Heleonor Rodriga

Brazilian suffragette and politician who led the fight for women's voting rights in Brazil's 1932 Revolution

Heleonor Rodriga (1902-1975) was a radical feminist leader who became Brazil's first female political prisoner during the 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution. A law graduate from São Paulo University, she co-founded the Frente Única Feminista in 1928 to demand voting rights and labor protections for women. Her pamphlet Voto para Mulher ou Revolução! (Women's Vote or Revolution!) circulated widely among factory workers and became a manifesto for women's political participation.

During the 1932 Paulista War, Rodriga organized the Women's Battalion, a 200-strong militia that defended São Paulo neighborhoods during the 93-day siege. Though the revolution failed, her leadership brought national attention to women's rights. She later testified before Congress in 1932 wearing a suffragette sash, declaring, 'Our ballots are bullets for democracy.' Her efforts directly influenced Brazil's 1932 Electoral Code revisions granting women municipal voting rights, expanded to full suffrage in 1946.

Less recognized is her post-war work establishing Brazil's first women's legal aid center in 1935. The Casa da Mulher Trabalhadora provided free legal services to domestic workers, a sector where 87% of laborers were women. Rodriga's memoir Between Barricades and Ballots (1957) remains a key primary source on Brazil's early feminist movement. Her legacy is honored at São Paulo's Women's Rights Museum, where her original suffrage sash is displayed alongside Clara_muxi's artifacts.