Wollstonecraftian principles in the Early Brazilian Feminist Press and the Case of Francisca Diniz

This paper proposes a transnational intellectual history of early feminist political thought, tracing the reception of Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas in nineteenth-century Brazil. While the global influence of Wollstonecraft is well-documented in the North Atlantic world (Botting, 2016), its circulation and adaptation in a slave-owning, post-colonial Latin American context remain critically understudied. This research addresses this gap by investigating the channels through which Wollstonecraft's work was read and appropriated, asking a central question: who, in a society with limited female formal education, was possibly reading Wollstonecraft, and to what political end? I argue that the nascent Brazilian feminine press of the late 19th century served as the primary vector for this reception. This paper will map the intellectual contacts and networks that facilitated the translation and discussion of Enlightenment feminist ideas, demonstrating how Brazilian writers selectively indirectly engaged with Wollstonecraft's arguments on female education, rationality, and civic virtue. The analysis focuses on how these ideas were repurposed to address the specific contours of women's condition in Brazilian society—a context marked by the lingering influence of a colonial order, and the pervasive institution of slavery. The argument is crystallized through a case study of Francisca Diniz, a pioneering journalist. Her seminal address, "The 15th of November" (1889) stands as a powerful testament to this political appropriation. In this text, Diniz explicitly channels Wollstonecraftian principles to demand that the new republican order include women as citizens, linking female emancipation to the nation's own project of modernity and progress. By examining Diniz's work, this paper illuminates how early Brazilian feminists constructed a politics of solidarity and contestation, leveraging transnational thought to challenge domestic gender hierarchies and articulate a uniquely Brazilian feminist vision for the first time.