O “belo sexo” sob vigilância: o controle das práticas cotidianas e formas de resistência das mulheres pobres livres, libertas e escravas no Recife oitocentista (1830-1850)

Abstract

This academic job aims to discuss and reflect on the possible ways women and their various forms of survival in the city, we will focus particularly to the population of poor women free of the blinders and captive who lived on the outskirts of the city of Recife in the mid-first half of the nineteenth century (1830-1850). So in a society marked by setbacks of slavery, as well as the “hard” social hierarchy that values attributed to its individuals, places and roles, therefore, for this reason, it would be for women only “modestly” in the house with chores and care home. Moreover, regardless of their ethnicity and social position, obedience and submission were “religiously” to be its main attributes. However, not all women fit the standards set by the strong hegemonic discourse, in particular, women from less affluent classes of society of the time. This was a must to be pointed pejoratively by “rowdy”, “dishonorable” and “bad habits”, attributes that symbolized peace and an affront to public morality, especially for the city authorities. As a result their practices have attracted a strong supervision of representatives of state power (such as municipal inspectors, the police apparatus etc.). That they intended to act more forcefully in public space to better track and correct the “bad habits” of people in the city. In this way they tried to “manufacture” a “new” kind of guy that does not prevent social or put at risk the interests of the nation that wanted to build in under eight hundred pillars of the concepts of “order” and “progress”. Therefore, our discussion will permeate this contentious political and social landscape of the city of Recife and its relationship with the women in question.