Women Lawyers and political polarization in Brazil

Abstract

The political polarization underway in Brazil is reflected in the legal profession, with the moral meanings of professionalism being reframed in practice.  Although subject to disputes over the reconfiguration of professional forces in law, professionalism persists as the dominant ideal among lawyers, even when the political pendulum swings in the tug-of-war between political liberalism and conservatism. Several studies explain the conservative political shift as a consequence of the massification of the Brazilian Bar Association. From this perspective, an overcrowded Bar generates dissatisfaction with the legal market and career frustration, which encourages the lower strata of the Bar to swing the pendulum. The approach adopted here suggests that: 1) in order to understand this oscillation, it is relevant to observe the tension between procedures and power in legal practice and 2) that the professional ecology is reciprocally marked by genderization, with women constructing symbolic boundaries in disputes over gender, both its meanings and spaces within the profession.    The fieldwork is based on semi-structured interviews with female lawyers; online data collection on the Supreme Court's website of investigations into the attempted coup d'état; websites of professional associations, social networks of female lawyers and a specialized bibliography.