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
ASSUNÇÃO CRISTAS
CDS
JOANA MORTÁGUA
BE
INÊS DE MEDEIROS
PS
LUÍSA MARIA NEVES SALGUEIRO
PS
HELOÍSA APOLÓNIA
VERDES