Josefina Alvares de Azevedo and the play Female Vote: the writing as a fighting instrument

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present Josefina Alvares de Azevedo, owner and editor of a newspaper in the late nineteenth century entitled The Family and, through the analysis of her first play, Female Vote, highlight the role of writing as an instrument of women's struggle. The play emphasizes the main arguments for and against the insertion of the Brazilian women in the electoral campaigns, exposing some issues that were in vogue at the time on the controversial question. Thus, we try to emphasize a woman's perspective on the issue of female insertion in the public and political world at the end of the nineteenth century. The theme exposed in the play retains its relevance by asking questions that, more than a century after its exposition, remain controversial and unresolved. The low participation of women in national political life is one of the current concerns of researchers in the 21st century and has even been the target of governmental measures that seek to stimulate access to traditional power through quotas for women in political parties. This phenomenon appears in national, state and municipal terms, showing the actuality of the questions proposed by Josefina Alvares de Azevedo in his work.