Author: Paula Mejia / Source: Atlas Obscura
The brigadeiro, one of Brazil’s most distinctive desserts, is a dense, sticky confection. It’s crafted from condensed milk, cocoa powder, and butter, and often rolled in chocolate sprinkles. Decadent ingredients aside, the brigadeiro has an unusual origin story.
It became popular in the 1940s, when rations made condensed milk a wildly popular substitute for desserts. Lore holds that around this time, women sold these treats at rallies advocating for presidential candidate and Air Force Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, during the first Brazilian national election in which all women were able to vote.Brazilian suffragists began rallying for equality in the voting booth in the 19th century. The efforts of suffragists, such as the Federação Brasileira Pelo Progresso Feminino (Brazilian Federation for Women’s Progress), led by the scientist, future UN delegate, and politician Bertha Lutz, gained momentum when women won the right to vote around Europe and the United States. After decades of fighting, Brazilian women won the right to vote in 1932.
There were some prohibitive strings attached, though: Only married women who had their husbands’ permission, single women earning their own salaries, and widows were allowed to vote. This hugely affected womens’ political participation, and, as the Oxford Human Rights Hub notes, “the extension of the vote to women in Brazil was a way of including women in the public sphere, while guaranteeing that the private sphere would not suffer any losses.
” Thanks to their continued efforts in fighting for equality, voting became compulsory for everyone in 1945-46.
Around that time, political groups rallied to form the União Democrática Nacional, or the National Democratic Union, and staunchly opposed the populist regime of recently-fallen…
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