Industrialization, urbanization and discipline. Moral Discourse as Justification of the Admission of Men and Women at a Psychiatric Institution

Abstract

Gender discourse can pervade (and does pervade) a whole social texture like the woof in relation to the warp. But it does not always become visible to a simple look. His paper aims at retrieving its design through an analysis of specific documents – the medical records of a psychiatric hospital that relate to the admissions that took place between 1930 and 1947, which was a period of political, economic and social instability that affected Brazilian society and more directly the poor segments of the population. Brazil’s entry in the context of developing countries from 19309 onwards and in the 2nd World War, the economic crisis that accompanied the process, the political persecution against the immigrants and their descendants, the recruitment of workers who were not prepared in factories as they came from rural areas constituted factors of a certain lack of social control which was immediately subjected by public policies that established norms for life in urban spaces. Men and women were classified and had to adjust their behavior. Thousands were taken to places of disciplining, including psychiatric hospitals. In spite of the difference of discourse, the diagnosis that defined hospital admission varied according to the gender of the social deviants.

Key words: gender, schizophrenia, public policies.