Macau, China, Oct. 21, 2024 (Lusa) - Four "true pioneers" from Macau will be honoured from Wednesday at a two-day conference on the status of women in the Chinese region, one of the organisers told Lusa on Monday.
"They were women who took charge of their lives and played a very active role, on the cultural stage and on others as well," despite the obstacles they faced in a "very conservative" society, said Vera Borges.
The event will feature two of the pioneers, one of them the Portuguese writer and artist Fernanda Dias, whose work "has a dimension that goes far beyond" the region, said the Macau City University professor.
The other will be the writer, journalist and researcher Cecília Jorge, who " exemplifies the Macanese condition and how the Portuguese can see themselves in this mirror" of the country's history, said Vera Borges.
The Macanese are a Euro-Asian community, made up mainly of people of Portuguese descent, with roots in the territory.
Another Macanese to be honoured, writer Deolinda da Conceição (1913-1957), was also Macau's first female journalist.
"In many ways she belongs much more to our time than to the time in which she lived," emphasised Vera Borges.
The academic recalled that Deolinda da Conceição, who became headmistress of a Portuguese school in Hong Kong, was prevented from continuing to teach when she arrived in Macau and had to turn to journalism.
Linguist, educator and Macanese parliamentarian Graciete Batalha (1925-1992) completes the list of four women Vera Borges described as "unique figures in Macau's cultural scene" and to whom the conference will also pay tribute.
For two days, the international conference, co-organised with the University of Macau (UM), will focus on "The feminine and gender issues in contemporary times. Intervention in the feminine: women on the Macau scene’.
Vera Borges pointed out that "the current international order raises the question of the role of women, of women's rights, for good and bad reasons, all over the place".
And it is "the affirmation of the rights of a female, individual subject" that the academic sees as the overarching theme of local film director Tracy Choi Ian Sin, who will close the conference talking about "what it's like to grow up as a woman in Macau".
Before the session, Choi's 2016 film ‘Sisterhood’, about the relationship between two women in Macau at the time of the transition of administration to China in 1999, will be screened.
The conference will feature 32 papers by professors and researchers from universities in Macau, mainland China, Portugal, Brazil and Italy.
University of Florence professor Michela Graziani will talk about the links between the women described by Deolinda da Conceição, fellow Macanese Maria Pacheco Borges (1919-1992) and Portuguese Maria Ondina Braga (1932-2003).
Also on Wednesday, UM will open the exhibition ‘Eu Vim para Ver a Terra - A Viagem em Maria Ondina Braga’ (I Came to See the Land - The Journey in Maria Ondina Braga), which will run until 30 December.
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