Ser mulher, “uma missão”: a escola superior de ciências domésticas, domesticidade, discurso e representações de gênero (1948-1992)

Abstract

In this work, we study the creation and the trajectory of Superior School of Domestic Science (SSDS) and the construction of an ideal of woman and of domesticity spread by official proposals from Minas Gerais State University in the 1940s. SSDS was created by international cooperation between Brazil and the US in order to instruct women to be home economists with skills to influence and change the life of the families in the state. The course was created with the support of the cooperative program between Brazil and the U.S. The analytical programs of the lessons, student news, periodicals from the Female Month composed the representations about the women that we have studied. We have crossed official sources with magazines, diaries, pictures and interviews to comprehend how those women spread values that kept them in a submission social status, but from an academic sphere, a public space, which was before reserved to men exclusively. This paradox makes us realize the complex dimension of the project and process around which the history of the domestic science course is involved, as well as comprehend the role of the domestic sciences’ students whose action constructed identities and subjectivities.