Neither "melindrosa" nor "almofadinha". Femininity and masculinity in the Brazilian anarchist movement (1899-1935)
The woman so called "melindrosa" and her equivalent, the man so called "almofadinha", indicate two examples of behaviour that spread in Brazil in first post war period, as in many other countries, in the name of modernity. The anarchist movement considered them not a symbol of progress, but as another confirmation of traditional gender roles: especially the "melindrosa", beyond an apparent freedom, was the frivolous and capricious woman that men loved yet. This research analyses the anarchist movement developed within São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro. The reference period starts with a drama (Ibsen’s "A doll's house", São Paulo 1899) and finishes with a debate regarding a movie about sexual education (São Paulo, 1935): there two dates demonstrate that cultural phenomenon are important when you try to describe man and woman relationships, but also reveal the existence of anarchism after his defeat in labour and public spaces.
By observing femininity and masculinity models emerging from speeches and experiences – press, sociability, mobilization, iconography and theatre –the thesis reveals the variance between ideal models and ordinary behaviours that occur at home, at work and in the free time inside labour neighbourhoods. Starting from the anarchist sexual character, the research also reconstructs the analogy between movement rituality and reading experience, in order to understand what links body representations, sexual beauty and ideal society images. Radical modification of society conceived by anarchism required a new kind of relationship among people: to analyse this relationship means to cast light on sociability, activism and gender
