Feminism PT style
Last month's municipal elections were relatively successful for Brazil's Workers Party (PT). Helena Bonuma discusses the successes, and limits, of her feminist activities in local government and in PT structures. • Brazilian machismo is still strong. How do people react to a "feminist" electoral campaign? THINGS CHANGE! THE FEMINIST ELEMENT IN my programme was one of the reasons I was elected to the state parliament of Rio Grande do Sul and the Porto Alegre Municipal Council. Though feminist work is difficult in these institutions! Less than 10% of delegates are women, and the tradition here is towards personalised concentration of power. Nevertheless, the needs of women, and oppressed minorities in general, are better taken care of here in Porto Alegre than in most other larger Brazilian towns. This is thanks to the participatory budget process in Puerto Alegre since the PT took over in 1988. and the efforts of PT women to integrate women's • You work with the women's movement outside the institutions
Here in Rio Grande do Sul state, the women's movement has been around, in one form or another, since the late 1970s. In my particular circles, the Fourth International's 1979 resolution on women had a great influence on the way we tried to approach and support the various women's struggles. In 1980 I began working with a non-governmental organisation which tried to apply our conception of feminism to the peasant reality. We were able to develop a whole mobilisation of peasant women, round a few central themes. For example, under the 1961 Land Code, peasant women were not recognised as workers. They worked on family plots, but had no right to social security, no access to credit, no right to form a trade union, and no possibilities to sell their produce. Everything had to pass through the
In the 1980s, this rural women's movement was quite impressive. In 1985 we brought 10,000 women from all over the state to Porto Alegre for a meeting. There were similar movements in other parts of Brazil, although here in Rio Grande do Sul, the church was less involved in the leadership of the movement. This meant, among other things, that we could organise debates about the family, sexuality, and so on.
Here in the city, on the other hand, there was no mass women's movement. There were some small feminist groups in the 1970s, but they didn't last. In 1986 we created a Women's Commission within the Unitary Workers Centre (CUT), the trade union body. We began to organise urban women workers, particularly in the shoe industry of the Cisne Valley, where most of Rio Grande do Sul's industry is located.
We decided to create women's commissions inside the union, but autonomous, and oriented towards all the women in each specific profession. Our male comrades, the revolutionaries, thought all this was great as long as we were targeting a "yellow-led" (boss-dominated) union. But it all seemed rather useless to them whenever they took
At the end of the 1980s I began to devote more of my time to the internal debates inside the PT. Particularly the question of quotas, and "affirmative" measures for women within the party. • What have you done as a councillor?
During the first PT municipal government here in Porto Alegre, a number of improvements were made. We built a refuge for battered women, and supported community initiatives concerned with women's health (gynaecological examinations, contraception, etc.) But things didn't go much further. There was no systematic attempt from the town hall to develop policies which would address the • specific aspects of women's oppression.
In the first year of the second PT mandate, the town hall organised a "City Conference." Over 12 months, forums were held to discuss public transport, urban development, social policy, economic development, culture and leisure. All the social forces, from the employers to the trade unions and civic associations, were invited to participate. This process enabled us to examine the woman question here in Porto Alegre in all its aspects, and begin to elaborate a diagnosis of women's situation in each area of life. We then organised two seminars to deepen this analysis, inviting university researchers, civil servants... In each forum of the City Conference we presented specific proposals
Brazil * concerning women. We rejected the idea of a special "women's forum" within the conference, which we suspected would serve to isolate our issues. • How do you link work in institutions with the movement outside?
Through the participatory budget. There are a lot of women in the general assemblies, although the budget council is never more than 30% women. The participatory budget process has enabled us to sustain popular mobilisation here in Porto Alegre. It has liquidated the hegemony of populism, and enabled the PT to play a more visible role among the poorer sectors of the population.
Unfortunately, the town hall has still not made a clear commitment to the development of feminist policies. For example, neither PT mayor has taken measures to make abortion available in public hospitals in Porto Alegre. The PT is reluctant to raise the issue, and pressure from women members has not been able to overcome this resistance.!
We have integrated support for women's economic activities into the general economic development programme. It was very difficult to convince the municipal administration that this innovation was possible and worthwhile. It was hard to change working methods to meet new questions.
We are beginning to meet with banks and trading organisations to help set up a network for financing and distributing the products of women's clothing and food production. One group of black women has developed a line of "afro" clothing. We organised the official launch of their collection with a fashion show on one of the city's main squares, and we helped them find sales space in a number of public markets. Another group, based in a district so marginal that even the police hardly dares enter, has started producing very innovative clothing from recycled and industrial fabrics Other groups are producing alternative foodstuffs.
This isn't a period of mass mobilisations,
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* Brazil or re-stating the class line within the popular movements, as was the case during the resistance to the dictatorship. Today, social struggles are on the defensive. The challenge now is to use those institutional positions which we can win to re-elaborate and reestablish a space for popular autonomy.
integrate the marginalised social layers into the political decision-making process. The women of the poorer districts are among those Brazilians who don't yet have the right to speak. Most of these poorer districts have car parks, football pitches, and volleyball courts. But no nurseries! So, the women get together, they organise petitions, I transmit these demands to the mayor, and so on. But I have not yet been able to get a single nursery built!
Despite these difficulties and frustrations, the rural women's struggle and the networks of trade union women are definitely more developed than in other parts of Brazil. So we continue the struggle, inside and outside the
Helena Bonuma is a deputy in the state parliament of Rio Grande do Sul and a municipal counsellor in Porto Alegre. Like many other members of the team supporting Raul Pont in his bid to become the next PT mayor of Porto Alegre, Helena is a member of the Socialist Democracy current inside the PT. Socialist Democracy is the Brazilian section of the Fourth International. 1. Since 1940, abortion has been theoretically legal following a rape, or when the mother's life is endangered. Even in these cases, it is virtually impossible to abort in a public hospital. Catholic currents within the P1 and the popular movements have led the party to fudge its position on abortion. During the 1994 presidential campaign. PI candidate "Lula" da Silva denounced the disastrous medical consequences of Brazil's two million annual illegal abortions, but he did not specifically support an increased right to abortion. The furthest he went was to say that "in the case of those abortions allowed by law, it is essential to normalise the conditions for receiving the women concerned into the public hospitals."
bodies report on the feasibility and probable cost of each proposed investment, and suggest amendments. After considering this advice, the Town Hall presents a second draft budget to the COP. This "Budget Matrix" includes a breakdown of credits by budget post (housing, sewage, lighting, roads, sports, etc.) for each of the 16 urban sectors. The allocation of credits between the sectors is based on population, relative "backwardness" in the resource concerned, and the relative priority which the sector's inhabitants have allocated to each budget post. From August to October, the COP meets up to twice each week, until the councillors manages to agree among themselves and with the Town Hall on the final version of the budget. This becomes the municipal investment plan for the next year.
In the early years, only a few hundred people participated in the district meetings. The process only "took off" in 1992, when over 3,000 people took part. In 1995, over 15,000 residents of Porto Alegre attended their local meetings, electing about 800 delegates, who selected and monitor the current 44 COP delegates.
The British magazine The Economist describes Brazil's traditional mayoral approach as follows. "Most mayors see their municipal job as a trampoline to higher office. So, throughout the land, they have set