International Women's Day, which women are we talking about?

For a long time “woman” was a symbol of a “male narrative cynicism” whose imagery of beautiful, self-contained and house wife was usual accompanied by flowers. But what's the problem with receiving flowers? None, except when this generosity masks serious oppression, especially in the labor market, the sector responsible for the most varied forms of harassment, in addition to the violence that happens in the family environment.

After the entry of women into the labor market and the achievements of political-social rights, especially the right to vote, women began to claim space in the discussion of public-private human relations. But as Brazilian philosopher Sueli Carneiro would say: "What women are we talking about?"

Sueli Carneiro highlights “When we talk about the myth of female fragility, which historically justified the paternalistic protection of men over women, which women are we talking about? We black women are part of a contingent of women, probably the majority, who never fit into this myth, because we were never treated as fragile”.

The philosopher emphasizes the social role of black women who historically work in exhausting loads and leads us to think: "When we talk about ensuring the same opportunities for men and women in the labor market, are we guaranteeing employment for what kind of women?"

The psychoanalyst Grade Kilomba, dialoguing with the work “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir, will present the black woman as “the other of the other”, because if for the French philosopher the woman is the other, for Kilomba the black woman is the margin of white women and men, being doubly affected by the effects of sexism and racism.

Unfortunately, it is not new that black women are massively restricted to the home environment, informality and/or the condition of "poorly paid works". However, even in this precarious scenario, in 2019 they represented 55.5% of the heads of households of Brazilian homes, according to IDados consultancy. This devaluation of the importance of activities related to care is cultural in Brazil, as politicians took a long time to regularize the maids law, which came into force only in 2015. Data from Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea) show that in 2018, 92% of domestic activities are performed by 5.7 million women, which 3.9 million are black.

Inserting black women in this dimension of “almost family” serves to authorize the exploitation of work by white families, so it is common to see black women working in conditions analogous to slavery, perpetuating this stereotype of “servants”.

An example of this is the case of Madalena Gordiano who was recently rescued by an operation of the State Labor Department - Public Ministry of Labor that was enslaved for almost 40 years by the white family of Milagres Rigueira, in the city of Alto Paranaíba in Minas Gerais. Another case was that of the executive Mariah Corazza Üstündag, who similarly kept an elderly woman in conditions similar to slavery for over 20 years, who suffered abuse, torture, embarrassment, physical and psychological violence, in a house in Alto de Pinheiros, São Paulo.

This remnant of slavery behavior promoting a relationship between master and servant is a way of keeping alive the fetish of domination, this is what Grada Kilomba called “colonial glorification” in the book “Memories of Plantation”, whose effect is the national denial of the racism, strong patriarchal behaviors, marginalized identities and lack of historical reparation.

Social worker and researcher Carla Akotirene reflects in her book "Intersectionality" on the precariousness of the work of racialized women in which racism and sexism try to reduce the importance of these subjects as workers responsible for a large part of education, care and raising, exploring the their workforce without remunerating them for the economic gains of a colonialist and white-male-straight country.

In contrast, black women receive the lowest wages and are more exposed to domestic violence, as they are far from the top of the economic and social pyramid, despite being the largest unpaid workforce in the country.

The study by the Insper Institute of Education and Research called "Wage Differentials by Race and Gender for Graduates in Public or Private Schools" carried out in 2020 with data from the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílio - National Household Sample Survey - PNAD showed that white men are moving up in their careers and earning up to 159% more than black women on the formal market scale. On the other hand, in the executive boards of the 500 largest Brazilian companies, black women do not reach 1%, according to the Ethos Institute.

Hence, on this Women's Day, we do not intend to measure suffering, but to reflect on the change in the current paradigm, since the date was born with the objective of struggle and emancipation of women workers.

Therefore, in the passage in which Angela Davis says: “When a black woman moves, the whole society moves with her”, the author seeks to establish the importance of socioeconomic rebalancing by also considering these women in the country project. May we be able to distribute flowers on this date without the thorns of gender, race and class oppression.

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