The Brazilian Women's Federation or Women's Federation of Brazil (Federação de Mulheres do Brasil) was a women's organization in Brazil active between 1949 and 1957. Like several other 'leftist feminist' projects of the 1930s and 1940s in Brazil,[1] the Federation had strong associations with the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB).[2]
The Federation was founded by Alice Tibiriçá and other communist-leaning feminists after World War II.[3] In 1945 several Brazilian women had attended the International Congress of Women in Paris, the founding event of the Soviet-sponsored Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). With the support of the Brazilian Communist Party, Tibiriçá attended a 1947 WIDF council meeting in Prague as president of a new Women's Federation of Brazil, and the organization officially joined the WIDF in 1947.[4] [5] To give the Federation a national presence, branches were established in every state.[4] In 1949, often given as the Federation's founding year,[3] it held its first national meeting attended by state representatives. Like other populist movements of the time, the organization combined a national network of state representatives, a working-class membership, and neighbourhood associations concentrating on food, water and housing. Politically, the Federation subscribed to antifascism and peace.[4]
After PCB political activity was banned in May 1947, the Federation faced increasing anti-communist pressure. In 1952 delegates wanting to attend the WIDF congress in Moscow were denied visas. In 1956 Juscelino Kubitschek suspended the Federation, and subsequently outlawed it.[4] At the end of the decade, a large protest demonstration commemorated the Federation's tenth anniversary.[6] However, the organization could no longer sustain itself, as Branca Fialho reflected in a letter of 1962: