"An avowed Catholic and leftist, single and a feminist before her time, strong-willed and sweet, she left a mark on those who knew her," journalist Miguel Sousa Tavares said about Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, who was on his list of 50 people who helped to improve life, in Expresso (April 24, 2024).
As the United States moves toward the possibility of having its first female head of state, Kamala Harris, gratitude to Portugal's first woman prime minister and her ethics of care, compassion and responsibility come to the fore.
Chemical engineer Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo became the country's first and only woman prime minister, the second in Europe, two months after Margaret Thatcher took office in Britain.
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo belonged to a generation of progressive Catholics who would distance themselves from the dictatorship, reported Expresso (March 3, 2023), in its story about the politician, who was also the first woman minister and one of the 50 personalities that the newspaper chose as promising to mark the future of Portugal.
Pintasilgo's writing and research were characterized by the creation of alternatives to existing paradigms, interdisciplinary dialogue and the independence of her political reflection, according to the Centro de Documentação e de Publicações: Fundação de Cuidar o Futuro (Center of Documentation and Publications: Caring for the Future Foundation), whose purpose is to preserve the public servant's donated papers.
"When I was Minister of Social Affairs . . . I decided to intervene on every matter. Even those that didn't concern me directly and which were markedly male-dominated, such as Justice, Defense, Decolonization, Foreign Affairs," she said, in Público (1997), according to She Thought It: Crossing Boundaries in Literature and Arts, a University of Porto database.
"For many people, this was seen as trying to bite off more than I could chew. In reality, what I intended and achieved was to talk about what men were talking about and then they listened to me about what I had to say: the need to introduce a welfare pension, the need for a minimum wage, the expansion of health care to rural populations, etc., etc. I wanted to establish social care for everyone, without excluding anyone. For that, I had to speak the language of the table."
While in the Ministry of Social Affairs, she introduced the universality of State social benefits, which the United Nations Secretariat for Social Development classified as a model program, according to the Fundação de Cuidar o Futuro.
Two years after the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974 ended nearly half a century of authoritarian government, the new Portuguese Constitution of 1976 guaranteed health as a right for all citizens. The Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS) (National Health Service) was created in 1979.
On July 19, 1979, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was appointed by the President of the Republic, General António Ramalho Eanes, to head the Fifth Constitutional Government of the Third Portuguese Republic (July 31, 1979 -- January 3, 1980), a caretaker government responsible for preparing the by-elections scheduled for November of that year.
The Third Portuguese Republic corresponds to the present democratic regime installed after the Carnation Revolution. Initially, it was rocky. During the early post-revolutionary years, even civil war hovered in the realm of possibility as different opinions emerged on the direction of the country.
By accepting the role of prime minister, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, in the words of one historian, led with dialogue and the concern for social justice that permeated the legislative output of that period, reported O Poder Central (The Central Power), Portugal: 20 Anos de Democracia (20 Years of Democracy) (1996), according to Fundação de Cuidar o Futuro.
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"This pioneer feminist, who achieved distinction in academia and business, moved steadily leftwards from the primitive Fascism of the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar in which she was brought up. A woman who escaped being pigeonholed by refusing membership of any political party, Pintasilgo has been mourned across her country's political spectrum," reported the Independent (July 14, 2004), in its obituary of the politician who died at age 74 of sudden cardiac arrest.
The trailblazer had worked in leading capacities as a chemical engineer at Companhia União Fabril, the largest Portuguese conglomerate, which had interests in cement plants in Portugal and throughout the colonies (1954-1960); Minister of Social Affairs in the Second and Third Provisional governments (1974-1975); Ambassador to UNESCO (1975-1979), and Member of the European Parliament (1987-1989).
The political architect pioneered the development of the ethics of care concept. "Care, as a cornerstone of MLP (Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo) practices, was the result of changes and refinements of her thinking since, in the 1960s, she advocated love as the basis for understanding the nature of human relationships," according to Ethics of care and politics: contributions from the legacy of Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo (Ética do cuidado politica: contribuções de legado de Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo), Saúde Debate (Health Debate), Rio de Janeiro (December 2018), a paper written to show her legacy of ethics of care to primary health care.
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The social justice advocate co-founded the Christian-inspired Graal (Grail), a global women's movement for civic participation, in Portugal (1957), which was opposed initially by the Patriarchate (Archdiocese) of Lisbon. Graal members criticized the Salazar dictatorship at meetings. Later, Pintasilgo said that the PIDE, or secret police, would attend the sessions but that she misled the agents by emphasizing that she had said the same things in the government's Corporate Chamber, of which she was a member, reported Público (July 11, 2004).
The feminist led many national and international committees for the support of gender equality and women's rights.
Clearly, Pintasilgo was a dynamo.
"She was active to the end, reflecting in recent weeks the Portuguese people's growing rejection of its government's alignment with the U.S. and the U.K. in the Middle East. She praised the Spanish decision to bring back its troops from Iraq and called on the conservative government in Portugal of José Manuel Durão Barroso to follow Spain's example and withdraw its military from the occupation force," reported the Independent (July 14, 2004).
The "Three Marias"
Pintasilgo fought for the "Three Marias", an international cause célèbre, when the provocative anti-Fascist work of feminism, Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters) of 1972, landed the authors, Maria Velho da Costa, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Isabel Barrreno, before the courts of Marcello Caetano, Salazar's successor, reported the Independent.
What was the catalyst for the Three Marias' joint project for which they met every week for nine months to review their work?
"Leaving home one summer's evening in 1971, Maria Teresa Horta noticed a car was following her," reported The Economist (June 23, 2022). "She had recently published a volume of poetry, Minha Senhora de Mim (My Lady of Myself), which reflected on female sexual pleasure. Portugal's dictatorial regime, led by Marcello Caetano, did not approve. The goons in the car confronted Ms. Horta, warning her not to write such smut again. The beating they administered put her in hospital.
"A few days later, she turned up to lunch with two friends who were fellow writers. They were appalled. 'God, if a single woman has something like that happen to her because of a book of poetry,' Maria Velho da Costa said, "Imagine if the three of us wrote a novel."
So, they did something just like that.
The Three Marias
The mix of poems, letters and essays were inspired by Letters of a Portuguese Nun (1669), often ascribed to a Franciscan nun addressing her former French lover and describing being kept in a convent in Beja, in the Alentejo, against her will. The authors felt that this was an apt metaphor for women's lives in modern Portugal. 'What woman is not a nun, sacrificed, self-sacrificing, without a life of her own, sequestered from the world?” they wrote. “What change has there been in the life of women through the centuries?'
"Using a bewildering cast of characters, they comment on the subjugation of women at home, misogynist laws, sexual and domestic violence, abortion, the Catholic church and the colonial wars Portugal was waging in Africa," according to The Economist.
Tipped off by the printers, the government banned the book three days after its publication, seizing copies on the grounds that the text was "irreparably pornographic and incompatible with public morality", reported The Irish Times (November 15, 2021) and The Economist. The three Marias were charged with abusing the freedom of the press and released on bail. A trial was set for 1973.
Head of State Marcello Caetano described them as three women "who aren't worthy of being Portuguese", reported The Irish Times.
Portuguese media were not permitted to report on the case, reported The Economist.
Today, many Portuguese have heard of Novas Cartas Portuguesas but not read it, according to The Economist.
However, French newspapers published excerpts of the text. In Britain, authors, including Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch and Jean Rhys, wrote to The Times expressing their disgust with the trio's treatment, reported The Economist. At the International Feminist Planning Conference held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in June 1973, and organized by the National Organization for Women (NOW), representatives of dozens of countries agreed to rally round the Three Marias.
The suppression of New Portuguese Letters became the first international feminist cause, known from Buenos Aires to Islamabad, reported The Economist. Women round the world put pressure on Caetano’s government by signing petitions, writing letters to embassies and appealing to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. In London and New York, theaters hosted readings from the book; women in Brussels and Paris marched in solidarity. In The Hague, feminists climbed onto the roof of the Portuguese embassy and unfurled a banner.
The trial of the Three Marias ended days after the April 25, 1974 Carnation Revolution. On May 7, they were acquitted and "ordered to go in peace with carnations to the chest". The judge said: "The book isn't pornographic or immoral. Quite the opposite: it's a work of art of the highest quality," reported The Irish Times.
Two years later, the new Portuguese constitution enshrined the absolute equality of rights between men and women. One can hear the insistent voice of Pintasilgo.
All the political will that she had channeled into her appointment as Chair of the Working Group for Women's Participation in Economic and Social Life (1970), which would become the Commission on the Status of Women (1975), was seeing fruition, according to Comissão para a Cidadania e a Igualdade de Género. She orchestrated the first survey of discrimination between men and women in public and private law. Several amendments were proposed in family law as well as legislation on women's employment. In 1975, she was appointed president of the Commission for Social Policy Relating to Women.
In 1979, during Pintasilgo's administration as prime minister, one of the Three Marias, Maria Teresa Horta, took on the role of assistant to the Secretary of State for Culture, according to Comunidad Cultura e Arte (July 10, 2018).
Biography
Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva Matos Pintasilgo (Abrantes 1930 -- Lisbon 2004) was the daughter of Jaime de Matos Pintasilgo, a businessman linked to the wool industry in Covilhã in the Serra da Estrela, and Amélia do Carmo Ruivo da Silva Matos Pintasilgo, of Vendas Novas, who was a domestic worker, according to Fundação de Cuidar o Futuro. The couple had a second child, a son, who pursued a career in journalism and died in 1985.
The progressive Catholic grew up in an extended, non-Christian, agnostic family.
When she was seven, the family moved to Lisbon, where she shined at academics in primary and secondary school. She graduated from high school as the best student and was a leader in the Estado Novo's Mocidade Portuguesa. In 1953, at the age of 23, she graduated in Chemical-Industrial Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico. Of the 250 students, only three were women.
"I am not repelled by paths that are not traditional," Público quoted the engineer as saying.
Between 1952 and 1956, she led the Catholic University Youth. She was elected to the post of international president of Pax Romana -- International Movement of Catholic Students (1956 and 1958). In this capacity, she presided over the 1st Seminar of African Students in Ghana and the General Assembly of the movement held in El Salvador. In 1958, she presided over the World Congress of Catholic Students and Intellectuals, held in Vienna, Austria.
"Doing Good Is Talking to God"
It should be no surprise that Pintasilgo's religious activism informed her political life. She continued to act as an advisor to government and party officials after losing the 1986 presidential election.
"Her search for justice, natural for someone who makes the social doctrine of the Church a way of life, led her to have an international political career, which was practically ignored in Portugal," according to Público.
Among a plethora of posts and memberships, she was a member of the United Nations Council for Science and Technology in the Service of Development (1989-1991); a member of the United Nations University; a member of the Committee of Wise Men of Europe; chaired the Independent Commission on Population and Quality of Life (1992-1999), and was co-chair of the World Commission on Globalization.
Truly, the humanist lived on several large stages. She had an enormous capacity for commitment to others, which she revealed in an openly religious way. She herself said, using a phrase she attributed to Xanana Gusmão, an East Timorese politician, that "doing good is talking to God", reported Público.
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