Killer mothers, daughters of Mary
Female police, Nazi Jews
Cat cats, kengas in heat
Drugged wives, poor, underpaid
Every woman wants to be loved
Every woman wants to be happy
Every woman pretends to be poor
Every woman is half Leila Diniz
Girls from Ipanema, Minas Gerais
Blondes, Brunettes, Messalines
Sinister saints, evil ministers
Raped Imeldas, Evitas, Beneditas
Every woman wants to be loved
Every woman wants to be happy
Every woman pretends to be poor
Every woman is half Leila Diniz
Packet paquitas, Xuxas in crisis
Auditorium monkeys, old actresses
Asshole bosses, bossy maids
Madonnas in bed, Dianas cuckolded
Every woman wants to be loved
Every woman wants to be happy
Every woman pretends to be poor
Every woman is half Leila Diniz
Plebeian socialites, decadent queens
Alcean dolls, sick nurses
Damn stepmothers, superman shoes
La Dulce sisters beaidified
Every woman wants to be loved
Every woman wants to be happy
Every woman pretends to be poor
Every woman is half Leila Diniz
- All the Women in the World (1993), Rita Lee
Every woman in Brazil is a bit like Cleonice Gonçalves , except for those who are not: the bosses of Leblon, who, even though they are a bit Leila Diniz, are still bosses of Leblon.
In 1993, singer Rita Lee released the song “Todas as Mulheres do Mundo”, with a chorus that extolled the power of Leila Diniz. The actress defied customs in the 1960s and 1970s, exposing her pregnant belly wearing a bikini (considered small for the time) in the sea of Ipanema. It said: “I have sex in the morning, in the afternoon and at night”. It was persecuted by the censorship and repression of the Brazilian Dictatorship, as it contested and faced the norms and the (so-called) traditional Brazilian family. Despite not being well accepted by many feminists, at a certain point she became a figure publicized in the media as a challenger to machismo, an image of the libertarian, free and liberating woman, the very symbol of female liberation. Regarding her early death in an air accident, in 1972, the poet from Minas Gerais Carlos Drummond de Andrade said: “Without speech or request, Leila Diniz freed the twenty-year-old women trapped in the trunk of a special slavery”.
Unfortunately, Cleonice Gonçalves did not release from the remnants of literal slavery experienced in Brazil. Dona Cleo – as she was called – had been working as a maid for a family in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro for twenty years.
He slept four days a week at his bosses' house, a behavior of colonial and slavery heritage, which Brazil still maintains today , relying on an architecture that develops and builds in houses and apartments: the maid's room (at the back of the house and/or glued to the service area of the property). Dona Cleo slept four nights in Leblon, but died in Miguel Pereira (Greater Rio de Janeiro), where she lived, with three other family members, in a simple and small residence.
The day laborer, who was over 60 years old, that is, a person in the risk group for the new Coronavirus pandemic, returned to work as soon as her boss arrived from the trip to Italy, a trip made during the 2020 carnival, when the virus had already spread. spread across the Mediterranean country. Arriving in Brazil, the boss did not inform Dona Cleo that she suspected she was infected with the virus, much less that it was contagious, that is, she did not tell the employee that she could be at risk. Cleonice was only released from work when she started to feel very bad. He never slept “in the back” of Leblon again, from the hospital he went to the cemetery, in front of his house in Miguel Pereira.
Certainly, in Brazil, every woman wants to be half Leila Diniz, but most of us are half Cleonice Gonçalves. Women who have been domestic servants since they were 13 years old, often without any job security and who, even taking care of a family that is not theirs (that of their bosses), do not receive any reciprocal care from their boss, who maybe she's really nice and generous, who knows she might even be a white feminist like Leila Diniz. Maybe I'm also a white feminist like Leila Diniz and, obviously, this brief text is not against the admirable actress.
Leila Diniz, who disconcerted conservatives as a vanguard woman
In the 1960s, when Leila Diniz confronted customs censorship authorities, the Second Wave of Feminism was developing in the world, which had the following guidelines: sexual freedom, discussions on women's reproductive rights, the labor market, in addition to other important topics. In 1960, while the feminist movement was fighting for the inclusion of women in the labor market, women like Dona Cleo had already worked for a long time as domestic servants for white women and their families.
And what does this have to do with the new pandemic? Those most affected (not necessarily killed) by the disease will be “Cleonices” and not “Leilas”, that is, women belonging to the base of the social pyramid, mostly black and brown, living in peripheral regions and heads of families (breadwinner). ), without which, an entire family can fall apart.
Underemployment, precarious or non-regular employment accompanies the lives of most women in the country, thousands of “Cleonices”. Often, temporary roles that are at risk of being cut without any remuneration during the pandemic period.
“Cleonices” in addition to working outside, work at home, taking care of their family and their households.
During a pandemic, the burden of double work and the possibility of contamination leave these women living under the sign of risk and danger , in addition, they live in an eternal sense of fear of not losing their livelihood.
With justice, recently, daughters and sons of maids started, through an Instagram account @pelavidadenossasmaes , a campaign and petition for the paid dismissal of their mothers, “Quarantine Remunerada Já Para Domésticas e Diaristas!” . This mobilization began after Dona Cleo's death.
This text, which I am now finishing, I know very well that it touches on delicate wounds and clashes between White Feminism and Black Feminism, everything is understood, but that everyone here can understand. I also hope that it is understood: it is not against the “Leilas”, it is only in favor of the “Cleonices” and their lives, that matter!
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Denise Pimenta (pimenta@usp.br) holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from USP. She did fieldwork in Sierra Leone (West Africa) and defended, in 2019, the thesis entitled “Dangerous care: plots of affection and risk in Sierra Leone (The Ebola epidemic told by women, living and dead)”. Research that was supported by a CAPES scholarship and was supervised by prof. doctor John Cowart Dawsey (USP) and supervision by Aisha Fofana Ibrahim (Fourah-Bay College/University of Sierra Leone).
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