Uma das faces do feminismo em Pernambuco : transgressões e permanências na trajetória da Federação Pernambucana pelo Progresso Feminino (1931-1937)

Abstract

The present study aimed to analyze the sociocultural and politic trajectory of Federação Pernambucana pelo Progresso Feminino (FPPF), the feminist institution of Pernambuco which was founded with the chief purpose of women’s defense as legal subjects and sharing guidelines between the branch network of Federação Brasileira pelo Progresso Feminino (FBPF). Those analyzes are based on the Feminist Politic Theory and aimed dialogue between the New Political History and the Gender Relations History. As data base for this study, we worked with the Minutes from General Meetings of FPPF, activity reports, and newspapers articles published on the 1930’s in Pernambuco. The feminine political citizenship reached space in the official debates of Brazilian politics with the advent of the Republic, at which time a new political culture was formed, based on the sharing of republican and liberal ideals. Part of the female urban elite of Pernambuco became involved in these debates, giving visibility to the feminist struggle through the press and actions in favor of women's rights to formal education, work and political representation. Feminists, which were part of this institutional network, questioned the exclusion of women from the public and political space. They displayed new meaning to gender relations, as well as a new idea of women. According to our analyzes, we were able to understand transformations in the strategies of struggle and in the claims of this institution along the historical changes occurred in the 1930s in Brazil and in Pernambuco. We aimed to identify who were the women which made part of FPPF, as well as understand how it built the bonds between the local press and the support to the feminist cause in Pernambuco. The FPPF launched the application of its president, Edwiges de Sá, for Constituent Assembly of 1933, inserting the entity into the formal political life of Pernambuco. After the Constitution of 1934, the entity focused its efforts to the female work and the difficulties experienced by poor working women to reach and keep their jobs. Corroborating to the placements of your matrix, the branch of Pernambuco fueled its editorial space in Diário da Manhã , with critics and propositions about the maternity problematic for the insertion of women in job market, aimed to require the brazilian government to promote public policies to the health of mothers and children. Criticisms were also made at marriage as an institution. Although the FPPF declared against divorce, it criticized the position of inferiority that the women had in the private space, focusing on the submission that wives had with respect to their husbands due to the civil code in force. These feminists believed that female professionalization was the way for the emancipation of women, so they organized several courses of female professional qualification, called Círculos de Cultura. These courses were supported by several sectors of society, doctors, business people, politicians and the press. They used modern sociability practices, joining charity action with amusement practices, creating alliances, and building a women's collaborative network, which sought to organize events and meetings that publicized their interests. These analyzes allowed us to understand a part of the dynamics of the feminist struggle in Pernambuco in the 1930s, perceiving the feminist movement as an important factor for the expansion of democracy and the construction of the Republic in Brazil.