Trade unionism was born male-centred and revealing a sexist attitude on the role of women in society, about their integration in the labour market and in the unions. This attitude soon became dominant and led the union strategies towards women for a long time. They aimed to exclude them from the labour market or at least accepting their work as transitory and confined to certain branches with lower wages. Despite the mixed associations created in the beginning, these acts of discrimination against women led them to form their own unions, which were maintained active in the United Kingdom even after the 1st World War. Exclusively feminine organizations were likewise created in France, both in CGT, albeit of short duration, and in CFTC, where these lasted until the Nazi occupation. Other experiences remained active until very recently, as is the case of the Danish KAD, founded in 1901. It is what Briskin (1998) called "a separatist strategy". With the increasing integration of women in the labour market, union’s strategies shifted from a logic of exclusion to an organisation one. New structures were born to accommodate them. However, although the growth in absolute and relative numbers of women in the unions, their participation in these organisations remains less intense and there is not a corresponding increase in their proportion in the decision-making bodies, with unions rarely providing adequate representation (Cook et al., 1992; Curtin, 1997; Garcia, 1993, 1999; Garcia et al., 2003; Trebilcock, 1991). Women militancy, traditionally much less intense, because of social, economic and cultural obstacles was shrouded in silence for a very long time, and it was necessary to wait for the last thirty years to perceive the substantial increase in scientific research that is being developed in this domain. This silence also happens in Portugal. Women are completely absent from the works that analyse the trade unions and the trade union militants at the dawn of the 20th century. This paper, is a first step to bring out of the shadows the union militancy of Portuguese women throughout that period. Our research concluded that more than 500 women were founders of unions in the first two decades of the century, a number so far completely unknown. We also detected the presence of the separatist strategy, as some craft unions in the canning industry and among the shoemakers prohibited the access of women to these unions. With the dictatorship and its ideology of woman as the “home fairy”, they were relegated from the unions and only regained an active role in them after the 25th April revolution. However, nowadays the situation is characterized by a generalized and deep underrepresentation This paper is based on the analysis of documents like the processes of the unions that emerged in the beginning of the 20th century or, for the present, the biographical profiles of the members of the executive committees of the unions with jurisdiction in the public administration, as well as other documents such as the social reports of some public services.

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Trade unions,Women,Sexism,Underrepresentation,Portugal