WOMEN ON THE MOVE: sexual division of politics in rural agrarian reform settlements
Agrarian reform, Patriarchal gender relations, Peasant and popular feminism, Sexual division of politics.
The research that gave structure to this dissertation has as its central objective to analyze the process of sexual division of politics in the Settlements in the Alto Sertão Paraibano, based on the participation of women in the struggle for land in Brazil. We propose a historical review since the 1960s and the contemporary debate on the Brazilian agrarian struggle and the particularities of the northeast region; in which we analyze the process of formation of settlements in the Alto Sertão Paraibano with the presence of women who built stories of resistance, imbued with stubbornness, resisting in collective organizations defending gender equality, in the fight for a free land. The text also presents the debate on critical and left-wing feminism in the Marxist field, with the intensification of the category of peasant and popular feminism, which has been constructed based on the reality of peasant women. The discourse starts from the analysis of theoretical categories such as patriarchy, patriarchal gender relations, sexual division of labor and politics, as they are fundamental for understanding the socio-historical, economic and political divisions of inequalities between the sexes. As a methodology, we present a study based on the dialectical method, supported by investigation, field and bibliographical research and field observation, with a qualitative approach. The field research was carried out through semi-structured interviews, with open questions with 05 (five) settled women who participated in the entire struggle process of the Nova Vida I Settlement, located in the municipality of Aparecida-PB, in the Alto Sertão Paraibano. The research identified that women's political participation is affected by their interdiction in decision-making and power spaces, as a result of the unequal sexual division of politics that continues to strengthen the confinement of women in the domestic space. The research also presents the challenge of thinking about the political organization of peasant women based on the principle of self-organization in autonomous movements, as a way of confronting the subjection caused by mixed organizations such as underrepresentation and functions directed by sex.