27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

INÍCIO  ENGLISH

BLACK AWARENESS

Racism and sexism make black women the

lowest-paid group in Brazil
Brazilian intellectual Lélia Gonzalez dedicated her life to explaining the impact of
racism and sexism on black women

Katarine Flor
Brasil de Fato | São Paulo | 20 de Novembro de 2019 às 12:42

Leia em português | Leer en español

Brazilian intellectual Lélia Gonzalez was one of the most prominent voices of black and women's
rights activism in the 20th century - Gabriela Lucena/Brasil de Fato

“For the black woman, the place that is reserved for her is the smallest. The place of
marginalization. The place of the lowest wage. The place of disrespect for her
professional skill.” This is an assessment made by the Brazilian black intellectual Lélia

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 1/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

Gonzalez  during an interview granted to Mali Garcia for the 1989 documentary lm
The Black Divas of Brazilian Cinema.

Thirty years have passed since that interview, and the assessment of the Brazilian
philosopher remains current. A recent survey disclosed in November by the Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) about social inequalities by color or race
in Brazil clearly shows these obstacles and points out how white men have the upper
hand over other demographics in Brazilian society.

The survey shows the income gap is largest between white men and black or
multiracial women, who are paid 44.4 percent less than their white male counterparts.

Race, gender, class

A historian, anthropologist, and professor, Lélia Gonzalez looked into not only the
class aspects that make up the structure of society and the complexity of social
inequality, but she also addressed the dimensions of gender, race, and the colonial
legacy as structuring elements of the Brazilian society.

“The black woman is the major focus of [social and gender] inequality in society. It is
in her that these two types of inequality converge -- not to mention class inequality,
social inequality,” the Brazilian intellectual said during that same interview in the late
1980s.

Lélia Gonzalez at a board meeting of the Institute for Research in Black Cultures
(IPCN), in 1986 | Archive: JG/Photo: Januário Garcia
https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 2/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

The aspects underscored by Gonzalez work as social barriers. The study disclosed by
the IBGE, for example, shows that the second group enjoying the most advantages is
white women, whose earnings are higher than those of black and multiracial men,
who, in turn, are ahead only of black or multiracial women.

Despite the victories accomplished due to the struggle and resistance of black people,
wage inequality between white and black Brazilians remains high throughout history as
far as survey data is available. According to the IBGE report, this gap is due to di erent
factors, including occupational segregation, fewer education opportunities, and
di erent wages for similar jobs.

From the master’s house to domestic work

Flávia Rios, a co-author of the biography Lélia Gonzalez -- released in Portuguese as

part of the collection Portraits of Black Brazil, published with the Negro Edições label -
-, says that Gonzalez comes from a long black tradition that started after abolition.

Her current of thought questions the violent, excluding way that the country’s black
population was treated after slavery was abolished in the country, in 1888. 

“She brings up the dimension of women who lived in master’s houses, of working
women, of black women, as slaves, but also as domestic workers, who played a key
role in forging the Brazilian national culture,” Rios explains.

The biographer says that Gonzalez brought to the forefront and appreciated the women
who had been relegated to menial, invisible roles. “She has a very important focus on
the struggle against racism through people who are invisibilized in the social structure,
in Brazilian culture.”

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 3/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

Researcher Flávia Rios | Personal archive

Radicalizing feminism

Rios points out an important contribution of Gonzalez’ work, which is a critique of

white, middle-class feminism, as they had a speci c approach to women’s freedom
that did not include the real-life conditions of black women. But she also points out it
is important to say that Gonzalez was a feminist.

“While white women were looking to enter the workforce, black women had been
working since slavery. They worked as domestic workers, as menial workers, in urban
services… Their reality was di erent,” Rios explains.

While white women questioned the idea that women in general are fragile, on the
other hand, black women have been brutalized both in slave society and market
society. Flávia Rios argues that Lélia Gonzalez was a trailblazer as she pointed out this
contradictions and radicalized feminism.

“In Brazil, domestic work is a structuring element of social economic relations. Many
white women were pursuing social and gender liberation. And this alleged liberation
was achieved at the expense of another woman, a black woman, being put in the
condition of a worker inside the house,” Rios asserts.

Gonzalez exposed a lot of the contradictions of liberal, and especially Eurocentric

feminism. Her book Lugar de Negro ["The Place of Black People"], she denounces this
incoherent rhetoric: “We also look into the situation of the black woman as a domestic

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 4/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

worker in the reproduction of racism (including by part of many white women’s

movement activists).”

A co-author of the anthropologist’s biography, Alex Ratts points out the relevance of
Gonzalez’ debate bringing together race, class, and gender. “When she writes about the
women from the slums, who have to fetch water from the spout, who have to work
while their children are facing police brutality, while their husbands are  incarcerated,
she is saying that the entire black and poor family struggles with gender issues and
race issues.”

Ratts is referring to an excerpt from her article Nega Ativa ["Active Black Woman"],
from the book Vozes Insurgentes de Mulheres Negras ["Insurgent Voices of Black
Women"], published in Portuguese by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

“This was Lélia’s perspective. A perspective that brought together race, gender, and
class. And even though the men in that period were not interested in the idea of
feminism, they could see how these issues were interconnected,” Ratts argues.

The myth of racial democracy

Jurema Batista, an expert in public policies, a former councilwoman and former

congresswoman, met Gonzalez in the 1980s. She points out that the black activist was
a erce critic denouncing racism.

“When I rst met her, I found it odd, because I didn’t view how racism was in Brazil
like that. I believed in that so-called racial democracy. And it was from having contact
with her that this view was deconstructed,” she says.

“Racial democracy was very popular in the 1970s and 80s. It claimed that Brazil was a
multiracial country, that our culture was so mixed, and because of that, everyone was
respected. But that was a myth. The myth of racial democracy, which stated, ‘this is a
democratic country, blacks and whites have equal rights,’” Batista explains.

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 5/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

Jurema Batista, an expert in public policies | Photo: Agência Patricia Galvão

The myth of racial democracy was one of the cornerstones that helped de ne the
Brazilian identity in the 20th century, a concept against which the black movement has
been ghting hard.

“Political activism has helped us understand that that was a lie. They used to say,
‘black people don’t access work spaces because they lack education.’ So black people
started to educate themselves, entered university, and when they entered the job
market, they were not well received,” Batista says, adding that “there is this kind of
code of honor between whites to give jobs to their equals.”

“The practice of racism was a very well-assembled thing that held black people
responsible for their own extreme poverty, their own lack of opportunities. This is a
legacy of slavery in a country that has dedicated speci c places for di erent people,”
she explains.

Lélia Gonzalez identi ed that this myth was expressed by the denial of racism. That
happened as Brazilians denied it exists, even though racism has produced privileges for
whites from all social classes.

In her book Lugar de Negro, the author points out that “these mechanisms encompass
a broad picture of rationalization that ranges from e ective reverse racism to the
‘democratic’ attitudes that deny the racial issue, mechanically diluting it in class
struggle (this way one can see how certain left-wing positions are doing nothing more
than reproducing the myth of racial democracy, created by the paternalist liberalism
they claim to ght).”

“Today, it is no longer possible to support culturalistic, intellectualistic positions, and

such things, divorced from the reality experienced by black masses. Whether one is
against or in favor of it, it is not possible to ignore this actual issue put forward by the
MNU [Uni ed Black Movement]: the articulation between race and class,” she adds.

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 6/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

Lélia Gonzalez

Born in Belo Horizonte, southeastern Brazil, in 1935, into a family with few nancial
resources, Lélia Gonzalez was the second youngest child of 18 siblings, the children of
an indigenous mother and a black father who was a railroad worker.

Gonzalez graduated in history and philosophy, and received a postgraduate degree in

communications and anthropology. She is one of the political activists who co-founded
Brazil’s Uni ed Black Movement and the Black Women’s Collective N’Zinga. 

She wrote Festas Populares no Brasil ["Popular Festivals in Brazil"], which earned an
award at the Frankfurt Fair, Lugar de Negro, with co-author Carlos Hasenbalg, two
postgraduate dissertations, and several essays for scienti c journals and collective
works. She died from a heart attack in Rio de Janeiro on July 10th, 1994.

Lélia Gonzalez on November 20th, 1988, a date celebrated as Black Awareness Day in
Brazil | Handout

Edited by: Julia Chequer | Translated by Aline Scátola

RELACIONADAS
“We’re living one of the worst moments of Brazilian racism,” writer
says
https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 7/8
27/06/2020 Racism and sexism make black women the lowest-paid group in | English

Mireille Fanon: If we want to change the world, it must be through anti-

racism

Marchers celebrate resistance and struggle for rights on Brazil’s Black

Awareness Day

OUTRAS NOTÍCIAS
Mireille Fanon: If we want to change the world, it must be through anti-racism

    

Todos os conteúdos do Brasil de Fato podem ser reproduzidos, desde que não sejam alterados
e que se dêem os devidos créditos.

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/20/racism-and-sexism-make-black-women-the-lowest-paid-group-in-brazil 8/8