As current as it is urgent: encounters with the legacy of Heleieth Saffioti and their necessary theoretical-political complexity

Abstract

This text relates theoretical and political (re)encounters with the work and legacy of Heleieth Saffioti (1934-2010). Drawing on memories of the homage paid to me in 2019, when I was awarded a prize carrying the name of this feminist researcher, created in 2012 by the São Paulo City Council, I try to recuperate the mobilizing aspect of her contributions and to situate the collective and activist exercise of learning, partially and provisionally, the complexity and greatness that mark the work of this author. Fifty years since the publication of Women in Class Society: Myth and Reality, which has been confirmed since then as a book that is not only pioneering but also indispensable for the analysis of the condition of women in the workplace in Brazil, the challenge of understanding the interrelationship between class, sex and race in Brazilian society.