Does Work Free Women From Patriarchy?
Updated: Mar 13, 2025
Written by: Mayra Cardozo, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
First of all, when we analyze women in the labor market, it’s necessary to study the origin of the feminist movement.
Middle and upper-class women were responsible for shaping feminist thinking in the origin of the movement; because of this, the majority plan of the campaign was the rise of women to the labor market as a form of liberation.
However, these women represented only a tiny part of the oppressed women. Moreover, they were so immersed in their own experiences that they ignored that most women already occupied the labor market.
These women who already occupied the labor market didn’t feel that work set them free but collaborated with more oppression and exploitation since they experienced terrible working conditions and poor remuneration.
In the case of the white middle-class woman, who were prisoners of the domestic space, the idea was to accept every condition of work settle for low wages to improve the family's income and break with personal isolation.
This idea perpetuated by the white feminist movement that work frees women and that women's liberation comes from their insertion in the labor market is a premise that alienated many black, poor, and proletarian women from the feminist movement itself.
Black women and men were the first to show fear of the insertion of white women into the market because it meant less overall space for black people in a world that prizes white supremacy.
The big question that black feminists and intersectional feminists bring to the table is how the rise of market women came to be understood—reduced the feminist movement agenda to the interests of white women who limit their freedom to enter and occupy spaces in the market.
But this should not be the sole agenda of the feminist movement; the feminist movement should seek liberation by looking at poverty, racism, institutional violence, and an economic system that exploits minority groups.
Mayra Cardozo, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Mayra is one of the pioneers in Brazil in feminist coaching and is something she is passionate about. Despite being a lawyer and partner in a famous office in Brazil and a university professor of Human Rights, these were not enough for her. She always wants to make a difference in people's lives. It was then that she discovered her passion and became a life coach; she has a brilliant curriculum involving the best national and international courses.
The objective of your work is to empower human beings to be their best version and help them emancipate themselves from socially constructed beliefs to be their essence.
Her approach is different. It aims to unite the coaching process with the development of an inclusive and emancipatory awareness.
