Documents from the archive as memory of women?s political participation in the Brazilian Military Dictatorship 1964- 1985

The Brazilian military dictatorship, installed since the 1964 coup, lasted twenty-one years. During this period, the democratic state collapsed and an authoritarian regime was installed, with violent repression of opponents, closure of the National Congress, annulment of parliamentary mandates, suspension of political rights, arrests and deaths of opponents. This paper presents the result of an investigation about the political participation of women during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964 to 1985) in archival documentary sources. The objective was to identify documents about this participation in the fonds under the custody of the Brazilian National Archives. It is an exploratory study that, based on bibliographic and documentary research, analyzes the documentary sources of two fonds under the custody of the Brazilian National Archive: the Women's Campaign for Democracy fund and the National Information Service fund. The analysis of the documents allows us to conclude that women were quite involved in political actions during the period of the dictatorship. They participated in the political articulation of the conservative sectors and the church to support the coup and give support to the military regime. On the other hand, despite the risk of retaliation against the political position that opposed the installed regime, the women were bold and were also active in the opposition to the Military Dictatorship.