The characteristic of the feminist movement is the search of the interlocution with others. Wars happen when the channel of expression of conflicts fails.

In the 1970s, Jacqueline Pitanguy (1945) was important in the creation and consolidation of a feminist flag, which contributed to the resistance to the military dictatorship. In the end of the 1980s, the sociologist and political scientist participated actively in the process of re-democratization of Brazil, defending women's benefits. Today, in charge of the Forum of the Civil Society of the Americas, founded by her, she became a respected leadership in the area of human rights, in the entire continent.

Jacqueline Pitanguy studied Sociology and Political Sciences in the United States, Europe and Chile, in a circuit which, since the beginning, guaranteed her a view of the international dimension of fight for democracy and for human rights. In her return to Brazil in the 1970s, she went to work in a research about the conditions of the job market and found out the size of the inequality between men and women. This discovery motivated her to integrate the group of founders of the new feminist movement in the country. From this time, she believes that the most important thing was the construction of a feminist flag that contributed to the resistance to the military dictatorship in all Latin America. “This was a mark in the history of Latin-American women.” When she completed ten years of feminist and left-wing militancy, Jacqueline took on the presidency of the National Council of Women's Rights, remaining there for four years. Created in 1985, when the advance of Brazil in the re-democratization process forced the Presidency to once again be occupied by a civilian, the Council was a pioneer initiative. It reunited state and civil society in the definition of public policies to attend women. Today, Jacqueline Pitanguy's work goes beyond her duties as director of Cepia (Citizenship, Study, Research, Information and Action), a non-governmental organization created by her in 1990. Founder of the Forum of the Civil Society of the Americas, she is articulated in a network of organizations that acts in the area of human rights in the Continent. She woke up to the importance of uniting forces in Latin America when she lived in Chile during the democratic government of Salvador Allende. Since then, she has been building a “global view of the defense of human rights and of women's rights.”

Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação (Citizenship, Studies, Information, Action)