This chapter analyzes the struggle of women labor unionists for the assertion of their rights within the union movement in Mozambique during the 1990s. In the two union federations, the discourses and practices that define and guide the action of the Committees of Women Workers reveal both a great homogeneity and an isolation in relation to the debate about the need for internal democratization. Discourses about women's participation and the rights of female workers are equally conservative, and, without contesting the abstract principle of equality, they (re)create the difference between genders which legitimizes discriminatory practices. These discourses should be read in two registers: one public, the other internal. The articulation of both discourses rests on their implicit sense: the ideal situation to be reached and the concrete situation that has to be taken into account in order to reach the defined purposes. Based on this reasoning, union leaderships have put into place multiple and more or less open systems to control the activity of the Committees. The general trend is towards maintaining the exclusion of women from the centers of decision-making in the unions.

However, not all union women share the same positions, and even though there is solidarity, there are also conflicts and rivalries that divide the militants. The trajectory of three women unionists shows that they recognize their differences, although this recognition does not always imply a valorization of characteristics which are taken as feminine. Their discourses and strategies range from the acceptance of men's control and the application of dominant models of union organization and management to the committees, to the defense of solidarity, constructed on their difference, which should be valorized and embodied in the practice of the committees. Women labor unionists have found several ways of struggling to assert their rights. Whether they accept or refuse imposed models, the contestation of male dominance in the union takes the shape of a demand for citizenship.