IDEOLOGY AND GENDER IN POLITICS - IDENTIFICATION STRATEGIES WITH REGARD TO AN EXPERIENCE

The article seeks to understand some specificities of the municipal government of Fortaleza (capital of the Northern state of Ceara) within the broader context of the Brazilian transition. With this purpose in mind, it presents a continuum of cultural and political significations, which includes gender, one of the expressive elements of this transitional phase of politics. The article's considerations have been based on analysis of local periodicals (especially the newspaper O Povo), TV programs broadcast during the election campaign, and interviews with the ex-mayor and ex-secretaries, as well as on official documents. The supposition underlying the arguments is that the context of Fortaleza's municipal government can be taken as a paradigmatic example of the process of reflecting on and reworking politics in the passage to the re-establishment of democratic institutions. Mayor Maria Luiza Fontenele's administration reflects the co-existence of a certain ideological pattern of thinking and doing politics, alongside modem symbols and identification strategies expressed in an effort to break with the past. Within this configuration, the cultural practices and representations constructed with regard to the Left and to women are important vehicles that can serve in rethinking the period.