Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo

She was born in Abrantes on 18 January 1930.² In 1953 she graduated in Industrial Chemical Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico, in a year of 250 students with only three women; she worked at the Nuclear Energy Board and at CUF, which for the first time took on a woman among its senior technical staff. She presided over the Catholic University Women’s Youth (Juventude Universitária Católica Feminina) and over Pax Romana, and founded the Grail movement in Portugal.⁶⁷

In 1969 she turned down Marcelo Caetano’s invitation to become a deputy, but agreed to be a member (procuradora) of the Corporative Chamber, where she was outvoted on opinions such as the one on press freedom.² From 1970, at the Ministry of Corporations, she coordinated a working group on policy for women, which in 1973 gave rise to the Commission for Social Policy on Women and, in 1975, to the Commission on the Status of Women.³ In 1974 she wrote the preface to the second edition of Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters).⁷

After 25 April she was Secretary of State for Social Security in the First Provisional Government and, between 17 July 1974 and 25 March 1975, Minister of Social Affairs in the Second and Third Provisional Governments; she introduced the principle of universal social benefits.⁶ She was later ambassador to UNESCO.²

At the invitation of President Ramalho Eanes, she headed the Fifth Constitutional Government, from 1 August 1979 to 3 January 1980 — the first and, to this day, the only woman prime minister of Portugal.⁵ One of the aides to that government’s Secretary of State for Culture was Maria Velho da Costa.⁹ She stood for the Presidency of the Republic in 1986 and died in Lisbon on 10 July 2004.¹