Gendered Revolutions: Representations of Male and Female Students in 1968 Brazil

This paper examines gendered understandings of the flourishing student movement of 1968 Brazil. It argues that, much like the nature of student activism itself, the gendered dimensions of the movement were always inextricably and controversially understood as part of a broader process of transnational change. That is to say, many observers proclaimed the Brazilian student movement to be inherently connected to the increased political activity of other young people elsewhere in the world, be this due to an international Communist conspiracy or to the “natural” energies of young people in pursuit of social justice. In much the same way, the new forms of masculinity and feminity practiced by Brazilian student activists also drew comparisons and understandings that traversed national and regional lines. For some observers and participants, young Brazilian men and women were modeling a new kind of Latin American militancy, one that resembled the gender neutral camaraderie seemingly espoused by male and female Cuban revoluionary soldiers. For others, student activism suggested the dangers of international influences in transforming Brazilian sexual mores and thereby upsetting social stability itself. Taken together, these various understandings contributed both to the ways student activists experienced this year, as their local struggles and actions were always impacted by this insertion in the global context, and to the meanings later ascribed to 1968 in Brazil.