Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva de Matos Pintasilgo (; 18 January 1930 – 10 July 2004) was a Portuguese chemical engineer and politician. She was the first and to date only woman to serve as

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, and the second woman to serve as

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

, after

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

Early life

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was born to a middle-class family in 1930."Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo", p. 32, ''The Times (London)'', 15 July 2004 Her father, Jaime de Matos Pintasilgo (born

Covilhã Covilhã () is a city and a municipality in the Centro region, Portugal. The city proper had 34,772 inhabitants in 2001. The municipality population in 2011 was 51,797, in an area of . It is located in the Beiras e Serra da Estrela subregion and B ...

, Conceição, 9 December 1896 – died

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, Socorro, 10 October 1959) was in the

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...

business, and her mother was Amélia do Carmo Ruivo da Silva, a native of

Vendas Novas Vendas Novas () is a municipality in the District of Évora in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 11,846, in an area of 222.39 km2. The city has 10,235 inhabitants. The present Mayor is Luís Dias, elected by the Socialist Party. The munici ...

. Her parents married in

Abrantes Abrantes () is a concelho, municipality in the Centro Region, Portugal, central Médio Tejo Subregion, Médio Tejo subregion of Portugal. The population was 39,325, in an area of . The municipality includes several parishes divided by the Tagus ...

on 14 March 1929.O'Shaughnessy, Hugh, "Obituary: Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo; Europe's Second Female Prime Minister", p. 34. ''The Independent (London)'', 14 July 2004 Her father, Jaime, abandoned the family and at school she tried hard to hide that, thus causing her to avoid usual relationships. At the age of seven, she was sent to the Liceu Filipa de Lencastre, a secondary school, in Lisbon. She distinguished herself in the

Mocidade Portuguesa The (, en, Portuguese Youth) was a Portuguese youth organisation founded in 1936 (dissolved in 1974) under the right-wing regime of Prime Minister Salazar's Estado Novo. Membership was compulsory between the ages of 7 and 14, and voluntary un ...

, a militaristic youth movement founded by Dictator Salazar. Later she joined Acção Católica (Catholic Action). During her years at the

Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Superior Técnico MHSE • MHIP (IST, also known colloquially as Técnico, and stylized TÉCNICO LISBOA) is a public school of engineering and technology, part of University of Lisbon. It was founded as an autonomous school in 1911 ...

from where she earned a degree in industrial

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

, she joined and eventually led the Catholic's women's student movement.

Early career

After graduating from

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

in 1953, at the age of 23, with an engineering degree in industrial chemistry she went into a graduate scholarship program with the national Nuclear Energy Board.

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

, ''International News'', Lisbon, Portugal, 19 July 1979 After completing the program, she began working for a large Portuguese conglomerate with interests in cement plants,

Companhia União Fabril The Companhia União Fabril (CUF) was one of the largest and oldest Portuguese conglomerates from the 1930s to 1974 and later a chemical corporation which was by then a part of Grupo José de Mello founded in 1988. After many acquisitions, mergers ...

, the "CUF". By 1954, she held the position of chief engineer of the studies and projects division. From that position she quickly moved to the position of project director, where she was in charge of the firm's documentation center and responsible for the company's technical journals. She held this position for seven years, until she left the company in 1960. Pintasilgo had strong ties to the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. From 1952 to 1956, at Lisbon's

Catholic University of Portugal The Catholic University of Portugal (Portuguese: ''Universidade Católica Portuguesa'', pronounced nivɨɾsiˈðad(ɨ) kɐˈtɔlikɐ puɾtuˈɣezɐ, also referred to as Católica or UCP for short, is a concordat university (non-state-run univers ...

, she was president of the women's group. In 1956 she became the international president of a movement of Catholic students, Pax Romana. In 1961, Pintasilgo joined the Grail (Graal), an international Catholic laywomen's movement. Two years after joining the Grail she led an international group working to improve the movement as well as establishing it in Portugal. By 1965 she had become the Grail's international vice-president. She was also appointed by the Vatican and served as woman's liaison between the Roman Catholic Church and the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...

. After leaving

, she held a job in government until 1969 which was to run Portugal's program for development and social change. In 1970, she presided over government working groups involving women's affairs, as well as being a member of the Portuguese delegation to the United Nations, 1971–72. In 1974 she was appointed secretary of state for social welfare in the first provisional government following the revolution. She moved her way up to Minister of Social Affairs by early 1975. In 1975, Pintasilgo became Portugal's first Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.

Tenure as Prime Minister and later career

In 1979 she was called on by General

António Ramalho Eanes António dos Santos Ramalho Eanes, GColL GCL GColTE CavA GCB RVC (; born 25 January 1935) is a Portuguese general and politician who was the 16th president of Portugal from 1976 to 1986. Background Born at Alcains, Castelo Branco, he is ...

, the

president of Portugal The president of Portugal, officially the president of the Portuguese Republic ( pt, Presidente da República Portuguesa, ), is the head of state and highest office of Portugal. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, an ...

, to become

. Pintasilgo was sworn in as the Prime Minister of the Portuguese caretaker government on 1 August 1979 with the term of three months in office. During her time in office she pushed to modernize the out-dated social welfare system. She left her mark by making social security universal and improving health care, education, and labor legislation in Portugal. She contributed the piece "Daring to be different" to the 1984 anthology '' Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology'', edited by

Robin Morgan Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the ...

. Pintasilgo was the first woman to run for president in 1986. She ran as an independent and received 7% of the votes. The following year she was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Socialist Party which she held until 1989. From 1992 and for almost a decade, she chaired the Independent Commission for Population and Quality of Life - ICPQL. Hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, in Paris, the international Commission was established by a coalition of governments and global Foundations in order to make recommendations to be presented to the UN system and donors community. In her statement at the Cairo UN

International Conference on Population and Development The United Nations coordinated an International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt, on 5–13 September 1994. Its resulting Programme of Action is the steering document for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) ...

on Sept, 7, 1994, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo explained, "The ultimate goal of Population and Development is to accord an improved quality of life to the people of the world. Not only to count people but to ensure that people count in Development". The commission's report was published in 1996 under the title: "Caring for the Future, Making the Next Decades Provide a Life Worth Living", edited by Oxford University Press. Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo died of

cardiac arrest Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. It is a medical emergency that, without immediate medical intervention, will result in sudden cardiac death within minutes. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and possib ...

at her home in

on 10 July 2004, aged 74. She was buried in

Prazeres Cemetery Prazeres Cemetery ( pt, Cemitério dos Prazeres) is one of the largest cemeteries in Lisbon, Portugal; it is located in the ''freguesia'' (civil parish) of Estrela, in western Lisbon (formerly, within the parish of Prazeres). It is considered to ...

, in

Electoral results

1986 Portuguese presidential election

, - !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left colspan="2" rowspan="2", Candidates !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left rowspan="2", Supporting parties !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right colspan="2", First round !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right colspan="2", Second round , - !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=Votes !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=% !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=Votes !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=% , - , style="width: 9px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" , , align=left,

Mário Soares Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL (; 7 December 1924 – 7 January 2017) was a Portuguese politician, who served as prime minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th presid ...

, align=left,

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

, align="right" , 1,443,683 , align="right" , 25.43 , align="right" , 3,010,756 , align="right" , 51.18 , - , style="width: 8px" bgcolor=#0093DD align="center" , , align=left,

Diogo Freitas do Amaral Diogo Pinto de Freitas do Amaral (; 21 July 1941 – 3 October 2019), known as Freitas do Amaral, was a Portuguese politician and law professor. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 10 January 1980 to 12 January 1981 and from 12 March 2005 t ...

, align=left, Democratic and Social Centre,

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

, align="right" , 2,629,597 , align="right" , 46.31 , align="right" , 2,872,064 , align="right" , 48.82 , - , style="width: 8px" bgcolor=red align="center" , , align=left,

Francisco Salgado Zenha Francisco Salgado Zenha GCL (2 May 1923, Braga – 1 November 1993, Lisbon) was a Portuguese left-wing politician and lawyer. As a student at the University of Coimbra, he was elected president of the Academic Association of Coimbra, bein ...

, align=left,

Portuguese Communist Party The Portuguese Communist Party ( pt, Partido Comunista Português, , PCP) is a communist, Marxist–Leninist political party in Portugal based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself patriotic and internationalist,Portugue ...

, Democratic Renovator Party , align="right" , 1,185,867 , align="right" , 20.88 , colspan="2" rowspan="3", , - , style="width: 8px" bgcolor=gray align="center" , , align=left, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo , align=left,

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, align="right" , 418,961 , align="right" , 7.38 , - , style="width: 8px" bgcolor=red align="center" , , align=left,

Ângelo Veloso Ângelo Matos Mendes Veloso (1930-1990; ) was a Portuguese politician. A member of the Portuguese Communist Party since the days of the ''Estado Novo'' (New State) dictatorial fascist regime of António de Oliveira Salazar, Veloso was imprisoned ...

, align=left,

, colspan="2" align="center" , ''left the race'' , - , colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9", Total valid , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,677,525 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,882,820 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , - , align=right colspan="3", Blank ballots , width="65" align="right" , 46,334 , width="40" align="right" , 0.81 , width="65" align="right" , 33,844 , width="40" align="right" , 0.57 , - , align=right colspan="3" , Invalid ballots , width="65" align="right", 18,292 , width="40" align="right", 0.32 , width="65" align="right", 20,436 , width="40" align="right", 0.34 , - , colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9", Total (turnout 75.38% and 77.99%) , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,742,151 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,937,100 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , - , colspan=7 align=left, He left the race in favor of Salgado Zenha. , - , colspan=7 align=left, Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Legacy

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was a student at

(IST), one of the most prestigious Engineering faculties in Portugal. Since 2016, IST promotes the Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Award aiming to recognize and reward annually two women that graduated at IST, as a way to promote the gender balance policy at IST as well as recognize the crucial role that women have in all fields of Engineering.

Early life

Early career

Tenure as Prime Minister and later career

Electoral results

1986 Portuguese presidential election

Legacy

References

Further reading