Mulher e educação na Revista Folha da Serra (Campo Grande, década de 1930)

Abstract

This work intends to identify and analyze the representations about women in the first illustrated magazine of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The monthly magazine Folha da Serra was a variety periodical, printed and edited in Campo Grande, by the typography Aguinaldo Trouy & Cia, between October 1931 and December 1940, with 48 numbers published in 10 years of circulation. We focus on the representations socially and culturally disseminated during the 1930s, a Western phenomenon concerning women, coinciding with the circulation period of the magazine(1931-1940) and the politically troubled period of the Vargas Era (1930-1945). As a methodological analysis procedure, we built a digital platform database using the technology of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to digitalize the magazine as images and convert them into text. This procedure was needed considering the broadness of the magazine content. Following the theoretical guidance of New Cultural History, we mainly question what were the representations around women in Folha da Serra, considering that, as agents, women responded to the aspirations of groups from the social, economic, cultural, political, and intellectual elite of Mato Grosso, mainly, Campo Grande. Second, we investigated if women produced content, what the content was, and who these women were. We believe that Folha da Serra was an instrument to (con)form women's representation, creating discursive freedom for women of a particular class (but not all) while simultaneously dictating behaviours, sayings, actions, and body models of how a "true woman" should be. Hence, it did not completely break away from the precepts of the time, such as marriage. However, it highlights symbolic, social, and cultural capitals that, faced with an elitist society, will translate into new forms of distinction and capital accumulation demanded from a well-connected woman. Therefore, Folha da Serra offered elements to think about women in the 1930s and know the representations that permeated its pages. Despite the recurrence of the women's figure in the magazine, it was mainly written by men who had women as a theme and, as an objective, the idealized representation of the feminine between the figures of the mother, the wife, and the housewife. During its ten year circulation, 17 contents were written by women. Among these, only one woman dared to discuss in a witty, intelligent, and feminist fashion, criticizing the representations imposed on women in the magazine, permeating the everyday life and the sensibilities of Campo Grande society through her chronicles.