenship and Communications. It was one of the surprises of the last municipal elections when won the the historical bastion of CDU.

LUÍSA MARIA NEVES SALGUEIRO

PS

MATOSINHOS

Luísa Maria Neves Salgueiro, aged 49, born in São Mamede de Infesta, ran with PS for the Council where she has always belonged, Matosinhos. Married and mother of a daughter, Luísa Salgueiro graduated in Law and took a post-graduate qualification in Environmental Law.

She arrived in politics after a period as a juridical consultant and having previously been elected to the Parliament Assembly in 2005 on the Oporto Electoral List, she was councillor of Matosinhos Municipal Council and responsible for Social Action, Housing, Health and Youth. In parliament, she became a vice-president of the Socialist Party Parliamentary Group and took up roles on the parliamentary commissions in the fields of Health, Employment and Social Security. On the margins of national politics, Luísa Salgueiro also holds international experience with the particular highlight of having been the first woman to take on a management role at NATO, having also served as vice-president of the Energy and Environment Security Commission, one of the five parliamentary commissions run by the Alliance, which handles core issues such as matters interrelated with bioterrorism and future energy sector development.

In the social field, she has played leading roles in social organisations such as, and for example, the MAIS Association – (Matosinhos Supports Social Inclusion), AIDEMA (Association for the Integrated Development of Matosinhos) and the Commission of Child and Youth Protection. She was one of the suprises in the last municipal elections.

HELOÍSA APOLÓNIA

VERDES

OEIRAS

Heloísa Augusta Baião de Brito Apolónia, of the Verdes (Greens), aged 48, was a candidate in the last elections for the Oeiras Municipal Council. Born in Barreiro, Heloísa Apolónia graduated in Law but from a young age turned her political activities into the reason she gained fame nationwide due to her successive election as an MP throughout the last seven legislatures.

One of her priorities has been the national affirmation of the ecological agenda, a concern held since her adolescence, a time when she participated in campaigns against nuclear energy.

Having made contributions in areas above all connected with ecology, this theme does not exhaust her parliament activities having sat on the Commission for Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Liberties and Guarantees, the Economy and Public Works Commission, the Agriculture and Sea Commission, the Education, Science and Culture Commission, the Health Commission and the Environment, Land Planning and Local Government Commission.

Deputy in the Republic Assembly and town councilor elected by the Oeiras Municipal Council.

Carlos Renato Teixeira

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