Brazil’s current cabinet features a record number of female ministers. Photo by Angencia Brasil.

ON January 1st 2011, Dilma Rousseff made history by becoming Brazil’s first female president. Her landslide victory in Latin America’s largest election, with more than 130 million votes cast, represented a moment of triumph for women in South American politics.

Dilma defies Brazil’s female stereotype: the bikini-clad, hedonistic playgirl whose sensuous playfulness drives tourists wild. Instead, over the past decade Dilma has proved herself to be a competent Minister for Energy, a pragmatic economist, and a worthy political adversary. Her electoral victory is arguably as important for women in Brazil as Obama’s triumph was for African Americans in the United States.

Throughout the campaign, politicians struggled to adjust to the presence of a gifted female challenger in a political race that has traditionally been dominated by men. Prior to the election, then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who supported Dilma’s candidacy, christened her the “mother” of Brazilian society. However, Dilma’s past involvement in Brazilian politics indicates that she should be characterised as anything but maternal. Like many latter-day Brazilian politicians, Dilma’s political beliefs were forged during the country’s military dictatorship. Following Brazil’s 1962 coup d’état, Dilma was active in Vanguarda Armada Revolucionária Palmares and Comando de Libertação Nacional, two far-left guerrilla organisations. On account of her involvement, Dilma served almost three years in the so-called Damsel Tower prison in São Paulo, where she survived twenty-two days of severe torture. Hardly the passive stereotype of a nurturing mother, Dilma has shown herself to be authoritative and independent.

Dilma’s victory will likely change the public perception of the role of women in Brazillian society. Her cabinet boasts a record proportion of female ministers: women oversee nine of Brazil’s 37 ministries. Among her reforms, Dilma hopes to incentivise women to join the labour force. These policies seem to be motivated by Dilma’s stated belief that society’s perception of women is fundamentally distorted. Two months after taking office, she remarked in an interview, “It is funny how we women are expected to be fragile. When a woman takes over a high position, she is regarded as being out of her normal role. I think that from now on, this will be seen as a natural, normal thing”.

Dilma’s presidency may symbolise the beginning of an era in which women play a much more active role governing Brazil. Her emphasis on equal opportunities adds a new dimension to Lula’s socialist creed, “A Brazil for Everyone”. Whether Dilma can implement the legal and economic reforms necessary to secure Brazil’s future prosperity remains yet to be seen. Nevertheless, her election strikes a blow to political culture in Brazil that for too long has placed limitations on the role of women in politics.