Women’s press and sexuality: 1946-1973

Abstract

The following article forms part of research investigating representations of the female gender and women’s sexuality as shaped by the Church, medicine and women’s interest press in Brazil from 1946 to 1973. The defining of such a time period allowed us to gauge whether the country experienced a disjunction between a liberalization of customs and an increase in political authoritarianism. The period under study therefore encompasses two distinct historical moments, with 1946 to 1964 marked by cultural resistance combined with a shift in traditional values in terms of customs, and 1964 to 1973, marked by a growing political authoritarianism and a similar liberalization of customs. We conduct empirical research into women’s interest magazines representative of different trends for approaching the subject of sexuality for each of the historical moments studied. In circulation across different time periods, those spanning the postwar period to the early 1960s (Jornal das Moças and Capricho) are characterized by their indirect treatment of the subject, advertising medicines for female reproductive disorders and feminine hygiene products. From the 1960s onwards, we turn our attention to Cláudia magazine, which came to approach the subject of sexuality both in regular columns on ‘behavior” and the ‘readers’ letters” section publishing feminist ideas on the subject.