Gender relations, education and the press: Reflections on the newspaper O Albor in Laguna (Brazil, 1901-1930)

Abstract

The article discusses gender relations and education, emphasizing the education of girls and the teaching in dialogue with the historiographic production and articles of O Albor, from 1901 to 1930, available in the Municipal Public Archive of Laguna (Brazil). Under E.P. Thompson’s references, the press is analyzed in the intentionality of the groups it represents, with its contradictions and fissures, which, in its words, teaches, proposes reflections and diffuses information, and does so in what it fails to say, in what is muted. In the eleven selected excerpts, the results pointed to wage discrepancies between the sexes, to the implantation of the mixed school as a gradual process, resulting from state financial factors, potentiated by women’s struggle and the socio-cultural formation of teachers and eventual teachers as vocation and affectivity. The regulation for a docile and religious femininity was present, mainly directed to the white woman, of middle sectors and elites, although it opened space for the discussion of the emancipation of women from the perspective of liberal feminism.

Keywords: female education, press, O Albor.