In this week of International Women’s Day, certainly the men will see more to commemorate in the fact that Brazil is the world’s seventh economic power, while at the same time forgetting all the social tragedy surrounding us.
Certainly the women will distrust this fact and will recall that we are among the richest countries in material production and among the poorest in social results.
The feminine vision permits feeling more than the men the fact that in the same week that we are commemorating our seventh position in economic wealth, we are also denounced as the 88th nation in scholarly performance and the eighth in number of illiterate adults, according to the figures divulged in 2010 by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA).
It is no accident that the first president to say that “a rich country is one without poverty” was our woman president. No president has said this before; it took a woman president to say this.
It behooves us – all us Brazilians and not just the women – to commemorate the 8th of March as the day of the feminine vision of Brazil’s problems. And let us hope that on each future March 8 we can see that our woman president spoke and acted with the sentiment that comes from this vision.
Happy International Women’s Day to all Brazilians since we have a woman president and since we hold the hope that she will govern by taking care of all the problems of the Brazilians and not merely by administrating the country’s economy.
Cristovam Buarque is a professor at the University of Brasília and a PDT senator for the Federal District. You can visit his website at www.cristovam.org.br/portal2/, follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SEN_CRISTOVAM in Portuguese and http://twitter.com/cbbrazilianview in English and write to him at cristovam@senado.gov.br.
New translations of his works of fiction The Subterranean Gods and Astricia are now available on Amazon.com.
Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome (LinJerome@cs.com).