Brazil's Female President-Elect Will Be "Mother of the Nation"

by Brittany Shoot · 2010-11-01 06:33:00 UTC
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Dilma Rousseff isn't a household name outside of Brazil, but the newly chosen first-ever female President-elect has a lot of reasons to be celebrated by the international community and women's rights advocates.

Sixty-two-year-old Rousseff is a lifelong civil servant who worked in outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration for a number of years before launching her own Worker's Party campaign earlier this year. Impressed by her years of service and common sense values, Lula has dubbed her the "mother of the nation," signaling her commitment to continuity from his administration, under which the standard of living rose for many Brazilians. Perhaps no surprise, Rousseff's most prominent voter support came from households earning just under $800 a month.

Rousseff's personal struggles lend just as much to her credibility as a strong candidate of the people. A recent survivor of lymphatic cancer, she has also survived being imprisoned and tortured by her own government for leftist political involvement after the 1964 military coup. The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, she's uniquely sensitive to the plight of poor workers in Brazil; even though she grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, her enduring socialist and leftist politics help her lead with an empathic voice for the people.

In a time when Americans are bombarded with stories of female candidates who want to outlaw abortion even when a woman's life is at risk and are attacked and publicly shamed for their sexual history, it's refreshing to hear that Rousseff is flipping the script on gender in Brazil.

Photo Credit: alexandre_vieira

Brittany Shoot is a freelance writer, editor and critic. She's one of the editors of the Feminist Review blog and a frequent contributor to a variety of progressive publications.
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