by Giovanna Tozzi
Abstract:
The paper seeks to discuss access to decent housing through the struggle of urban social movements and their multiple meanings in women's lives. Using a field of study the Movement of Landless Workers East 1 (MST-East 1), active in the city of São Paulo, and the experience of participants of this movement, I explore the social gender relations and analyze the experiences reported by the interviewees as a practice that enables the empowerment and autonomy of these women.
Keywords:
gender; social movements; women.
Access to adequate housing is difficult in a country like Brazil, which has a housing deficit of 6.3 million dwellings (Fundo FICA, 2019). The perverse logic of the real estate market – in which the costs of buying land and buildings, and even of renting are very high –, associated with the lack of public policies for housing provision - in a social context in which families with incomes of up to two minimum wages living in urban areas spend 41.2% of their family income on housing consumption expenses (Guerreiro; Marino; Rolnik, 2019) -, make it extremely difficult for the poorest layers of the population to acquire their own homes.
This conjuncture associated with the urban precariousness of Brazilian cities makes the homeownership acquisition a notorious issue on the agenda of organized social struggle. Besides the access to a home, the urban social movements for housing struggle aims for urban reform and the right to the city, since it is understood that dwelling is not restricted only to the physical space of the house but also involves issues of urban mobility, access to services and infrastructure of urban life.
The MST-East 1's creation was in 1987 in the struggle for the right to land and housing in the East Zone of the city of São Paulo and the Metropolitan East Zone (Ferraz de Vasconcelos and Suzano). Around 3,000 families from the original groups currently participate in the entity, whose composition is 4,343 families from the several mutirões (self-help housing cooperatives) and conjuntos (housing estates) already won in these 34 years of struggle. The movement has the popular entities support of the region and the Catholic Church of the Belem Episcopal Region, and it has a relationship with several technical advisors in the urban area and a partnership with the NGO Habitat para a Humanidade. The movement defends housing as a human right, on which the State should dedicate attention, and believes in transformation through public policies with popular participation and self-management, providing that families are benefited by active participation in all processes (Fahham, 2017).
Women have significant participation in this struggle. In light of all the aspects of the structure of oppression that women experience daily, access to decent housing becomes even more difficult for them. The difficulty of economic autonomy associated with the lack of legislation and public policies that ensure women's ownership of property puts them in a position of greater vulnerability.
The direct relationship of the female gender with the domestic space, and all its implications, denote that access to decent housing represents much more than just shelter. The house, for most women, is a primary necessity and assumes multiple roles in their lives, such as, for example, a refuge from abusive relationships with their partners.
"While I didn't have a roof to put my children under, I never raised my voice to him [husband]. I joined the movement waiting for this day. The day that I could no longer depend on him and have a place to put my children. Now he doesn't lay a hand on me anymore.(Rodrigues apud Fahham, 2017, p.72). [2]
In this account, Evaniza tells the story of another member of the movement and shows how the house represents an environment not only of privacy but also of security for the women and their dependents. The acquisition of housing also means gains in autonomy and empowerment, as it enables women to leave violent and authoritarian relationships with their respective partners.
"Here in the East the majority are women, right? I think it's because women are more interested in having their own and not depending on a man for everything. They are taking more initiative". (FRANCISCO apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.127).
"Women are currently the majority in several social movements fighting for housing and the right to the city in São Paulo. In the MST-East 1, about 75% of the family representations are made by women, and of the 3,000 participating families, approximately 1,403 are headed by women"(FAHHAM, 2017).
“At the beginning of the movement, I felt that the machismo of men was much greater. Over time I see a significant change in the way that women today take ownership and exercise leadership in the movement's processes. [...] In general, you saw a much greater protagonism from men in decision making and the conduction of the processes. I see that today there has been a shift”. (RODRIGUES apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.68).
From the life trajectories of the women interviewed and the stories they tell, we can see that besides being participants, many women are in leadership positions in the movement, coordinating or in administrative positions, actively participating in Mutirões, and other movement activities.
“Machismo is a cultural thing, you were brought up in a certain way, and you end up passing it on. But with time, it is changing. And here in the group, women feel comfortable talking and start to learn, so I think this only tends to grow in the movement. Not only the participation of women but also the emancipation, of being free and doing what one wants and how it can be done.”. (SANTOS apud FAHHAM, 2017 p.95).
There are many reasons for women to be present in the fight for decent housing, but, based on what Alessandra said, we can understand how the participation in the social movement enables the empowerment of these women by offering tools to leave a situation of dependence and fight for rights that, many times, transcend the more specific agendas of the fight for housing. It is possible to notice the achievement of empowerment as a political subject also in Roseane's speech, generating changes in social relations that happen both in the private and public spheres:
“When I was ten years married, I met the movement. [...] They explained to us how the struggle was and I started to participate. The discussions brought knowledge that was new to me, and this knowledge gives you very important tools to fight. Then you, a layperson, who only sees things on television and in the media, you begin to see yourself within that, within politics [...] Every Sunday afternoon I took my daughters and went. He [husband] started to notice my transformation. For example, in the elections I already had the candidate I was going to vote for, I had already researched him, I already knew everything. Then he came to me with the candidate that the boss told me to vote for, can you believe it? And I said, "Stop voting for who your boss says, for God's sake". He didn't like it, he started to want to prune me, and said he was going to report me to the juvenile court because I was abandoning my daughters at home because of a bunch of troublemakers.”. (QUEIROZ apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.77).
The education and political formation of the participants are extremely relevant for the movement and happen from practical actions and, also, from their interactions. Knowledge is shared, transcending the housing agenda, and it enables transformations in other spheres of personal and collective life.
“One of the good things here in the movement is this group of women, you can see here how we get together, right? [the committee composed only of women enters to have coffee in the same room where we were talking]. I started to participate with the women. I started to see single mothers working outside and taking care of their children and I said, "Why can't I? ”. (QUEIROZ apud FAHHAM, 2017 p.83).
The existence of a women's group within the movement allows women to have a safe space to share their experiences and build a network of support and strengthening, both personal and collective.
Education within the movement happens in many ways. As in the example shown above, socialization among individuals and the exchange of experiences is one of them.
"When we go to the street, the spirit is to show our strength, our fight," (NEVES apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.119), through this account, we see how the act of going to the street, of demonstrating for their rights, brings gains as an active subject in social transformation. Or also from actions outside the movement, as in the case of Evaniza who, in 2011, was invited to be a consultant to the presidency of the implementation of the programs Minha Casa, Minha Vida – Entidades and do Rural, meeting one of the guidelines of the MST-East 1, which is to act in the construction of public policies (FAHHAM, 2017).
“I can say that there will be a window facing the kitchen because I fought with USINA. When it was time to make the blueprints, we did six months of workshops in the Casa de Projetos with the families to build the blueprints' apartments in the way we wanted, so they could see what the families' needs were. Initially, there was no way to put a window in front of the sink, so I said: "I will be washing dishes and looking at what? No, let's put a window here. So this is our discussion: if it were a construction company, it would be just that. In ours, we can have our say, but of course, know the limitations of our terrain. But we can speak, we can give our opinion. It was a great discussion to understand the composition of the building.”. (DANTAS apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.101).
In the self-management model, where the movement has autonomy in decisions about the project, communication between families and technical assistance is extremely significant and valuable. It is in the interaction between these agents, in a non-hierarchical way, that the exchange of knowledge and experiences happens and each one exposes their knowledge and needs.
"At the construction site, we had a social worker who made it very clear that light work would not be exclusive to women. The jobs would be equal. For example, when we had to carry those very heavy trusses, the men would take two or three, and we would take four, but we did it! We made the foundation ourselves. [...] We dug the same holes as they did, the same work, the same hours.". (QUEIROZ apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.80).
In the movement, both in the administrative work and the Mutirões, the tasks are divided equally among the participants, regardless of gender, putting men and women to perform the same functions.
"The movement gave me more stamina to fight. I finished my studies in 2007 and had my son in 2009. After that, I didn't think about studying anymore. I thought that the way it is, it's good. Then I saw that it wasn't. The movement gives opportunity to many people, you just have to want it. I thought that for me it was good just to have finished high school, but then I started to see that no, I needed more. Knowledge is never too much. Now I'm studying pedagogy. [It is very hard this whole routine: studying, working, movement and family. But I'll manage.". (NEVES apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.122).
Like Priscila Neves, Cristiane Dantas is also studying for higher education in social work, a decision she made after joining the movement. These examples and those of other interviewees showed how participation in the movement, employing the knowledge of the processes, the discussions, the active and institutional struggle, encouraged the return to studies.
"Today I am a social worker, I work, I earn well, I support my house, I help my daughters in whatever they need. Today I try to raise my daughters differently. I want to encourage them to fight for what they want, I want them to seek companionship and respect in a relationship.”. (QUEIROZ apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.84).
It is possible to infer that the political formation worked within the housing movement stimulated and empowered these women to seek new opportunities and ways of living - from the search for educational training to better working conditions and financial independence, but also for new ways of relating, which they take with them and pass on to others, as Roseane tells us:
"Even though I don't have a university degree, I feel very prepared because the movement taught me a lot of things. So I say that the movement prepares you for life. Before I was a shy person, I had never spoken in public. I would never take a microphone, and today I don't, it is a common thing. [So I think that my biggest transformation in this process was as a person. And I take all this home with me, to my family.". (SANTOS apud FAHHAM, 2017, p.90.
From these different ways of passing on and acquiring knowledge – from civil construction to new forms of relationships – and from the active participation in social transformation, the gains in autonomy and benefits that participation in the movement brought to these women's personal lives are evident, enabling a critical consciousness about social reality.
Notas
[1] This article was published on Archdaily in December 2020. It is an excerpt originally published in the Journal Cadernos de Pesquisa #10 of the Associação Escola da Cidade and available for consultation here. This is a publication stemming from a Course Conclusion Paper delivered in 2019 at Associação Escola da Cidade under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Amália Cristovão dos Santos.
[2] The woman narratives presented in this article belong to: Cristiane de Oliveira Dantas, Alessandra dos Santos, and Priscila Neves, who were part of the executive coordination of MST-East 1 at the time of the research; Evaniza Rodrigues and Roseane Queiroz, who also composed the coordination of the Union of Housing Movements – São Paulo (UMM-SP); Mirian de Souza, who worked in the Milton Santos mutirão; and Mayara de Souza Francisco, from the Martin Luther King mutirão.
References
Fahham, M. P. D. V. (2017). Mutirão por autogestão e as mulheres. Escola da Cidade, São Paulo
Fundo Fica. (2019). Retrieved in:: www.fundofica.org.
Guerreiro, I., Marino, A., Rolnik, R. (2019). Custos urbanos, especialmente com moradia, comprometem renda das famílias. Retrieved in:: www.labcidade.fau.usp.br/custos-urbanos-especialmente-com-moradia-comprometem-renda-das-familias.
Movimento dos Trabalhadores sem Terra Leste 1. (2019). Retrieved in:: www.mstleste1.org.br.
Author: Giovanna Tozzi, Arquiteta e Urbanista, São Paulo
Bio: Giovanna Tozzi is an architect and urban planner who graduated in 2019 from Escola da Cidade - School of Architecture and Urbanism with a professional exchange in Medellín, Colombia. During her undergraduate studies, she was part of the research group Plataforma Plus that studied urban and social characteristics with a housing focus in the Vila Buarque region, located in downtown São Paulo. She interned at SEHAB (São Paulo's Municipal Housing Secretariat) where she developed mapping and research on housing developments in the city of São Paulo. In 2018 she worked at the Colombian office CONNATURAL (Arquitectura y Paisaje) where she collaborated on the project Veinte Parques Para Vos, an urban project to revitalize public squares in the city of Medellín and the project Jardín Buen Comienzo Casa del Encuentro, a public daycare center in the Museum of Antioquia. He was part of the RADDAR (Research as Design / Design as Research) team collaborating in interdisciplinary projects, mainly in the exhibitions AAA - Anthology of Art and Architecture and Art in the Field and the conservative project and adaptive intervention of the Complexo Pacaembu Sports Complex. Currently, she collaborates in the Ateliê Navio team developing urban projects focused on early childhood. Brazilian, born in São Paulo