Sustaining Activism: A Brazilian Women's Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaboration

8. Intimate Protest, Jeff

∫ intimate protest Jeff At Home: Izanete Colla Izanete Colla explained her role in the women’s movement on a winter’s day with her husband, Fernando Colla, and friend Ivone beside her near the fogão (cast-iron stove), which provided the three-room farmhouse’s only source of heat. Impervious to the season, Izanete wore flip-flops, and her two kids were tumbling about on the floor and cuddling with her and Fernando while she spoke. As a member of a Catholic Church commission in her town, Izanete witnessed the reality of women’s place in society. They were there to do the laundry, from dishrags to religious garments. ‘‘Women were close to the domestic work, always,’’ she said. ‘‘But at the moment when decisions were made, it was not the women who decided. It was at that moment that you sensed the difference.’’ For Izanete, the desire to be a part of the decision making had its roots in a new way of thinking about the land, which had at first seemed to be a dead end. As a teenager in the early 1980s, she knew intimately the discrimination her mother faced as a single mom in the countryside and the suffering her aunts experienced in their marriages, as well as the consequences of government policies that favored corporate agriculture over small farming. Rejecting this life, Izanete fled to the nearest town to finish high school, but her work as a maid did not pay enough to support her schooling and left her little time to study. After two years of working full time, without attending school at all, she met her husband, Fernando, who wanted to farm. Together they returned to the land. It was an auspicious time for new ideas. A local ngo, the Center for Alternative Technologies, known as cetap (Centro de Tecnologias Alternativas Populares), ran outreach and educational programs for farmers who wanted to adopt the new methods of organic and sustainable agriculture that were beginning to gain acceptance in the region. The ngo taught that there were ample resources at hand. It was from this sense of richness—not of poverty or need—that Izanete was moved: ‘‘I began to imagine, my God, our water is pure. And from there, the idea started: how to treat animals in a intimate protest 97 Izanete Colla. Photograph by Jeffrey W. Rubin. different way. And we began to cultivate the idea.’’ Initially, their innovation was met with setbacks. A drought made starting up difficult, and the arrivals of two children increased their needs dramatically. Progress seemed again out of reach. ‘‘We didn’t know how to change our history,’’ she explained, recalling her efforts to create a new chapter of the Farmwomen associations in the tiny community where she lived. But the women couldn’t commute easily among their far-flung homes, and Izanete herself didn’t manage to get to the meetings . As her children grew, however, Izanete continued to search for a way to connect to like-minded women. She joined the Workers’ Party in Ibiaçá, a small town nearby, and found her way to the women’s movement there. The 98 chapter eight movement was a luz acesa (ray of light) for her: ‘‘I think that what stimulated me to stay here and to have hope of better days was the movement. I owe this to the movement. My life changed.’’ Izanete is a small, striking woman, with delicate bone structure and thin arms and hands. She gestures nonstop as she speaks. ‘‘It was an incredible difference,’’ she recalled. At the women’s movement meetings, she said, ‘‘You feel like you can do something.’’ The contrast to the Church commission was immediate and indelible for her, and she took on the work of visiting her neighbors to persuade them to come to meetings, introducing them to the women’s movement and its ideas. But it was no easy task to transmit her discovery to her peers. Standing in doorways and in kitchens, she heard again and again about male authority and a male God. At one women’s movement meeting, the organizers led a mística of music and ritual to set the mood and encourage women to leave the constraints of home behind. They asked the participants if they felt themselves to be free. Izanete recalled the shocking response of one woman: ‘‘She answered, with complete frankness, that she...