-uruq3ae6wfg5.jpg "Camila was pressured to change her ways after becoming the first female officer of the Alagoas Fire Department")
“My name is Camila Paiva, I am 40 years old and I am the first female officer of the Alagoas Fire Department. I passed the Alagoas Military Fire Department officer contest in 2002, the first year in which women were able to take the officer contest.
I was only 19 years old when I took the contest and passed as first place. This issue brought several challenges because, although my father, who was a firefighter, encouraged me, I had no idea what military life was like. I needed to be the mirror of my class and do all the activities, I had to become a reference and every day I was surpassing myself, to show that I was capable and deserved to be there, for the simple fact of being a woman.
I always noticed a certain questioning like “will she make it?” or “will she have the courage?”, those jokes and jokes. And at the time I didn’t even understand why this issue of machismo wasn’t discussed.
What struck me the most was when I arrived at the gym and had to hear from a colleague: “Camila, with the way you are, you can’t be in the military”. I didn’t understand and asked why, and she said: “Because a woman in the barracks is either a slut or a dyke”.
At the time I didn’t realize that this was violence, because I was just me and I shouldn’t have to choose between one or the other. Before that, there were no women taking an officer course, military institutions were created by men and for men, as well as these stereotypes, which were created by them, and I thought I should adapt.
With that, I started to change my way, because I’ve always been a very extroverted person, smiling and making lots of friends. I thought that I would not be respected as a professional or that my authority would not be recognized if I was like that. This resulted in a deep depression years later, I blamed myself and felt ungrateful for not being happy with what I achieved.
Then I began to understand the weight of machismo and the imposition of standards for women, and the consequences of this, which became my job as well.
I started giving lectures on female empowerment and various subjects in various states of Brazil. In 2021, I was invited to assume the presidency of the Safe Woman Commission, which works on policies to prevent violence against women in the state of Alagoas, developing a plan to confront and train public security agents to provide humanized care to women in situations of violence.
We created a movement called “Somos Toda Marias”, when I presented issues of sexual harassment within public security institutions and we started a challenge, asking women to tell their stories and the harassment they faced. All the violence I suffered motivated me to move forward and be the voice of women who could not have their voices echoed, for occupying smaller positions”.
