With Perón’s old-fashioned charm, there’s little doubt that he would have echoed Farrell’s shocked grumble. But Evita apparently changed all that. When he became President, she saw to it that woman’s suffrage stood high on the list of the government’s legislative programme. But there were plenty of Argentines, Perónistas among them, who showed a marked lack of enthusiasm for the prospect of emancipated women turning their way of life upside-down. The suffrage bill somehow seemed to linger in Congressional committees while other bills speeded through. So, shortly after Evita returned from her European tour, she marched into Congress and told the deputies that she would not leave until the bill had passed. With the Chamber’s gallery packed with women and thousands more outside surrounding the building, the shaken legislators quickly did as they were told. Two days later, one hundred thousand Perónistas flocked into Plaza de Mayo to hear Perón promulgate the new law and to hear Evita assure the women, as well as the men, that a new era had dawned for Argentina.
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