At 28 meters high, Juliana has a feeling of power. It’s like she’s on top of the world and everything below her is too small.
“I’m the person who, if you say I can’t do it, then I’ll feel like doing it. Everyone is capable of doing everything, they just don’t believe it. Those who are willing go out there and do it. I love crafts and If I’m going to make bows, I try to make the best ones. I work in a rough, masculine area. And in what I do I want to be the best”, she says.
Juliana Sombra Melo, 39, is a crane operator at the port of Santos. In November last year, the month with the most recent data available, the export and import complex handled 15.7 million tons of cargo. According to figures from the Port Authority, it is the highest volume ever recorded in the period.
He started working in customs terminals in 2007. He started as a driver. She was the only truck driver in the company whose name she preferred not to say. When she arrived at the cafeteria and sat down at the table, the men got up and left. She got tired of hearing questions about whether she had dishes to wash at home.
Viviane Ribeiro, 40, also has her arsenal of similar stories. 22 years ago, she passed the first port guard exam that admitted women. A time when the structure of the port of Santos did not even have women’s bathrooms.
“The beginning was difficult. The environment was very masculine, completely unaccustomed to women. It was embarrassing. I felt like I was a point of light. Everywhere I went, everyone looked. There were those who thought we were trinkets and would soon give up”, he explains.
She didn’t give up and won. Not only did she maintain her role, she learned to assert herself when necessary. If before she had never even seen a ship up close, she fell in love with the port environment. It was something unexpected for the 18-year-old girl who studied tourism at college and didn’t know what she wanted in life.
At the Port Authority, the entity that manages the operation of the port of Santos, there are 793 employees, 123 of whom are women.
Companies operating in the region, such as BTP (Brasil Terminal Portuário), have 157 women on staff, almost half of them in operational roles.
According to a survey carried out by Antaq (National Waterway Transport Agency), 17% of vacancies in the Brazilian waterway sector are occupied by female labor. The data was collected through a questionnaire answered by 302 companies in the sector.
“I haven’t had any major problems. Sometimes there’s a little joke or other, but we learn to impose ourselves. The position I occupy has more contact with training. If a woman gives instructions, you can still hear comments. But imagine for women in the past, with those guys from the Docks [antiga denominação da administradora do porto]… The scenario was completely different”, says Mariela de Oliveira Costa Corrêa, 31.
Today an environmental analyst, she is responsible for waste management, licenses, controls and environmental transition. She joined the port of Santos as an intern, at 19 years old.
Those who have contact with day-to-day life at the port notice changes. Companies did not have changing rooms for women. Some of them received the keys to the space designated for men. It was the only possibility.
This entire scenario fascinated photographer Daura Menezes. She struggles to obtain resources, using the Rouanet Law, to produce a documentary about female participation in the port of Santos. Until now, she has been knocking on the doors of those who could finance the project that would cost, she estimates, around R$60,000.
“When we look at women in the port, the hole is at the bottom. There is no structure, and they need to prove not only their capacity for the position but to show all the time that they can do it ‘despite’ being women. There is still this differentiation “, she says.
Even getting statements, it was difficult to convince them. Those who work in positions linked to port operations fear how they will be portrayed and whether they will be frowned upon.
“I need companies to believe in the project, but it’s not about raising a flag. I’m not doing activism. There is no political bias. It’s about showing that there are ports abroad that prefer women in operations because they are more careful and cause fewer problems We need to bring this to Brazil”, he adds.
A photographer with exhibitions abroad, she is considering the possibility of looking for a partner production company or TV station to embrace the project that she defines as one of empowerment.
It’s a description that fits Juliana well. She arrived in Baixada Santista at the age of 19 from Ceará, alongside her mother and five brothers and sisters. She got her driver’s license, paid for by one of them, to try to get into a port company, which she managed to do.
She was fired when she returned to work after maternity leave. She defied her husband, who threatened her with separation if she were to work as a truck driver. He not only accepted but encouraged her role as a crane operator.
“Before, when I said what I did, my friends thought it was surreal. Today, they accept it better”, he enjoys the memory.
Not always, in Viviane’s case. She says she has to show her authority in some situations, invariably with men.
“We are strong with this. We have to, because if we don’t take action… Port guards carry out customs inspections. In the port area, I’m a traffic agent, I can issue fines. I carry out operational inspections with vehicles, it’s very obvious. One police power”, he explains.
One of the complaints that remains among them is the absence of women in leadership positions.
“We don’t have a female boss. There was one and she left quickly”, says Viviane.
But they also see this as a matter of time. With pride, they believe they were pioneers of a movement, paving the way for those who came later. Juliana is radiant when she remembers an event in which her daughter, Eloá, now eight years old, said she wanted to be like her mother.
“I feel like an example. That’s what I always wanted to be. I told my mother: I don’t know what I want to be. I just know that I want to be an example.”