Look, more than 100 female leaders are gathering here in São Paulo next week, between August 4 and 5, to discuss the challenges of the future of work. This is the first edition of the Summit Mulheres nas Profissões. And to talk about this initiative, I have the honor of welcoming here in the CNN Money studio the president of the Mulheres do Brasil group, Luiza Helena Trajano. Dona Luiza, welcome. It is a pleasure to have you here.
Thank you, Vittor. Good morning to you and to everyone watching us. It is a pleasure to be here.
Oh, the pleasure is all ours. Dona Luiza, I wanted to begin by asking exactly about this initiative in a context in which we know there are still many restrictions and many challenges for women to occupy and reach leadership positions. I wanted to understand your first reading of exactly this context. Have you seen a robust structural change in this scenario?
What we feel a lot, Vittor, is that women's participation has grown a lot in general. You see that in politics, everyone wants a woman as vice. So, the Mulheres do Brasil group is about to turn 13 years old. We are a group that works on more than 15 projects — more than 15 projects — but we are very focused, because we women really like to make things happen, right? So we are very focused on public policy. We feel that it has grown a lot. Today there are many women who are establishing themselves in high positions. We have women in several segments, including in the army, in construction, in several — like transportation, among others. But we feel that we need to make a leap into senior positions. You see, we have few — only 18% of women in politics. We still have very few female presidents of banks, and even few female retail presidents. So it is not just a summit; it is a movement that begins with this sensitivity from society in general, because we will have more than eight stages. On those other stages, more than 15 professions will circulate, so that we can understand all segments. We will have all kinds of participation, and with that we will have a strategic plan until 2030 to have 50% of women in senior positions.
And does this plan involve some regulatory movement, some engagement with the public sector...
If you don't have some policies — for example, along with congressmen, we just approved a quota for women on boards of public and mixed-capital companies. Then people say, "Oh, but a quota is meritocracy, and so on." That's when the starting point is equal. But when you also understand that a quota is a transitional process to correct an inequality, you start to look at it that way, because otherwise — I joke with my colleagues from companies — if you don't remain the owner, not even your great-granddaughter will be on your board spontaneously. So this is a movement that will also pass through public policies and will also pass through awareness. How good it is. Since I had the opportunity, folks, to sit at the table together with men — most of the time just me, alone — the extent to which my feminine role helped, you know? So that is what we understand, and today we realize — you can't imagine, Vittor, how many men are with us in this fight, because they are also understanding that this mixed force is much better.
Oh, no doubt, Dona Luiza. Including bringing divergent views and often convergent ones, but always constructive. I wanted to understand exactly what guides this challenge, especially of entry, when we stop to think about the position — the positions you occupy, for example, today as chair of the board of Magazine Luiza. I wanted to understand what the big obstacles are today for women to occupy management positions, C-level positions, directorships, etc.
It's interesting, Vittor. I think that before it was really a limiting belief, you know? For many years. What is a limiting belief? "Oh, women can't do technology. Women can't do finance." What I feel is that in recent — mainly in the last three years — this has changed a lot. On the other hand, the work of the Mulheres do Brasil group is with the women themselves. They were so demanded that they say, "Oh, I think I'm not prepared to be there." I joke — no, I don't joke, I say: "But do you think the man, when he was there, was ready? If it didn't work out, it didn't work out." So we work a lot on this side of the woman, who needs to be very prepared, who needs to be... So, I think there was first the society that had a massacre — which isn't from today, right? It is a very strong machismo that has come a long way. And Brazil also had 389 years of slavery. Then we had a great era of coronelismo — political bossism. So, in that context, women really could not exercise roles. So there is all this culture that carries over, but there is also our own positioning. For me, it wasn't so much like that, because I was born in the countryside and I come from a family in which women already took charge. So I wasn't raised with "You can't go out to work; oh, you have to get married." That was many years ago. So I already come from a culture, and I saw how much that culture helped me. As with everything in life, you pay a price, right? There is no way around it. So I think there were two sides. There was a whole macho structure that the world carried. There were beliefs that limited — where a woman was born for this, for that. Today we say a woman can be whatever she wants to be. And we can undeniably note that the labor market as a whole has been undergoing structural changes, whether from the point of view of legislation or from the point of view of technology.
