Representações de gênero que constroem os corpos das meninas do Lar de Joaquina

Abstract

Nowadays, the body has gained notability in our society, and it is, in several areas, an object of study. In this work, it is broached as a cultural and social construction which is continually changing, being influenced by different social factors as race, sexuality, social position and style. About the last, I understand to be the characteristics that construct men and women from their cultural relations. In such case, my objective was to analyze the style representations that construct the bodies of girls within 8 and 12 years old of Lar de Joaquina School in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul. This research has an ethnographic feature and demanded my introduction in the investigated context, following the facts and getting closer to the twenty-four girls who were participating in an extension project of CEFD/UFSM. The research happened during the years 2004 and 2005, in two distinct moments. At first, my instruments of data collection were the participating observation and the field diary, and some months later I verified that the girls constructed the representations from their school, their family and the television. Thus, I proposed a second moment with the intention of making deeper the knowledge about such representations, making use of the participating observation and two semi-structured interviews made with seventeen girls. From this point, it was possible to perceive the representations emerged in each one of the three sources. In this manner, representations made at school are around the polite girl who behaves delicately and subordinate to the doctrine and rules of school and society, and the talented woman, who makes manual labor, such as crochet, embroidery, knitting, and basketry, is also motivated. The family constructs the representation of a housewife, with the girls taking care of the family by housekeeping, as washing dishes and clothes, sweeping, cooking, and taking care of the younger. In this space, the delicate, discreet and straight- behaved representation of a woman is also constructed. The representation of a beautiful, welldressed woman trying to imitate her favorite singers and actresses can be perceived trough television. So, the conclusion is that style representations that construct the bodies of these girls are composed by a mixture of housekeeping, good behavior, and the pursuit of esthetic beauty showed by television and accepted as a pattern.