This proposal examines the making of the Brazilian electorate through analysis of the country's constitutions and electoral laws, as well as a specific historical literature, noting how Brazilian citizens - women and men - are considered as voters and as eligible persons, as well as the legal training related to party affiliation. This approach sheds light on forms of exclusion and inclusion that affect Brazilian women, women's strategies in overcoming legal discrimination, and the political achievements that paved the way to access to formal education, to diverse careers and to the revision of the Civil Code. Gradually, the barriers to women's political participation were removed, following the complaints of feminist movements and literate women who agitated for legal reforms and for the constitutional guarantee of their rights. Authoritarianism and democracy alternated during the republican years, giving rise to changes in Brazil's electoral rules which recognized the status of women as voters and as eligible for office. Primary (constitutions, electoral codes and the statutes of the current parties) and secondary sources were used to evaluate the development of political citizenship (active and passive), the making of the electorate (right to vote and to be a candidate), of candidates with no party ties (during the Empire) and within the parties (affiliations) after the founding of the Republic.
Brazilian Voters; Women; Electoral Laws; Participation; Political Citizenship