The Sexes: The Case of The Three Marias

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Velho da Costa, by contrast, is more charitable toward males: "Society and social oppression are not made by men alone, but by historical structures and thought patterns that oppress all of us." Moreover, she sees dangers in uncompromising militancy. "I value the feminist movement, as I value all activist movements that contribute to the struggle for human freedom," she says. "But in their fury and their aggressiveness and their mono-mindedness, women in the movement are proving just as 'phallic' as men, and that is what they should want to avoid. If we fight fire with fire, we'll all end up getting burned."

Whether militant like Horta or moderate like Velho da Costa, active Women's Liberationists have been virtually unheard of in Portugal, where old ideas about "a woman's place" are so deeply ingrained that few women are even conscious of them. Yet when New Portuguese Letters came out in April 1972, one-third of the original printing of 3,000 copies was sold within a month. Then the regime of Premier Marcello Caetano cracked down. Officials invoked a new law that makes writers criminally responsible for their work if the censors, who render judgments only after publication, voice objections. Having brought charges against the three Marias, authorities then released them on bail of 15,000 escudos ($700) each. Their trial was originally set for July 3 but has been postponed to permit Writer Horta, ill with tuberculosis, to recover sufficiently to withstand prolonged court proceedings.

Meanwhile, Portuguese intellectuals protested the banning of the books as did the American P.E.N., the noted association of writers. A group of British authors, among them Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch and Stephen Spender, wrote a letter to the Times of London attesting to the book's literary value and "strict moral intention."

In the U.S., a conference sponsored by the National Organization for Women voted to make the case the first international feminist cause. To further it, women in five U.S. and seven foreign cities staged demonstrations on the date originally set for the trial. When 50 protesters gathered on the lawn of the Portuguese consulate in Boston, Vice Consul Carlos Nunes relayed a curt reproof from his boss, Consul General George Freitas: "The world would be a better place if each person would mind his own business." To which one woman responded, "And you are minding the business of the three Marias—which is why we are all here."