In Brazil, social security reform at core of feminist agenda

For International Women's Day, celebrated today (Mar. 8), Brazilian feminist movements organized protests in all states, but the strike planned in other countries must be more difficult to be staged here because of the poor working conditions faced by Brazilian women.

"One thing is to organize a strike in a country with almost full employment, another thing is to have Brazilian workers saying they will stop under a completely precarious situation—mostly employed in domestic services, independent [workers], completely unprotected," admits Maria Fernanda Marcelino, member of the Sempreviva Feminist Organization and of the World March of Women.

Social Security Reform

In Brazil, the federal government proposed a social security reform that sets the age of 65 as the minimum age for retirement for both men and women, and it is at the center of protests. In the movement's evaluation, women will be most adversely affected by the changes.

"If this social security reform passes, women will be the most affected, and will quickly impoverish due to the equalization of the retirement plan with men, disregarding the double burden, and the whole precariousness faced by women in the formal labor market," says Maria Fernanda Marcelino.

Tatianny Araújo, civil servant and representative of the Rio de Janeiro Public Health Care Forum, is afraid of the social security reform. She pointed out the difficulty of sharing domestic chores with men and asks for public services in the country.

"We don't have public laundries, public restaurants, not even kindergartens. Our domestic work is not recognized, nor remunerated, but it is work," said Araújo.

Some people argue that in more developed countries, men and women make the same contribution to social security, but feminists counter it by saying that gender inequalities are smaller and that they receive an extra money to compensate their domestic services there, which does not happen in Brazil.

Demonstrations are also planned in São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza and Curitiba.

The Brazilian movement will join international groups like Ni Una Menos in Argentina, the Women's March on Washington in the United States and the protests against a total ban on abortion in Poland.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta