Women and letters

I am grappling with the issue of women's writing, of women's literature. Is there a so-called feminine literature? Would it be better to use the expression "literature authored by women"? In 2023, what is the place of women in the literary universe? These and other questions have opened up without me having well-elaborated answers. There are immediate answers, which I can give on an impulse, without thinking too much. But I suspect those, because they are taken by my own place as a woman as well as by the bubble I ended up creating for myself, impregnated with readings by women writers.

Thinking about all this, I was taken to my childhood, to a specific moment. I, in the 3rd grade of school, observing that the Portuguese teacher whenever she wrote in lowercase and cursive the letter "L" – coincidence or not, the letter of my name – made a small curve, a small deviation in the tracing of one of the sides of the letter. After a while, I remembered the name of this teacher, Rita. Teacher Rita did not teach me to read and write but somehow, with her small curve in my handwriting, she marked me. It was a time when, already literate, I appropriated more and more letters and words, writing and reading.

From that memory, I went further back in time. I remembered teacher Josélia – whose name came to my mind very easily – who, indeed, taught me to read and write. And when I write this, I feel a deep emotion for this act performed by her, and by me, as a consequence. I remember that it had families of syllables, ba-be-bi-bo-bu, da-de-di-do-du, la-le-li-lo-lu. It was with this woman, named Josélia, that I learned the lyrics, their phonemes, their spellings. It is with the letters that she taught me that I write now, it is with them that I read texts every day.

Have Flashes from my classroom in Jardim III, from my literacy colleagues. I think of those boys and girls and wonder if any of them have gone more directly through letters, if any of those girls have become writers.

From this brief tour through my history with letters, I went on an incursion into the history of women's participation in the Brazilian Academy of Letters. It is a small cut to think about the space of women in the lyrics, but which I consider quite symbolic.

Women in the Brazilian Academy of Letters

The ABL was founded in 1897, in Rio de Janeiro, by a group of writers – among them, Machado de Assis, Olavo Bilac – with the objective of cultivating the Portuguese language and Brazilian literature. It consists of forty effective and lifelong members, hence they are called "immortals", and twenty foreign corresponding members. The Academy had an important participation in the Orthographic Agreement of 1945 and in 1990. In 1909, he began to grant Literary Awards, with the purpose of encouraging different cultural manifestations.

Until 1976, it was composed strictly of men. It took eight decades of operation for a woman, the writer Rachel de Queiroz, to take a seat at the ABL. Since the beginning of the Academy, there was no restriction on the entry of women in its Statute or Internal Regulations, since the texts determined that "only Brazilians who have, in any of the genres of literature, published works of recognized merit or, outside these genres, books of literary value, can be effective members of the Academy. The same conditions, except that of nationality, are required for the corresponding members".

However, in 1930, when the writer Amélia Beviláqua made her candidacy proposal, the members became agitated and vetoed her, justifying that the term "Brazilians" referred only to people of the male sex. (In the face of this ridiculous and misogynistic maneuver, a pause to take a deep breath and roll your eyes).

In 1951, twenty-one years after the episode, a "discreet" change was made to the Internal Regulations, which stated that the effective members would be elected from among Brazilians, "of the male sex". In 1970, the discussion about the entry of women returned with the proposal for candidacy of Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, who had already received the Machado de Assis Award, offered by the Academy itself, in 1954. His candidacy was also denied, based on the aforementioned change in the Rules of Procedure. The response of the then president of the ABL, Athayde, was:

Considering that, as is well known, the illustrious writer Dinah Silveira de Queiroz honored the Academy with a letter in which she asks for her registration as a candidate. He proceeded in this way on the assumption that the Academy's Regiment was still the same as it was at the time of its foundation, in the times of Machado de Assis, Joaquim Nabuco, Sílvio Romero, José Veríssimo, Carlos Laet, Rui Barbosa and many others.

In other words, Athayde attributed Dinah's proposal to her lack of knowledge about the change that had been made in 1930. As if before the change some woman had already been elected... In Athayde's words, Dinah was an "illustrious writer", "honored" the ABL with her proposal, but she was not illustrious enough to have her candidacy accepted, nor was it enough honor for the association to have her in its composition.

Advancing in the research on the participation of women in the ABL, I was taken back to its foundation, when I discovered that there was, in the group of intellectuals who idealized it, a single woman, the writer Júlia Lopes de Almeida. In a first research that is done on the Academy, Júlia's name does not appear, which is emblematic. It is necessary to join the terms "ABL" and "women" for her name to emerge.

At the time, the writer Lúcio de Mendonça would have thought it fair to offer Júlia a chair, but her colleagues disagreed, arguing that there were no women in the French Academy of Letters, which had been the inspiration for the Brazilian. To give the final touch, who took over the chair that would be hers was her husband Filinto de Almeida (!!).

Resuming the effective occupation of seats by women, after Rachel de Queiroz, in 1980 Dinah Silveira de Queiroz was finally elected to compose the ABL. After her, Lygia Fagundes Telles (1985), Nélida Piñon (1989) – the first woman in 100 years to preside over the Academy –, Zelia Gattai (2001), Ana Maria Machado (2003), Cleonice Berardinelli (2009) and Rosiska Darcy de Oliveira (2013).

The last woman to take office as immortal was actress Fernanda Montenegro, in 2022. On April 20 of this year, Heloísa Buarque de Holanda was elected to take over seat 30, previously occupied by Nélida Piñon, who died in December last year.  Heloísa will take office on July 28. In order to have a numerical dimension, she will be the 10th woman to occupy a chair in the ABL, out of more than 260 writers who have already occupied the 40 chairs of the Academy, in its 126 years of existence.

Visiting the history of the Academy highlights the difficulty that women have encountered in occupying central places, places of protagonism, in not only having their literary production recognized but also in occupying a space of prestige and power. It is always important to emphasize how reading and writing are powerful tools of emancipation. Thus, trying to erase and keep women away from this universe is not a fact given by chance. On the contrary, it contains a clear intention to keep women relegated to certain spaces and functions, determined, obviously, by men.

Registering the name of these women here is, then, a simple way, but I believe important, to honor them, to honor them and prevent them from being erased from history as has been tried so many times. Naming these women who, each in their own way, are part of my journey with letters, reading and writing, is a way of thanking them.

For Josélia, Rita, for all the women who make up Basic Education – an area composed predominantly of women and which is so undervalued – women responsible for the literacy of children and adults. For Júlia, Dinah, Nísia, Maria Firmina, Carolina, Ana Maria, who, with tireless insistence, transgressive impetus, literary talent, paved the way for so many others. Women who precede me and who allowed me to be writing here today.

Note: In time, I have just seen that the writer Marina Colasanti was announced as the winner of the 2023 Machado de Assis Award. Hooray!! I also inform you that next week the first book of the children's collection will be launched "Unsubmissive women" , coordinated by Patrícia Valim and Valeska Zanello, which will bring the story of important personalities, predominantly Brazilian. The collection aims to remove from invisibility women who have remained hidden or erased from culture.

Obs.2: The information about the ABL was taken from several sites that appear on the first page of Google search, with the words "Brazilian Academy of Letters" and "ABL women". The most detailed data on women's participation in the respective association were taken from the article "Women and the Brazilian Academy of Letters" and the most up-to-date information from news sites.

I also refer the reader to the introduction "The struggle of women in the Brazilian Academy of Letters" , which contains a brief summary of the women's participation, with great photos.