Rousseff inspires female audience in television address

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff addressed a female audience today when she spoke on a popular television programme in Brazil about how she had ‘opened the path for all young girls who dream of becoming president’.

“The most important thing about being president is that all young girls are going to aspire to become presidents and it will be seen as something very common, that in Brazil women have the opportunity to become President,” mentioned Rousseff on the programme ‘Mais Voce’, on Globo television in Brazil.

Her participation on the programme was filmed on Monday in the Globo studios in Río de Janeiro, as part of Rousseff’s campaign celebrating the ‘month of the woman’, in March.

The Brazilian government began showing different conquests that women have achieved over recent years in Brazil through different radio and television programmes.

She also mentioned that her becoming president marked a break of a paradigm attributed with ‘machismo’ with the female image changing to being seen as ‘strong’, as she has been described.

Rousseff said “women are expected to be fragile and weak, and when a woman rises to a powerful position, with authority, it’s seen to be far from her traditional role”.

The Brazilian president has also ordered that all official documentation, she be labelled ‘presidenta’, president in its female form, despite doubts made about the word by linguists, affirming that “a woman is at the forefront of the country and that they will go far”.