A (in)visibilidade da mulher em livros didáticos, na perspectiva da análise de discurso crítica feminista

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze gender discourses in women's representations in textbooks of Portuguese, through the visibility and/or erasure of this social category. Therefore, I align myself with the theoretical principles of poststructuralist feminism and its possibilities of study based on the centrality of language and on intersectionality (LOURO, 2014, BUTLER, 1990, LAZAR, 2007). This is a qualitative research (MINAYO, 2001) which was built upon the articulation of the tripod genre, discourse and ideology. For the analysis, restricted to the first phase of Elementary School (1st to 5th grades), I use the critical strend of discourse associated with feminism, since I try to identify gender discourses in the textbooks of the collections used in the city of Crixás, state of Goiás, Brazil, as well as discourses raised in the pedagogical practice based on these materials. In this way, the work unfolds in two complementary phases: documentary analysis and field research. In the first phase, I selected texts and illustrations with gender discourses, especially those related to the public and private spheres (professions and sports), the division of household tasks, family organization and the stereotypes associated with the idea of female fragility. In the second phase, I observed the pedagogical practice of the selected contents, using audio recording and notes in a field diary for data collection. Subsequently, the discourses raised in the classroom were transcribed and articulated to the initial analysis of textbooks. In fact, the research reveals an erasure of women in the materials analyzed and a reiteration of this suppression in the classroom practice. This is especially true when the theme is ‘profession’. The representation of women occurs exclusively in the private/domestic environment (BIROLI, 2014, DEIRÓ, 2005). In addition, the investigation brings up two other important findings: 1) there is in the textbook and pedagogical practice an association of women with the term princess and, as a result, it is expected that this social category incorporates the socially understood characteristics of a “true” princess (ADICHIE, 2017, ALVES, OLIVEIRA, 2017), such as submission, fragility, the need for a man to save her, protect her and so on (AUAD, 2016); 2) the textbook of the fifth grade presents, in one specific unit, discursive situations contrary to other materials and even to the rest of its own content. The discourses of that unit can be defined as ‘opposing discourses’ (PINTO, 2004), given the presence of verbal and non-verbal texts that deconstruct sexist assumptions. In classroom, the discourses on this material were, in addition to opposites, resistant and confrontational in relation to social impositions, especially regarding the conception of social identity as something immutable and fixed and the sexism in society.