Ser mulher : cotidianos, representações e interseccionalidades da mulher popular (Porto Alegre 1889 – 1900)

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to analyze the popular women in the city of Porto Alegre in the late nineteenth century, from the 29,918 men and women who attended the Santa Casa de Misericórdia of Porto Alegre in the years 1889 to 1900, found in the sources of the “Livro de Matrícula Geral dos Enfermos”, and of the 20 criminal cases investigated, in which the majority of women are accused. We seek from a methodology that aims to take the aspect of subalternity and victimization, historically related to women, put them at the center of the analysis and then find out how their relationships, experiences, work and in general, everyday aspects. Starting from our sources we can also observe how representations and stereotypes are built on women, which show us to be always in unstructured dynamics, able to change from a determined situational and relational context. The intersectionalities are also fundamental to understand how women organized their lives, as we observed that from a given class or race characteristic, the attributions and representations about these women changed. We found women managing their lives in a variety of ways, following stereotypes in the form of married women, domestic workers, or going against them, such as prostitutes and criminals, but in general, women who knew how to manage their lives as situations arose.