Beyond Feminisms: a Comparative Experience Between Guinea-Bissau and Brazil

Abstract

While considering its geographic, demographic, political and economic, ethnic and racial specificities, both Brazil and the Guinea-Bissau were colonized by the Portuguese, and are presented as two social realities in which black women, ethnically differentiated and racialized, prepare a new kind of feminism from its relations with collective actions of the groups they belong in claiming for their rights. Referring to Latin America, Lugones (2008) demonstrated how the coloniality of power, resulting from experience and racial hierarchy of colonization, also meant a gender coloniality; but to what extent is this also a reality for the African context? As we seek to demonstrate, the concept of race and consequently racism, assume different dynamics in both societies. The use of the concept of gender seems to be more important to consider how inequalities are structured in Brazil, compared to the experience in African countries, particularly in Guinea Bissau. Our goal is to analyze the experience of “black feminism” in both countries in a comparative perspective, and try to understand to what extent these two realities present similar scenarios regarding women’s ideological, political and social struggles.