On August 13th and 14th, 2019 Margaridas from all over the country occupied the streets of Brasilia to carry out the 6th Marcha das Margaridas (from now on, Marcha). The Marcha das Margaridas has mobilized, in its different editions, between 20,000 and 100,000 women for Brasilia and, according to the organizing committee, is the largest action by rural area women in Latin America.
Who are the Margaridas? Margaridas in English translates to daisies (flowers). The name is a tribute to Margarida Maria Alves, a union leader murdered for her struggle for the rights of rural workers in Alagoa Grande, Paraíba, in the northeast of Brazil, in 1983. As the Marcha explains: they tried to silence Margarida, but she became a seed. In 2019, according to estimates of the organizers, 100,000 women travelled long distances to march together at the Brazilian capital to fight for their rights. It is common to hear from the organizers of the Marcha that Margaridas are, above all, women who fight for rights and citizenship.
The protagonists of the Marcha das Margaridas are the “women from the fields, the forest, the waters” a category used to include a diversity of social subjects: working class women, rural women, urban women, family farmers, peasants, indigenous women, quilombolas, “settled” women [inhabitants of land reform settlements]; landless women, rural wage earners, women gatherers of forest products, women coconut breakers, women gatherers of mangaba, river women [ribeirinhas], and fisherwomen. In the last edition of the Marcha, women from the cities were also included.
