A modernização do estado argentino pelas páginas do La Voz de la Mujer (Buenos Aires, 1896-1897)

Abstract

The journal La Voz de La Mujer was published by women associated with the anarchist movement in Buenos Aires from 1896 to 1897. These women wrote and published texts on various topics, providing commentary on local labor movements and the repression they faced. They also discussed texts published by the mainstream press and engaged in debates within the anarchist movement, addressing issues such as bourgeois exploitation, hypocrisy, Church control, and the harms of war. Through their writings, the contributors of La Voz de La Mujer played a more prominent role in discussions related to women within the Porteño anarchist movement. They denounced the exploitation they suffered at the hands of husbands in the domestic sphere, criticized fellow comrades for considering them unfit for reflection, and highlighted gender-based violence, such as the non-acceptance of the end of relationships. As advocates for the construction of an alternative libertarian ethics and morality that prioritized women's emancipation, the contributors championed “free love”. This concept involved the possibility of forming and dissolving relationships without interference from social institutions. They also proposed guidelines for the education and upbringing of children. Therefore, the research problem addressed in this study is how the women writers of La Voz de La Mujer (1896-1897) perceived the modernization process of the Argentine state during the second half of the 19th century. The study aims to explore how these women responded to, reinterpreted, rejected, or reproduced discourses in favor of modernization, whether medical-scientific, hygienist, or moralizing. The study also seeks to understand the power relations, discourses, apparatuses, and institutions that impacted, intersected, and constituted the bodies of anarchist women workers. The hypothesis is that the contributors took a critical stance on certain issues, such as the Campaigns of the Desert and police repression, while simultaneously reproducing and sometimes subverting discourses that gained prominence in the latter half of the 19th century. Examples include the discourse of nurturing motherhood and concerns about childhood. The study adopts Foucault's perspective to observe some of the actions and transformations of the Argentine state in the pages of the journal. For this research, the primary source consists of the eight editions of La Voz de La Mujer. The applied methodology is traditional hermeneutics for the analysis of historical sources, with necessary considerations for using periodicals in historiographical research.