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III

Behind Curtains and Closed Doors:

Brazilian Women in Family Relations
Maria Lúcia ROCHA-COUTINHO

In searching for a female identity, be it by way of psychological, historical,

linguistic and literary studies, or by way of examining different societies or
distinct groups of the same society, female oppression and subordination are
always evident. The universality of this oppression has led some researchers to
the reductionist view of women as defenceless victims of a male dominated
society. Such studies, in my opinion, have ignored important questions regarding
not only the status of women in different societies but also the ways in which
power is exercised in these societies.
A more attentive examination of women’s role and position in Brazilian
society (Freyre, 1943, 1951; Hahner, 1981; Samara, 1983; Dias, 1984; Leite,
1984; Corrêa, 1993) shows that, even though the majority of women have for
centuries been excluded from positions of socially legitimate power, nonetheless,
some women (as family members, mothers, sisters or wives) have been closer to
positions of power and authority than some men. Therefore, while some women
have always been among the most exploited workers, others have found them-
selves not only among the oppressors, but also identified themselves with them.
Moreover, in Brazil, women from the upper classes, even though oppressed by
their parents and/or husbands, often have not refrained from influencing and
oppressing those under their command like slaves, employees and maids, these
last mostly Afro-Brazilian women (Dias, 1984; Leite, 1984). Even today, the
emancipation of the Brazilian women from the upper classes comes about at the
cost of the oppression and exploitation of other women (generally nannies, cooks
and maids), who assume the less valued work of the house and child-care so that
upper-class women can follow a career or profession.
In sum, then, the facts show that Brazilian women have, for centuries, been at
the same time in the centre and at the margin: that is, both part of the oppressed
groups in society (maids, blue-collar workers), due to their social class and
gender, and part of the powerful groups – either directly (as employers and house-
wives) or indirectly (through their fathers or husbands).

Feminism & Psychology © 1999 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),
Vol. 9(3): 373–380.
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374 Feminism & Psychology 9(3)

Recent analyses of power in society (Foucault, 1982) suggest that power is

relational and that, even though one of the individuals in a male/female relation-
ship can be stronger than the other most of the time, his/her strength will never
be so great as to stop the other from influencing him/her. Even though the formal
authority structure in Brazilian society may suggest that women are incapable of
holding important positions in the public world and that their opinions should not
be taken seriously (Freyre, 1943, 1951), a close observation of women’s choices,
the relationships they establish and the goals they reach shows that, even in situ-
ations clearly unequal, women have much more power than has usually been
admitted (Hahner, 1981; Pinho, 1946; Prado, 1981). Thus, if one’s goal is to
understand Brazilian women and their position in society, it is necessary to
establish a careful analysis of the way they not only submit to the family’s and
society’s rules of authority and power in their private and public lives, but also of
how they negotiate and subvert these rules.
The analysis of the female condition in Brazil reveals a very complex picture
about the inequality between sexes and the relations of power between men and
women. When talking about family and interpersonal relationships in this
country, one cannot refrain from taking into account an already classical formu-
lation on the theme, the Brazilian patriarchal family, delineated by Gilberto
Freyre in Casa grande & senzala (1943) and Sobrados e mocambos (1951). This
family was composed of a central nucleus, organized around a white couple and
their legitimate children and a peripheral nucleus, not always having well defined
boundaries, consisting of slaves, employees and godsons, and in which the
bosses’ mistresses and their illegitimate children were also included (Freyre,
1943, 1951; Cândido, 1951). The maximum authority in this family was the
‘pater familiae’, who would retain control not only over the slaves, employees
and godsons, but also over their children and wives. This family was big and
polygamous: its ethics made not only possible but also desirable all kinds of
sexual relationships by men while, at the same time, reserving women for loyalty
and chastity.
The power of the ‘pater familiae’ in Brazil, however, never succeeded in
completely eliminating women’s power, usually glorified due to an ideology that
would, in general, identify women with the protective and sacred people or
institutions such as the Virgin Mary, the Church, the godmother, or images of
sacrifice and devotion (Freyre, 1951; Tarlei de Aragão, 1983). From their
position of lesser power and prestige, many Brazilian women from the upper
classes interfered indirectly – from behind the scenes and often from their house-
hold – in the administrative public sphere, usually to protect family members, but
sometimes also in politics, as it seems to be the case of the influence of the
Countess of Barral over our Emperor Pedro II. According to Pinho (1946), in at
least two instances she interfered in one of the constitutionally personal powers
of the emperor, the choice of senators.
From the sentimental world of their homes, from where they were rarely absent
and almost never appeared to strangers during the colonial period, Brazilian
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Observations & Commentaries 375

women exerted their power, and managed to find ways to control husbands,
children and relatives, by using as weapons exactly those virtues expected from
women, such as weakness, sweetness, indulgence, and conformity (Freyre, 1951;
Costa, 1989). Apparently conforming to the loyal, resigned and introspective
model required by society, she dominated the space of her home, by creating in
those surrounding her a kind of dependency, reinforced by a notion of her role as
sacred, that, through the many distinct forms it can assume, lasts until today
(Tarlei de Aragão, 1983).
Therefore, Brazilian women have managed to counterbalance their financial
dependency and their position of lower power by becoming indispensable:
women have often served as mediators between their children and husbands,
attended to their children’s physical and emotional needs, and often increased
their husband’s confidence and self-esteem, as well as organized their family’s
day-to-day life. That is, women counterbalanced their oppression and depend-
ency with another kind of dependency, no less important: a dependency of their
family members on their performance in the domestic world.
This family model is still present today. When contemporary Brazilian women
leave their homes and go on the streets to protest against oppression, in organized
demonstrations, they normally do so as an extension of their traditional domestic
roles of mothers and main responsible person for the well-being of family
members – demanding a better quality of life for themselves, their husbands and
children, better living conditions in their neighbourhoods, better education and
health care for family members, protesting against the violence that happens to
family members and so on – similarly to the colonial matrons, who used their
influence to protect son-in-laws, employees and godsons.
The persistence of old models under new forms in Brazil is in part due to the
fact that the arrival of ‘modern’ ideologies, through the importation of foreign
ideas, has always generated in Brazil a process in which the ‘traditional’ assimi-
lated the new in such a way that the ‘modern’ ends up being changed into some-
thing quite different from the original (Schwarz, 1981, 1987). That is, the ‘van-
guard’ foreign ideas were often, in part, adopted in this country, with pride, as a
proof of modernity, but always in addition to and not as a substitute for the old
ethical principles.
This process of redefinition of the ‘modern’ to fit old schemas also took place
when the bourgeois nuclear family model arrived in the country at the end of the
19th century. The new family model, originated in Europe, here faced a com-
pletely different reality. Brazil did not have an important ascending industrial or
commercial urban middle class. Rather, its organization, as in colonial times, was
still based on the exportation of goods by large land owners who depended on the
work of slaves. This model had to be readapted to conform to the basic principles
of our colonial formation. The Brazilian modern conjugal family, then, emerged
from this combination, and one may say that the traditional model of the patri-
archal family underwent only superficial changes (Paoli, 1984; de Almeida,
1987). It has also been on one of these movements of assimilation of the
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376 Feminism & Psychology 9(3)

‘modern’ by the ‘traditional’ that the North American and European post-war
ideology – which reinforced the old idea that the place of women in society and
their source of happiness were in their home, looking after their husbands and
children – arrived in Brazil.
Urged by this ‘modernizing’ ideology, Brazilian women apparently adopted
their role to perfection. They tried to maintain the house, submitting themselves
to the schedules and routine necessary for the proper raising of children. They
often endured without complaint the ‘wanderings’ of their spouses, as long as
these infidelities did not interfere with their functioning as good fathers and heads
of the family. Not without a certain distress, women stopped looking after their
own needs to look after those of their families. But in an indirect and discrete
way, they also learned to charge for this sacrifice.
In the 1950s women in Brazil felt incomplete, financially and emotionally
dependent on their husbands and children. This resulted in women giving double
messages to their daughters. On the one hand, they encouraged them to invest in
a professional career which could bring them financial independence and per-
sonal satisfaction; on the other, they reinforced the old idea that being a good wife
and mother should be the main objectives of a woman.
Like their mothers, urged by the ‘modernizing’ ideology of the breaking down
of the old feminine identity, women from the late 1960s in Brazil attempted
to adapt themselves to a new model – a compilation of the old ideal of perfect
mother and housewife with the new one of competent and successful pro-
fessional. This seems to have resulted in women growing up post the 1960s to
experience a conflict within themselves resulting from the different roles they
have to perform. On the one hand, they accept and believe in the fact that women
have the right to their own life (which might include a job and a profession) and,
on the other, they continue to believe that the home is their territory and that no
one can or should take the place of a mother.
It seems, therefore, that Brazilian women, since the 1960s, even though not
always consciously, have often resisted abandoning the control of the home that
has always given them a type of power – manipulating and trying to make their
husbands and children dependent on them by using a mask of perfection, under-
standing and conformity – that compensates them for their lack of power in a
male dominated society.
An analysis of the role and position occupied by women in Brazilian society
allows us to better understand their use of strategic and manipulative forms of
control (for a full description of the concept of strategy, see Foucault, 1982). As
a result of their low status in society, women, like members of other marginalized
groups, are led to use indirect methods – more personal and weaker, such as
emotional blackmail and manoeuvre, among others – more frequently than men,
who tend to use more direct, impersonal and strong forms. This is in part so
because the social rules always indicate that husbands should dominate their
wives and children. Thus, an openly competent wife makes her husband seem
weak, making the behaviour of both – the strength of the woman and the weak-
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Observations & Commentaries 377

ness of the man – deviant. Consequently, if a woman is the one who really exer-
cises control, she has to employ indirect tactics to assure, at least at the visible
level, that her husband is in control. Women, then, seem to develop manipulative
abilities, frequently making use of precisely those characteristics traditionally
used to oppress them, such as fragility, irrationality and altruism.
However, in situations in which women hold a clearly defined position of
authority, as is the case of control over children at the time in which the roles
within the household were very clear, we believe she is more likely to use direct
forms of control, such as orders, threats and punishments. We assume that only
when women from the upper classes undertook a public role in the job market –
making the roles of father, mother and children within the house less clearly
defined – and when the relations of authority began to be questioned, in the
1960s, the use of these direct forms started to decrease.
Having these points in mind, we developed a study (Rocha-Coutinho, 1994)
with the objective of examining some forms of control and manipulation, or
strategies, used by Brazilian women to influence those around them and to plan
their activities. We limited our sample to an urban centre (the city of Rio de
Janeiro) and to middle-class women (inhabitants of the south zone of the city, the
most highly valued area) from two distinct generations (women who lived their
adolescence and/or beginning of adulthood at the end of the 1960s and their
mothers, women who had their first children in the period that immediately
followed the SecondWorld War).
The choice of these two generations was not random. The first group was
chosen because this generation had experienced most directly the conflict
between the old ideas regarding the woman, her role and social position, and the
new ideas, coming from the feminist movements of the 1960s. Their mothers
were chosen because, since they had their children at the end of the 1940s and
beginning of the 1950s, they were exposed to a fairly uniform ideology, intensi-
fied during the post-war period, which reinforced the old idea that the place of
women in society and their source of happiness are at home, caring physically
and emotionally for their husbands and children.
We interviewed eight pairs of mothers and daughters separately, in a situation
that resembled an informal conversation, looking closely at their use of the
following methods of exercising control (for a full description of the method-
ology employed in the study, see Rocha-Coutinho, 1994; for a discussion on the
use of discourse analysis in psychology, see Rocha-Coutinho, 1998):

1. Direct Forms: consisting of orders, threats and punishments, forms that are
efficient only when someone occupies a strong position of authority.
2. Manipulation/Manoeuvres: these include tactics varying from appearing
fragile, defenceless and incapable, to the use of some gift (e.g. performance
in the kitchen or sensuality) and/or physical problem (e.g. headache, back
problems).
3. Surveillance: consisting of being alert to everything their children do, and
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sometimes even to what they think, so as to better control them. One way of
doing this is to become their children’s best friend.
4. Demands and Emotional Blackmail: claiming – directly and/or indirectly –
from husbands and children their total dedication. Husbands and children may
feel guilty if they feel that they are not sufficiently reciprocating or grateful to
the woman.
5. Fragilization of Husbands and Children: making women indispensable at
home and mothers irreplaceable in child raising, since they are the ones who
know better how to take care of a house and to look after children. As a con-
sequence, husbands and children become completely dependent on them,
physically and emotionally .

Our study found that both generational groups use subtle and manipulative
strategies to exercise control over their husbands and children. It also confirmed
that these strategies assume contradictory forms and slightly distinct characteris-
tics when employed by the daughters.
The mothers showed a higher degree of certainty with respect to the best way
to raise children and, consequently, did not hesitate to use direct forms of control
or to talk about it, since they are seen as completely natural. In contrast, in the
case of the daughters, because of the social changes still in progress regarding the
role and the position of women in society, as well as the questioning of old ways
of child-raising, these strategies are less common and are accompanied by a series
of uncertainties and contradictions.
The use of manipulation/manoeuvres was present in both groups and most
women saw it as a smart strategy, an old ‘weapon’ used by women to exert
control over family members without them being aware of it. It seems, then, that
manipulation is still quite an effective way for women to resist the greater power
that men continue to exert in society in general.
Even though the strategies of demands and emotional blackmail were still
strongly present in both groups they were perceived differently. The mothers
denied their use – despite admitting that they know several women who demand
and/or blackmail children and husbands. This denial seems related to the fact that
these strategies do not fit the image of dedication and conformity expected of a
woman and a mother at the time they got married. Their daughters, in contrast,
were not only aware that their mothers use these strategies, but also affirmed that
only now have they managed to find ways of escaping the control attempts their
mothers still exert through demands and blackmail.
Concerning the fragilization of husbands and children, although both groups
see men as helpless in all tasks related to the household, some attitudes seem to
have changed from the generation of the mothers to that of the daughters. These
changes, though, are still more a part of what they believe should be than of what
seems actually to be the case. The daughters recognize that, no matter how rich
and fulfilling is the experience of being a mother, if women want to be happy
and make those around them happy, they should invest in their professional and
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Observations & Commentaries 379

personal realization. However, even though they affirm having fought for the
division of household duties, according to the majority of these women, men
continue to be seen as incapable and inefficient and never perform as well as
women at this type of activity. Further, some women suggest women are still
reluctant to give up the power they have always had in this realm. For both groups
of women, the mother continues to be seen as irreplaceable in child-raising, a fact
that leads many women from the daughters’ group to believe that a part-time
activity outside the house is the best solution for women to reconcile childcare
and professional activity.
We can affirm, therefore, that, even after all the changes that occurred at the
end of the 1960s in Brazil, the idea of a good girl, raised to be a perfect and
efficient wife and a dedicated mother, still remains in women’s minds, although
at different levels of awareness. It seems, then, that a good girl is not simply a
character in children’s stories, but, rather, a kind of ghost carried throughout
centuries. It is not only present in the generation that had children in the post-war
period – very much influenced by the romantic heroines of Hollywood movies,
like Doris Day - but still remains in many contemporary women, hidden in atti-
tudes they learned to regard as typically feminine.
Thus, even though many of the interviewed women from the group of daugh-
ters deny their conformity to this ideal model, many still feel guilty for not fitting
the pattern society considers normal. Such facts led many of them to look for help
– like some form of therapy – with the intention of solving their confused and
contradictory identity experience, derived from the introjection of the paradoxi-
cal set of values that invigorated in different moments of their development.
Although overloaded with the double chore of working outside the house and
handling domestic affairs, as well as raising children, it seems that women do not
want to relinquish the power they have always exerted in the private domain of
their home. It is often, then, the very woman who restricts men’s opportunities
of doing housework, who also reinforces the social belief that men are incapable
of doing ‘women’s work’.
We may say, then, that, without knowing it, Brazilian women contribute to the
maintainance of the chauvinist system that prevailed in traditional society and
against which they themselves rebel, often on a merely theoretical level. Thus, as
the main character of Alice in Wonderland, who enters the rabbit hole and grows
so much that she does not fit anymore, these women end up by putting ‘one arm
out of the window, and one foot up the chimney’, leaving the unsolved question
‘What will become of me?’.

REFERENCES

Cândido de Mello e Souza, Antonio (1951) ‘The Brazilian Family’, pp. 291–312 in T.L.
Smyth and A. Marchant (eds) Brazil: Portrait of Half a Continent. New York: The
Dryden Press.
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Corrêa, Mariza (1993) ‘Repensando a família patriarcal brasileira’, pp. 15–42 in Antonio
A. Arantes et al. (eds) Colcha de retalhos: estudos sobre a família no Brasil, 2nd edn.
Campinas, SP: Editora da UNICAMP.
Costa, Jurandir F. (1989) Ordem médica e norma familiar. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Graal.
de Almeida, Angela Mendes (1987) ‘Notas sobre a família no Brasil’, pp. 53–66 in Angela
Mendes De Almeida (ed.) Pensando a família no Brasil: da colônia à modernidade. Rio
de Janeiro: Espaço e Tempo/Ed. da UFRJ.
Dias, Maria Odila S. (1984) Quotidiano e poder em São Paulo no século XIX. São Paulo:
Ed. Brasiliense.
Foucault, Michel (1982) ‘The Subject and Power’, pp. 208–26 in H.L. Dreyfus and R.
Rabinow (eds) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago,
IL:University of Chicago Press.
Freyre, Gilberto (1943) Casa grande & senzala, 4th edn. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Ed.
Freyre, Gilberto (1951) Sobrados e mucambos, 2nd edn. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Ed.
Hahner, June E. (1981) A mulher brasileira e suas lutas sociais e políticas: 1850–1937.
São Paulo: Ed. Brasiliense.
Leite, Miriam M., ed. (1984) A condição feminina no Rio de Janeiro, século XIX. São
Paulo/Brasília: Hucitec/Pró-Reitoria.
Paoli, Maria Célia (1984) ‘Mulheres: lugar, imagem, movimento’, Perspectivas
Antropológicas da mulher 4: 63–99.
Pinho, Wanderley (1946) Salões e damas do Segundo Reinado. São Paulo: Martins Ed.
Prado, Rosane M. (1981) ‘Úm ideal de mulher: estudo dos romances de M. Delly’,
Perspectivas antropológicas da mulher 2: 71–112.
Rocha-Coutinho, Maria Lúcia (1994) Tecendo por trás dos panos: a mulher brasileira
Nas relações familiares. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Rocco.
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questões, problemas e limites’, pp. 319–48 in L. de Souza, Maria de Fátima Q. Freitas
and Maria Margarida P. Rodrigues (eds) Psicologia: reflexões (im)pertinentes. São
Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo.
Samara, Eni de Mesquita (1983) A família brasileira. São Paulo: Ed. Brasiliense.
Schwarz, Roberto (1981) Ao vencedor as batatas. Forma literária e processo social nos
Inícios do romance brasileiro, 2nd edn. São Paulo: Duas Cidades.
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109–45.

Maria Lúcia ROCHA-COUTINHO is Associate Professor at the Psychology

Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she has
been doing research and teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in
Brazilian culture, discourse analysis and gender studies since 1980. She got her
MA degree in Psychology from San Francisco State University, USA, and her
PhD in Psychology from PUC-RJ, Brazil. She has published several articles on
Brazilian women and the book Tecendo por trás dos panos: a mulher brasileira
nas relações familiares (Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Rocco, 1994).
ADDRESS: Rua Eng. Pena Chaves, 63/301, Jardim Botânico, 22460-090 Rio de
Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. [email: Coutinho@imagelink.com.br]