The book is a collection of short stories narrated by thirteen fictional women of very different life experiences collected by the author. Each short story is named after the woman telling it. These women are: Aramides Florença, Natalina Soledad, Shirley Paixão, Adelha Santana Limoeiro, Maria do Rosário Imaculada dos Santos, Isaltina Campo Belo, Mary Benedita, Mirtes Aparecida da Luz, Líbia Moirã, Lia Gabriel, Rose Dusreis, Saura Benevides Amarantino and Regina Anastácia.
It has been known for making readers cry.
Insubmissas contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Natalina Soledad's parents constantly mistreated and neglected her for being born a girl after having six boys. This made her start despising her family.
- Seni's father constantly verbally abused her and also raped her from ages 8, when her mother died, to 12, when Shirley finds out and almost kills him.
- Maria's kidnappers treated her with indifference the whole time she was there. They seemingly only stole her because... They could.
- Assassination Attempt: Shirley Paixão tries to kill her husband with an iron bar after catching him raping his daughter, Seni, at her (and her sisters') bedroom.
- Bait-and-Switch: Berta Calazans, the kidnappers' housemaid, says she needs to tell Maria do Rosário something. She hopes they'll take her back to her town, Flor de Mim. They are divorcing and leaving their old house, so they give her to an aunt who makes her work as a housemaid.
- Ballet Episode: Rose Dusreis story is about her dream of dancing, first ballet and then other kinds.
- Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Mirtes' husband killed himself while Mirtes gave birth to their daughter, Gaia.
- Blackface: Rose Dusreis was set up to play a dancing little black doll at a school presentation, but gets cut off the week the presentation was going to happen and replaced by a white girl in blackface for the role. She only realizes that was due to racism years later, as she was a kid at the time.
- Black Sheep: Mary Benedita's aunt, Aurora, is implicitly not seen at a very good light in Manhãs Azuis, as she's single, learned and lives alone at her house in the capital.
- Blended Family Drama: Averted hard by Shirley Paixão. She immediately gets along with her husband's three daughters and they quickly adapt to Shirley's two girls, who start to see Shirley's husband as a father. That would eventually change.
- Blind People Wear Sunglasses: Mirtes (or Da Luz, as she likes being called) does don a pair of sunglasses for the remainder of her story. This makes the narrator uncomfortable, as she wished to make eye contact.
- Boarding School: Rose Dusreis is sent to a Catholic one, due to her mom not being able to keep her anymore due to her low pay. The school primarily caters to rich girls, but also takes poor girls in (they "pay" their tuition by working around the school: think domestic services and helping the nuns around).
- Bungled Suicide: None of Líbia's attempts are successful, thankfully.
- Canine Companion: Maria do Rosário gets one as a "birthday" gift from her kidnappers (actually, it's the anniversary of the day they kidnapped her). She names him Jesuszinho. note
- Child by Rape: Isaltina was gang raped, resulting in her pregnancy with Walquíria.
- Contrived Coincidence: Maria do Rosário attends a series of lectures promoted by her high school (at a time where the memory of her kidnapping and the pains of her second divorce were getting her down). The theme of these lectures? Child disappearances. She gets ill when she hears about it, but manages to attend the event's last day. A woman there starts to talk about a sister she never knew because she got kidnapped before the sister's birth. When hearing this, Maria do Rosário passes out from shock. The speaker takes note and immediately recognizes her lost sister.
- Cool Aunt: Aurora is this to Mary Benedita, allowing her to stay home even after finding out she lied about being sick, teaching her to play the piano and encouraging her interest in learning other languages.
- Delicate and Sickly: Rose's anemia is tiring her out. But she also has a tiny frame due to being a ballet dancer.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The cover seen at this page illustrated by Iléa Ferraz depicts a stylized black woman crying with flowers growing out of her heart.
- Determinator: Rose faced great challenges to be able to dance professionally (including poverty, racist teachers and low pays) but never gave up.Rose: With each obstacle presented to me, my determination grew more and more, despite... And, if Atília Bessa did not accept me, other paths opened up in my direction.
- Domestic Abuse: Lia's ex-husband beat her up frequently, the worst being the time when he tried to drown her in their house's water tank and then whipped her naked with his belt, while she was holding their son, Máximo (fully intending to beat him up too). This is revealed to have triggered Máximo's schizophrenia.
- Aramides' husband raped her one night due to feeling like she was giving their (newborn) son too much attention.
- Driven to Suicide: Líbia Moirã at various points in her life, due to a constant nightmare.
- Mirtes' husband poisons himself with leaked cooking gas while she was giving birth to Gaia.
- Embarrassing Name: Natalina Soledad's parents named her Troçoléia Malvina Silveira due to her dad refusing to give her a proper name due to being born a girl (his machismo made him think that his wife had cheated on him, as they only had sons before, refusing to accept his body had "failed" him) and her mother going along so she wouldn't disappoint him further. Oddly enough, Natalina always required that her full name had to be said at all times when talking to her (while secretly nourishing the desire to change it).
- Family Business: The D'Antanho family took this to ridiculous levels:they own three butcher shops, the gas station, two drugstores, two jewelry shops, a giant candy factory, four bakeries, six general stores, the town's only newspaper (Rio Fundensenote ), a mortuary, four fabric stores, the local automobile repair shop and even a brothel. Also, the local deputy is from the same family, the directors of the town's schools are also from this family, the land which rural workers use are the D'Antanho's property and the church's priest is also a member of the same family. The only thing they didn't own was a social club called Antes do sol se pôr note which was built by slaves and their descendants.
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Genius Bonus: Regina means queen. Regina Anastácia is constantly compared to queens and queenly figures, being called queen Anastácia by the narrator and being elected the queen of Congado note at one point. - Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted by Maria do Rosário, who terminated all pregnancies she had due to fear of her kids being taken away from her.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Mary Benedita constantly uses foreign expressions, due to her language abilities. One favorite is ''my sister''.
- Happily Married: Isaltina Campo Belo and Miríades, who raise Walquíria together. Until Miríades' death.
- Saura Benevides and her husband, who's the bio dad of her second kid and adopted the first one. They live 11 years together. He unfortunately gets ill and dies, Saura says she still mourns for him.
- Regina Anastácia and Jorge D'Antanho, who's the father of her kids and was her king (just as much as she was his queen).
- Homophobic Hate Crime: Isaltina's boyfriend's co-workers rape her, under his agreement at his birthday party. They say it's to teach her to be a woman. Isaltina had previously told him that she wasn't interested in having sex with any man, including him. The rape gets her pregnant with Walquíria.
- I Can't Dance: The narrator considers herself to be this, so when Rose wants to dance together she briefly panics.
- I Did What I Had to Do: This is Shirley Paixão's opinion of having attempted to kill her ex-husband, after seeing him rape Seni at the girls' bedroom, to protect her daughters.
- Adelha says that after telling the narrator that she convinced her aged husband that the reason he couldn't perform in bed anymore was due to her own old aged body, instead of being due to his old age.
- I Have No Son!: The D'Antanho's cut Jorge off and remove him from the family's will due to him dating Regina and planning on marrying her.
- Natalina's dad almost does this, but doesn't proceed due to fear of causing further humiliation to himself.
- Saura Benevides does this to her youngest daughter, giving her to her paternal family and cutting contact.
- Internalized Categorism: Isaltina starts to realize she actually likes women in her tween years, but represses these feelings, while avoiding the boys who might be interested in her. They come back when she meets her daughter's kindergarten teacher, Miríades.
- Kids Are Cruel: Líbia's older sisters and other kids constantly mocked her due to her being unable to sleep, even saying she wouldn't ever die, as death only gets people when they are asleep. This triggers her suicide attempts.
- Natalina's classmates made fun of her due to her old name.
- The Last Dance: Partially literally in Rose's case. She knows her anemia is roughing up and will soon finish her and decides to tell her life story to the narrator.
She dances her last dance, a choreography based on an African dance that is a celebration of life's fleeting nature, being the gift of a higher, endless force which is a part of everything living. She then dies. - Last-Name Basis: Saura Benevides Amarantino only refers to her husband, father of Maurino, as Amarantino.
- Latchkey Kids: After their father died, their mom had to start working more and their big sisters moved away, Penha and Fátima, Rose's sisters, become this. They end up opening an inn after they grow up, due to learned experience taking care of home and the inn later becomes a modest hotel. The hotel is called Rosas Mil note .
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Adelha's husband has this happen to him while on bed with her. This kicks him into a depression (and after Adelha's I Did What I Had to Do, he starts to sleep with young women with help of stimulants, until he gets sick and practically unable to leave the bed).
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Regina Anastácia and Jorge D'Antanho fall in love with each other, but her family thinks only wants to take advantage of her and his family can't accept him having an actual, public relationship with a black woman (keeping her as a side piece or forcefully taking her was fine, though). They keep dating and Regina's family sees he's serious about marrying her. After Jorge gets kicked out of home and Regina's family takes him in, they get married and have a bunch of kids.
- Massively Numbered Siblings: Natalina Soledad's father had seven kids, with her being the youngest (and only girl). Her great-grandfather had thirteen boys and raised her father. Averted by her grandfather, who only had her father and died young (before he turned twenty) and was unable to have another.
- Mary Benedita is the seventh of ten kids.
- Meaningful Name: Natalina Soledadnote , who had to raise herself due to her family's neglect.
- Meet Cute: Regina and Jorge meet when the first needs to give a ordered perfume from the local drugstore to the latter's grandmother. When they first meet, she just stands still without knowing what to say, until he finally asks her what she wants.
- Multigenerational Household: Maria do Rosário's true home had her, her brothers, her parents, her grandparents on her father's side, two aunts, one uncle and his sons.
- No Periods, Period: Averted. In some of the short stories, periods are mentioned regularly.
- First Period Panic: Isaltina freaks out mildly when seeing her sister's menstruation, thinking she got badly hurt. Her mother promptly explains everything to them.
- Nun Too Holy: The nuns at the boarding school Rose went to made the poorer girls work to help them serve the richer ones.
- Older Than They Look: The narrator mentions Isaltina not looking a day over forty, despite her having a daughter who's 35.
- The narrator thinks Rose Dusreis is a young girl, due to her small size and short height.
- Omniglot: Mary Benedita claims to be fluent in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French, quite knowledgeable in Kimbundo and Swahili, being able to speak Greek and Arabic and being able to read and write Norwegian and Czech. She also planned to learn Brazilian Indigenous languages such as Maxacali and Nheengatu.
- Out with a Bang: This almost happens to Adelha's husband. He instead languishes in bed for weeks until he passes away while trying to reach for his penis.
- Overly Long Name: Maria do Rosário Imaculada dos Santos was supposed to be named Maria do Rosário Imaculada das Graças Conceição dos Santos, due to her family's catholicism. This was vetoed by, ironically, the local priest, who found it too exaggerated.
- Parental Abandonment: After raping his wife and saying she wasn't completely his like the other times they had sex, Aramides' husband leaves her and their baby.
- Shirley's first husband abandoned his daughters.
- Mirtes' husband left her literally after her water broke and Gaia started to come out, then went home and killed himself.
- Saura Benevides never loved her third daughter, so she gave the baby away to the father's family and never kept contact, despite her parents' angered, saddened disapproval.
- Her teenage boyfriend also does this so they don't have to marry each other after she gets pregnant. They agreed beforehand to do this.
- Lia's ex-husband, after beating her up and hurting their son, which makes her go stay with her mom, with the kids, leaves and takes everything else at their house.
- Parental Incest: Seni's father raped her since her mother died, when she was eight. He only stops after Shirley finds out, almost kills him and gets him arrested. This led her to be very protective of her younger sisters and even her stepmother. Thankfully, she is able to heal and becomes a pediatrician.
- Plagued by Nightmares: Líbia Moirã constantly dreams of seeing a big thing coming out of a small hole, this causes her immense pain, despite the hole not being attached to her. Turns out, that's an old memory of her seeing her brother's birth as a kid.
- Playing Sick: Mary Benedita does this so her parents will take her to the capital. It ends up better than she planned, as she's taken in by her aunt who immediately sees through her, but wants to help her. This aunt is even referred as an ally of Mary's.
- Rape as Backstory: The book has many instances of this.
- After feeling jealous of Aramides giving their newborn son more attention than him, Aramides' ex-husband rapes her.
- Shirley's husband raped his eldest daughter, Seni, for years.
- Isaltina Campo Belo was raped by five of her boyfriend's co-workers, with his knowledge, at his birthday party, after she told him she wasn't interested in having sex with him, nor guys in general.
- Renaissance Woman: Mary Benedita is knowledgeable of various languages, can play the piano and is a accomplished painter.
- Lia Gabriel is a milder version of this. She was a tutor and fixed domestic appliances (at her spare time, from midnight to dawn), even setting up a shop for it (being the only woman to do so at her home town), while raising three children alone, one of them mentally ill.
- Self-Harm: Mary Benedita cuts her skin (hands and face) to use her blood as paint in some of her paintings (although she also uses comparatively harmless period blood). She says those are the best ones. The narrator comments she has various scars over her hands and face.
- Máximo, Lia's son, had frequent self-harming meltdowns (during which he'd pull out his hair, bite himself and hit his head against walls) due to his schizophrenia.
- Soap Opera Disease: Averted by Rose Dusreis, who found out she has anemia. Her littlest sister died at the age of 21 due to complications from it.
- Played straight by Saura's second husband. She just describes him as being suddenly ill and then dying.
- Spell My Name With An S: Rose Dusreis (from Dos Reis). Her great-grandfather was the son of a powerful Colonel, surnamed Fontes dos Reis Menezes, with his home slave, Filomena. The woman baptized him with the surname slightly changed, setting them apart from the Reis de Menezes, who never acknowledged them, nor any other people who are their descendants, including Rose.
- Stern Teacher: Abília Bessa is this in her school hours, where she teaches music. At her private teaching of ballet, however, she's much gentler. She crosses the line into Evil Teacher when she tells young Rose Dusreis that her body is not appropriate for ballet, although she doesn't realize this until years later. Also, it's implied she (and other school workers agreed to it) was responsible for changing the casting at the school's presentation so Rose wouldn't play a little black doll, giving the role to a white girl instead.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Natalina was born the exact copy of her father, who just despises her. Her mom never noticed it, due to being distraught at her husband's sudden contempt for her, and her dad just got angrier at noticing that. Not even Natalina's brothers looked so much like their dad.
- Saura's third daughter was also born exactly like her dad, which only makes Saura wish even more to give the baby away to the father's family and go no contact with them.
- Supreme Chef: Regina says all the women in her family (and men who wanted to learn) are wonderful cooks. Judging by the success of her mother's independent bakery, she's right.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Saura's first pregnancy, which happened when she and her boyfriend were teenagers. The girl, while not planned, was instantly loved by the mother.
- A Mistake Is Born: Saura considers her third pregnancy this, as it happened after she had a fling with an ex-childhood friend. She had recently lost her husband and started dating the kid's father after a while, then got pregnant. She despised that pregnancy, considering it a stain on her memories of her dead husband, being the physical proof she had slept with someone else. Averted by the kid's father, who was happy by the pregnancy.
- Teen Pregnancy: Saura Benevides undergoes this at her first pregnancy.
- Textual Celebrity Resemblance: The narrator compares Regina Anastácia to very important figures, namely Mãe Menininha de Gantois
, Mãe Meninazinha d'Oxum, Clementina de Jesus, Dona Ivone Lara, Lia de Itamaracá, Léa Garcia, Ruth de Souza, Laurinha Natividade, Efigênia Carlos note , Dona Iraci Graciano Fidélis, Toni Morrison and Nina Simone. Although it's not directly due to her appearance, but her general vibes, exuding respect and admiration. - Theme Twin Naming: Lia's twin daughters are called Madá and Lená.
- Title Drop: Lia Gabriel does a partial version when describing the care they (and her) had for Máximo during one of his mental health crisis:Lia Gabriel: The girls, my twins, were only a year and a half older than him. With their powerlessness for not being able to soften their little brother's suffering, they also cried, unhappy. Both me and them. Unsubmissive tearsnote .
- What If the Baby Is Like Me: Played with. Mirtes' husband was apparently afraid their baby would inherit her blindness. It's implied that was one of the triggers for his suicide. Their baby girl, Gaia, was born seeing.Mirtes Aparecida da Luz: Gaia sees like you.
- White Sheep: Jorge D'Antanho is one of the few in his family who isn't a racist.
