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Mulheres de Axé

Mulheres de Axé (Women of Axé) is a short documentary–with English subtitles–about the Bahian women of Candomblé and their roles in leading the community, keeping their culture alive, and being at the forefront of the struggle against religious intolerance and discrimination from evangelicals. The video features many of the same women featured in another documentary called Cidade das Mulheres (City of Women) which goes deeper into the exploration of the topic of race and gender and reveals Afro-Bahian women as leaders, cultural sustainers, and the heart and soul of Salvador.

Also, check out the trailer for Cidade das Mulheres below.

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Day of the Baiana

Although any female from Bahia is Baiana (Bahian), the character of the Baiana has become a historical and cultural symbol of Bahia, Afro-Brazil, and the Black Woman. Typically, Baianas are women that dress in the traditional white blouse, skirt, head wrap, and colorful beads that represent the orixás of Candomblé. On the streets of Salvador, Baianas cook and sell their quitutes (tasty Afro-Bahian treats) such as acarajé, a fritter made of black-eye peas deep fried in dendê oil.

On November 25, the symbolic character of the Baiana is celebrated as part of the Mês da Consciência Negra (Black Consciousness Month). Celebrations take place with a mass at the church Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos (Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks), in Pelourinho, followed by a dance of samba de roda, and typical Bahian food.

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Lélia Gonzalez: Afro-feminist

Lélia Gonzalez was an intellectual and activist of the Movimento Negro (Black Movement) in Brazil and primarily responsible for the development of black feminism in Brazil. Gonzalez was born in 1935 and grew up to challenge the reality of social vulnerability by achieving her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, confronting racism and sexism in the social sphere, and organizing political actions while producing scholarly works. She was a member of the Unified Black Movement (MNU), an organization that changed the history of Black activism in Brazil in the 1970s. Gonzalez is credited with connecting common experiences of black women from Latin America and bringing those experiences to a national debate about the condition of black women and colonization. She was one of the few black women in Brazil who had the opportunity to participate in international discussions of the feminist movement and connect with organized Black women in Latin America and in the African diaspora as a whole. From this experience, Gonzalez advocated the construction of an Afro-feminist agenda in Latin America since Black women, in different contexts, were subjected to similar conditions of inequality and discrimination. Gonzalez’ theory of the intersectionality of race, social class, and gender as articulated categories of social marginalization is still the subject of debate in Brazil in the studies of Black women.

In 2010, the government of the state of Bahia created the Lélia Gonzalez Award to encourage public policies towards women in Bahian municipalities.