RJ: Trans is the only councilor in a city with more female voters – 03/09/2024 – Power

On Tuesday (5), an hour of speeches on the land use and occupation bill at the Niterói City Council (RJ) was approaching completion when, for the first time, the councilors and the public heard the words ” women”.

“How do we discuss an urban plan in a city that has seen an increase in violence against women in recent years without mentioning the right to come and go? With dark streets where women cannot travel after 10pm, because the city hall puts the blame on Enel [concessionária de energia]and Enel in the city hall”, said trans councilor Benny Briolly (PSOL), the only woman member of the City Council.

Briolly’s solitary representation among the city’s 23 councilors is no exception in Brazil, but it becomes symbolic due to a singularity: Niterói is at the top of the country’s cities with the highest proportion of women among voters, practically tied for leadership with Maceió — it has 55.46% of female voters, compared to 55.48% in the capital of Alagoas.

The profile of the current legislature repeats the history of Niterói. Research carried out by pedagogue Adriana Valle Mota for her master’s degree in Social Policy at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense) shows that 821 men and 16 women have occupied a seat in the Chamber of Niterói since 1930 — 11 women were directly elected, and another 5 were substitutes occupying the position vacated by the holder.

Mota assesses that the city’s economic strength reinforces the barriers imposed by men to female political representation —Niterói is the municipality with the highest HDI in the state of Rio de Janeiro and the seventh in the country.

“Niterói has a political and economic centrality that makes men have a concrete interest in occupying positions of power. In some smaller municipalities, women even invert this gender ratio. In those where there is economic power and a greater possibility of the position interfering In this case, it will be more difficult to have a woman”, said Mota.

State deputy Verônica Lima (PT) served three terms in the Chamber, being the woman with the longest tenure in the Niteroi Legislature. The first black woman elected in the city, she also points to the strength of territorialized voting as a possible additional factor for the low representation of women.

“I’ve always had a very spread out vote. The model of dispute in which candidacies emerge from neighborhoods and territories ends up not favoring an opinion vote. And this local politics, through residents’ associations, for example, ends up being dominated by men here in city,” said Lima.

She, however, does not hide the difficulty in explaining how female representation remains so low in a city whose city hall has been dominated for decades by a left-wing political group, the PDT.

“It cannot even be said that there are no women participating in politics. The last administrations have even placed women in key positions. Sociologically speaking, it is even difficult to explain”, said the deputy, who was municipal secretary of Social Assistance and Human Rights.

Another aspect indicated by Mota is gender-based political violence, which keeps women out of the race or makes it difficult for candidates to be elected. According to her, the first three to occupy the position suffered attacks of this type, “even when this nomenclature was not used.”

In his first term, Briolly has already reported a sequence of cases of gender-based violence. He even left the country for 20 days after a series of threats. She is also the victim in the first criminal action proposed for the crime, typified in 2021 in electoral legislation, whose defendant is state deputy Rodrigo Amorim (PRD).

In the Chamber, she has already suffered repeated attacks from councilor Douglas Gomes (PL). One of them resulted in the councilor being convicted of transphobia, with a sentence of one year and seven months in prison. He did not want to speak to the report and, on his social networks, said he was a victim of “judicial activism”.

“The naturalization of violence against women is a daily occurrence in politics. So, the Niterói Chamber is just another example of what old politics means in Brazil: patriarchal, colonizing, slave-owning, misogynistic and sexist,” said Briolly.

“There is a weight because I am the daughter of a doorman with a hairdresser and I come from poverty. It is already a huge prejudice. Another weight is because I am black and dark skinned. Another is being a woman. And then, being a transsexual woman. One combination of oppressions that when it arrives in my body is a confrontation of several things. Sometimes, I even find myself trying to understand: ‘Is it racism? What is transphobia? What is machismo?'”

Verônica Lima was also the target of a sexist and homophobic attack. In the plenary in 2021, she reported the approach of councilor Paulo Eduardo Gomes (PSOL) during a meeting of leaders.

“He started screaming, got up, put his finger up [e disse]: ‘Do you want to be a man? Then I will treat you like a man’. And he came, projecting himself towards me. It wasn’t just machismo, but also homophobia. I don’t want to be a man. I love being a woman. I am a lesbian woman. Everyone knows that,” she said at the time.

Gomes apologized in plenary on the same day, when he classified his behavior as “unforgivable” and without justification. He was removed from office for two months by decision of the PSOL and underwent courses on machismo and homophobia promoted by the party. He is still facing criminal charges in court on charges of homophobia.

Lima criticized the punishment given to the councilor and stated that he does not forgive him. “For a left-wing party with the PSOL flags, it’s a shame. He had to be expelled.”

In his fifth term, Gomes is currently a member of the Commission on Human, Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights, chaired by Briolly for six months. For him, the low female representation in the Chamber is “a result of a natural process of political representation”.

“I think it’s missing. Now, the population is the one who has to elect a woman. We play our role: we place representatives within the legal quota and defend affirmative action for women’s rights,” he said.