Maria José Remédios

The educational narrativity in the first period of Oliveira Salazar’s government. Women’s voices in the National Assembly (1935–1945)

Oliveira Salazar’s accession to the government followed the military coup of 1926, which put an end to the period of democratic republican life. The Constitution approved in 1933 defined the new regime, which came to be known as ‘Estado Novo’. Ideologically sustained by an anti‐liberal concept of Catholicism, this political regime would grant Portuguese women not only the right to vote – never obtained during the First Republic, despite feminist claims – and would also ensure them a seat in the National Assembly. Bearing in mind the interventions of women deputies throughout three legislations (1935–1945), we propose to draw a framework of feminine participation in the political sphere by examining their speeches on education and teaching with regard to gender categories. We must admit that those women to whom the Chief granted power to act assumed that power and became protagonists of the construction of the ‘Estado Novo’ woman.