At the beginning of the PT’s second mandate in 1993, the party organized a citywide Constituent Assembly, to establish the priorities for the popular administration.

One of the elements of this Assembly was the launching of the “Porto Alegre for Women” program. This identified 16 areas of concern to women, including, among others: work; child care centers; violence; and education. The wide participation of both popular organizations and specialists enabled the development of a diagnostic model. A smaller seminar assessed this raw information, and identified policies and key demands. These were presented to the Assembly. We explained that discrimination and subordination are reproduced in all areas of life, including urbanization, and participation in public affairs. The city expresses all the social relations existing in the urban space. For example, 13 percent of men in Porto Alegre are unemployed, but 18 percent of women. And 26 percent of women are heads of households.

Unless we introduce decisive countermeasures, discrimination will be reproduced. We need to break this cycle. To create new habits and new spaces.

In consequence, we need to include compensatory measures in all areas of our work. So far, we have given a special role to cooperatives of women, which have been awarded contracts for cleaning and other areas of service work in the municipality. We have also created clothes-making workshops, bakeries, and other employment and training projects for women. We have begun to investigate non traditional careers for women, including computer studies and agriculture.

We would like to have more income generation projects for women. But this is a disputed area. The participatory budget meetings invariably relegate these programs to the bottom of the list, and funds are severely restricted. We also lack a legal framework for these positive compensatory projects.