Virgínia Leone Bicudo's 112th Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates Brazilian psychoanalyst Virgínia Leone Bicudo’s 112th birthday and was illustrated by Brazil-based guest artist Bárbara Quintino. As a psychoanalyst who pioneered race studies in Brazil, she made sure Black perspectives were heard in academia.

Bicudo was born on this day in 1910 in São Paulo. Her mother was an Italian immigrant and housemaid, and her father, a Black man, dreamed of becoming a doctor. After Medical schools denied his application on the basis of his skin color, her father decided to invest in his children’s education.

Bicudo inherited her parent’s ambitions and prioritized studying at a young age. In 1930, she graduated from Escola Caetano de Campos. She completed a course in public health education before taking a job as a psychiatric attendant. Bicudo quickly earned a promotion and worked as a supervisor in the Infant Oriented Clinic in São Paulo.

In 1936, Bicudo enrolled in the Free School of Sociology and Politics, Brazil’s first higher education institution that taught social sciences. She was the only woman in the program. During her time at this school, she learned about Sigmund Freud.

She graduated two years later with a bachelor’s degree. Bicudo believed she could use psychoanalysis to better understand racial tensions in Brazil, which had significantly impacted both her and her father’s lives.

Bicudo also pursued graduate studies at the same school. Her dissertation was the first postgraduate work in Brazil that focused on race relations. This earned her an invitation to participate in a UNESCO research project analyzing race in different countries. Her research concluded Brazil was not a racial democracy, which contradicted her advisor’s beliefs, and caused her work to go unpublished.

After returning to Brazil, Bicudo was treated like an imposter in academic circles because she did not have a medical degree. In 1959, she moved to London and studied with some of the most prominent psychoanalysts of the time. She transmitted lectures to Brazil through the BBC to publicize her work.

After returning to Brazil in 1959, Bicudo founded the Institute of Psychoanalysis of the Brasília Society of Psychoanalysis. She also hosted “Our Mental World,” one of Brazil’s most popular radio programs, while writing a column in the newspaper under the same title. Bicudo’s efforts and resilience  laid the groundwork for generations of women psychoanalysts to come. You can find her thesis online if you’d like to learn more! 

Happy birthday, Virgínia Leone Bicudo!