“Cloth for sleeve”: the conversion of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in a fashion arena

Abstract

The Brazilian Academy of Letters, established in 1897, remained untouched by the feminine presence up to 1976, in which year the 17 clause of the Internal Regulation, which until then had restricted the election to “Brazilians of the masculine sex”, was modified to assure the women the possibility of candidacy. In 1977, the first woman to take part in the writers’ immortal circle is Rachel de Queiroz, whose admission raised a true aesthetic debate around the ceremonial uniform, which during the first eighty years of existence of the institution was designed exclusively for men. At this occasion, the Academy was transformed into a true “fashion arena”, in which
undeniable impasses and embarrassing situations around the gender prerogatives abounded, as this article intends to elucidate.