Introduction

Scholars addressing immigrant women issues in Portugal deplore the lack of academic research in the field (Hellermann 2005; Peixoto et al. 2006), although this has gained some momentum and visibility lately. This knowledge gap, and the new focus on immigrant women, is not surprising if one takes into account the fact that Portugal is a recent country of immigration and, more relevantly, that scientific research on women/gender was only recently established within the Portuguese academic field. Academics were reluctant to consider areas such as youth, daily life, the body, the family and women as “noble objects of study” (Joaquim 2004). It was not until 1995 that the first Master's degree in Women's Studies was founded at the Open University of Lisbon (Vaquinhas 2002; Joaquim 2004).

Research on issues of immigration and ethnicity on the one hand, and gender on the other, have both been extensive in recent years, although without significant crossing. As a matter of fact, ethnic and migration studies seldom encompass issues of gender, whilst gender studies seldom encompass issues of ethnicity/immigration. The lack of research on immigrant women, as well as media coverage of the topic, are reflections of both academic as well as social marginalisation of this issue. An analysis of the media's social representation of migrant women revealed that these women are referred to in newspapers with only concise and factual data, illustrating a process which abandons people in the margins of society (Santos 2005). Migrant women are generally denied the status of being an object of interest.